What's Considered Good and What's Considered Bad Today In Punishments ?

Nadene Goldfoot                                                   

Long ago, we considered sacrificing humans as a bad thing to do.  Abraham was stopped by an angel from sacrificing his son, Isaac.  The Muslims over a 1,000 later used that same writing but had Abraham almost sacrificing Ishmael, instead.  For Israelites, that was the end of human sacrifice. In the biblical text, human sacrifice is rejected not as Moses's personal philosophical choice, but because the Mosaic Law explicitly bans it as an abomination that God hates and never commanded (Deuteronomy 12:31, Jeremiah 19:4-6).  All this is setting the mental wheels in motion.:

 Under the Mosaic Law, the punishment for intentional, premeditated murder is death. Moses had surprising punishments, as commanded to him,  however;  Considering our mental development at this period, I think this is the only way it was believed to impress the minds of the people.   Prepare for a shocker:  

Under the Law of Moses, punishments for serious wrongdoing—whether committed by soldiers, leaders, or ordinary citizens—were highly public events intentionally designed to serve as community-wide deterrents. Because ancient Israel traveled and fought as a unified religious-military camp in the wilderness, there was no separate, private military justice system like a modern court-martial; military misconduct was handled under the broader Mosaic legal framework. 

Key Characteristics of Mosaic Punishments:

Public Execution and Exposure: "Unlike modern executions, which are kept strictly private, "  Mosaic capital punishments were highly visible.

 For example, during a major incident of military and spiritual rebellion at Baal of Peor, God explicitly commanded Moses to take the ringleaders and execute them in broad daylight / expose them in the sun so the entire camp could see.



Community Participation (Stoning): The most common form of capital punishment under Moses was stoning. This process required the actual witnesses of the crime to throw the first stones, followed by the rest of the community. This ensured that the execution was a collective, public act of purging evil from the camp. 



Purges by the Sword: In cases of mass mutiny or camp-wide violations, swift military-style executions were carried out in the open. A primary example is the Golden Calf incident (Exodus 32), where Moses ordered the Levites to go back and forth through the camp executing wrongdoers, resulting in the public deaths of roughly 3,000 men.                                      



Public Rebukes for Officers: When commanders failed to follow specific instructions—such as the officers who spared Midianite captives in Numbers 31—Moses did not hold secret tribunals. He confronted and rebuked the captains of thousands and hundreds publicly in front of the arriving army.  This had been the retribution that had been promise against the Midianites, because of their responsibility for the Jewish sins of immorality and idolatry.  Moses was angry because the officers had allowed their troops to spare women who were known to have participated in the orgies.   


  Iran and Afghanistan are the only two countries confirmed to have carried out judicial public executions in recent years. While global tracking by groups like Amnesty International reports these two as the primary practitioners, the full picture is obscured because some nations treat capital punishment data as a state secret. 

The layout of countries that utilize public executions or are reported to do so includes:

• Iran: Consistently carries out public hangings, typically in public squares using cranes mounted on trucks. In 2025, Iran carried out at least 11 public executions, frequently targeting political prisoners or individuals convicted of killing security forces. 
• Afghanistan: Since the Taliban regained power, the country has resumed public executions, often held inside sports stadiums filled with thousands of spectators. At least six public executions were documented there in 2025. 
• Yemen: Controlled in part by different factions, Yemen has conducted public executions in recent years, including at least nine public executions recorded by human rights monitors in 2021. 
• North Korea: Due to extreme secrecy, official numbers are unavailable, but Amnesty International and human rights groups frequently receive verified accounts from refugees describing mandated public executions.
• Somalia & Saudi Arabia: Public executions have historically occurred or been documented by media and United Nations observers in Somalia. While Saudi Arabia is one of the world's top executioners, its use of public spaces for executions has declined significantly in recent years.

Current Developments                   

                                In 2007, he looked like this.
  

Nidal Malik Hasan (born September 8, 1970) is a former United States Army major and former physician who perpetrated the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, killing 13 people and injuring 32 others, on November 5, 2009. Hasan, an Army Medical Corps psychiatrist, admitted to the shootings at his court-martial in August 2013.

The United States has not held a legally sanctioned public execution since 1936. However, the U.S. Pentagon announced plans to livestream the December 3, 2026 military firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan. The United Nations Human Rights Office has warned that livestreaming or broadcasting an execution constitutes a public spectacle and violates international prohibitions against cruel and degrading punishment.