This is going to be a long response.
The questions like these can never have a clear answer in Aye or Nay.
I object, they can have a clear answer. When you go back to the very principles.
One principle is: "Don't kill".
Over time, exceptions to this rule were added. And added. And added. Now, the exceptions are to become the rules themselves.
But first, I invite you to make a mental experiment:
1. The rule is "don't kill".
It's clear what it means. No further explanation needed.
If you DO kill, it still IS and it remains a punishable act by principle (law). In order having this punishment not being put onto you, you'd name an exception like "I killed in self defense" or "I killed to defend my child".
By principle, you were put on trial and later freed, if you were able to put clear evidence forward to the judge.
STILL, the wrongness of you killing another human being, stands firm in principle. Your record would show: "Mary killed another human being. Since it was in self defense, Mary was released from punishment." Only, that this record would remain in the judiciary archive, unknown to other people.
Can you formulate something other than the first rule in that short form?
Yes, you can.
2. The rule is: "Do kill."
What would be the exception to this rule? Can you think of any?
I can think of infinite exceptions like
Do kill,
- except the person has an equal worldview to your own (but what would that mean? What would be a differing world view?)
- except you love that person (but what is love?)
- except you are married to that person (but ...)
- except the person has the same skin color (but ...)
- except the person speaks the same language (etc.)
- except the person has the same customs
- except the person has the same taste
- except the person lives near by
- except the person carries the same nationality
- except the person can talk you out of being killed by you
- except the person benefits you in some way or the other
and so on and so on. You run into the problem to define the exceptions. Unless you eliminate that problem.
The question is: Are there cultures on earth who have rule no. 2 as their very principle?
Answer: yes. This rule says "Do kill all unbelievers."
If the rule is, that one is not only allowed to kill all unbelievers but must do so, then the one and only exception to it would be "except they are believers themselves."
But how would you know that someone is a believer?
Of course, by their death-record.
So, in a culture where an adult has not already a past death-record (killed so and so many unbelievers so far), they cannot be a true believer by that logic. Which would mean, that they themselves can now be killed by that rule, since they failed to show their true belief, by not having already killed, since they have a blank record.
If we look at rule no. 2, we can clearly see that it is a death cult.
While we see that rule no. 1 is pro life. It's the religious superstructure/culture which puts itself under the principle of not to kill.
To have evidence that someone is a follower of rule no. 1, they have no death-record themselves.
I'll ad some more things in a comment to my comment, so they stay in right order.
Greetings to you so far.
A society in general relies on the criminal records of the people, but does not put certainty in what someone says he "believes" in. What you say you believe is not worth anything, if it is not attached to a record where you can check past facts (your number of criminal offenses). People who are familiar and know one another do not need to see such record, they know it by witnessing their daily lives.
Modern societies, in particular in the West, turned their rules upside down, and did and further do want to make the former exceptions the rules.
Right now, hypocrisy has grown to a frightening extend. And we are in the middle of people and politicians who pretend to be harmless, while at the same time seem to push towards a license to kill - change pro life laws into anti-life laws.
Not only, it seems, do they not want to see and admit that what they really are after, is rule no. 2, but also want it not to be named and seen as a wish to kill/harm without consequences. They wrap it into terms like "protect self actualisation". This is even more dishonest than those extremists who openly shout "Kill the unbelievers!" These former types of seemingly insane minds don't want to be seen as killers/harmers but as saviors and protectors. And they want force you to admit that they are.
We, the people who see us in the midst of those two insanities have the least criminal records, so you cannot punish us since our records are clean. We see that by eliminating free speech and make it a crime to speak out, that our clean records won't be clean anymore.
Also, from the other side we are being killed by ever higher numbers from extremists who shoot, stab, rape and kill us, who set our houses on fire, but are not being arrested and punished in equal terms, since the ones who are anti life, seem to be concentrated to criminalize their own people, while being blind to extremists, oddly enough.