Who am I to be god?

The death penalty has always been something that vexed me. I didn't know how i really felt about it. On the one hand i firmly believe in justice and the responsibilities of one's actions resting on their own shoulders but something never seemed to sit right with me concerning taking someone's life as punishment. Before I go any further I would like to give the disclaimer that I have never had or even known someone who had wronged another person so much that the law was imposing a punishment of death on them. I cannot honestly say how I would feel if one of my loved ones was killed by another and the possibility of the death penalty came up. With that being said I realized something today. The occasion for having such a realization was a very small moth. I was sitting and working the desk at my job when a small moth started fluttering by my computer screen annoying me. As soon as the moth landed to the left of my lap-top I swatted, it forever ending it's existence. The realization I had was the fact that I took life away from something. I decided that the life that was flowing through something was less important than my annoyance level. In turn I played god to a moth and took it upon myself to decide the fate of another creature. This realization brought me again to thoughts of the death penalty and i asked myself, "Who are we, any of us, to be god to another's life?" With this realization I cannot help but come to the conclusion the killing someone for justice is wrong. Incarcerate them, remove them from society, yes but killing them is not the solution to the problem.

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