I think you are over-thinking this. You surely agree that, in principle, two acts can both be wrong but one is more wrong than the other? Or that the intent behind an action can determine whether or not the act is immoral? I mean, I KNOW you believe this because you criticize the genocide Stalin committed while you defend the genocide the Israelites committed.

This seems like having your cake an eating it. If one evil action decreases over time you credit God while if another increases you blame mankind/Satan.

I don't care that much, it's just bad evangelising. It's not in my interest that you improve your rhetorical skills.

Actually it is in your interest.

Damn those atheists again!!! Stopping God's will!! How dare you! If God wants her dead then who are you to intervene?

Splendour,

I don't have an opinion one way or the other on it.

I haven't thought enough about it and I don't know enough about what motivates this particular JW belief.

On the surface it appears very wrong but like I said I don't know their reasoning behind this belief.

I can tell you why most people are anti-death penalty.

Declaration of Independence --> UDHR --> Amnesty International --> most of the world abolishes death penalty

Life was a lot, lot less important before the end of ww2 (UDHR), and before Enlightenment, it was even less important.
EDIT: Right to life is mentioned in UDHR and in Declaration of Independence, Amnesty International campaigned against death penalty.

Hmmm...I think people may be less in touch with reality today in the West or in the disciplinary sciences than they were a hundred or two hundred years ago because death appears further away or more controllable. But I think that's an illusion that undermines people in all sorts of ways in their thinking about the great questions of life and meaning, etc.

Beckwith said in one of his essays that the main difference between a pro-choicer and a pro-lifer is the point at which people see the person as having a right to life.

Since a lot of biblically educated people think life starts and ends with God they see the fetus as having viable rights whereas other people think the woman's right to her own body govern things.

It all sort of depends on how you view the start and ending point of the human lifeline on how you will come down on your abortion opinions.

The death penalty is a different question though. Iirc, God gives the government the power to apply the death penalty...at least that's how I interpret the bible and I think that's because it's one thing to kill someone innocent and quite another to kill certain types of criminals. Also the tendency to criminality can be partly inheritable in certain cases. Most people don't know that. You have to have done cross studies in sociology, psychology and medicine to be aware of things like that.

Sry for derail.

I can understand how these parents could think like that, but life > beliefs. I hope she gets well soon.

EDIT:
I'm pro death penalty too. Hardly met anyone who is, especially a woman.

So...it appears very wrong but there could be some sort of reasoning that makes it okay?

I wouldn't exactly say I'm pro-death penalty but in extreme cases, maybe.

I don't know the inner details of their belief system so it makes it impossible for me to pass a judgment on them at this time.

Beliefs are suppose to improve lives though not destroy them but there could be some extreme circumstances where you might have to sacrifice your life for a belief.

Didn't Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. have to face that problem on a regular basis in their civil rights campaigns?

Fine, sacrifice your own life for your belief. Don't sacrifice an innocent child because of your beliefs.

Good point.

Maybe God wouldn't approve of them doing that. He hates child sacrifice.

If you remember Jesus said the Sabbath was made for people. People weren't made for the Sabbath.

God hates child sacrifice. Sacrifices his own child.

God knew He could raise him and his Son knew it, too.

It was a demonstration of faith in God's power.

You can read up on infanticide.

Judaism and Christians and missionaries today all help to wipe it out.

Didn't the Christians replace the actual sacrifice with a ritual?

Doesn't that show God's intent?

Aren't the people closest to God going to know His intentions best? Don't they study Him the most?