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

Thank you, I-am-a-panda, for starting this debate. I am going to argue that "Thou shalt not kill" should not be changed to "Thou shalt preserve life." It should be changed back to "Thou shalt not murder." There is much debate as to whether or not the Sixth Commandment is "Thou shalt not kill" or "Thou shalt not murder." However, it is quite apparent that the Bible supports the death penalty [1]. My source has an entire list of the crimes that deserved the death penalty. In context, it is obvious that "Thou shalt not kill" would contradict the rest of the Bible, while "Thou shalt not murder" would not. Now, to define murder. Murder: to kill (a human being) unlawfully and with premeditated malice http://www.merriam-webster.com...[2] In full, "Thou shalt not murder" means that you should not kill anybody else in a way that is against the law (which includes most methods of killing). So, preaching not to murder is an extension of preaching to obey the law. Seems good. DILEMMA #1: Murderer Going by the list of non-criminal homicides [2], it would not be murder to kill the serial killer, as it would be in "Defence of Others." Therefore, "Thou shalt not murder" and "Thou shalt preserve life" would be tied. However, let's say that the man with the gun was not going to kill anybody, but was instead going to shoot four innocent people, permanently disabling random organs and appendages, but still allowing the people to live, although painfully. "Thou shalt preserve life" would let this gunman go. However, "Thou shalt not murder" would still allow for the solution of defending the other four people by killing the gunman, which seems to be the more moral decision, as a guilty man deserves to die more than the other four men deserve to lose the use of their organs and suffer pain. However, what if there are two people planning to kill one other person who is tied up in a chair? You come across the three of them, but they don't notice you. If you kill one, the other guy is going to kill you, so it's clear that you either kill both or kill neither. Although killing both would not be allowed under "Thou shalt preserve life," killing both would be allowed under "Thou shalt not murder." The moral decision is to save the innocent and kill the guilty. DILEMMA #2: Abortion Seeing as abortion is currently legal, the abortion would not be murder, so "Thou shalt not murder" allows for the same thing as "Thou shalt preserve life." DILEMMA #3: Train Should you follow "Thou shalt not murder," "Defence of others" would allow you to avert the train without being a murderer. It also allows you to judge the lives of the six men. If the five men were the Joker's five henchmen who, and the one man was pre-explosion Harvey Dent, and the henchmen were the ones who tied down Harvey Dent, while the Joker (nowhere to be seen, by the way) was the one who tied down the five henchmen (possibly using even more henchmen), then you'd be allowed to make the moral choice of letting the five guilty henchmen get run over by the train to save the innocent Harvey Dent. DILEMMA #4: Destruction A man decides to burn down an entire town. There are no people currently in the town, as they all evacuated. You can either kill this man, saving the buildings of the town, or let the town burn, destroying nearby wildlife and costing taxpayers billions of dollars. "Thou shalt preserve life" does not allow you to shoot the man to save the town, while "Thou shalt not murder" does, under the clause of "Defence of Property." DILEMMA #5: War Another country declares war on and invades your country. Under "Thou shalt preserve life," your country would surrender, and the other country would come in and establish an oppressive government, making the residents suffer. The other country also decides to destroy Christianity, and thus, "Thou shalt preserve life" is lost, along with the other nine Commandments. Under "Thou shalt not murder," because war is not considered murder, your country can respond to the invasion, saving your country, and the country's culture, and "Thou shalt not murder." Ultimately, in every situation brought up so far, there has either been a tie between "Thou shalt not murder" and "Thou shalt preserve life" or a victory for "Thou shalt not murder." So, why settle for the statement that restricts moral choices further than the other, and does not allow for the weighing of the values of lives? This debate is going to be good. Good luck to you, as well. 1. http://web.telia.com... 2. http://en.wikipedia.org...