I have never authorized anyone to make a decision about my life or death (other than my wife). Obviously I can be forced into the mores of the society, but I don't feel comfortable being handed that power over another person who in turn has not voluntarily surrendered it. The argument that certain acts against the group "automatically" yield ones mortality up to the group's justice is sometimes factual but that doesn't make it ethical.

For one thing, if a society is calling itself Christian, it is expected to be able to practice forgiveness, knowing that the full understanding of a sin -- even a bad sin -- is vested in the Almighty, not in the individual. But totally aside from Christianity, how does a group ever rise up above the tribal law of vengeance and bloody cycles of feud going on indefinitely, if it cannot call a halt by the practice of forgiveness ? Or at least, walking away from the eye for an eye mind set? There's no "truth" in the "A justifies B" proposition -- it is merely a cultural opinion that makes life harder than it needs to be.

A