"Thou shalt not kill" should be changed to "Thou shalt preserve life"

Thank you for responding. On the point about injuring people: My opponent thinks that a person who severely injures four people (or a thousand people, for emphasis) should be imprisoned after the deed is done, when he can be killed before the deed is done, preventing the deed from ever being done. Let's exaggerate the situation. A man ties up twenty people and is about to chop off all of their arms and limbs. If you call the doctor now, they'd be able to save everybody, although their lives would be extremely miserable, and the man with the axe will escape into the woods. He hops in a boat, rows down the river, and is in a foreign country by midnight, never to be found by the authorities. If you shoot the man, he's dead (he deserved it, for what he was about to do) and you can untie everybody. So, should the man die, or be allowed to completely ruin the lives of 20(+) people with no punishment? The moral decision seems clear to kill the man, saving the 20 people from misery, and giving him the punishment he deserves. "I would like to, at this time, ask my opponent under what circumstances murder would be acceptable." Murder is never acceptable. That's why I'm saying, "Thou shalt not murder." Two people to kill someone tied in a chair: Two brothers stopping a serial killer wouldn't be preparing to kill him. They'd turn him over to the authorities. Also, you can easily overhear conversations. Now, let's say it's a little kid being kicked repeatedly by two gangsters. The situation is fairly obvious. Do you let the innocent kid be kicked to death, or do you kill the two gangsters? Now, it seems that my opponent would value the lives of 1,000 criminals over the lives of 999 innocent people. Let's say that 1,000 criminals teamed up to try to ruin the town, and ended up in a situation where they are all trapped in a room that is getting gassed (whoops) and the 999 innocent people that they captured are in the other room being gassed as planned. The criminals are gassing themselves by accident, while the 999 people are being gassed by the people who are gassing themselves. Which group of people should be saved? Obviously, the 999 innocents. "To answer the question, let the one person die, unless the people in hand will kill more people." You can call the police, and have them lock up the other two for life, but if they were just going to be locked up for life, wouldn't it be better to kill them and save an innocent life? After all, there's not much point to a life in prison. "Therefore in a state of anarchy, what is and isn't murder? There is no supreme law stating what is and what isn't." Seeing as the law is supposed to be a reflection of morals, in anarchy, your set of morals is the set of laws. In a country with government, the people put together their morals to make the laws. "If you follow thou shalt not murder, you cannot change the tracks, as it is murder to directly kill one party, regardless of the maximisation[sic] of life." Wrong. You'd do it in "Defence of others," so you can change the tracks. "Remember, we are not taking the guiltiness of the people into account." But we should. We should protect the innocent from being killed at the hands of the guilty. If the guilty have to be killed to save the innocent, so be it. Remember, the guilty are the ones who start the mess in the first place. New situation: two guys (A and B) tie up one person (C) to a railroad track, and then tie themselves on another railroad track. The train was originally going to hit A and B, but my opponent would have you redirect the train at C, even though A and B are in the middle of suicide, and C is an innocent victim. "Thou shalt not murder" allows you to use common sense and let the suiciders suicide, letting C live. Dilemma #4: Destruction Question: how many animal lives are worth one human life? Remove the wildlife from the dilemma, and make the choice again. My opponent's point about animals brings up a new situation: One million ants are coming at you, prepared to eat you. You have a can of bug spray, and you can kill them all, saving yourself. Do you save yourself, or let yourself die? Preserving life requires you to let yourself die. Not murdering allows you to kill the ants in self-defense. DILEMMA #5: War Pacifism does no good, as you are being invaded. Let's put in some new numbers. Another country has three million people, and they are invading your town of ten thousand. You can nuke the invading army of eleven thousand, eliminating them and deterring the invasion completely, or you can let the invading army kill every person in your town. "Thou shalt preserve life" commands you to let your town of 10,000 innocents die in favor of an aggressive invading army of 11,000. "Thou shalt not murder" allows you to kill the 11,000 invaders in defense of your town, saving your culture. Obviously, you should have a sense duty to your town. The invaders were kind of just asking to get nuked. So why hold off saving your entire town just because the invading army has more people? My opponent is basically arguing that the larger army should get to kill off the smaller army without struggle for having more people, and the smaller army should just surrender and die. Well, that's hardly a wise decision. "The invaders might destroy the [C]hristian documents, but it would live on through people and through worshipping it." Not if they want to kill every man, woman, and child in your town. Now, I'm going to see if my opponent is willing to change his answers if he is placed in the situation. I-am-a-panda, let's say that you are walking down the street, with nobody else there, when two thugs suddenly appear with guns pointed at you, with the obvious intent of killing you immediately. You are quick, and you can kill both of them to save yourself, or you can let yourself die. I ask you, what would you seriously do? Kill two people that are trying to kill you, or let yourself die? Is the fact that there is an extra thug really going to make you let yourself die? And now, a situation similar to the one above. You're driving through a desert, miles away from civilization. You run out of gas, so you get out, preparing to walk. A tough thug pulls up in a motorcycle, and demands that you hand over the keys to your car, along with your wallet. You have a gun in your pocket. If you hand over your keys, the thug will knock you unconscious, then empty the gas from his bike to the car, and load the bike onto the car, and drive off, using your driver's license to get to your house and rob it with your house keys. He then lives the rest of his life at a bar in Mexico. You'd wake up hours later, and spent two torturous days wandering through the desert until you arrive at a town, without your car, your wallet (which contained your credit card and debit card, and therefore, your life savings are gone by the time you get back to town), and your house keys, and therefore, everything that was in your house. If you resist, but don't shoot, the thug snaps your neck. If you shoot the thug, he dies, and you get to take the gas from his bike and continue on your merry way, knowing that there's one less criminal in the world. So, the obvious decision here is to shoot the thug, because the thug doesn't deserve to steal your life's work, and by trying to rob you, he's just asking to be shot. So why are you resisting killing him just because it would lead to the maximization of life? The thug is going to steal your life, which he doesn't deserve. He deserves to be shot in this situation. In conclusion, there are obviously times in which the maximization of total lives is not a priority, and therefore, there are cases in which it is necessary to kill (not murder), because it is the right thing to do. Back to you, I-am-a-panda.