The Pope Says No to the Death Penalty. Does the Bible? (Dan McClellan and Dan Beecher; Data Over Dogma podcast on YouTube)

When Pope Leo XIV called the death penalty "inadmissible," critics fired back that he'd clearly never read the Bible, a book that prescribes death for everything from kidnapping to gathering sticks on the Sabbath. 

But the Pope's argument is the same made-in-God's-image reasoning from Genesis 1:27 that abolitionists used against the Bible's slavery texts, and Jesus himself seems to land on both sides in the Gospel of Matthew. So does the Bible support the death penalty? It says the Pope is wrong, and it says he's right. 

Chapters:

0:00 Welcome in
1:35 The Pope's death penalty post
2:26 Hasan and Christa Pike
3:57 The Bible's capital crimes
5:59 "You've never read the Bible"
6:48 Image of God vs. slavery
9:04 Pope Leo's AI encyclical
11:09 A pastor's double standard
12:16 Feelings first, reasons later
15:48 Did Jesus accept execution?
16:21 Cast the first stone
17:07 An eye for an eye
19:06 Just interpersonal ethics?
21:33 Matthew 15's death clause
22:45 One gospel, two answers
24:24 Genesis 9:6 cuts both ways
26:43 The forgotten blood rule
27:57 The Bible says both
28:36 Wrap-up and thanks

Interview: 

https://youtu.be/wvq6kcqzjRE?si=3UrWZQclyO4xqhZU

LIVE DEBATE [God is in the Epstein Files] 2-20-2026 (Justin at DZ Debates on YouTube)

The abrahamic god is a monster.

TIMESTAMPS

12:47 Balint [Deconstructing] - How to handle addiction recovery programs without religion

22:40 Perfect Masculinity - Bad faith caller and gets dropped

25:43 Los - Not opposition so gets a quick lesson and leaves

42:30 Supernatural Faith - What all does the Old Testament say about slaves? Call turns into a Q&A about Justin and what other religions believe 1:06:35 (Supernatural Faith) - Are exorcisms proof of God?

1:17:30 A traveller [Muslim] - M’s joins; Bad audio; How does Islam feel about child brides?

1:34:10 Conductor - Did God cause SA in 2 Samuel 11 (David’s concubines)? Caller didn’t want to discuss the Bible so gets dropped

1:38:30 Blackwell - Dalton joins; Caller argues about God’s name; 2 Samuel 11; Caller is as disingenuous as last time

2:14:08 (Blackwell) How does the caller feel about the test of the bloody sheet? Caller runs immediately

2:24:08 Leoliguar - Bong rip theology; Light has consciousness and can choose how fast they move

2:35:55 Kreganregan [Friendly] - Christianity and the history of abolition

2:46:40 Superchats and wrap-up
Interview: 

https://www.youtube.com/live/bXNMiK98Izs?si=KocS1Voxri-232we

History Minute (057): The Thirteenth Amendment

Per Zinn, although Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation itself did not free all slaves, but only those in the rebel states, it did inspire abolitionist activities.  Abolitionists gathered 400,000 signatures by 1864 asking Congress for legislation to end all slavery.  Congress responded by passing the Thirteenth Amendment, declaring an end to all slavery. 

Read more:

A People's History of the United States

Howard Zinn

 

History Minute (055): Lincoln gets more pressure from abolitionists, and restates his position.

Quoting Zinn:



In July Congress passed a Confiscation Act, which enabled the freeing of slaves of those fighting the Union. But this was not enforced by the Union generals, and Lincoln ignored the nonenforcement. Garrison called Lincoln's policy "stumbling, halting, prevaricating, irresolute, weak, besotted," and Phillips said Lincoln was "a first-rate second-rate man." 

Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune challenged Lincoln, writing (as reported by Zinn):

"Dear Sir. I do not intrude to tell you—for you must know already—that a great proportion of those who triumphed in your election . . . are sorely disappointed and deeply pained by the policy you seem to be pursuing with regard to the slaves of rebels. . . . We require of you, as the first servant of the Republic, charged especially and preeminently with this duty, that you EXECUTE THE LAWS. . . . We think you are strangely and disastrously remiss . . . with regard to the emancipating provisions of the new Confiscation Act. . . .

We think you are unduly influenced by the councils . . . of certain politicians hailing from the Border Slave States." 

Lincoln wrote in reply:

"Dear Sir: . . . I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. . . . My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because it helps to save this Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. . . . I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free. Yours. A. Lincoln."

Excerpts From

A People's History of the United States

Howard Zinn

History Minute (054): Wealthy conservatives lobbied to keep slaves

Quoting Zinn:

Conservatives in the Boston upper classes wanted reconciliation with the South. At one point they stormed an abolitionist meeting at that same Tremont Temple, shortly after Lincoln's election, and asked that concessions be made to the South "in the interests of commerce, manufactures, agriculture."

The spirit of Congress, even after the war began, was shown in a resolution it passed in the summer of 1861, with only a few dissenting votes: ". . . this war is not waged . . . for any purpose of . . . overthrowing or interfering with the rights of established institutions of those states, but . . . to preserve the Union."

Excerpt From

A People's History of the United States

Howard Zinn

Get your copy — Support your local bookstores by shopping Bookshop.org:

 

Woman, Church and State (Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, Freethought Radio podcast)

We talk about the eclipse, an intersex atheist, and a freethinking songwriter. We report on state/church complaints and victories. Then, we speak with Danielle Nagle, director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Museum in upper New York state dedicated to the 19th-century feminist, abolitionist, author of the 1893 book Woman, Church and State, and advocate for secular government.

Interview: 

https://ffrf.org/news/radio/show-items/item/43594-freethought-radio-april-4-2024

The Orange Wave: A History of the Religious Right Since 1960 (Bradley Onishi; Orange Wave podcast)

The Religious Right has not always existed. White evangelicals have not always been the guardians of far-right immigration policies and patriarchal models of the family. In the 19th century, they were often progressive activists fighting for labor rights, abolition, and women’s suffrage. How did they transform into the scions of Christian nationalism? Brad digs in to the history with Professor Randall Balmer of Dartmouth College on the initial episode of The Orange Wave: A History of the Religious Right Since 1960.

Interview: 

https://www.straightwhiteamericanjesus.com/episodes/the-orange-wave-ep-1-oranges-and-peanuts/

Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind

There’s an anecdote that Ruth Wilson Gilmore likes to share about being at an environmental-justice conference in Fresno in 2003. People from all over California’s Central Valley had gathered to talk about the serious environmental hazards their communities faced, mostly as a result of decades of industrial farming, conditions that still have not changed. (The air quality in the Central Valley is the worst in the nation, and one million of its residents drink tap water more poisoned than the water in Flint, Mich.) There was a “youth track” at the conference, in which children were meant to talk about their worries and then decide as a group what was most important to be done in the name of environmental justice. Gilmore, a renowned geography professor (then at University of California, Berkeley, now at the CUNY Graduate Center in Manhattan) and an influential figure in the prison-abolition movement, was a keynote speaker.....
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/magazine/prison-abolition-ruth-wilson-gilmore.html