Are professional bodies legally able to limit what their members do professionally, o

[Chanakya]

Suicide being viewed as a sin is a strong element of why euthanasia is illegal in predominantly judeo-christian nations. There also tends to be a religious basis to what is considered "murder" and in what contexts. Social acceptance of execution has tended to be stronger in catholic and muslim nations than protestant ones; also more acceptable in a broader set of circumstances within a lot of hindu-based areas. I'm less familiar with shinto or the eastern religions and how that plays in. I know that for shinto nations, suicide is often consider the noble thing to do and isn't considered a sin at all.

Hm. Suicide, sure; but, I mean, executions seem to be the mainstay of the Abrahamic tradition. Certainly of the Judaic at one end, and of the Islamic at the other. Okay, it's kind of mellowed down in Christian theory, but only in abstract theory, right? In practice not very much, even if without some of the barbaric excesses of Judaic and Islamic traditions.

I appreciate your generally thinking this through with me, Emily’s Cat; but purely at the level of thinking through, I’m afraid I’m not sure I’m able to agree about the Judeo-Christian thing. [eta: See the part below. I guess I do agree, when you throw in how Protestant traditions might differ from the Catholic.]

As for other traditions other than the Abrahamic, Buddhism is as peaceable as it gets, so maybe countries where Buddhism is predominant traditionally have gentler punishments, at any rate not executions? …Haha, clearly not the Japanese, though, not traditionally that is. As you say, about suicides, and I agree with that; and with executions as well! Never been there, but apparently it was the done thing for the Samurai types to either disembowel themselves when things went wrong, or else to kneel down and have the other guy scream out aloud and decapitate them summarily. So for them at any rate, both suicide and executions are perfectly respectable, traditionally that is. (Basis my extensive research… ahem, my watching of popular movies featuring that kind of thing.)

[eta: Not really! Looked it up briefly just now. The officially Buddhist countries are Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Bhutan. And of those, only two, Bhutan and Cambodia, have abolished capital punishment. The rest apparently still very much have it. So nah, I guess I was wrong about the peaceable Buddhistic tradition translating into no executions.]

It's speculative, based on observations combined with some passing study of world religions. There's no surety, just correlation with some rationale involved.

I mentioned that execution has tended to be more acceptable in catholic-based nations than protestant-based nations above. That's definitely not a hard rule, especially since protestantism is pretty new, only about 500 years old. So pretty much all of the european nations were catholic until protestantism took hold.

While there are a lot of differences between catholic (and other orthodox christian religions) and protestantism (with its 7,000 sects), one of the fundamental differences is determinism versus free will. Catholics generally believe that god created humans and imbued us with free will - thus we are solely responsible for our evils. Protestants generally believe that god created humans and set us in motion, this every act we take is the act that god has decreed we must take and we can do nothing else. Within that context, execution for sins or crimes would make a lot more sense in a catholic framework - it makes little sense to punish someone for something they have no control over from a protestant perspective.

That said those generalities are *extremely* generalized! Neither of those descriptions is perfectly true, and they're definitely a lot more squishy in modern times. I would say this is because religion isn't handed down by (a nonexistent) god, but is a purely human invention. And as such, it evolves within our societies. As social views shift, so too do views of what is considered a sin, as well as what the role of punishment is within the context of a justice system.

That’s fascinating, that distinction you draw between Catholic and Protestant systems. I agree with how you’ve thought that through, makes sense.

And incidentally, free will discussions I sometimes follow with interest. Certainly the neuroscience part of it (which is the only sense that is of actual relevance to anything); but also in terms of the religious idea of it. And I guess I’ve always equated Christian ideas of free will with what, as you say, is more properly the Catholic idea. Never thought of it that way, and, now that you spell it out like that, the Protestant “tradition” isn’t necessarily the same as the RCC one, even though when you go back long enough then they’re exactly the same thing.

(That is, it seems reasonable on the face of it, and I agree with you on the face of it. Whether Protestant tradition rejects Aquinas, for instance, that …well, without actually examining that specific one couldn’t really either agree or disagree meaningfully. Still, and with that qualification thrown in: absolutely, at the level of simply thinking through, what you say sounds both reasonable and insightful.)