re political atheists mmwang adobe com michael wang writes well i have typed in the oed definitions as you will note upon reading them a punishment being an inanimate object is incapable of showing mercy so you can not say that a merciless punishment is a cruel one sorry you must have missed the stuff in parens when you read the definition where transf transferred sense and fig figurative ly things can be cruel samples of text from the first definition include because i would not see thy cruell nailes plucke out his poore old eyes and the puniness of man in the centre of a cruel and frowning universe sure nails can be cruel i d imagine nails in your eyes would be very painful but this does not imply that a painless death is cruel which is what you are supposed to be trying to show keith
