…and this is a 
God and sex: two potent ideas that never get along well together
Category: Evil • Religion
Posted on: November 6, 2008 10:26 AM, by PZ Myers
Imagine yourself in this situation. A young girl is accused of a heinous crime — use your imagination here, too, and think of the most horrible thing a person can do — and she is trapped in front of you, helpless. You have a rock in your hands. People around you are urging you to kill her; they say that you are justified in taking her life. What would you do?
Let's say you don't have a rock, but are just part of the large crowd of spectators, witnessing a small group of men killing this girl. What would you do then?
Be honest now.
I wouldn't be able to do kill anyone, and I would try to stop the killers. She could be an unrepentant mass murderer, and I couldn't be an executioner — I wouldn't want to sink to her level, and I think killing is an easy 'solution' that solves nothing. At the same time, it reduces the humanity of the killers, and diminishes the quality of our culture. I may not be the target myself, but such acts harm me.
That makes this story of a 13 year old girl stoned to death for adultery in Somalia incomprehensible to me. I know that people do evil all the time, but this was a mob of a thousand people watching 50 thugs murder someone in a particularly brutal fashion. Couldn't just a few have raised a voice in protest, couldn't some small fraction of that thousand intervened? Are the killers so divorced from empathy and morality that they would gladly snuff out the life of someone who can do them no harm?
What's especially appalling is that the murderers weren't driven by a fundamental human need — they didn't kill her because they were defending themselves, or because they were starving, or because she had some real power that could harm them. She was killed because she offended their sense of sexual propriety. Because they perceived her as sexually potent, she challenged their own insecure, mouselike manhood. This is outrageously vile.
And even at that, she was an innocent. She was a 13 year old girl who had been raped by three men, and for this she was dragged out, begging for her life, buried up to her neck, and then stoned to death by weak, blustering men who let their machismo overwhelm their humanity.
And of course, this was driven by Islamist delusions. Religion is excellent at elevating intangible, untestable lies to a higher plane of moral significance than something as real and as simple as the life of a child.
I should also add, before everyone condemns this as simply the act of a primitive society, that the same impulse is at work right here in America. Those people who voted yes on Proposition 8 in California were simply performing a slightly more civilized version of casting a stone at those who offend their moral and religious sense of propriety.
Comments
Posted by: Quiet Desperation | November 6, 2008 10:35 AM
God and sex: two potent ideas that never get along well together
You need to read more Greek and Roman mythology. ;-)
Posted by: NERV | November 6, 2008 10:37 AM
Couldn't just a few have raised a voice in protest, couldn't some small fraction of that thousand intervened?
The whole "it's just a few extremsists" thing is wearing a bit thin, isn't it?
Posted by: Kate | November 6, 2008 10:38 AM
PZ, I'm with you all the way on this one.
I just wish that people would realize that even without religion as an excuse, misogyny of this sort happens every day. Perhaps not to the same degree, but women everywhere are at this very moment being told they are less worthy than men, that they are evil temptresses, that they are to hide their humanity and their sexuality and their love...
...and it's always because some guy just can't deal with her being herself.
Posted by: Jello | November 6, 2008 10:39 AM
Debauched primitive savagery.
Posted by: TSC | November 6, 2008 10:40 AM
I know. This was/is some sick shit. In a stadium no less. Allah didn't intervene so it *must* have been justified. Goddamn insanity and unimaginable cruelty.
Posted by: Jason Dick | November 6, 2008 10:41 AM
Definitely. Sure, technically it is just a few extremists. But they couldn't do it without the tacit support of the general population.Posted by: SPFS | November 6, 2008 10:41 AM
I know that people do evil all the time, but this was a mob of a thousand people watching 50 thugs murder someone in a particularly brutal fashion. Couldn't just a few have raised a voice in protest, couldn't some small fraction of that thousand intervened?
According to Amnesty International, some of the witnesses attempted to intervene:
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=17927
Inside the stadium, militia members opened fire when some of the witnesses to the killing attempted to save her life, and shot dead a boy who was a bystander. An al-Shabab spokeperson was later reported to have apologized for the death of the child, and said the milita member would be punished.
Though that last sentence is tainted with bitter irony.
Posted by: Jason failes | November 6, 2008 10:41 AM
Damn.
I know that on paper what we're doing is working, God belief is declining, people are becoming more educated, quality of life is going up, but it isn't a smooth rise, it isn't everywhere, and it certainly isn't happening all at once.
There's an impulse to curl up into the fetal position, sleep for a hundred years, and wake up in a better world but, of course, if everyone who had that impulse actually did withdraw there would be no one left to make that better world come about.
Press on, through the tears, press on.
Posted by: Brian | November 6, 2008 10:42 AM
"Let's say you don't have a rock, but are just part of the large crowd of spectators, witnessing a small group of men killing this girl. What would you do then?
"Be honest now"
I'd like to think I'd intervene, but in all honesty I probably wouldn't out of fear for my own life.
Why?
Sure this larger group of people could easily overwhelm this smaller group if they wanted to. Given that the smaller group is engaged in this killing, it means that they probably have the support of the group at large, and if you bravely were the first to step forwards, you would *not* have the support of the group. You would *not* be leading a rescue of this young girl. You'd probably die right along with her.
And sure, great social change, revolutions etc. have to start with a brave few willing to risk everything start it...this is part of the reason that few do and many die along the way for trying. And quite frankly, no matter what most of us think or say here, very few of us would intervene in this situation.
Brian
Posted by: techskeptic | November 6, 2008 10:42 AM
yeah, when I read that article I was horrified. Worse is that her poor parents took her to the authorities to complain that she had been raped. The authorities then accused her of adultery.
What a horrible mess.
I have to be honest though. I have a wife and daughter. As do you. If I were unlucky enough to be there, I am not sure I would have what can only be described as a death wish, and stand up there and try to stop the killing. I would rather be able to go home to my family and try to escape or start a revolution.
I think what you tell yourself you would do may be different if you were there. In a community that stoned a little girl to death after she had been raped, I suspect resistance from you part would simply and quickly lead to your own death.
So this would lead me to nonparticipation at best. However, if it were my daughter or wife being stoned, you bet, I would do what it takes to get her free. Chances are that I would not live through that ordeal.
Posted by: beebeeo | November 6, 2008 10:43 AM
I feel disgusted by people like that.This proves that Islam is still in the dark ages. Not all christians are better and I would guess most muslims are also more civilised but those somalis are the lowest of the low.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008 10:44 AM
Yeah but this is in a third world county with completely different rules. Things like this would never happen here.
Posted by: MarkW | November 6, 2008 10:49 AM
The BBC link:
Words fail me.Posted by: Jose | November 6, 2008 10:49 AM
Couldn't just a few have raised a voice in protest, couldn't some small fraction of that thousand intervened?
I'm pretty sure that in similar cases you've linked to in the past people did protested, and some were in fact killed for doing so.
Posted by: RAM | November 6, 2008 10:50 AM
There is something deep in the psyche of mankind that demands victims for sacrifice. Christianity tortured and burnt innocent woman as witches. Jewish and Muslin tradition demands stoning, such as this sad situation and probably most others. Romans loved killing anyone deems a criminal to the state by the most barbaric means. I worry for our species.
Posted by: Vic333 | November 6, 2008 10:51 AM
Well, if I had to choose between the two, I'll take the sex.
Posted by: OctoberMermaid | November 6, 2008 10:53 AM
You mentioned the same impulse here in America and it's true. The American Family Association gets its panties in a twist even over LOGO, that gay and lesbian channel and got some of its advertising pulled because, you know, what if a kid turned the channel and SAW GAYS!?
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=310058
Posted by: Olaf | November 6, 2008 10:54 AM
I bet you wouldn't be so quick to criticise, PZ, if it were Muslims that did this. It's easy to pick on the oppressed Christian minority in America, but as soon as it's a religion that might actually fight back by blowing up a building or two you atheists always change your tune. Talk about two-faced, cowardly...
What's that? You say they were Muslims?
Er... carry on.
Posted by: Valis | November 6, 2008 10:56 AM
In Africa, life is cheap. There isn't the same respect for the value of human life as there is in other cultures. I know this is hard for Westerners to understand, but that is how it is here. And it's not only because of "Islamic delusions". There was a case here just recently of a woman being stoned just because she was wearing trousers! The mob who did it explained that they did it because the bible said woman aren't allowed to wear pants.
Jello @ #4 said it exactly. Then there is the other delightful habit we have of "necklacing" people. That consists of putting a car tyre around a person's neck and then pouring petrol (gas) over it and setting it on fire. Lovely.
Oh, OT: Sarah Palin isn't the only one who thinks Africa is a country, I remember an episode of "Whose Line is it Anyway?" were Drew Carey made the same error. Must be all that good shit he's smoking, hehe.
Posted by: Donnie B. | November 6, 2008 10:58 AM
Horrific and revolting.
You have to wonder how such social practices came about in the first place. Is this the equivalent of a male lion killing the cubs sired by a different male? One thing's for sure, it guarantees that a rapist's child will not be born.
Another question -- was this particular insanity ever practiced in the West, either before or after Christianity came along? I've heard of a few rather vile politico-sexual customs but I don't think this is one of them. How about the Far East? Or is this a specifically Islamic-region horror?
Posted by: Dianne | November 6, 2008 11:03 AM
those somalis are the lowest of the low
So if you had them in front of you, a stone in your hand, and a crowd backing you or at least not interfering you would...They're guilty, the child they murdered was innocent, but PZ's original question was what would you do if you were confronted with someone you believed to be a heineous criminal. In other words, if they thought in their sick, twisted little minds that she was a criminal, does that provide some level of excuse for the stoning or only make it worse?
Posted by: MissPrism | November 6, 2008 11:05 AM
That's a horrifying story.
But I would be deluding myself if I said that I would have intervened. Very few people have that sort of courage. Even in the absence of any risk to themselves, as Milgram showed us, most people are cruel when they're told to be. To suggest that everyone should be willing to confront an armed mob in the name of justice is belittling the heroism of those who do.
Posted by: mike | November 6, 2008 11:05 AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility
It's easy to read something like this story and imagine you would stand up against the violence. But I don't think it's quite that clear-cut.
Posted by: Neil | November 6, 2008 11:05 AM
Convicting a girl of 13 for adultery would be illegal under Islamic law.
Posted by: Dianne | November 6, 2008 11:07 AM
According to Amnesty International, nurses were sent to check during the stoning whether the victim was still alive.
Now there was a missed opportunity to intervene. The nurses could have declared, "Nope, dead as a dodo...Excuse us, we'll just haul off the biohazardous trash now.", taken the kid away and hid her someplace until she could be taken out of the country to somewhere--anywhere--safer. But they didn't.
Posted by: Greg Peterson | November 6, 2008 11:08 AM
The Abrahamic religions actually have a story about a man--their namesake--who was going to stab his completely innocent son to death on "God's" say-so. The sickening blood-lust is hardly a shock given what their holy books describe.
Also, anyone who cares to take action might be interested in the activist group, Equality Now (http://www.equalitynow.org/english/index.html) which came to a lot of people's attention through the advocacy of Joss Whedon.
Posted by: Sastra | November 6, 2008 11:10 AM
Ah, but at least their morality is objective. It isn't grounded in the whims of human beings: it's firmly anchored in the word and will of God.
I read about this earlier on Butterflies and Wheels and it just made me sick. Bottom line, there is nothing more subjective and relative than morality based on religion. What religion and God you "choose" can literally lead you anywhere, with no court of appeal -- because who can argue with God?
Those religious liberals who insist that no, only a belief in God can allow someone to say these Islamic Men of God were wrong forget that the God who forbids stoning is as much a matter of faith as the God which demands stoning.
All religion adds to morality is the ability to say the issue is settled and outside of human reason and dispute. It doesn't fix how it ought to be settled. God doesn't have to be a reasonable humanist. God can resemble this group of Somalians.
Posted by: Qwerty | November 6, 2008 11:10 AM
PZ is right. The yes on prop 8 voters are just a little more civilized than those in Africa stoning this girl. All anti-gay propositions are nothing less than a form of punishment.
We should remember that we use to dunk women in this country at one time for behaving improperly.
And at the beginning of our country the populace tolerated tarring and feathering which was a brutal form of torture that often led to the death of the victim.
Posted by: The Chemist | November 6, 2008 11:11 AM
Don't know about stoning, but I seem to recall a lot of burning alive at the stake.
Ideologies and people are never exceptional. They are always predictable. It doesn't matter which society you're in, this sort of behavior is predictable, especially where rule of law is fairly absent. Remember the lynchings during slavery and Jim Crow? If a slave escaped, or killed his master, the repercussions were felt by all of the slaves in the region.
Individual people are smart, compassionate, or reasonable. Groups have appalling tendency to become hysterical when the individuals within them feel powerless.
Posted by: Mike in Ontario | November 6, 2008 11:15 AM
I just finished "Wild Ducks Flying Backwards" on CD, an anthology of the shorter writings of Tom Robbins, read by the author himself. Quite a treat! One essay about mythology really stuck with me. Myth, to Robbins, isn't something historical, nor is it the kernel of truth based on a real event. Myth is something that has never happened, yet is happening all the time. Myth is important to us as a species, BUT when MYTH is construed as factual and/or historical, then it becomes dogmatic and rigid, ceasing to be of any real use and hence a danger to the species. He specifically talked about the Jesus resurrection MYTH, once useful as a metaphor for spiritual rebirth, that has been twisted into a historical "fact" to the extreme detriment of the whole of humanity.
Instead of looking to Mohammed STRICTLY as an example of piety, peace, and humility, misogynistic adherents abuse the myth to justify their own reactions against their inadequacies, lusts, and other "impure" impulses. What a goddamned mess
Posted by: jennyxyzzy | November 6, 2008 11:17 AM
If we can interpret 'try to stop the killers' as meaning trying to garner crowd support to stop the killing then sure, I think I'd try. If PZ wants it to mean attempting to physically stop the killers, then no, I don't think I would. As others have pointed out, that would most likely be a futile effort that leads directly to you yourself joining the victim.
Posted by: Nick | November 6, 2008 11:17 AM
I live in a particularly red district in California(we re-elected a Republican to the House!) and I've been talking with people who voted yes on 8. It isn't very hard to find them and they are more than willing to let you know what they think. I try to press them on how gay marriage effects their lives. Most can't come up with any answer. And when pressed further most don't really care about the relationships of other people and what they do in private. But they universally agree that they would not tolerate that sort of behavior in their own home. I get the distinct impression that many people around here would disown a gay or lesbian child. This seems to be a very personalized version of "not in my backyard".
Many of these people don't agree with the sentiment that marriage is some sort of sacred institution and that banning gay marriage would magically restore it. One only need to look at the latest celebrity gossip magazine to see that heterosexuals have done more to damage the institution of marriage than any homosexual. So a lot of the yes votes for prop 8 stem from a general dislike of homosexuality. It never occurred to many of these voters that they were taking rights away from people. And for this I place a lot of blame on the No on 8 campaign. It did a terrible job of defending gays and lesbians. Rather than wasting time trashing the Mormon church it should have been putting things into practical terms that people--who are very, very far removed from the LBGT equality movement--could understand.
I really hope that prop 8 paves the way to the Supreme Court. Seeing the anti-gay movement undone by its own bigotry would more than make up for the anger and frustration generated by their most recent act of evil.
Posted by: raven | November 6, 2008 11:17 AM
Yeah it is horrifying. Stuff like that happens everywhere although the Moslems are the current front runners in pointless murders.
In the US, lynching people based on skin color has stopped but it happened only a few generations ago. Gays are still killed for being gay but at least the cops make some efforts to find the killers and bring them to justice.
Every year in some part of the world, alleged witches are killed by mobs. Sometimes the mobs are Xians. There were witch killings recently in Cambodia, India, and Indonesia and who knows how many in Africa.
Civilization is two steps forward, one step backward. Some places are still trying to find the path.
Posted by: pharynguphile | November 6, 2008 11:19 AM
Ah yes. Stoning/murder and the refusal of a minor state endorsement. I see the logical connection. Everything is clear now.
Posted by: Jose | November 6, 2008 11:20 AM
Man, I just don't type/think fast enough to post here.
Posted by: Eamon Knight | November 6, 2008 11:20 AM
BDC@#12: Yeah but this is in a third world county with completely different rules. Things like this would never happen here.
There was a similar "honour killing" case in Ontario within the last year. But it must be noted that, at least in Canada and the US we treat the perpetrators as murderers; in Somalia the regime (such as it is) supports such killings. In that respect it is significantly *not* "the same thing happening here".
Posted by: The Chemist | November 6, 2008 11:22 AM
No. There's no linearity.
Posted by: Dianne | November 6, 2008 11:22 AM
In the US, lynching people based on skin color has stopped but it happened only a few generations ago.
Depending on how you define "generation." People were attacked based on their skin color and perceived religion in 2001 and later and I definitely remember some hate crime murders of blacks within the last 10 years. (one could argue about whether they were technically "lynchings" since I don't think that the killers even bothered to come up with an excuse like "looked at a white woman funny" but just attacked based on racial hatred.)
Posted by: Dunc | November 6, 2008 11:25 AM
Not that I want to defend such barbarism, but the need to protect your sense of identity is one of the most fundamental human needs there is. People will not only kill for it, they'll gladly die for it.
Posted by: Sabrina | November 6, 2008 11:25 AM
I am here in California and voted no on prop 8, but talking to 3 people that admitted they did vote yes, one did so because her and her husband believe that if they allow same sex marriage next they will be allowing people to marry dogs (I had to point out they just compared an human adult to a dog). Another believed it was unnecessary because they can already have a "domestic partnership" and it is the same thing. I had to educate her on how it is not the same. The last person was one that offered to give me a "yes on 8" sign for my yard. A few days after that he asked then if I stole all the local signs when the turned up missing one night(he knew from my initial reaction he knew I was disgusted by the sign) He voted because of religious reasons. Not a debate I want to get in with a co-worker.
Posted by: Matt | November 6, 2008 11:26 AM
PZ, you had it all oh so right, until you went off the rails with this
Those people who voted yes on Proposition 8 in California were simply performing a slightly more civilized version of casting a stone
There are many things wrong with Prop 8, beginning with the implied legitimacy conferred to the State that they have the power to define marriage in the first place. But it is ever so much better than stoning those you dont approve of. Not in the same ballpark, not in the same league.
Posted by: Who Cares | November 6, 2008 11:29 AM
Almost no one would dare to stand up against this, if they'd done so they'd be dead as well.
The people who can stand up against this and have a chance of surviving will not do so because it would destabilize their power base.
That said at a crowd of a roughly a thousand having about 50 people actually performing the stoning would be on par for the percentage of people suspected of being socio/psycho-pathic.
Posted by: labert | November 6, 2008 11:29 AM
We need to recognize that this is the same sort of attitude and behavior currently being advocated not only in Prop 8 but in all the legislative and social agendas of the Taliban wing of the Republican party.They are offended that they aren't given the "freedom" to place gays in the stocks and demonize those who might dare offend their invisible sky dude by copulating without his magical blessing . . .
They're insane, and they're trying to conquer America. We need to constantly and publically call them on the fact that their "morals" are invented based on irrational and unproven superstitions.
Posted by: raven | November 6, 2008 11:32 AM
Hate crimes including the occasional murder still happen, they never stopped. The difference between them and lynchings, is that nowadays, the cops try to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice.
During the lynching days, mobs could kill people in the open and the cops looked the other way and no one remembered who did it.
Posted by: E.V. | November 6, 2008 11:33 AM
When I first heard about the incident a couple of days ago, I had to suppress my rage and kneejerk response to want to nuke the hell out of them, obliterate those mouthbreathing, idiotic inhumane bastards once and for all.
Of course, I saw how that overwhelming thirst for scorched earth retaliation and retribution was as sick as what the bullshit they committed.
When you started this post, I had to ask myself if I wanted to revisit this topic again. The rage and the nausea are still there but I no longer want to "lay waste to them, utterly", to paraphrase Monty Python.
Well, perhaps a chosen few...
And actually, God and futility go quite well together.
Posted by: The Chemist | November 6, 2008 11:34 AM
IAWTC
Posted by: MissPrism | November 6, 2008 11:36 AM
I think Prop 8 is comparable - of course stoning is orders of magnitude worse, but they both come from the nasty, self-righteous impulse to hurt someone you look down on and blame God.
Posted by: Doug Hudson | November 6, 2008 11:36 AM
Of course, as I'm sure you are all aware, a rather famous religious figure, faced with almost exactly the situation described here, did intervene, and did save the girl.
Unfortunately, 1) the people in this case were not followers of said figure, and 2) even if they had been, history clearly demonstrates that said figure's followers often miss the point of his intervention.
Posted by: Black Jack Shellac | November 6, 2008 11:37 AM
PZ, of course this is beyond repulsive. But if you were to stand up to those 50 thugs you would end up dead. The only consolation here is that old maxim: live by the sword, die by the sword. These cowards will die a horrible death, most of them anyway.
Posted by: Salt | November 6, 2008 11:38 AM
Those people who voted yes on Proposition 8 in California were simply performing a slightly more civilized version of casting a stone
That's democracy for you. Two wolves and one sheep deciding on what is for dinner. Interesting though that PZ equates the democratic process to Islamic delusions, both potentially adverse to the well being of the individual.
Posted by: negentropyeater | November 6, 2008 11:38 AM
Despair !
When's the last time someone has heard some positive news comming out of Somalia ?
Don't think I can remember any...
Posted by: Kimpatsu | November 6, 2008 11:39 AM
Are the killers so divorced from empathy and morality...
As Bertrand Russell pointed out, they regard these actions as the supreme morality. That's because they regard morals as having nothing to do with the sum total of human happiness.
Posted by: E.V. | November 6, 2008 11:39 AM
Moralists
refusetoSuck!(Man oh man - they really blow)
Posted by: Nick Gotts | November 6, 2008 11:39 AM
A disgusting crime. However, PZ, given what SPFS@7 reports, which can't have been that hard to discover, how about a little more research on your part next time you blog on something like this?
Posted by: John C. Welch | November 6, 2008 11:42 AM
Too bad the militia who shot the kid didn't spend another quarter, and shoot the girl. If there was no way to save her, then at least a quick death would have been a mercy at that point.
Posted by: Jarandhel | November 6, 2008 11:43 AM
Regarding the question about the history of stoning in the West:
Just a few historic examples of stoning in the West.
Posted by: Ka | November 6, 2008 11:47 AM
# 48:Of course, as I'm sure you are all aware, a rather famous religious figure, faced with almost exactly the situation described here, did intervene, and did save the girl.
In the case of the "famous religious figure", the woman was indeed an adulteress. In this case, she was a 13-year-old girl who had been raped by three men and was accused of adultery afterwards.
Posted by: abb3w | November 6, 2008 11:48 AM
It sounds like it's a culturally inculcated solution to a particular problem, which is evolutionarily "better" than doing nothing whatsoever, but worse than any number of other alternatives.
The "solution" that we in the "civilized" West would desire is a change to a different behavioral response. However, this requires a change in the other group's cultural identity. This might be done by inducing an evolutionary pressure in another direction.
Posted by: Janine ID | November 6, 2008 11:48 AM
Posted by: John C. Welch | November 6, 2008
Too bad the militia who shot the kid didn't spend another quarter, and shoot the girl. If there was no way to save her, then at least a quick death would have been a mercy at that point.
Torturing the girl is the point. It is demonstration of what to expect when you stray from the path that big sky daddy lays out for his sheep.
Posted by: Paul R | November 6, 2008 11:49 AM
Can I imagine a circumstance in which someone had committed a crime for which I would be willing to want kill them. Yes - If someone abused or killed my daughter then I would want them dead. Could I actually do the deed myself? I have no idea, and I don't really want to find out.
Is the stoning of this 13year old girl justifiable? No, not even slightly. It doesn't matter if she was raped or willingly committed adultery (why is a 13 year old married?), that does not justify this level of punishment.
All right thinking people should be utterly condemning this senseless act, and all religious types should be reminded that those who committed it believed their religion justified it.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008 11:55 AM
Or so stories say, written down decades after the events following multiple generations of hearsay being told word of mouth from goat herder to goat herder.
Posted by: Justin Higinbotham | November 6, 2008 11:56 AM
Well said! Here in CA, I'm appalled that people think they're not being bigots when they go off about how righteous they are in condemning homosexuality, or worse, when they claim that they're not discriminating against those people, but rather just defining their own religious beliefs in a harmless and righteous way.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008 11:57 AM
wait
What?
I may be misunderstanding you but are you suggesting the stoning of an innocent 13 year old is evolutionarily better than doing nothing?
1. How is this a question of evolution except on the most distant minor of scale?
2. how the hell is this better evolutionarily than doing nothing?
Posted by: Bob L | November 6, 2008 11:58 AM
In all honesty I don't know if I have the guts to be the first guy to go against a mad crowed but I certainly would be the tenth one to join that first guy.
Posted by: peter | November 6, 2008 12:01 PM
Agreed, and I think (and I stress that this is pure speculation), in instances like this, there's often a mechanism at work that almost *demands* escalation: Once one has been a part of something awful, there is often a need to justify that act, and the initial act becomes a stabilizing force for that coping mechanism. Thereafter any threat to that coping mechanism is met with defense commensurate to the guilt/horror that it alleviates. When this threat comes from within then similar acts must be repeated-- it's an external way to put one's fingers in one's ears and say to one's doubt: nah-nah-nah I can't hear you. Perhaps in order to fulfil its purpose such actions need not be barbaric and cruel... but perhaps barbarism does fill that purpose and is an easy (and somewhat addictive) path to stumble upon-- making such debacles almost inevitable (give enough people enough time and they'll find a way...).*shrugs shoulders* or maybe I'm just a BIT too full of myself.
Posted by: Dianne | November 6, 2008 12:01 PM
In the case of the "famous religious figure", the woman was indeed an adulteress.
How do you know that? Maybe she was and maybe she was another 13 year old who was raped. Just kind of hard to tell from the story. (Assuming that ANY of it has any factual basis.)
Posted by: Clare | November 6, 2008 12:03 PM
You don't even have to use the parallel of gay people - just imagine if it had been something particularly petty and minor - like what the reaction would be if it had been a petition for women to be allowed to go topless in the same way men do.
What I truly can't understand are people who say 'well that's their way of life/how they were brought up/it's a different culture' - that is only useful as a tool to understand people. Stoning children (though her actual age is debateable in this case but we KNOW it happens to children regardless) is not something truly comprehensible however much you try.
It almost makes it worse when you hear about this sort of thing being used as a lever in unrelated disputes. Like the recent episode in (I think!) India where a teenager was mauled by dogs and shot - allegedly an 'honour killing' but more sinisterly the end result of a land dispute between the girl's husband and her father. Hilarious, no?
Posted by: Snark7 | November 6, 2008 12:03 PM
What I *would* like to do is simply to force-feed every member of the militia his own genitals. After the blinding and the all-limb amputations and being butt-raped by some dogs and some pigs and having the videos of this transmitted to the whole world, islamic or not.
And tattoo the reason for this on their foreheads and spread them around the country in the cities as living proof what will happen the next time, someone even thinks about a stoning.
Lucky for these shitheads (and maybe for me) I'm not really capable to do any of this.
Posted by: Kobra | November 6, 2008 12:04 PM
Sadness and feelings of betrayal aside, adultery doesn't cause permanent bodily harm to another person. Stoning a person to death for adultery baffles me.
However, some of the nastier crimes (when the person is actually guilty and unrepentant) deserve harsh sentences. Draconian? Yes. Effective? Not really, but neither is the entirety of our justice system.
Posted by: Mu | November 6, 2008 12:06 PM
I've seen a lot on this board, but comparing a democratic vote of millions to a despicable act of murder is about as twisted a connection as the best of the religious right can come up with. Fundamentalism at its best, Ken Hamm would be proud of you. But then, I thought people had lost their perspective when they declared the right to gay marriage equal as a human right to life and freedom, as big as abolition of slavery and the right to vote.
Posted by: S | November 6, 2008 12:07 PM
Why is it that we can never seem achieve the art of thinking clearly while experiencing strong emotions?
Posted by: Thuktun | November 6, 2008 12:07 PM
Being completely honest, a society where 50 people were willing to stone a teenager to death for allegedly having sex is also likely to stone to death any single person who spoke up in defense.
Posted by: The Atheist Jew | November 6, 2008 12:08 PM
How about being honest about this: What if the person being sentenced to death killed a close family member, a spouse or a child for example?
I personally think I could be the executioner in that instance.
Though I don't know if I could if the victim was at arm's length to me. I think it depends on my identifying with the mourning family and the heinousness of the crime.
Just being honest.
Posted by: MarkW | November 6, 2008 12:09 PM
Paul R at #59: I think "adultery" in this case is defined as any sexual contact except that between husband and wife.
I wonder what happened to the three men accused of raping her? I'm willing to bet nothing much.
Posted by: Kobra | November 6, 2008 12:10 PM
@68: Just to clarify, I don't consider stoning appropriate and I'm purposely leaving "harsher sentences" open to interpretation just because this is not the area of my expertise. All I have is my opinion on this one.
I just read this part:
That's just fucked up.Posted by: Pete Rooke | November 6, 2008 12:10 PM
I don't understand why some Gays would even want to officially marry each other. I can understand the desire for civil privileges (although I believe this goes too far in that it gives official recognition of such a lifestyle) but it seems needlessly provocative to have it defined as a marriage. A marriage in this country has been a monogamous heterosexual union recognised by both the state and a religious institution.
Posted by: Dianne | November 6, 2008 12:11 PM
However, some of the nastier crimes (when the person is actually guilty and unrepentant) deserve harsh sentences.
That sounds uncomfortably close to the world view of the people doing the stoning to me. They believed that the girl had committed a serious crime. A truly nasty crime. Ok, so they're misogynistic nuts to say the least, but they probably truly thought that she deserved the "harsh sentence" she received. That they were acting in justice. Possibly that they were even acting in mercy: saving her from a life of disgrace and clearing her crime so she could make peace with Allah and have a good afterlife. Or maybe just using her as an example so that other teenagers wouldn't "sin" and be condemned to hell. Justice, mercy, prevention of future crimes...all good goals, aren't they? But so easily perverted. In short, are you sure you want to go there?
Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | November 6, 2008 12:12 PM
It should, one hopes, be very easy
To look on this and to condemn,
But look at Kitty Genovese--
In some ways, we are much like them.
When crowds make people nearly faceless
It is a certain kind of Hell,
Promoting hate, however baseless--
Religions do this awfully well.
To recognize that this potential
Is human, is my fervent wish;
It can be fought--it's not essential
(You need not be a cuttlefish)
These people show the worst of us
But us they are, we need to learn;
We share one planet-home, and thus
It's to ourselves we have to turn:
Belief can spread, just like a cancer
Harmful ones have got to go;
While some believe that God's the answer
For these beliefs... the answer's NO.
A bit more, here.
Posted by: MarkW | November 6, 2008 12:14 PM
Fuck you very much Pete Rooke.Posted by: BMcP | November 6, 2008 12:14 PM
If she is accused of the horrible crime: Take her to the authorities (such as the police), so they may see if there sufficient evidence for an arrest.
If there is evidence of her committing the crime: Take her to the court of law so she may be judged guilty or innocent by a jury of her peers based on the evidence presented.
If she was convicted: Take her in for the appropriate punishment by the authorities, even if that punishment is death, which for me is an acceptable punishment for particle crimes (pre-meditated first degree murder, child rape...).
But this was a mob, you can reason with individual people, you really can't reason with a mob, a mob just wants blood, not justice.
Posted by: Kobra | November 6, 2008 12:15 PM
@76: Thanks for pointing out the unintentional ambiguity. I was referring to murder, etc.
Posted by: SteveM | November 6, 2008 12:15 PM
I don't understand why some Gays would even want to officially marry each other.
You truly are a bigoted moron aren't you? Why does anyone want to get married? Why would gays not have similar motivations and emotions.
Posted by: Tom | November 6, 2008 12:16 PM
It doesn't say in the story, but for 'adultery' I took that to mean that she had sex (was raped) by married men, rather than her being married.
Either way, it doesn't matter of course. This is probably the sickest and most immoral story I have EVER heard.
Posted by: Ka | November 6, 2008 12:16 PM
In the case of the famous religious figure, all we can rely on is the famous religious book, which clearly states that she was an adulteress. My point is that it is horrible to stone an adulteress, but it is even more horrible to stone a rape victim.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 6, 2008 12:16 PM
Pete "well meaning fool" Rooke, you fail to understand a lot about modern life. Not all marriages are religious for example. Time to go back to your church and pray for guidance on how to join the modern world.
Posted by: Cliff | November 6, 2008 12:18 PM
That PZ said voting for Proposition 8 in California and stoning a young girl to death share the same impulse as a cause in no way equates the moral gravity of the two actions; he merely notes a similarity of cause, not of consequence.
Posted by: Kobra | November 6, 2008 12:19 PM
@82: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008 12:19 PM
Pete Rooke, master of the stupid comment.
Posted by: Kobra | November 6, 2008 12:23 PM
It's only provocative if you're premeditating violence.
Posted by: SteveM | November 6, 2008 12:23 PM
Did you not read the article? She confessed to the crime. The words "I was raped" clearly admits to having sex with those men, so therefore guilty of adultery. (I striked out the "jury of peers" part since that is the american way) But since she confessed, no need for court anyway.
< /heavy sarcasm >
Posted by: Richard Harris | November 6, 2008 12:24 PM
God and sex: two potent ideas that never get along well together.
Well, I don't know about that. In the precurser religions of the present Abrahamic & Hindu faiths, there was lots of sex between the gods, & between gods & mortals too.
Why is that Jehovah is always called by male titles such as 'father'? It's just a hang-over from the earlier religions of the Mesopotamians. Why is the Xian god living with a bunch of spirit buddies, called angels, & all sorts of other minor gods? Monotheism, don't make me laugh. Bunch of edjits.
Posted by: Janine ID AKA The Lone Drinker | November 6, 2008 12:25 PM
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008
Pete Rooke, master of the stupid comment.
You are giving him too much credit.
Pete Rooke, slave of stupid reasoning.
Posted by: windy | November 6, 2008 12:26 PM
Said religious figure saved one woman, and tried to make some sort of metaphorical point that was apparently widely missed, instead of making clear that it was a crappy law in the first place. But no, he also came to "fulfill the law". Thus he did little to stop barbarism from persisting in his region until an offshoot religion came along and adopted some of these barbaric punishments. But then the intervention by the religious figure probably never happened anyway.
Posted by: MissPrism | November 6, 2008 12:26 PM
Mu: I haven't seen anyone, anywhere, ever say that marriage inequality is as bad as slavery. I agree with you that that's nonsense. If you show me where anyone has said it I'll email them and tell them so.
Of course stoning is massively worse than Prop 8. However, comparing things is not the same as equating them; it's perfectly reasonable to point out that stonings and Prop 8 are both about punishing people for no good reason because of what God supposedly thinks about their genitals.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 6, 2008 12:28 PM
Patricia has been a good influence. Good snark.Posted by: uncle frogy | November 6, 2008 12:31 PM
the chemist "Individual people are smart, compassionate, or reasonable. Groups have appalling tendency to become hysterical when the individuals within them feel powerless"
I would bet that there is a very strong correlation between feelings of powerless and these kinds of "mindless acts". I would further suggest that there is also a very strong correlation between fundamentalist religious belief and practice and feelings of powerless.
As my own understanding of life and acceptance of its limited nature the easier it has become to not fear the word or concept and implications of atheism emotionally. In effect the less fear of my personal powerless I feel the easier it becomes to act and think more rationally.
To the question how would I react?
Why would I have even gone to such an event in the first place. If I really want to have any success in stopping things like that then I would find ways that would lead to positive change maybe starting or joining a group who's goal was such changes. Not some noble gesture like standing up before the crowd and getting killed also and be in the end ineffectual.
Posted by: Ignorant Atheist | November 6, 2008 12:31 PM
Troll here, trolling again. PZed, you have a way with words. I admit to stupidity and contradictory beliefs, but I am 100% against killing innocent people for idiotic beliefs.
Posted by: GuyIncognito | November 6, 2008 12:31 PM
"In the US, lynching people based on skin color has stopped but it happened only a few generations ago. Gays are still killed for being gay but at least the cops make some efforts to find the killers and bring them to justice."
Oh no! Now you did it! You compared discrimination of blacks to discrimination of gays! LIBERAL!!!! It's not even the same thing. Sure gays are sometimes lynched, but not nearly as often, and usually only in red states. Well, that one kid got shot in school in a supposedly blue state, but that was really an isolated incident. There was that whole Holocaust thing, but that happened in Germany and it was more about Jews anyway. And of course blacks can't pretend to be white, but gays can always pretend to be straight. They have it way better. So you see, that's why Loving v. Virgina was great, but gay marriage should be put to a vote. Can't have liberal activist judges giving rights to gays on a whim. Well, OK, a majority of the majority of activist judges in California are Republicans, but they aren't true Republicans. No true Republican would ever give rights to gays without voting on it first. We heterosexuals were nicer to gays than whites were to blacks, so we should have a say. Sure we said gays were really just wacko heterosexuals, and threw them in jail for being wackos, but that isn't nearly as bad as slavery. It's only sort of bad, and we did offer to cure them. Well, we did ruin that Oscar Wilde guy and one of the inventors of the computer, but the last guy was an atheist so he deserved it. Besides that happened in Europe anyway. It would never happen here. So it's okay that heterosexuals must approve of gays in the voting booth before they can have the right to marry, because we've always been relatively less crappy to them. And if you keep comparing gays to blacks, you'll just make blacks mad and they'll turn against you in the voting booth. Or some shit.
headexplode
Posted by: Rudi | November 6, 2008 12:33 PM
Can this really be true? Can so many members of our species really posess the genetic machinery to behave in this way? Why aren't WE like it? What has happened to those people to make them that way?
That is so vile my brain can hardly process it - that thousands of people could partake in sick, depraved barbarism that is off the scale in terms of its inhumanity. And as PZ says, that would still be true if she was guilty of a crime. She's an innocent kid who's been raped.
Every single Government in the world should be condeming this as vehemently as they can and outlining what it is they are going to do to address such sickening sub-chimpanzee animalism.
Posted by: Azdak | November 6, 2008 12:35 PM
I know some who don't, but that's not the point. "Marriage" in our society grants a special set of privileges to two people in a relationship. Whether you agree with the institution of marriage or not is irrelevant, that's just how things are. Denying people these privileges because of the gender or sex of the person with whom they choose to have this relationship is arbitrary and stupid. And a violation of their rights.Posted by: negentropyeater | November 6, 2008 12:36 PM
Pete Rooke,
Since when is homosexuality a "lifestyle" ? Can you please describe it for me, I'd be interested.
Posted by: raven | November 6, 2008 12:37 PM
The difference between prop. 8 and the torture/murder of the little girl is quantitative not qualitative/b>.
The reasoning is exactly the same but the penalties are a lot different in degree.
Missprism said it well: it's perfectly reasonable to point out that stonings and Prop 8 are both about punishing people for no good reason because of what God supposedly thinks about their genitals.
It is a bit astounding to think that a god who created a 13.7 billion light year wide universe with quadrillions of stars is deeply, passionately interested in the sex lives of each and every of 6.7 billion ephemeral primates on a small rocky planet somewhere. Don't they have hobbies or the internet in heaven or something?
Posted by: Azdak | November 6, 2008 12:38 PM
Aw, damn. I just replied in earnest to Mr. Rooke. There's two minutes of my life I'll never get back.
Posted by: Josh | November 6, 2008 12:38 PM
Words can't even begin to describe how angry I am that this still happens in our world...
If anyone can still be apathetic about how badly the world needs to change, I can't understand how.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008 12:40 PM
Yes please Rooke. Tell us about the gay lifestyle.
Posted by: John C. Randolph | November 6, 2008 12:40 PM
PZ,
I was with you right up until you tried the package dealing at the end. The prop 8 vote was not a call for violence against anyone, and overblown rhetoric like that is not going to help us pass a new proposition to repeal it the next time around.
-jcr
Posted by: Peter Ashby | November 6, 2008 12:40 PM
@Clare
like what the reaction would be if it had been a petition for women to be allowed to go topless in the same way men do.
In New Zealand you can go topless, even if you are a woman. It's all about equality you see. Of course you won't see NZ women wondering down the street topless, but the principle is there that if you do then PC Plod cannot put you in jail for lew and lacivious behaviour. Oh and you can pee in the gutter if you are pregnant. Here in the UK you are permitted to pee in a policeman's helmet if caught short while pregnant...
Posted by: Dianne | November 6, 2008 12:41 PM
Can so many members of our species really posess the genetic machinery to behave in this way?
Yes.
Why aren't WE like it?
We are. Does the word "waterboarding" mean anything to you? Gitmo? Abu Grahib? Did the soldiers who killed the family of a 14 year old girl, raped her over their bodies and then killed her ever get punished beyond being told that they were naughty?
Posted by: noncarborundum | November 6, 2008 12:41 PM
* also a Republican. Not that there's anything (necessarily) wrong with that.
Posted by: Hillary Rettig / www.lifelongactivist.com | November 6, 2008 12:41 PM
any discussion of this topic that excludes the role of patriarchy is incomplete.
http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/03/21/faq-isnt-the-patriarchy-just-some-conspiracy-theory-that-blames-all-men-even-decent-men-for-womens-woes/
and
http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/
Hillary
Posted by: Janine ID AKA The Lone Drinker | November 6, 2008 12:43 PM
Posted by: Pete Rooke | November 6, 2008
I don't understand why some Gays would even want to officially marry each other. I can understand the desire for civil privileges (although I believe this goes too far in that it gives official recognition of such a lifestyle)but it seems needlessly provocative to have it defined as a marriage. A marriage in this country has been a monogamous heterosexual union recognised by both the state and a religious institution.
This is a perfect example of what PZ was talking about. Religion is used to define what a person is and what a person may do.
In the eyes of her torturers and murders, the unfortunate thirteen year old girl overstepped her role, allowing herself to be raped.
In the eyes of the Rookie and those who vote yes for Proposition 8, LGBT people are overstepping their god given roles to be straight and demanding the right to a same gander marriage.
The difference is the degree of punishment of these transgressions of "god's" law. In Somalia, the local authorities allowed the murder of a victimized girl. In California, there is the denying of rights that most people take for granted. But we are now that far removed from the days that is was criminal for GLBT people to express themselves. And we have people who believe they are doing "god's" will by murdering those who do not fit gender norms.
Posted by: Dianne | November 6, 2008 12:43 PM
Here in the UK you are permitted to pee in a policeman's helmet if caught short while pregnant...
Adds new meaning to the old saying about there never being a cop around when you really need one...
Posted by: Tim Fuller | November 6, 2008 12:44 PM
With religion everything is possible.
Enjoy.
Posted by: Rey Fox | November 6, 2008 12:44 PM
"Pete Rooke, master of the stupid comment."
"Pete Rooke, slave of stupid reasoning."
Pete Rooke, penis-phobe.
Posted by: Azdak | November 6, 2008 12:44 PM
@Raven
They don't even have a pool table.Posted by: CJO | November 6, 2008 12:44 PM
Or so stories say, written down decades after the events following multiple generations of hearsay being told word of mouth from goat herder to goat herder.
In the case of "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," the situation is considerably worse: it's a 4th century (at the earliest) addition to John.
And the original teller of tall tales about a certain rabbi were probably Galilean fishermen, not goat herders; in any case, they didn't tell the one about Yeshua and the adulteress.
Posted by: blueelm | November 6, 2008 12:48 PM
There are so many things wrong with this it hurts to think about it. I take issue with the idea that there are some crimes (any) that deserve torture or death. If a person is dangerous to society they should be kept away from means to do damage, but stoning a child? All this indicates to me is that if given the excuse most people are no better than the criminals they condemn and religion is absolutely not efficient at controlling that impulse.
Posted by: Graculus | November 6, 2008 12:51 PM
Individual people are smart, compassionate, or reasonable. Groups have appalling tendency to become hysterical when the individuals within them feel powerless
Evidence?
Because there are an awful lot of dumb, heartless and irrational idjits out there.
Posted by: Ignorant Atheist | November 6, 2008 12:53 PM
To those who comment about the fear of standing up against this sort of abomination, I think Rosa Parks. Yes, it is a lesser form of intolerance that she sat down for, but the spirit is the same.
Posted by: noncarborundum | November 6, 2008 12:53 PM
It's even worse than that for this particular story, which doesn't show up in any manuscript of the Gospel of John until the 5th century.
Posted by: Azdak | November 6, 2008 12:54 PM
@Dianne
While your point that that sort of thing does happen here is valid, I hasten to point out that the soldiers involved got a little more than a telling-off. James Barker got 90 years (20 w/o parole), Paul Cortez got 100 years (10 w/o parole), Jesse Spielman got 110 years (10 w/o parole), and Steven Green's trial starts in April. Whether you agree with the sentences or not (I'd probably be okay with these guys getting locked up for good), it's not like they just had their wrists slapped.Posted by: Josh | November 6, 2008 12:59 PM
PZ, I don't know who took the jam out of your doughnut, but I think you've been dabbling in a bit of hyperbole since Obama was elected.
I didn't like the addendum to your post. Stoning a girl for getting raped and denying a group of people equal marriage rights have two things in common: 1) they are wrong, and 2) they are usually driven by religious belief. That's it, man.
You make an ass out of yourself when you conflate them, and you betray your own ignorance when you downplay the role "primitiveness" played in this scenario. Stoning is in the Bible as well as the Koran. Religion may explain why it occurs in Africa and the Middle East, but it does not explain why it doesn't occur in the West. Society does. Ours has advanced more than others (by our own subjective measure of course, but that's all we have).
If I were Californian, I would have voted NO on Prop 8, and I don't like Obama's stance on gay rights, either. But please, man, get off the cross, would you? There are different degrees of wrong, and lumping all religious intolerance together is, as Reza Aslan would say, "profoundly unsophisticated."
Posted by: Annick | November 6, 2008 1:00 PM
As someone who will soon be exercising the right to marry her same-sex partner in Canada, I can't tell you how disappointed I am that Californians chose to remove human rights. Even after all of the ads, particularly the Mormons barging in and destroying a lesbian couple's marriage liscence, the only thing motivating such hatred has to be religious ideology. How else could people be so willingly destructive ?
Posted by: Janine ID AKA The Lone Drinker | November 6, 2008 1:04 PM
Posted by: Annick | November 6, 2008
...the only thing motivating such hatred has to be religious ideology. How else could people be so willingly destructive ?
God's away on business, therefore his followers have to enforce his will.
I hope your marriage goes well. Ain't it great to be treated as a grown up citizen?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 6, 2008 1:04 PM
Josh, you missed or ignored PZ's point. Both the stoning and the vote in California were inspired by holy books. They, they holy books, cause people to behave mean toward other people. A huge difference in degree between the two examples, but the same cause.
Posted by: Ignorant Atheist | November 6, 2008 1:06 PM
OK, I admit to being a troll and being stupid. But I am surprised that I am the first here to mention Rosa Parks. Admitted, different in degree, but same in intent. Had she done what she did in a muslim population, she would have been dragged from the bus and killed.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008 1:07 PM
And they are also about denying rights to exert power. What I get from PZ's point is that it is all part of the same thought process, just differing (by some magnitude) degrees.
It's the same line of thought of Christians who think women should be subservient to their husbands and the taliban who force women into Bhurkas and kill them when they violate that.
Same line of thought, differing magnitude of severity and reaction.
Posted by: Kate | November 6, 2008 1:07 PM
@Pete Rooke:
I do no usually killfile people since I feel it is in my best interests to expose myself to a variety of thoughts and opinions that are different from my own, but even I have my limits. I've read some pretty atrociously idiotic things from you in the past, but today is the last day I will bother to read your words.
You don't bother to learn from the discussion here and simply parrot the same tired old lies and misconceptions. I think you do it for the attention, so I hope you enjoy this, the last attention you'll ever get from me.
Posted by: noncarborundum | November 6, 2008 1:11 PM
Which is, of course, the reason why it can be solemnized only by religious figures such as town clerks, judges and justices of the peace. Look up "civil marriage", you dolt.
On a related topic, this morning's AP story on Prop. 8 quoted a supporter saying this:
In a rational world, that would be a Prop. 8 opponent crowing about its defeat. Sadly, in many respects we're still living in bizarro mirror world.
Posted by: Dianne | November 6, 2008 1:18 PM
@120: That was actually a real question masquerading as a rhetorical one: I had no idea what had happened to the soliders involved and was hoping someone would tell me. Nevertheless, did they do anything wrong, from the military's point of view, except get caught? How many times before this did they or others get away with it? (The answer MAY be rarely if ever, but I've heard stories from vets that make me think that it is not...anecdote, of course, but scary.)
Posted by: Matt | November 6, 2008 1:22 PM
>>>stonings and Prop 8 are both about punishing people for no good reason because of what God supposedly thinks about their genitals. Miss Prism #93
And what is the crime specified, and consequent punishment to be meted out, written into law in Prop 8?
I personally believe both actions are best viewed as cultural enforcement of tribal identity. In one case the majority employs violence to stop it. The other is cultural preference codified.
The distance between these actions is probably a half-millennium long.
Posted by: SteveM | November 6, 2008 1:26 PM
Matt@130 wrote:
"punishment" can also mean being denied a privilege. No one said anything about a "crime", just that prop 8 was punishing gays for loving a person of the same sex. They are being punished by being denied a privilege granted to heterosexual couples.
Posted by: ryanm | November 6, 2008 1:29 PM
@Cuttlefish
You always know just what to say,
I'll take your ink any day.
Posted by: Arikia | November 6, 2008 1:33 PM
Ugh. Sometimes I hate the world.
Posted by: Dianne | November 6, 2008 1:38 PM
And what is the crime specified, and consequent punishment to be meted out, written into law in Prop 8?
The crime is, essentially, having different genetics than the majority. Probably a collection of recessive genes, but whatever the details...
The punishment is denial of the rights and privileges that marriage partners enjoy from being each other's legal next of kin, heir, and power of attorney, to having a simple, unambiguous description of your relationship. To give one example that stuck in my mind: Dan Savage in the book "The Committment" describes a situation in which his son's dog was hurt and his boyfriend took the dog to the vet. Savage then called to see how the dog was doing and was refused because that information could only be given out to the dog's owner or his/her spouse. Yes, it's a minor thing in the grand scheme of life, but it's that sort of constant little reminders that you're a second class citizen of whom the "good people" of the world do not approve and whose relationship has no legal standing has to be wearing after a while.
Posted by: Azdak | November 6, 2008 1:45 PM
@Dianne
Ah, fair enough. I had to search for the details, myself. If you think you can keep your breakfast down, you can find more information here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmudiyah_killings
As for your second question, I'm guessing you're being both cynical and rhetorical (I approve of both). We could probably go back and forth all day on how much of this was justice for the sake of justice and how much was justice for the sake of saving face, but I'm relatively okay with the punishment, however it was motivated. Generally, it sucks that PR plays such a role in matters such as these, but this time, they seem to have gotten it right, kinda.
It's interesting to note, given the original topic, that Green, the only alleged offender to be tried as a civilian, faces the death penalty. I'm not sure how they do things in Kentucky, but I'm guessing that, if he were convicted, the execution wouldn't be performed in a stadium.
Posted by: Mu | November 6, 2008 1:47 PM
Regarding Prop 8, if the liberal side would have added a proposition 9 "the state of CA recognizes civil unions between any couple with the same rights as a traditional marriage", it would have probably passed with flying colors. The "gay marriage" discussion is not about equal legal rights, it's about a symbol. To the religious, marriage is the symbol of their God sanctioned union. To the activists, it's the symbol of defiance. In a sense, it's like the cracker. You can think it's ridiculous, or you can publicly deface it. One is an act of rational thought, the other is a stunt.
Posted by: Robin | November 6, 2008 1:47 PM
I've not heard of anyone being stoned in this country, but let's be honest: We are still having difficulty recognizing that victims of sexual assault are, in fact, victims. Whether religious traditions are entirely to blame, I cannot say. It seems to be an older problem in Western society than that.
Posted by: Janine ID AKA The Lone Drinker | November 6, 2008 1:50 PM
Mu, what of all the straight couples who's marriage were not sanctioned by a church?
Posted by: Norman Doering | November 6, 2008 1:50 PM
noncarborundum wrote:
Now there's an irrational fantasy.
So it would seem.
Posted by: Paul | November 6, 2008 1:51 PM
Nick (comment 32),
Please don't subscribe to "blaming the victim" on the passing of prop 8. One thing that is forgotten here is that political rhetoric works and the "Yes on 8" folks worked it very, very well. Plus, there is the issue of how to approach the situation. Looking at the proposition in 2006 in Arizona (Prop 107), because it was double-barreled and included ending domestic partnerships even for heterosexual couples, all of the arguments had to specifically mention heterosexuals losing their rights. That's why it didn't pass in 2006, because we told the straights that they may lose their rights. I had to be very careful not to mention anything about homosexuals and the rights which are deserved by all; everything had to revolve around heterosexuals.
In this current 2008 California proposition situation, there was (and still is) the problem of how to approach advertising for voting no. Symbolic advertisements (such as the heterosexual wedding that was stopped and had the tag line "What if you couldn't marry the person you love?" or, ostensibly, that). Noting the losing of rights apparently didn't work as well. The approach to attempting the removal of civil rights is an extremely tough political issue that does not have a clear-cut, single answer to approaching.
Sadly, "protecting traditional marriage" is a tag-line which mobilizes individuals and groups even though it holds no water in terms of meaning or history.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 1:51 PM
Inside the stadium, militia members opened fire when some of the witnesses to the killing attempted to save her life, and shot dead a boy who was a bystander. An al-Shabab spokeperson was later reported to have apologized for the death of the child, and said the milita member would be punished.
Indeed. Once again we have a distortion of facts to promote a naive provincial xenophobia: I would have intervened (in my fantasy world where there would be no risk in doing so), why didn't they?
Posted by: Marc Abian | November 6, 2008 1:54 PM
"young girl is accused of a heinous crime -- use your imagination here, too, and think of the most horrible thing a person can do -- and she is trapped in front of you, helpless. You have a rock in your hands. People around you are urging you to kill her; they say that you are justified in taking her life. What would you do?"
I don't know about a young girl, but for an adult, I'd take it in a heartbeat.
Posted by: Alex P | November 6, 2008 1:56 PM
This is a classic example of why any religious belief is so very dangerous. I've been mulling the concept of the "why" for some time now, and I believe the reason comes down to the fact that religious indoctrination, especially at a young age, has the effect of atrophying the part of the brain that is responsible for critical thought process.
The most fundamental, all important concept in all belief systems is the need for "us vs. them" mentality. This, of course, is the glue that makes the individuals group together in order to share that belief system. The second pillar for religious belief is the necessity for egocentricity; it is known that children are born with an egocentric viewpoint. Through normal emotional growth we outgrow this stage, and develop a more rational sense of our actual place in space and time. For those of us that were fortunate enough to be born into family units that did not practice religious indoctrination (or were intellectually strong enough as adults to overcome said indoctrination) our ability to process our thoughts through this filter provides us with the capability for reasoned cognition. This critical thinking process is what gives humans the capacity for empathy; the ability to mentally and emotionally place ourselves in another individuals situation. Religiously biased thinkers lack this capacity as it is in direct conflict with the structure of the belief system in which they have been taught to, without question, rely upon for their understanding of their particular place in the world (i.e. the center of a universe personally overseen by an all-knowing personal super power).
It is an extremely interesting fact that most devoutly religious systems strongly discourage the use of imagination-based play in their young. Mythology from other cultures, as well as "fairy tales" are to be avoided as corruptive influences. In the most extreme cases, normal and healthy manifestations of "imaginary friends"(to use but one example) are not only discouraged, but seen by adults as evidence of evil forces attempting to gain access via the vulnerable young. As imaginary play plays such a manifestly critical part in the healthy emotional development of an individual in early childhood, it is easy to see how it's repression would have the consequence of both stunting any future ability for empathetic (and likewise critical) thinking as well as giving the new "acceptable" mythology of religious belief system to fill the void.
It is precisely this combination that creates a personality which is not only incapable of empathy towards an "unbeliever", but also has the effect of leaving the individual quite incapable of utilizing critical thought process to filter both ideas and actions through a reasoned, personalized, and realistic process. Thus, brutally murdering a young child publicly and collectively in response to a horrible crime perpetrated against her by others rather than the more evolutionally expected response of protecting and punishing the ones responsible for crimes against the young and vulnerable is the consequence of thorough religious indoctrination in it's most pure form.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008 1:58 PM
OH PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASSE.
How about equality?
Posted by: Natalie | November 6, 2008 2:00 PM
Unbelievably ironic tidbit from the article:
The man who actually killed the alleged thief was released, after agreeing to pay his family 100 camels in compensation.
Posted by: Donnie B. | November 6, 2008 2:04 PM
MarkW @ #73:
I'm gonna go with black irony here and say they were aquitted when their accuser failed to show up in court to give testimony.
Posted by: Alex P | November 6, 2008 2:04 PM
{Thus, brutally murdering a young child publicly and collectively in response to a horrible crime perpetrated against her by others rather than the more evolutionally expected response of protecting and punishing the ones responsible for crimes against the young and vulnerable is the consequence of thorough religious indoctrination in it's most pure form.}
Apologies. Meant to read: "protecting the young and vulnerable and punishing the ones responsible"
Posted by: craig | November 6, 2008 2:06 PM
Mu, I'll have to let my atheist brother and atheist sister-in-law know that when they got married it was just a stunt.
Posted by: Dianne | November 6, 2008 2:08 PM
I'm not sure how they do things in Kentucky, but I'm guessing that, if he were convicted, the execution wouldn't be performed in a stadium.
One can never be too sure about the south*, but as far as I know, no executions in the US are carried out in stadiums. However, the proposal of having them televised is periodically brought up. Is it better if it is only a virtual crowd cheering on or ignoring the murder? Is it better if the person being killed really did commit a heineous crime? Who gets to decide what crimes are heineous?
With someone like Green, my impulse is to say, "Too badly broken, there's nothing left of value in him, just keep him away from others". I have no real interest in whether he lives or dies. But I seriously worry about people who want to watch him die on TV. Or Youtube.
*I say only because I'm from the south and therefore feel entitled to make fun of it.
Posted by: Kaerion | November 6, 2008 2:09 PM
PZ, you said that acts such as this harm you, and I couldn't agree more.
Just reading your comments about this heinous crime makes me lose a small, but significant, bit of my faith in humanity, and it will take many, many puppies and random acts of kindness to restore it to where it once was - to make up for the horrific, cold-blooded murder of this innocent little girl. And even then, it will never quite be enough, because she's still dead, and the people who murdered her, both the monsters throwing stones and the ones watching without trying to stop it, will be free to commit crimes like this again in the future; and if they're capable of doing it once, I'm willing to bet that they'll do it again.
I don't even know what else to say about this, I honestly just want to curl up in a little ball and cry, but reading about things like this make one thing perfectly clear to me: We can never give up. The fight against intolerance, inequality, and anything else that will make people murder an innocent girl, or use their votes to take away peoples' rights, will most likely never succeed 100%, but every little victory, no matter how tiny it is, no matter if it only improves life a little bit for one single person, is more important than anything else. And as long as we keep it up, and never give up, we'll keep moving forward, one tiny step at a time. And maybe, just maybe, we can one day help save the life of a young girl, just like this one.
And that will make all the effort worthwhile.
Posted by: craig | November 6, 2008 2:09 PM
Additionally, Mu, there are religions that will HAPPILY marry their gay and lesbian congregants.
Imagine that.
Oh, wait, I just realized you only mean the *official* church.
Posted by: Dianne | November 6, 2008 2:10 PM
I wonder what happened to the three men accused of raping her? I'm willing to bet nothing much.
It's not a stretch to suspect that they were part of the crowd murdering her. Probably feeling very self-righteous about killing the slut who tempted them.
Posted by: Matt | November 6, 2008 2:20 PM
Alex P wrote
the fact that religious indoctrination, especially at a young age, has the effect of atrophying the part of the brain that is responsible for critical thought process.
Fact? What study can you point me to asserting this?
Or is that merely your opinion? Newton, however eccentric in his Christianity, was deeply religious. I wonder what he wouldve written had his brain not been so atrophied.
Posted by: CJO | November 6, 2008 2:28 PM
The "gay marriage" discussion is not about equal legal rights, it's about a symbol. To the religious, marriage is the symbol of their God sanctioned union.
That's the argument that brought out the "base" to vote yes on 8. But the kinds of propaganda the campaign used to sway the "swing voters" on the issue weren't focused on the "defense of our sacred union" angle at all. The two most effective lies, I believe, were 1) that elementary school teachers would somehow be compelled to evangelize for the wholesome goodness of the "gay lifestyle" and 2) that churches were going to be sued if they didn't perform same-sex marriage ceremonies.
The first, I think, based on some conversations I've had, was effective in the African American communities (African Americans were ~70% in favor of 8). And I have come to see that the position "I don't care what you do, but don't talk to my kids about it because I don't want to be bothered answering questions that make me uncomfortable" is pretty rampant.
The second lie is just so stupid, it's hard for me to see how it was persuasive, but it simply wasn't effectively rebutted by the No on 8 campaign. The proper counter-argument is by comparison to excommunication. You can't sue a religious leader or community for asserting that you're not right with their god and taking whatever internal action called for by the religion. (excommunication=refusal to perform wedding) The law has to simply shrug, and say, in effect, "The guy says his imaginary friend doesn't like you. Nothing we can do about that." But it was repeated ad nauseum on talk radio and on the web: "how soon before the law forces my church to start marryin' them swishy types?"
These two pieces of propaganda (disseminated with the aid of a heap of dirty money from out of state) were what put 8 over the hump.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 2:31 PM
That PZ said voting for Proposition 8 in California and stoning a young girl to death share the same impulse as a cause in no way equates the moral gravity of the two actions; he merely notes a similarity of cause, not of consequence.
Ahem: "simply performing a slightly more civilized version of casting a stone"
I think he's a lot better than such an absurd metaphor that equates a vote in a democratic political process -- no matter how vile its consequences -- to vigilantism.
Posted by: wil | November 6, 2008 2:32 PM
We are little more than 'killer monkeys' with a thin veneer of civilization upon us. Killing the "other" is an accepted and, in this case, acceptable form of mass rage dissipation. Why would it trouble you so?
Posted by: SteveN | November 6, 2008 2:33 PM
I'm struck by the similarity between this situation and the biblical story about Jesus saving some woman about to be stoned to death. That story showed great humanity... but the reality is that almost no one lives up to that ideal, especially religious fanatics such as these monsters in Somalia, and the Prop 8 monsters here in California. I think of Gandhi's comment that he might have become a Christian--if he had ever actually met someone who was a Christian.
Posted by: negentropyeater | November 6, 2008 2:34 PM
Please note that as usual, the coward homophobe Pete Rooke did not come back.
Like a seagull, he just came to lay his crap, and flew away.
His primitive brain functions do not allow for the kind of rapid argumentation required by Pharyngulites, he's completely incapable of defending his pathetic ideas, so he'd rather just move on.
But don't be mistaken, he'll be back in another thread another moment, with some more crap of the same sort to lay like a seagull and fly away one more time.
Posted by: Anton Mates | November 6, 2008 2:36 PM
The BBC witness disagrees with this; he says that onlookers were objecting verbally but didn't try to stop the militia, who shot the other boy in the "confusion" as everyone crowded around.
I have no idea who's right.
Posted by: Jeff | November 6, 2008 2:37 PM
Yes
No. Gays just want to get married like everyone else, and as usual, religious extremists need to force everyone to abide by their superstition-based views.
It should be obvious that discriminating against gays is wrong, but we have a lot of backward, bigoted people in this country.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 2:42 PM
I don't know about a young girl, but for an adult, I'd take it in a heartbeat.
For which you would win the Darwin Award, as you would be rightly tried and convicted of murder, even if your victim that you stupidly killed merely because a crowd said she was guilty actually turned out to be guilty.
Posted by: StuV | November 6, 2008 2:42 PM
Matt: Newton wrote Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687, and AFTER that descended into the Christian muck.
Posted by: Jared Lessl | November 6, 2008 2:44 PM
a vote in a democratic political process -- no matter how vile its consequences
What was non-democratic about the stoning? I bet if you polled everyone in the stadium, the majority would have agreed that she deserved to die.
I'd argue that there's nothing more democratic than a mob. That's why we are not a democracy. Because majority rule is the absolute _worst_ way to guarantee minority rights.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 2:46 PM
I have no idea who's right.
It doesn't matter, "Couldn't just a few have raised a voice in protest, couldn't some small fraction of that thousand intervened?" is FAIL either way.
Posted by: Ka | November 6, 2008 2:51 PM
As I already pointed out at # 56 and, for clarification, # 83, the similarity does not go very far.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | November 6, 2008 2:53 PM
Because some of us monkeys aspire to something better for our descendants. To us, this case is neither accepted nor acceptable.Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 2:54 PM
What was non-democratic about the stoning? I bet if you polled everyone in the stadium, the majority would have agreed that she deserved to die.
I bet you're a fool who can't even spot your own contradiction. You have a point about tyranny of the majority, but you've infused it with stupidity. Regardless of the validity of the slippery slope argument from majorities voting to institutionalize discrimination against gays to majorities voting for people to die, the Prop 8 process was not a civilized form of vigilantism; it passed through several layers of governmental function, from the original crafting of the state constitution, to the approval of putting the proposition on the ballot by appointed and elected representatives.
Posted by: StuV | November 6, 2008 2:59 PM
By the way, I am somewhat taken aback by equating Pete Rooke with an fecal-bombing seagull. Something about the soaring seems too high-brow.
My mind's eye seems to conjure something more akin to a shit-flinging monkey which was dropped on its head as an infant.
Several times.
Just my two cents, nothing to see here, move along, as you were, take your pick.
Posted by: Father Nature | November 6, 2008 2:59 PM
Bravo, PZ. Nobody should be allowed to forget this obscene event.
Posted by: StuV | November 6, 2008 3:02 PM
@truth machine, OFM:
it passed through several layers of governmental function
Shouldn't that be "bypassed"?
@Jared:
Civics, UR DOIN IT RONG.
Posted by: Tulse | November 6, 2008 3:04 PM
And thus PZ's comment that "Those people who voted yes on Proposition 8 in California were simply performing a slightly more civilized version of casting a stone".
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 3:06 PM
I don't understand why some Gays would even want to officially marry each other.
Funny how some people treat "I don't understand X" as if it were an argument against X.
Perhaps if you would meet, get to know, become friends with, and have a discussion with some, you might manage to understand it.
although I believe this goes too far in that it gives official recognition of such a lifestyle
Sure, it goes too far to give official recognition to the lifestyle of two people being in a loving, committed, family relationship.
It will never happen, but Pete really ought to read the California Supreme Court decision, which answers his questions in considerable detail.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 3:11 PM
And thus PZ's comment that "Those people who voted yes on Proposition 8 in California were simply performing a slightly more civilized version of casting a stone".
Tulse, you dimwit, I'm not arguing that the process wasn't civilized, I'm arguing that, contra PZ, it wasn't vigilantism, and contra Jared, that it wasn't the sort of raw "democracy" that is epitomized by a mob.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | November 6, 2008 3:12 PM
Drew Carey, though, has a much clearer sense of his own limitations. If I had to choose, though, I think I'd prefer to have Carey as VP and Sarah Palin hosting The Price Is Right (or would that be The Price Is Far Right?) rather than vice versa.
Thankfully, we don't face that choice.
OTOH, if Ted "It's a Series of Tooobz!" Stevens wins the Alaska Senate race and is then expelled from the Senate (as he certainly would be), the seat will be filled by a special election. Senator Sarah Palin, anyone?
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 3:13 PM
Shouldn't that be "bypassed"?
No, it passed through the layers I mentioned, it did not bypass them.
Posted by: Tulse | November 6, 2008 3:16 PM
And in the passage he wrote about Prop 8, he didn't say it was, merely that it arose from the same impulse religious people have.
Right, hence the "civilized" bit.
Posted by: SC | November 6, 2008 3:19 PM
Define "civilized."
Posted by: wim v | November 6, 2008 3:19 PM
At the Natural History Museum in Stockholm (Sweden) there is currently a travelling exhibition called "Rainbow Animals" about homosexuality in the animal world.
The museum's website states:
"One sometimes hears arguments against human homosexuality on the grounds that it does not occur in nature among other animals. [...] Rainbow Animals is the first exhibition in the world to address those questions within the framework of a fascinating new area of biological study.
The exhibition includes a selection of more than 1500 different species for which homosexual behaviour has been documented. [...] [Visitors] will encounter swans, dolphins, giraffes and other animals among which homosexual behaviour is common."
And to make the thing even more attractive, they have a poll: "Is homosexuality normal?".
My native country is Belgium, where same-sex marriage was legalized in 2003, and I currently reside in Sweden where same-sex civil unions have been possible since 1995 and the country is now about to legalize same-sex marriage.
You don't even have to go back 100 years, when Belgium and Sweden were still respectively deeply catholic and protestant nations. And look at them today. You'd be hard pressed to find more secularized nations. Things can move fast, people.
Posted by: PZ Myers | November 6, 2008 3:20 PM
Obviously, I didn't accuse the backers of proposition 8 of vigilantism -- I accused them of being driven by the same irrational motives to control the sexual behavior of their neighbors.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 3:23 PM
Why is it that we can never seem achieve the art of thinking clearly while experiencing strong emotions?
Because the whole point (biological function, as a consequence of natural selection) of emotions (or rather the biological processes that invoke them) is to yank cognition in a particular direction. See, e.g., Marvin Minsky's "The Emotion Machine" to understand the fitness benefit of this heuristic.
Posted by: Lowell | November 6, 2008 3:23 PM
I'm sure you're right that Pastor Pete will never read it (or comprehend it even if he did), but in case anyone else is interested, here's a link to the California Supreme Court's decision in In re Marriage Cases. http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/archive/S147999.PDF
It's long, but (I thought) a very well-reasoned opinion.
Posted by: Sili | November 6, 2008 3:26 PM
I'm a coward. I'm sure I wouldn't raise my voice or a lift a hand to save anyone but myself.
I actually doubt that I wouldn't throw the rock too. I'm so conformist it hurts, when push comes to shove.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | November 6, 2008 3:26 PM
Not a can of worms I really want to re-open, but I really doubt that "homosexual behavior" observed in wild animals is equivalent to what we're talking about when the subject is human "homosexuality."
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 3:28 PM
Obviously, I didn't accuse the backers of proposition 8 of vigilantism
Once again: "simply performing a slightly more civilized version of casting a stone"
If that's not an accusation of vigilantism, it certainly isn't obvious.
I accused them of being driven by the same irrational motives to control the sexual behavior of their neighbors.
Yes, you did that too, and I haven't argued against it.
Posted by: Andrew | November 6, 2008 3:31 PM
PZ and any others who might have tried to intervene or convince others to interevene: you would be dead. If you read the Amnesty bulletin linked to above and here:http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=17927, it is clear that this is not a case of some local religious nuts enforcing as primitive morality, but rather part of a campaign of terror directed against civilians in a civil war:
" The reports on this killing should be understood within the climate of fear that armed insurgent groups such as al-Shabab have created within the areas they control in Somalia. As Amnesty International has documented previously, government officials, journalists and human rights defenders face death threats and killing if they are perceived to have spoken against al-Shabab, who have waged a campaign of intimidation against the Somali people through such killings."
Make of this what you will. The horror of this act remains. Sick fucks...
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 3:31 PM
P.S. I'm sure PZ doesn't mean to accuse the voters of vigilantism. That's why I said that "simply performing a slightly more civilized version of casting a stone" is an absurd metaphor -- it's bad argumentation, a matter of sloppy thinking.
Posted by: Steve | November 6, 2008 3:36 PM
I wager some folks voted yes simply because they find homosexual sex a distasteful practice. Maybe some because they didn't want to be defined as a supporter of their cause, if not gay themselves by implication.
"Understanding is a lot like sex. It's got a practical purpose, but that's not why people do it normally."
-Frank Oppenheimer
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 3:37 PM
And in the passage he wrote about Prop 8, he didn't say it was, merely that it arose from the same impulse religious people have.
No, he didn't merely say that. Again "simply performing a slightly more civilized version of casting a stone" -- that says nothing about impulse, and it's not his statement about impulse that I challenged.
Right, hence the "civilized" bit.
That bit is irrelevant to my difference with Jared; he's talking about tyranny of the majority, which can be executed in arbitrarily civilized fashion, on which he and I are in complete agreement.
Posted by: Will Von Wizzlepig | November 6, 2008 3:38 PM
Without denying the bad things that happen to people all over the world, most people could bring about plenty of change if they'd actually focus on helping the people right next to them.
Posted by: SC | November 6, 2008 3:43 PM
Wow. Do you really think that? I've stood up for a weaker person in this sort of situation, and at the time didn't really think about my mortality - someone's potentially going to be thrown into a highway, you have to do something...
I'm disappointed that the view of my students seems to be that they wouldn't stop injustice, but I suppose that's why I'm there...
Sigh.
Posted by: Paul | November 6, 2008 3:47 PM
Nick (comment 32),
Please don't subscribe to "blaming the victim" on the passing of prop 8. One thing that is forgotten here is that political rhetoric works and the "Yes on 8" folks worked it very, very well. Plus, there is the issue of how to approach the situation. Looking at the proposition in 2006 in Arizona (Prop 107), because it was double-barreled and included ending domestic partnerships even for heterosexual couples, all of the arguments had to specifically mention heterosexuals losing their rights. That's why it didn't pass in 2006, because we told the straights that they may lose their rights. I had to be very careful not to mention anything about homosexuals and the rights which are deserved by all; everything had to revolve around heterosexuals.
In this current 2008 California proposition situation, there was (and still is) the problem of how to approach advertising for voting no. Symbolic advertisements (such as the heterosexual wedding that was stopped and had the tag line "What if you couldn't marry the person you love?" or, ostensibly, that). Noting the losing of rights apparently didn't work as well. The approach to attempting the removal of civil rights is an extremely tough political issue that does not have a clear-cut, single answer to approaching.
Sadly, "protecting traditional marriage" is a tag-line which mobilizes individuals and groups even though it holds no water in terms of meaning or history.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 6, 2008 3:53 PM
Comments 18 and 97 both win the thread.
Comment 76 is also highly recommended...
It's in the absence of a country, a hole in the political map of the world, with an absence of rules other than whichever religious ones people happen to believe in.
The difference in degree is large. The difference in kind isn't.
Does it have to be recognized by a religious institution? Where I come from, that's not the case. Marriage is a bureaucratic act in the registrar's office. Most couples, but by no means all, then marry again the next day, in church; the denominations do not marry couples that aren't already bureaucratically married, and religious marriages are completely ignored by the state.
Separation of church and state, you see. "Congress shall make no law"...
And then there's comment 128, which answers "no" to my question.
There is no police. There is no court, other than self-proclaimed religious authorities. There is no Somalia. There is no country at all there.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 3:53 PM
P.S. I'm sure PZ doesn't mean to accuse the voters of vigilantism. That's why I said that "simply performing a slightly more civilized version of casting a stone" is an absurd metaphor -- it's bad argumentation, a matter of sloppy thinking.
Let me try to clarify my point, since several people seem to be having a lot of trouble distinguishing between different things. If people were standing in front of the homes of married couples and shouting at them or spraypainting their homes, or making nasty phone calls, that would be a form of vigilantism that is arguably slightly more civilized than casting stones. But they, or very few, are doing that. Rather, the state presented them with a piece of paper, they filled in a circle, and the result of their group behavior will be to rip out from under loving couples their civil marital status. I'm not saying the impulse isn't the same, I'm not saying that what has been done isn't despicable, I am simply pointing out that one is vigilantism and one is a legal process that is supported even by many people who oppose some of its outcomes. Someone (SC?) might want to argue that such state processes are as bad as or worse than vigilantism, but that's an argument to be had, and not to simply be skipped over by saying that a vote is a fancy sort of stone throwing.
Posted by: Kel | November 6, 2008 3:58 PM
She was being sacrificed for the harvest. They'll have good corn next year.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 4:05 PM
The difference in degree is large. The difference in kind isn't.
a) Is the difference between a difference in degree and a difference in kind a difference in degree or a difference in kind?
b) "Sure there's micro-evolution, but no macro-evolution. Cats and dogs are different kinds of animals."
In fact there is no such demarcation; large enough differences in degree are indistinguishable from differences in kind.
Posted by: StuV | November 6, 2008 4:05 PM
She was being sacrificed for the harvest. They'll have good corn next year.
...unless she was gay of course, but that goes without saying.
Posted by: Tulse | November 6, 2008 4:07 PM
I can't speak for PZ, of course, but read again the words he wrote:
"I should also add, before everyone condemns this as simply the act of a primitive society, that the same impulse is at work right here in America. Those people who voted yes on Proposition 8 in California were simply performing a slightly more civilized version of casting a stone at those who offend their moral and religious sense of propriety."
It seems clear to me he isn't accusing Prop 89 voters of vigilantism, but instead of acting on a religious impulse to punish "those who offend their moral and religious sense of propriety". In this case, the punishment is "more civilized", but the impulse to do so is the same.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 6, 2008 4:09 PM
WTF? What, if anything, are you trying to say? I don't get it.
Don't twist that word that much. A representative, constitutional democracy with rule of law is still a democracy.
Posted by: Joe | November 6, 2008 4:13 PM
@161: I'm not sure you fully understand the Darwin Awards.
Posted by: Paul | November 6, 2008 4:13 PM
Just noticed that I accidentally posted twice (my internet went out for a little bit)... sorry!
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 4:14 PM
Wow. Do you really think that?
I think moral conundrum surveys are misleading because people cannot accurately predict how they will behave in these situations. I know I've been both more cowardly than I expected and more brave than I expected. However, it's certainly better to value bravery and think of oneself as a brave person and
I suppose that's why I'm there...
to teach people that.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | November 6, 2008 4:16 PM
Or, to reference yet another great philosopher, "if it makes you happy, it can't be that bad; if it makes you happy, why the Hell are you so sad."
But seriously folks... I'm coming around to the idea that any philosophy that places no (or negative) value on personal pleasure and happiness just plain ol' sucks!
Posted by: SASnSA | November 6, 2008 4:19 PM
Having read the article all the way through, I think there was more in this case than just religious fundamentalism.
It seems likely to me that the rapist where part of this insurgent group, and the leaders of this group who are in effect in charge of Kismayo where quick to charge the girl instead of its own; and similarly quick to silence her. If this is the case, I wouldn't put it past them to have included the rapists in the group casting stones.
Now this may be naive of me, but this scenario seems more likely than for this girl to be convicted and killed so viciously by the community which she grew up in. I know that plenty of women are killed in Islamic areas for adultery, but they're normally women, not girls, and usually not rape victims that had no way of preventing their rape. In this case I believe it was more than just religious beliefs behind her death.
Posted by: j h woodyatt | November 6, 2008 4:19 PM
"I wager some folks voted yes simply because they find homosexual sex a distasteful practice.
No no no. Most of the people who voted Yes either A) have never participated in a homosexual act, or B) have participated in a homosexual act at some point, and they're deeply ashamed of the fact that they were aroused enough to do it. (The rest of us were certainly more likely to vote No.) That's not distaste for the practice. That's either A) complete ignorance of the practice, or B) distaste for the people who indulge in the practice (including themselves).
I wager, like I think PZ does, that most of the people who voted Yes did so out of hated for the gay and lesbian community and a desire to keep them from being treated fairly and with equal protection under the law.
"Maybe some because they didn't want to be defined as a supporter of their cause, if not gay themselves by implication."
That doesn't explain why the opinion polls diverged from the election results. A significant minority of people were telling pollsters they intended to vote No, but they marked the Yes on their ballot anyway.
My explanation for that is I suspect a lot of voters didn't want to admit to pollsters that they were consumed with hate and revulsion for gays and lesbians, so they said they would be voting No because they wanted to appear more tolerant (even to feel like they were more tolerant than they actually are).
Deep down in their hearts, these people all know that what PZ says in comment #179 above is true: they're "driven by the same irrational motives to control the sexual behavior of their neighbors [as those violent Islamist fuckheads who killed that 13-year-old rape victim]." They're just afraid to own up to it in public.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 4:20 PM
@161: I'm not sure you fully understand the Darwin Awards.
You've given no reason for your doubt. The subject was a person stupid enough to publicly stone someone to death, simply because they had been accused of a crime and a mob had told them the stoning was justified. The consequence of such stupidity would likely be capital punishment, eliminating those stupid genes. (I also understand that the Darwin Awards are based on naive and mistaken views about evolution.)
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | November 6, 2008 4:22 PM
By way of combining a couple of threads:
"If I can't dance I don't want to be in your revolution"
as Emma Goldman didn't quite say.
Posted by: StuV | November 6, 2008 4:23 PM
Killing the "other" is an accepted and, in this case, acceptable form of mass rage dissipation.
Such as, oh, gay people uniting and stoning every Mormon they find?
Just sayin'.
Posted by: Granny | November 6, 2008 4:25 PM
This is where I think PZ becomes irrational. Let's see ..... PZ has his moral sensibilities offended by people whose moral sensibilities indicate it is good to execute 13 year old girls who have been raped or by other people whose moral sensibilities are such that they think it is wrong for two people of the same sex to marry. As I recall, it was the philosopher David Gauthier who argued that moral beliefs are 'appendages of outworn (religious) beliefs'. Unless PZ wants to point to some transcendent moral absolutes that are true for all people in all places and at all times, then why in the world should he think that 'right' and 'wrong' are real? If there is no 'god' or no transcendent moral laws, then killing a 13 year old girl is no more right or wrong than a Northern Pike having a good meal of its offspring. We dance to the tune of our genes and our environment. There is no moral right or wrong. Sure, PZ can make up his own moral beliefs, but surely he must realize he just made them up. Or maybe he would appeal to his society, but surely he realizes that his society just made them up as some sort of social contract. Why in the world should he think that his society morally trumps Somalia society, or the slight majority of Americans who think same sex marriage is wrong? Everyone just makes up their own morality .... at least those who are irrational enough to believe in such things. Moral 'right' and 'wrong' are in the same class as the Easter Bunny, the Flying Spaghetti Monster and gods ..... made up entities to make people feel good. If PZ wants to believe that there is some transcendent moral absolutes, then he needs to show their existence from the laws of physics, which ultimately, is all that runs this universe. Here is my suspicion about PZ .... he's an 'old school' atheist .... an atheist who ditches the gods, but still clings to morality as if it was objective. The 'new school atheists, the truly free thinkers, recognize morality for what it is ... something made up to make themselves feel good about their opinions, be they opinions that people who oppose same sex marriage are wrong, or that people who stone 13 year old girls are wrong, or that a tomcat that eats its own offspring is wrong. Please, PZ, raise the bar on your own rational thinking.
Posted by: GS | November 6, 2008 4:28 PM
You happen to forget that that is precisely the point of religion. How could anybody do such a thing WITHOUT religion?
Posted by: Pete Rooke | November 6, 2008 4:28 PM
Bill Dauphin: "if it makes you happy, it can't be that bad; if it makes you happy, why the Hell are you so sad."
This is exactly it: why the Hell (to use the expressed vernacular) are you so sad if it "makes you happy" (at least in the immediacy. I think the answer to this is that we have an intrinsic sense of right and wrong, moral and immoral. People who engage in sodomy or other perversions often have a sense of guilt or shame as a result of there actions. On the other hand it may all simply be a social construct..
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 4:29 PM
It seems clear to me he isn't accusing Prop 89 voters of vigilantism, but instead of acting on a religious impulse to punish "those who offend their moral and religious sense of propriety".
I have already addressed this several times. You insist on talking about the part of his statement I don't disagree with and ignore the part I do disagree with: regardless of the impulse, the process by which the result was obtained is not "a ... version of casting a stone". That's important, because we can all agree that casting stones and any "slightly more civilized version" of that is unacceptable, but we can't all agree that casting a vote as part of the California initiative process is unacceptable -- certainly not for the same reasons or by the same arguments.
Posted by: windy | November 6, 2008 4:31 PM
I'm not sure if the killing in Somalia was vigilantism, strictly speaking - the girl was 'convicted'
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 4:31 PM
How could anybody do such a thing WITHOUT religion?
Lynchings, for example, are not primarily motivated by religion.
Posted by: Joe | November 6, 2008 4:32 PM
@205: You're right, I should have explained. Your original comment made no mention of the man removing himself from the gene pool by way of capital punishment.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008 4:33 PM
poe.
Posted by: Patricia | November 6, 2008 4:33 PM
Pete Rooke, Oh, you mean guilty like the boy buggering catholic priests in your church?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 6, 2008 4:35 PM
Pete "well meaning fool" Rooke, you haven't spent enough time praying in how to come to grips with the modern world. Back to your church and don't come out until you realize your god made people gay.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008 4:35 PM
Pete I see you're back. I'm sure you'll dodge this and run off, but answer the question posed to your earlier.
What exactly is the gay lifestyle? Can you please let me know?
Posted by: Kel | November 6, 2008 4:40 PM
Pete, sodomy is obviously God's plan. Who are you to question the will of God?Posted by: Bart Mitchell | November 6, 2008 4:41 PM
I know what I would do. I would go to my home, get my rifle out of the safe, and shoot in the air. I would say, the first person who throws a rock, dies. And I would shoot anyone that tried to kill her.
I've used threat of force to protect a gay man, and I know that I would use threat of force to save that girl.
Two wrongs don't make a right, and I don't support the death penalty, but I do support the right to defend human life.
Posted by: Zaphod | November 6, 2008 4:42 PM
Granny: The old, tired, and smelly fish tale that "gods" give us morality was smashed ~350 BCE by Plato.
Read Euthyphro. Here's a link:
http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/euthyfro.html
Posted by: Pete Rooke | November 6, 2008 4:45 PM
Patricia: "Oh, you mean guilty like the boy buggering catholic priests in your church?"
I'm surprised that you are happy to blithely throw around the connection between paedophilia and Homosexuality. When I made the same connection, not by intention, I was roundly condemned.
Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM: I profess to have no particular insight into such matters.
Via http://www.Ask.com however, gaylifestylemonthly. com and on some decidedly negative aspects: www.guardian.co.uk/society/2003/nov/09/drugsandalcohol.drugs
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 4:47 PM
I'm not sure if the killing in Somalia was vigilantism, strictly speaking - the girl was 'convicted'
Ok, but it would be quite a stretch to consider it "due process" -- enough that it would be a difference of kind. And as PZ set it up, he's talking about stoning generally, even if this particular case can be squeezed into a "due process" frame. One can replace "vigilantism" with "vigilantism*" in my posts, where the latter includes people carrying out "justice" directly, even if state sanctioned. And whatever "directly" might mean there, it doesn't include casting a vote, which has no force by itself, only in its effect on a group statistic. Majority vote systems are problematic, but the cure is not straightforward, certainly not as straightforward as banning voting as if it were stoning. We know that this particular change to the constitution is unacceptable, but how exactly does one characterize which changes are and are not acceptable so that can be established a priori and not on an ad hoc Potter Stewart principle?
Posted by: Patricia | November 6, 2008 4:47 PM
By golly, I'd like to know what the gay life style is too. Maybe it's better than the farming life style.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 6, 2008 4:49 PM
Pete "well meaning fool" Rooke, the above is why you shouldn't post where you cannot make intelligent contributions. Now back to your church and keep praying until you can get your mind into the twentyfirst century.Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008 4:51 PM
Yet in comment #75 you said this.
So what is "such a lifestyle". You seem to be quick to disparage it. I'd like to know what it is.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 4:53 PM
I'm surprised that you are happy to blithely throw around the connection between paedophilia and Homosexuality.
You referred to sodomy, moron -- whether something is sodomy isn't dependent on the mental states of the participants.
As for perversion ... everything about you is perverted. Have you no shame?
Posted by: Desert Son | November 6, 2008 4:54 PM
PZ posted:
I'd like to answer the question in two parts. Part the First: I honestly don't know.
I have never been in that circumstance, and I hope profoundly never to find myself in such a circumstance. Since I have never been in that circumstance, I can't say how I'd act, especially because the particular circumstance would be, in my experience thus far, highly unusual and likely less correlated to previous action. I have behaved bravely and rightly before; I have also failed to behave as such. I just don't know.
Part the Second: I like to think/imagine that I would act bravely, and in a morally upright manner and make an attempt to stop the circumstance. It's been an emotional week for me, highs one minute (Obama winning the Presidential election), lows the next (reading the subject story). I like to think the situation would do more than just "get my blood up" and I'd spring into action and not only do the right thing, but in so doing, I also like to imagine that my effort would be inspirational enough that others in proximity would change sentiment and back me up. I like to think that I could even resolve such a dramatic change in the extant group dynamics through communication alone, and not with violence, and that should it have to come to violence to intervene, that I'd demonstrate moves worthy of Bruce Lee when he's got that look on his face just before he throws down with Oharra in Enter the Dragon.
But I just don't know.
In the meantime, I know some things that I can do: continue to speak out against bigotry where I encounter it; donate time and money to causes I feel educate and illuminate for more understanding; try to encourage good when I see it happen even as I try to condemn ill when I see it happen; support domestic and foreign policy that encourage positive change in places where these kinds of things happen; try to recognize my own savagery and failings when they rear and strive to act more humanely anyway.
Still the story horrifies.
No kings,
Robert
Posted by: StuV | November 6, 2008 4:57 PM
Granny: I see you've joined the debate club. Go back and study some more, because with this caliber of abject drivel you are going to fail.
For starters, you can google "humanism".
Posted by: Patricia | November 6, 2008 4:58 PM
You said sodomy Pete. My remarks come from reading page after page of court cases, as reported in the FFRF newspapers where the dominant charges with catholic priests has been with boys.
If I'm wrong point me toward the evidence.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008 4:59 PM
my money is on granny being poe in trojan horse form.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 5:00 PM
some decidedly negative aspects
And so because there's a lot of drug use among those who frequent the gay bar scene, it's going too far to recognize stable loving family relationships between people of the same sex. Sure, that makes sense -- to a bigoted, religion-addled moron.
Posted by: Pete Rooke | November 6, 2008 5:01 PM
Nerd of the Redhead: "you haven't spent enough time praying in how to come to grips with the modern world. Back to your church and don't come out until you realize your god (sic) made people gay."
I don't deny that God gives people challenges to deal with in there day-to-day lives. If indeed it is the case, as people of your ilk like to profess, that Homosexuals are born, and not made, then these people must learn to overcome these urges and live the good life. Many, many have.
As to the point about religion coming to grips with modernity, well that's patently false. In the words of MLK: "Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice." Advances by religious people inspired by religion have abolished slavery, established the first *great* democracy in the world and continue to fund aid around the world on an unprecedented scale.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008 5:06 PM
A just and loving god [no need for sic].
Posted by: Wowbagger | November 6, 2008 5:06 PM
Pete Rooke, sick fuck, wrote:
Funny how this sort of rationalisation is almost always used by straight, white males in first-world democracies, isn't it?
Your god's obviously given you the 'challenge' of being a clueless asshat; you don't sound like you've done much to overcome that.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 5:07 PM
whether something is sodomy isn't dependent on the mental states of the participants.
I should, of course, have mentioned ages and power relationships in addition to (or instead of) mental states.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | November 6, 2008 5:08 PM
Almost sounds like a new "Clarke's Law"!
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 5:10 PM
If indeed it is the case, as people of your ilk like to profess, that Homosexuals are born, and not made, then these people must learn to overcome these urges and live the good life.
Since everything about you is sick and perverted, why do you call it "good", and why must people learn to be like you?
Posted by: Granny | November 6, 2008 5:10 PM
Zaphod, I'm familiar with Euthyphro's dilemma, but your response utterly misses the point. The dilemma was between the idea that a) something is good because the gods like it and, b) the gods like it because it is good. For an atheist, neither is an option. Obviously, if there are no gods, then a) is a non-starter, but can an atheist go for b? Option b implies some transcendent set of moral absolutes that the gods (or humans) can refer to to see what is good or evil. But what kind of atheist believes in stuff like that? A true atheist doesn't believe in imaginary things like gods or transcendent moral absolutes. There is nothing 'right' or 'wrong' about the religious right, atheists, homosexuals, or stoning.
Posted by: Pete Rooke | November 6, 2008 5:13 PM
You said sodomy Pete.
I dare say most cases of sodomy do not involve paedophilia.
But anything to support your irrational hatred of the religion.
PS It was rightly termed "freedom of religion" in the constitution and I would hesitate to read anything published by the ontologically anti-constitutional FFRF.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 5:14 PM
Almost sounds like a new "Clarke's Law"!
Clarke's Law is a special case, where advancement measures degree and the kinds are technology and magic.
Posted by: Patricia | November 6, 2008 5:15 PM
Pete Rooke, If you think the bible isn't pro slavery, then you are one piss poor christian, who is obviously pig ignorant of the bible.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008 5:16 PM
And I dare say most cases might not involve only men.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 5:17 PM
I dare say most cases of sodomy do not involve paedophilia.
Non sequitur, you moron.
But anything to support your irrational hatred of the religion.
Are Catholic priests buggerers or aren't they?
Posted by: Cliff | November 6, 2008 5:19 PM
Let me try to clarify my point, since several people seem to be having a lot of trouble distinguishing between different things. If people were standing in front of the homes of married couples and shouting at them or spraypainting their homes, or making nasty phone calls, that would be a form of vigilantism that is arguably slightly more civilized than casting stones. But they, or very few, are doing that. Rather, the state presented them with a piece of paper, they filled in a circle, and the result of their group behavior will be to rip out from under loving couples their civil marital status. I'm not saying the impulse isn't the same, I'm not saying that what has been done isn't despicable, I am simply pointing out that one is vigilantism and one is a legal process that is supported even by many people who oppose some of its outcomes. Someone (SC?) might want to argue that such state processes are as bad as or worse than vigilantism, but that's an argument to be had, and not to simply be skipped over by saying that a vote is a fancy sort of stone throwing.
Thank you for the clarification.
Posted by: Wowbagger | November 6, 2008 5:20 PM
Pete Rooke, sick fuck, your brothers-in-faith made unwilling participants in sexual acts, one of the worst crimes possible. Then your church's leaders covered it up, protected the guilty, and allowed (if not encouraged) them to keep doing it to more people. Between being violated and denied justice, lives were (and are still being) destroyed.
And you think hating that is irrational?
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 5:22 PM
Your original comment made no mention of the man removing himself from the gene pool by way of capital punishment.
Since that likely consequence of being convicted of murder is what would make him eligible for the Darwin Award, I didn't think an intelligent audience would need it spelled out.
Posted by: E.V. | November 6, 2008 5:22 PM
So why wasn't her adulterous consort(s) stoned too? We all know the answer to that sadly. This is the society that thinks that male Islamic martyrs get 72 virgins in the afterlife. What do the women get? Then there are the honor killings noemally carried out in Bumfuckistan but now committed in the US and Europe by these delusional fucks.
I've left out the Christian idiots who refuse medical treatment for their kids; the Gawd-driven militia groups; the racist scum that drug James Byrd to death and those 6 toothed white supremacists who don't see the horror of that crime; the gay teens who are psychologically tortured, beaten or abandoned by their Religiotard families; the asswipes who threaten to kill one of their own over a magically blessed cracker... AAAAUUUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Life on Earth will be a lot better when the human species is long gone.
Granny:
Normally I respect my elder's, but in your case, with your smug but nonetheless idiotic fallacies, I'll tell you straight up -Fuck You and the horse you rode in on, bitch.
Posted by: Dianne | November 6, 2008 5:26 PM
large enough differences in degree are indistinguishable from differences in kind
Whether or not this is true, the distinction between denying people the right to marry based on their sexual orientation is not far enough from stoning people for adultery to be indistinguishable from a difference in kind. The right to marry and found a family is described by international organizations as a basic human right. Denial of a basic human right to people because you disapprove of their gender, race, religion or sexual orientation is not so far from stoning someone as to make the comparison out of line.
Posted by: PeteK | November 6, 2008 5:27 PM
At the end of "Bridge on the River Kwai", an officer walked around muttering "Madness", over and over..
Posted by: Anon Anon | November 6, 2008 5:27 PM
A substantial fraction of children born to married women are the product of adultery. Exact figures are hard to come by, but the correct number is around 10% to 30%. (See Wikipedia link below.)
The consequences of paternity fraud are similar to those of manslaughter and kidnapping. The child the husband would have had never lives because he cannot afford to pay for the interloper's child in addition to the one he would have had. The child grows up never knowing its father, which has consequences for the child's inheritance and medical issues.
Most states in the U.S. assume that any child born to a married man are his and they do not accept any evidence to the contrary. Thus, a substantial percentage of men have had their right to have children taken from them and are forced by the government to raise, or at least pay for, the child(ren) of the interloper.
I do not believe that adulterous women should be executed.
P.Z., what do you believe should be done to meet out justice to women who defraud their husbands about his paternity?
You claim to be a free thinker. It is easy to condemn people on the other side of the earth who brutally execute minors. Tell us what you would do with the 10% or so of American women who have harmed their husbands through paternity fraud. Do you have the guts oppose feminists with whom you associate?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternity_fraud
Posted by: Joe | November 6, 2008 5:30 PM
@247: "Since that likely consequence of being convicted of murder is what would make him eligible for the Darwin Award, I didn't think an intelligent audience would need it spelled out."
First, I have to assume another point about your original comment - that we are talking about a murder taking place in the US. Are we?
Second, can you tell me what the odds are that someone convicted of murder will a) be sentenced to death and b) will actually be put to death?
Posted by: Tom L | November 6, 2008 5:31 PM
"Someone (SC?) might want to argue that such state processes are as bad as or worse than vigilantism, but that's an argument to be had, and not to simply be skipped over by saying that a vote is a fancy sort of stone throwing.
Would you be happy and satsified if this girl were to have been put through a formal trial in front of an official judge, who after careful deliberation announced in his official capacity that "rape == adultery" and handed down a sentence of stoning?
Would you be happy and satisfied if some group managed to navigate the Constitutionally provided avenues to revise the California and United States Constitutions, to strip away the principle of equal protection, and insert language that once again blacks and women cannot vote; and have it all ratified by constitutional convention and state adoption?
Yes, a vote is, on occasion, merely putting an official stamp on stone-throwing. This is not different in any substantial way from PZ's original formulation.
Posted by: raven | November 6, 2008 5:37 PM
Just who is impregnating these married women, the Easter bunny? You are assuming in your psycho troll way that only women have sex and commit adultry. The husband is quite possibly out knocking up some other woman or a teen age girl. On average it all works out in the end. In fact, surveys state that men have more sexual partners than women and are more likely to commit adultry.
So what is your solution for men having affairs, castration, stoning, or lynching? And there goes half the male population, dead at the hands of irate mobs of woman.
Posted by: Joe | November 6, 2008 5:38 PM
@247: Actually, I found this on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States
"in recent years the average has been about one execution for about every 700 murders committed, or 1 execution for about every 325 murder convictions."
Doesn't sound as if removing oneself from the gene pool as a result of murdering someone is a "likely consequence."
Posted by: Pete Rooke | November 6, 2008 5:38 PM
Wowbagger: Pete Rooke, sick ****, your brothers-in-faith made unwilling participants in sexual acts, one of the worst crimes possible. Then your church's leaders covered it up, protected the guilty, and allowed (if not encouraged) them to keep doing it to more people. Between being violated and denied justice, lives were (and are still being) destroyed.
And you think hating that is irrational?
Lets keep it civil.
As to your conspiracy, well it is worthy of Dan Brown. Lets just entertain the absurd notion for a second however - why does that lead to a hatred of Catholicism? The dogma must surely stand alone - as either true or false. The acts of a few sinners does not alter the teachings one jot although, I readily agree that such acts would inspire strong emotions.
Expanding on this however, suppose it did give you the authority to dismiss Catholicism offhand. Does it give you the authority to dismiss the entire Christian tradition and all of the differing doctrinal perspectives?
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008 5:42 PM
Even for you Pete this is a ridiculous statement. Of all the Christian sects out there Catholics are up there as being the most tied to the Church and it's culture, celebrations, organization, rules and fanfare than any of them. The Church did systematically protect, reassign and hide the offenders while constantly putting more children in harm. You ignoring that shows what a dishonest sick person you are.
Posted by: Lurkbot | November 6, 2008 5:42 PM
This sickening story just keeps getting worse the more I think about it. The hope that the talibangelists and the bitterenders in the Religious Right in this country are any better seems misplaced to me, however.
Every time a new dispensation arises in the Semitic-descended religions, be it Yahwism, Christianity, Islam, Protestantism, etc., it usually starts by appealing to the previously powerless groups such as women, and they make it popular. Within a century or two, though, the same reactionary impulses that originally came out of the Arabian desert, that some omnipotent god who supposedly created the whole universe has nothing better to do than enforce the sexual mores of some primitive tribe of flea-bitten sandcrawlers, gets back in the saddle again.
Islam was originally a tolerant religion, but about 1000 on the Christian calendar it began to become obvious that they were never going to conquer the whole world as they had been promised, and the disappointment led to the rise of the kind of intolerant "fundamentalist" Islamism we see today. (That coupled with economic and technological inferiority in the last two centuries has created a real witches' brew.)
If you read some of the outpourings of the wingnuts over Tuesday's election results, you see the same sort of thing beginning. Make no mistake, the forces of violence and murder are girding themselves for the struggle. So yes, fight them tooth and nail! If a rock is all you've got, it's better than nothing.
To whoever said that there is no Somali Republic anymore: You're right. But at least they never had the power to carry out the threat implied by the other three points on their flag's star: incorporating Djibouti, the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, and the Northeast Province of Kenya!
Posted by: E.V. | November 6, 2008 5:45 PM
Anon Anon:
WTF? REALLY? And you will prove this... how?
People are being brutally killed and you're worried about paying the check for being cuckolded?
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah.
Seriously, you should consider self-annihilation and put yourself out of our misery.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008 5:50 PM
non-sequitur of the week goes to.
What a gigantic asshole you are. Even in this thread where Pete is showing his worst, you for a moment made me reconsider who here is the biggest moron.
Posted by: Anton Mates | November 6, 2008 5:52 PM
No, it doesn't. It simply implies that gods prefer whatever it is that most humans consider moral. This does not require either gods or humans to base their preferences on some transcendent reality. The Greek gods generally agreed with mortals about what food tastes good and which people were hot, but that doesn't imply transcendent Laws of Deliciousness and Bangworthiness.
Plenty of atheists believe in moral absolutes. Plenty of others don't, but nonetheless have grounds for considering moral judgments as meaningful as any other value judgments. Still others reject the concept of morality, but still have ethical preferences of some sort.
Why don't you ask some "true atheists" and actually find out how they deal with the issue?
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008 5:54 PM
I'm sticking with my comment at #231
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 6, 2008 5:56 PM
Pete "well meaning fool" Rooke, here is something you need to pray about. If you pray right, it might take you tens years to get answer. Otherwise, it might take forever. Either god made gays in which case we have to respect their rights, or gays are god's mistakes, in which case god isn't omnipotent, which is a requirement to be a god. This implies god doesn't exist. Pray for ten years minimum. Then get back to us with the answer.
Posted by: Wowbagger | November 6, 2008 5:56 PM
Pete Rooke,
Cram it in your jesus-hole. With walnuts.
Are you serious? Dan Brown is fiction. The church's cover-up of child-molesting priests is documented fact. Or are you claiming that it's all a fabrication? Maybe you better get a tinfoil hat to go with your gimp suit.
It leads to a (rational) hatred of catholicism because the people responsible for catholicism chose to protect the church rather than the victims. No doubt you feel similarly; that it was better for the 'good name' of the church to be protected than for those monsters to be stopped from their vile actions.
You dismiss homosexuality because you see it as a 'challenge' given by your god to certain people who need to overcome it. What did those kids who your brothers-in-faith raped (often repeatedly) do to deserve the 'challenge' of having their lives destroyed by the so-called agents of a supposedly kind and loving god?
Did I say that? No, the catholic church as an organisation has to answer for its numerous crimes. The authority to dismiss the entire christian tradition comes from the fact it is a tradition based on absurd and patently nonsensical lies, and is perpetuated and supported by a combination of the manipulative, the credulous and the ignorant.
Posted by: ildi | November 6, 2008 6:00 PM
Well, speaking as a "true atheist," I'm all over the transcendent Laws of Deliciousness and Bangworthiness.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008 6:01 PM
But even beyond that, Catholic doctrine is virtually inseparable from the organization and its traditions, ceremonies, rules and hierarchy of leaders.
Posted by: Milawe | November 6, 2008 6:06 PM
What happened to this girl is unimaginably horrific and that it will spread terror to women in Somalia, especially rape victims, is unquestionable. But surely this is why we should also encourage PZ to mention that the US is financially backing an Ethiopian occupation of Southern Somalia and that occupation and wars historically lead to increased rapes as the soldiers on both sides attempt to attack and defile women as a weapon of terror.
Posted by: Buford | November 6, 2008 6:07 PM
It seems to me that marraige rights should be seen in the same historical context as voting rights.
The American founding fathers wanted every 'citizen' to have a vote. They did not realize that their definition of 'citizen' was too limiting. Their original definition left out a lot of people - women, non-landowners, slaves and many others.
The progress of our democracy has been in recognizing those limitations and expanding the definition to be more inclusive. We didn't notice all of the limitations at one moment and fix it at one time. Women got the vote at a different time than non-whites and non-landowners was different still. The good news is that we continue to sporadically recognize mistakes and fix them.
I think that marraige rights are similar. The old definitions of who qualifies are quite restricting and no rational reasons exist for being so - just historical (and hystrical) ones. It takes time and effort for a society to recognize that it has been blind to a particular form of injustice and to change it. It is to be expected that not everyone will agree at first.
Eventually atheists will also be recognized as people who should be included rather than excluded.
I mentioned earlier that the progress of democracy was being more inclusive. I meant progress in a positive sense. We have had some negatives temporarily enshrined along the way. One way of looking at the amendments to the Constitution: the ones that expanded rights have been kept and the ones that restricted rights have been reversed after further thought (Prohibition).
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008 6:08 PM
There is no doubt that happens, but did I miss that these were soldiers that raped this girl?
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 6:08 PM
Whether or not this is true, the distinction between denying people the right to marry based on their sexual orientation is not far enough from stoning people for adultery to be indistinguishable from a difference in kind.
That's not the difference I referred to. Rather, I was referring to the difference between casting a stone and casting a vote. In addition to the due process/vigilante distinction, a vote has no effect unless it's part of a statistical majority, so it's a bit more like everyone putting their hands on a giant stone, and the stone only gets thrown if the number of hands placed below it exceed the number of stones placed above it.
The right to marry and found a family is described by international organizations as a basic human right. Denial of a basic human right to people because you disapprove of their gender, race, religion or sexual orientation is not so far from stoning someone as to make the comparison out of line.
No disagreement there. My objection is to the claim that how the denial was performed was "simply ... a slightly more civilized version of casting a stone". That statement is facile and false, and its falsity has nothing to do with how heinous it is to deprive people of this basic human right. And the more complex reality leads to serious questions about democracy, voting, the California initiative process, the California amendment process, and so on. As it so happens, descriptions by international organizations are not binding law in California. What is now binding law -- unless someone can craft a constitutional argument that will win over a majority of the California Supreme Court -- is religious-fed bigotry.
Posted by: Walton | November 6, 2008 6:08 PM
Not that I'm defending Islamic law in the slightest, or the barbaric practice of stoning women to death - but just to be pedantic, the news story to which this blog post links makes two important points, which don't appear to have been discussed:
(1) We don't know the girl was 13, since there's been no reliable international observation. Amnesty International has made that claim, based largely, it would seem, on hearsay. It was initially claimed that she was 22 or 23.
(2) Stoning a girl of 13 to death for adultery would be illegal under Islamic law.
Don't get me wrong. It's still a stupid and savage practice to stone anyone, of any age, to death for adultery, and I haven't missed the main point of this post. But as a pedant, I do feel it's better not to jump to conclusions based on limited evidence.
Posted by: Wowbagger | November 6, 2008 6:14 PM
Exactly. Any halfway decent person would have distanced his- or herself from the church the instant the truth about the repeated rapes and the cover-ups came out.
I mean, c'mon. Sure, if you're the sort of person who can't live without wanting to feel guilty about thinking perfectly normal thoughts, or telling other people what to do (or not to do) in their own bedrooms, or sucking up to an invisible man in the sky so you can go to the most boring place imaginable after you die, go start your own damn sect; it's not like it hasn't been done before.
Posted by: Jackie | November 6, 2008 6:16 PM
You know, I'm sick of mathematicians. They're so evil. Just take Ted Kaczynski the "Unabomber" for example. Maybe we should just outlaw mathematicians. Mathematicians are the root of all evils. Stop them now!
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 6:17 PM
The American founding fathers wanted every 'citizen' to have a vote.
Actually they didn't: "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors ..."
Posted by: Benny | November 6, 2008 6:19 PM
God and sex don't get along well together?
I thank God for giving me a wonderful wife with whom I have still great sex!
BTW...we got married in a beautiful little church in Kent, UK, 25 yrs ago!
Otherwise it's a nice post, PZ...(maybe our muslim brothers won't like it, but they should take courage! You don't write very often "about" Islam. Somehow, you prefer Christians...)
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008 6:19 PM
Does math tell it's followers (math followers???) to discriminate against others?
weak weak weak
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008 6:21 PM
watered down fatwa envy?
Posted by: Kel | November 6, 2008 6:22 PM
I'm sure Pete is Jesus incarnate, and that's why he has no problem in casting the first stone.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 6:22 PM
You know, I'm sick of mathematicians. They're so evil. Just take Ted Kaczynski the "Unabomber" for example. Maybe we should just outlaw mathematicians. Mathematicians are the root of all evils. Stop them now!
While many people who voted for Prop 8 may have thought they were outlawing gays, or gay sex, or gay relationships, or gays raising children (all those idiots saying "I voted yes because children need a mommy and a daddy"), or gays sharing health insurance, etc., fortunately they didn't achieve any of that.
Posted by: John Morales | November 6, 2008 6:23 PM
Well, I think it's more civil to use the term "sick fuck" to express an honest opinion than to deliberately misinterpret, mischaracterise and lie about what someone someone presents. Civility is more about the way one conducts oneself than the specific terminology one uses.In this case, clearly Catholicism is instantiated by the Catholic Church and no-one else, and Wowbagger's claims are not controversial.
Bah.
Posted by: Tom L | November 6, 2008 6:25 PM
This paternity tangent is going seriously off topic, but what the hell.
The obvious answer to that problem is to make paternity testing a routine post-partum procedure. For most people it will be the merest formality. (And those men who view it as a violation of privacy within their marriage can always waive the test). For those cases where it actually matters, the husband's rights are preserved. When a failed match is detected, the mother must name all possible progenitors of the child, or face sole financial responsibility for the child in the event her husband wishes to divorce. The men she names then submit DNA, and the, ahem, "winner" is then responsible for child support -- even if the husband wishes to forgive and forget, and retain status as the official father of that child.
** No one is made to pay for a child he did not sire.
** Everyone who actually fathers a child pays for that child
** Everyone who cheats badly enough to cause a pregnancy is exposed, which should be at least a minor deterrent.
** Men who are messing around with married women face the possibility of paying for a child they don't get to be Dad of -- also a deterrent.
There. No stoning necessary.
Now, can we get back on topic?
Posted by: Sastra | November 6, 2008 6:28 PM
Granny #208 wrote:
As long as humans share a common evolved nature, there will be basic and fundamental agreements on good and evil, and right and wrong, which "transcend" the individual or group, and apply to all humans. Not transcendence, but intersubjectivity -- that's the rock on which any absolute or near-absolute must be grounded, whether God exists or not. Theists themselves are forced to assume humanistic ethics, whenever they appeal to a God that represents a universal sense of what is Good. There has to be that sense in the first place, or God could not satisfy it. You cannot just hustle God's moral superiority and goodness into the definition of God: it has to be recognizable.
What God adds, of course, is not moral authority -- we grant God moral authority when we recognize it as meeting our own understanding of right and wrong -- it adds in new facts, and takes away the ability to counter these facts with "worldly" argument. People who are innocent on the secular level become criminals on the "spiritual" level.
So my point in #27 stands:
If God exists, then killing a 13 year old girl is wrong whatever God thinks about it. If God could not condone what these Somalians did, then God is bowing to the logical higher authority of what is fair among human beings.
Posted by: John Morales | November 6, 2008 6:29 PM
Wowbagger, I should know by now to refresh before posting.
heh.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 6:33 PM
Would you be happy and satsified if this girl were to have been put through a formal trial in front of an official judge, who after careful deliberation announced in his official capacity that "rape == adultery" and handed down a sentence of stoning?
Would you be happy and satisfied if you weren't an idiot? I said nothing about what pleases me, only that certain things are different from each other. In fact, if you weren't so fucking stupid, you would grasp that I have repeatedly acknowledged the tyranny of the majority, and have referred to Prop 8 as despicable and heinous.
This is not different in any substantial way from PZ's original formulation.
It's not different in any substantial way if you ignore all the substantial differences.
Posted by: Lowell | November 6, 2008 6:34 PM
First, Benny, if you use the search functions, you'll find quite a few posts on Pharyngula critical of Islam.
Second, although PZ does address Christianity more often that Islam, there's a good explanation for that: he lives in a country where Christianity is the dominant religion.
Posted by: Wowbagger | November 6, 2008 6:37 PM
John Morales wrote
That's fine; I appreciate the support. Pete Rooke's a seriously disturbed and deluded individual, even for a xian. Perhaps the sheer volume of posts pointing out the failure of the catholic church as a pillar of morality and goodness (the irony!) will make him think a little bit more about it.
Unfortunately, I can picture him (as much as I don't want to) in his basement in his gimp suit, his jesus-and-mary porn on the screen, his soiled-with-ejaculate-bible, and his books covered in human skin; tinfoil hat on his head and fingers in his ears: 'la la la la I am not listening...'
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 6:40 PM
Doesn't sound as if removing oneself from the gene pool as a result of murdering someone is a "likely consequence."
Ok, then change it to "For which you would increase your chances of winning the Darwin Award to 1 in 325". Thanks for helping me improve it so much.
Posted by: Azdak | November 6, 2008 6:40 PM
Yeah, that's a real mystery. Perhaps it's because he lives in a predominately Christian culture where Christians try to force the rest of us to live according to their peculiar superstitions. Frankly, it'd be pretty weird if he only went after witch doctors and Islamic fundamentalists on the other side of the planet without commenting on the same sort of crazy nonsense going on in our own society.Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 6:42 PM
The consequences of paternity fraud are similar to those of manslaughter and kidnapping.
A caution about being too facile in talking about differences of degree.
Posted by: Joe | November 6, 2008 6:42 PM
@287: Anytime, brother.
Posted by: Walton | November 6, 2008 6:43 PM
Unless PZ wants to point to some transcendent moral absolutes that are true for all people in all places and at all times, then why in the world should he think that 'right' and 'wrong' are real? If there is no 'god' or no transcendent moral laws, then killing a 13 year old girl is no more right or wrong than a Northern Pike having a good meal of its offspring.
This is, for me, a major point of confusion. On the one hand, I am inclined to believe in an objective morality which transcends human culture and society; and, without theism, it's difficult to identify the source of such morality.
On the other hand, the Judeo-Christian conception of God doesn't really explain it either. What about Numbers 31? Or the Book of Joshua? In these, if the narrative is taken to be accurate, God commanded genocide, the slaughter of innocent women and children purely because of the race and nation to which they belonged. If there are universal, objective moral values, this surely offends against them.
So it is rather difficult to understand. If there is no God, then why do we need, or profess, an objective standard of morality beyond that which is socially-defined? But if the Judeo-Christian God is real, and morality stems from divine command, then why does our instinctive moral sense directly conflict with God's purported commands in the biblical narrative? Of course, one can believe in a God or gods while rejecting the Abrahamic tradition - but most religious stories have similarly unpalatable aspects. And one can believe in a (deistic or non-interventionist) God or gods while rejecting existing religion entirely - but then how do we know what such a God expects of us, or where true morality lies?
Posted by: 'Tis Himself | November 6, 2008 6:47 PM
Granny,
If you make something difficult to read, people will not read it. Paragraphs are your friends. Learn to use them.
Posted by: Tom L | November 6, 2008 6:48 PM
"Would you be happy and satisfied if you weren't an idiot?
Wow, way to argue the merits of your case, there.
"I said nothing about what pleases me, only that certain things are different from each other."
Sure, that a vote to stone is different from -- and apparently somehow better than -- actually throwing one yourself, as if the girl in question would be somehow better off by all the political machinery being exercised before being killed, or that somehow justice had been served thereby.
"in fact, if you weren't so fucking stupid, you would grasp that I have repeatedly acknowledged the tyranny of the majority, and have referred to Prop 8 as despicable and heinous."
I'm referring to your apparent reverence for due process. absent, at least in earlier posts, an equal reverence for sanity of outcomes. Even your analogy about a giant rock seems to give it a pass: because so many hands were on the rock before it was thrown, that somehow makes it okay that it was thrown, because at least some other hands were resisting it.
If the outcome is awful, how it was arrived at is irrelevant. At the moment, you and I appear to agree on that idea.
Posted by: Kel | November 6, 2008 6:49 PM
And the cries of persecution were sung high on the hills, by the choir of the children of God. For they were truly at one with the suffering of their lord. They did bequeath a message of subjugation where the promised land would be theirs; indeed the time of reckoning was at hand. An obstacle of towering proportions blocked the path for they could never yield to grandeur whilst the dissenter mocked in fury from the sideline."There is no promised land, thou art madmen" the dissenter would cry, a taint of scepticism would tarnish the air. Uncertainty wavered the faith of even the most stoic follower, the weakness of the fall pulsing through their veins and etching away at their very soul. But one cried out "Enough! Why are we faltering on the account of that one dissenter? Why is our faith damaged by those who deny the glory of the Creator? Is it not said that He forgives all? And we, made in His likeness have the capacity to forgive too. We have the duty to be in His image and show tolerance, for that is truly the meaning of the sacrifice"
For a while the group was stunned, guilt washed over them and there was a moment of catharsis as only the holy spirit can provide. They realised at this moment the dissenter was themselves, that they had been led astray by their own feelings of inadequacy. This was the moment that would renew them, they would be born again and be as one with God. But first, just to be on the safe side they killed the dissenter anyway. After all, Jesus forgives all except blasphemy ;)
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 6:49 PM
Are Catholic priests buggerers or aren't they?
[chirp]
Posted by: Nate | November 6, 2008 6:54 PM
Religion is excellent at elevating intangible, untestable lies to a higher plane of moral significance than something as real and as simple as the life of a child.
That is very well put.
Posted by: raven | November 6, 2008 6:57 PM
Could it be because the Islamic wingnuts are over there, doing sickening things to each other.
Whereas, the Xian wingnuts are over here, doing sickening things to each other and anyone else they target.
Osama bin Laden knocked down a skyscraper and killed 3,000 people. Bush and his collection of religious fanatics all but wrecked the United States and killed more than that by a long ways.
PZ's Representative, Michelle Bachmann wants to root out "antiAmerican" congresspeople and believes the Catholic church is headed by the Antichrist. And he gets hate mail and death threats on a routine basis from xians who tried to get him fired. Nothing like seeing demented religious fanatics on a daily basis.
Posted by: E.V. | November 6, 2008 6:59 PM
Yeah, if you leave out (pathos) sympathy, pity, empathy, sense of fairness, sense of justice; or are you implying atheists are incapable of these things?See: Secular Humanism:
Posted by: John Morales | November 6, 2008 6:59 PM
tm @295, only a very small proportion, I suspect. I was heavily involved with Catholic priests in my childhood and the worst I encountered was public "drop-your-pants bare-bum spanking" as punishment during class.
It's the denial and hypocrisy that annoy me, particularly the Church policy of supporting their own functionaries (who've abused the trust required of them by followers) despite their claimed morality.
Posted by: Mu | November 6, 2008 7:02 PM
Craig,
I grew up in a country (Germany in the 70s) where a small group of people thought to impose their version of needed change on the people by killing some high profile people - leading to an enormous backlash of exactly the kind of suppression they were trying to fight. All that stuff we have here since 9/11, machine guns in airports, searches, been there, done that 30 years ago. I see the same kind of "we can't live with small change, we want it all, and we want it now" attitude in parts of the gay rights movement (and I know now someone will accuse me of linking them to terrorist violence; sod off). The gay rights movement squandered a perfect opportunity for equal legal rights over the symbol of being allowed to marry. I even bet no one would have objected if they would have sworn to their civil union in front of a priest. All gone now on the altar of "it's total victory or death".
It might be not the bravest activist position, but I take 99% for free now over nothing for 20 years and a fight.
Posted by: Buford | November 6, 2008 7:06 PM
Truth machine, OM @ 274
Sorry for the delay. My internet connection went wonky.
Do you disagree with me or did you just want to point out that we do not vote directly for President?
I am aware of the Electoral College. I do not think that is relevant to my point (in #268 for those of you following along at home)
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 7:07 PM
Wow, way to argue the merits of your case, there.
Are you happy to be a blithering hypocrite? Your "would you be happy" bullshit was a condescending ad hominem strawman attack on me for which you deserve nothing from me but to be smacked hard.
I'm referring to your apparent reverence for due process.
Once again, cretin, "I said nothing about what pleases me, only that certain things are different from each other". Perhaps if you offered up a quote where I expressed such reverence you might get some respect from me. What I did say,and which you did quote, was "Someone (SC?) might want to argue that such state processes are as bad as or worse than vigilantism". But yes, I do prefer the California initiative process, flawed as it is, to people throwing stones, silly me.
absent, at least in earlier posts, an equal reverence for sanity of outcomes.
What, fuckhead, I have to come out and say that stoning children is evil for you to assume that I have "equal reverence" for them not being stoned? As for Prop 8, "earlier posts" includes other threads here where I have expressed my opposition in the strongest terms, and even without that, anyone here who is at all familiar with my stands on religion and human rights would know where I stand on Prop 8. In any case, I have no obligation to spell out every one of my views just to keep an imbecile like you to make unwarranted assumptions about them.
If the outcome is awful, how it was arrived at is irrelevant. At the moment, you and I appear to agree on that idea.
No, dipshit, if the outcome is awful, we agree that it is awful. But I have pointed out ways in which how it was arrived at is relevant. See, if you weren't so dumb, you could grasp that relevance is relative. Of course how an awful result is obtained is not relevant to it being awful, but, like, duh.
Posted by: Tom L | November 6, 2008 7:10 PM
Regarding the question of what would I do in the situation: I can't really say. If it were my daughter or wife being subjected to such a profound injustice, I might well bring an AK-47 to the event and try to take out as many of the madmen stoning my kin for such down-the-rabbit-hole logic as daring to be victimized by other madmen. (By the way, firing a gun in the air and saying "First one to throw a stone dies" is for all intents and purposes saying "Shoot me first, throw rocks second.")
On the other hand, the above assumes that I would be acting out of my current understanding of morality. More likely, having grown up there and been thoroughly indoctrinated into the madness, I would be throwing rocks myself, in order to restore the honor of my family.
This is not to give them a pass on their heinous action, nor to imply that morality is properly relative and subject to local social custom; merely to note that insanity is a communicable disease.
Posted by: Kel | November 6, 2008 7:10 PM
That's one thing I've always found annoying about talking in absolutes, that is if there is no absolute source of morality then there is only moral subjectivism. It's a play on semantics and ignores much of what we know about evolutionary psychology. The sense of right and wrong is an evolved trait, born out of repeated social interaction and geared towards survival of the group and the invidivual within it. There are no objective morals to reach for, morality itself is a social construct.
It's like saying without an absolute lawgiver that transcends society, there can be no law.
Posted by: Tom L | November 6, 2008 7:13 PM
tm, For someone who dislikes ad hominems, you sure call a lot of names.
Posted by: John Morales | November 6, 2008 7:18 PM
Tom @305, you apparently misunderstand what ad hominem means.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 7:20 PM
Do you disagree with me or did you just want to point out that we do not vote directly for President?
Yes, I disagree that "The American founding fathers wanted every 'citizen' to have a vote. They did not realize that their definition of 'citizen' was too limiting." The first sentence is contrary to the evidence and the second sentence is silly.
As to both voting rights and marital rights evolving historically -- yes, but voting rights have been historically expanded via amendment and statute, whereas marital rights have been sometimes expanded and, as we just saw, sometimes curtailed.
Posted by: Kel | November 6, 2008 7:22 PM
Ad hominem:
You're argument is wrong because you're an arsehole
Not ad hominem:
You're argument is wrong because you failed to take into account the empirical data as given here, by the way you're an arsehole.
Insulting someone is not a logical fallacy, using said insult as your argument is a logical fallacy.
Posted by: Zaphod | November 6, 2008 7:24 PM
Granny wrote: "A true atheist doesn't believe in imaginary things like gods or transcendent moral absolutes. There is nothing 'right' or 'wrong' about the religious right, atheists, homosexuals, or stoning."
Certainly an atheist doesn't believe in airy-fairy nonsense like gods. In fact, pretty much every theist also rejects nearly all of the gods ever worshipped. They just usually stop throwing them out with one remaining, presumably like a souvenier shell from the beach. Atheists do them one better and get rid of the shopworn myth altogether.
What is "good" is a matter about which there can certainly be debate. Certainly, much that seems "good" to various religions is patently and obviously vile and evil. The case before us being a wonderful example. How can an atheist determine good and evil? He or she can start from the ethical bases common to nearly all philosophies. The golden rule, for example, which was pronounced in various ways by Buddha and Socrates, among others, centuries before the Christians co-opted it.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 7:25 PM
tm, For someone who dislikes ad hominems, you sure call a lot of names.
That's exactly right, moron. It is because you attacked my claims about what is or isn't different by blithering about what makes me happy -- an irrelevant ad hominem -- that I call you the names you deserve. Now, if I reversed it and claimed that, because you're an idiot, you must be wrong, that would be ad hominem.
Posted by: Buford | November 6, 2008 7:27 PM
OK then.
You may be in a bad mood from the Tom L thread.
I won't pursue it.
Posted by: costanza | November 6, 2008 7:28 PM
The problem here is point of view. Human beings are disreputable, violent creatures. Evidence? Look at human history - we spend more time, money, intellectual output...you name it...waging war. I live behind the walls of the so-called Ivory Tower now, but that wasn't always the case. Yes, you can say that, "I would never sit by while that happened", but for most of you...well..you don't really know, do you? (it's an easy thing to say, sitting in a Starbucks or what have you). Thomas Hobbe's ideas concerning human nature were perhaps too lenient. These people killed because they wanted to...religion was the excuse, not the cause.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 7:34 PM
Tom @305, you apparently misunderstand what ad hominem means.
Yes indeedy.
Like, say, what would make them happy.
And for that crime against reason I, the truth vigilante, throw my stones.
Posted by: Azdak | November 6, 2008 7:34 PM
There's no such thing as red -- some things just happen to reflect light in the 600 - 750 nm wavelength. So why do people of all cultures and societies with normal, healthy eyesight consistently report seeing red when you show them an object that reflects light within that range? Just because a concept is "just in our head" doesn't mean that it's completely arbitrary.Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 7:36 PM
You may be in a bad mood from the Tom L thread.
Um, ad hominememememem...
Posted by: Patricia | November 6, 2008 7:36 PM
I see ol Pete didn't want any part of the slavery issue.
And now here comes Walton back, still has his poker too.
Posted by: SC | November 6, 2008 7:38 PM
tm,
Check your emails. :D
Posted by: Azdak | November 6, 2008 7:38 PM
Hmm... I went a different way with my argument than I had originally intended, and now, in hindsight, I probably should have quoted Granny instead of Walton.
Ah, well. Time to go butcher some tunes, anyway.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 6, 2008 7:40 PM
Patricia, ole Pete doesn't seem to like to be challenged. Of course, it might upset his faith if he actually looks at the facts of what the bible says, and what his church does.
Which sex have you decided upon of Walton's hooker?
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 7:42 PM
I am inclined to believe in an objective morality which transcends human culture and society; and, without theism, it's difficult to identify the source of such morality.
That you need theism to support this belief should be a good reason for you to abandon the belief (aside from it being frankly incoherent).
If there is no God, then why do we need, or profess, an objective standard of morality beyond that which is socially-defined?
We don't need it, and as "profess", that's like asking why we profess that breaking mirrors is bad luck.
Posted by: John Morales | November 6, 2008 7:46 PM
Azdak,
[1] That's what we call "red". (reflect or generate - e.g. LEDs)
[2] Because, when language is learnt, those people are told that that perception is the perception of "red".
Pedantry aside, I don't think your analogy is applicable, since perception of morality is not a sensory perception but a cognitive one (or, it's subjective not objective).
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 7:48 PM
Check your emails. :D
Nuthin' there ... when did you send?
Posted by: SC | November 6, 2008 7:53 PM
Nuthin' there ... when did you send?
Yikes. About ten minutes ago. To the newer one. Please tell me you got it. If it went to someone else, that would be a problem.
Posted by: Sastra | November 6, 2008 7:54 PM
Walton #291 wrote:
Try an experiment: think of what an 'objective morality' which 'transcends' human nature would be like.
A morality that transcends individuals means that a person could be wrong about what is right.
A morality that transcends culture means that a culture could be wrong about what is right.
A morality that transcends humanity means that human beings, taken as a collective species, can all be wrong about what is right.
That last one is problematic. It would entail that love, fairness, kindness, generosity, honesty, justice -- every basic virtue which humans value as basic virtues -- could all be wrong. It could turn out that they're bad things, and Objective Morality is invested in some alien Uber Species or God which looks evil to humans, but is really Perfect and Good.
But why the hell call that thing "Good" - if you're a human?
That's why you can't ground an 'objective' or universal morality in a source outside of human nature -- like God. It only works if God must be the reflection of everything we already value, human nature symbolized. God's morals would have to make sense to us, or they're useless. And if they make sense to us, then recognizing God as their source is irrelevant. We can figure right and wrong out on our own. It makes no pragmatic difference if God or evolution is the reason we got the way we are. Once you have intersubjective values, you work from there. Source doesn't matter.
I think the reason the God of the Bible is immoral when regarded by modern eyes is that the Bible assumes a world where it's a given that purity, obedience, and loyalty to tribe and Authority have been structured into the universe as the highest values, trumping all others. There's no good reason to rank them that way, though, absent a specific God which set the universe up that way.
In fact, there's no good reason to rank them that way even if God did set the universe up that way. Unless God can persuade everyone that His way is best, He's just one opinion among many. The ability to smite your enemies does not make one right. Not even if you're God.
If we can create a better God than God, there's no reason to assume that we must believe in one, or we can't create a better one.
Posted by: Michael Hawkins | November 6, 2008 7:59 PM
Religion is an excellent catalyst for bigotry and hatred.
http://forthesakeofscience.wordpress.com/2008/11/04/solid-argument/
Posted by: Patricia | November 6, 2008 8:00 PM
That should be a group decision made by everyone that has donated, unless Walton identifies the gender of a hooker he'd prefer.
Personally, I'd like to hire The Lady Chablis. I'd imagine she could do something interesting with that poker.
Posted by: Dan | November 6, 2008 8:04 PM
There should have been a Proposition 8b, next to Prop 8, banning mixed race marriages.
I wonder what the the outcome would have been. I mean, when civil rights stares you in the face...
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 8:07 PM
That's what we call "red". (reflect or generate - e.g. LEDs)
It's what we call red wavelengths, a matter of physical definition. But perception of red is a quite different thing, and we can perceive red when no wavelengths in the red range are present, and we can perceive those wavelengths as colors other than red.
Because, when language is learnt, those people are told that that perception is the perception of "red".
I think Adzak's point is that we have a common physiology.
Pedantry aside, I don't think your analogy is applicable, since perception of morality is not a sensory perception but a cognitive one (or, it's subjective not objective).
Analogies depend on similarities; they aren't made inapplicable just because there are differences -- there are always differences. The universality of morality (to the degree that it is) is in part a consequence of a common biology and evolution.
Posted by: John Morales | November 6, 2008 8:10 PM
Patricia, I think Sastra is far more likely to reach Walton than you.
His earnestness kinda balances your frivolity, so for mine you both contribute. Remember, every good routine needs a straight guy :)
PS the contrast in age, sex and outlook is duly appreciated by me.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 8:12 PM
Please tell me you got it.
Not yet. I just sent you one ("Maybe it's stuck in the tubes").
Posted by: Dexter Fox | November 6, 2008 8:24 PM
Religion is the ultimate trump card. You can trump law, decency, the social good, anything. God is bigger than any of those. If God tells you it's alright, then you can sleep at night.
Religion isn't the basis of morality, it is the subversion of morality. The perversion. The antithesis of morality.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 8:25 PM
His earnestness
Her.
Posted by: SC | November 6, 2008 8:26 PM
Finally. Phew!
For fuck's sake - they "upgraded" my email, and now it doesn't work. I tried to reply, but I don't think it went through. Here's what it said:
"I'm a complicated woman. :)
Soon - I promise."
Posted by: mayhempix | November 6, 2008 8:28 PM
Posted by: Pete Rooke | November 6, 2008 4:28 PM
"People who engage in sodomy or other perversions often have a sense of guilt or shame as a result of there actions."
And Pete knows this because...?
Posted by: Heidi Anderson | November 6, 2008 8:29 PM
As someone who lurks here frequently, I feel the need to stick up for consensual sodomy - mentioned a few posts back. But I guess since I am a woman, married to a man, the state doesn't care about that.
I saw all heterosexuals so inclined throw a "love-in" so to speak, in there towns and cities where Prop 8 and the like passed. Sodomy-Ins!!!!
Posted by: John Morales | November 6, 2008 8:29 PM
tm #328,
I can't dispute the first sentence, or the the second in general terms. But, to be applicable as an analogy, it should also not have qualitative (categorical?) differences.I don't think it's applicable because colour perception is not (I think) changeable according to our current beliefs, whilst morals are.
That said, I will think on your clarification.
Posted by: Malcolm | November 6, 2008 8:33 PM
Pete Rooke The vile troll blathered @256,
It isn't uncivil to point out that the catholic church covers up crimes against kiddies. Suggesting that wearing miniskirts is an invitation to rapists is uncivil. Please learn to tell the difference.
I think that when discussing this topic with catholics, it is important to point out that this doesn't just involve "a few sinners", as the troll here would like to imply. The orders to cover this up, and excommunicate those who talked to the cops, came from the man they now call the pope.
Emphasis mine. What "authority" is needed to dismiss fairy tales?Posted by: John Morales | November 6, 2008 8:34 PM
tm @333, Walton is female?
Wow, I'm thick. Luckily, other than the pronoun, I need change nothing I wrote :)
Posted by: Buford | November 6, 2008 8:34 PM
Not ad hominem at all.
Not an attack or an argument.
Just an observation on my part that may or may not be true, but nevertheless helps me decide to not continue discussing anything further tonight.
Posted by: SC | November 6, 2008 8:36 PM
And Pete knows this because...?
My evening is complete.
Posted by: Sven DIMilo | November 6, 2008 8:39 PM
Naw, I don;t think so. I think the Machine interpreted your syntax to mean that the "he" referred to Sastra. As did I at first.Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 8:39 PM
tm @333, Walton is female?
Sastra. Your pronoun was rather ambiguous -- apparently I picked the wrong referent.
Wow, I'm thick.
So I've said, but probably not in this case. :-)
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 8:45 PM
I don't think it's applicable because colour perception is not (I think) changeable according to our current beliefs, whilst morals are.
Again, you're picking out a difference, when it's the similarity that makes the analogy explanatory -- universality of human circumstances yields universality of human attributes, whether it's color perception or taboos.
Posted by: casey | November 6, 2008 8:48 PM
Why are ppl like Pete anit-sodomy? Does it bother them that much that other ppl are getting action they aren't?
Also, i am quite sure that the majority of sodomy is heterosexual, I'm not sure why they think it has anything to do with being gay or straight. it's a sexual act like any other... i have trouble believing these guys would say no to a blow job from their partners.
Are you still against sodomy Pete if it's married partners?
Posted by: Patricia | November 6, 2008 8:49 PM
Why thank you John!
Emmet Caulfield started a donation drive to hire a hooker to remove the poker Walton has so firmly inserted up his joyless backside. So with my $20, we now have $40 towards the hooker.
I think Walton is a male, and 19 years old. But he could be some prissy old lady for all we know. He got his tighty whitey's all in a knot when I ask him why he hangs out here all the time, and isn't out getting drunk and laid.
We think Walton needs a professional hooker with goodly experience to remove that poker. Sastra nor I, probably just don't have the proper training.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 8:54 PM
Not ad hominem at all.
You seemed to suggest that I may have written what I did in response to you because I "may be in a bad mood", which would be an ad hominem dismissal of the substance of what I wrote. But perhaps you were just expressing a concern that my attitude toward him might spill over to you, so you were avoiding any possibility of that. But I generally compartmentalize pretty well.
I suggest you do some more reading about the attitude of the founders toward "citizens" voting.
Posted by: Patricia | November 6, 2008 8:57 PM
What?!
Truth Machine, Walton is a girl?
Well, if that's the case, the need for the hooker is even greater.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 6, 2008 9:09 PM
Truth Machine, Walton is a girl?
Not that I know of. But Sastra is an earnest one, and I thought JM was referring to her.
Posted by: mayhempix | November 6, 2008 9:15 PM
Why don't we hook up Pete and Walton?
Posted by: John Morales | November 6, 2008 9:49 PM
Um, Peter Rooke is despicable, Walton is just naive.To tie this back to the post, I can certainly imagine Peter Rooke throwing rocks at a helpless girl (whilst feeling virtuous) were someone with "spiritual authority" to tell him it was morally right, but I doubt Walton would (and certainly not without arguing the case, anyway).*
They both seem to annoy regular posters, but for quite different reasons, and at least Walton claims to be (and I don't disbelieve him) open to persuasion.
As W to needing a hooker, well he's male, 19 and a law student in England. I very, very much doubt he's virginal in a sexual sense - not that I don't think he's getting a metaphorical deflowering here.
---
* I would, but only under immediate duress and with feelings of self-loathing. I'd likely rationalise it as "her or me", and plot revenge thereafter.
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | November 6, 2008 9:51 PM
Slightly unfair. Walton is, at worst, an earnest bore in dire need of a blow-job. Pete, OTOH, is a festering sore on a three-legged donkey's cock-shaft who earned a killfile entry from me after about half-a-dozen ejections of purulent intellectual excrement that, presumably, festers in his puny frontal lobes, shriveled to walnut-size by the narrow-minded misogyny spoon-fed to him by the evil child-rape enabling scutterholes that he looks to for moral guidance.
Posted by: mayhempix | November 6, 2008 9:59 PM
@ Morales and Caulfield
Humor people, humor.
In the context of previous posts about hookers and sodomy, it seemd like a natural progression. But I do agree that Pete is in a sick league of his own and Walton does seem genuine if naive and in need..
Posted by: Zaphod | November 6, 2008 10:00 PM
On a completely separate note: the likelihood that anyone would defend the 13 year old girl, having been raised in that culture and particular superstitious idiom, is zilch.
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
-- Blaise Pascal, Pensees
Posted by: Katharine | November 6, 2008 10:03 PM
That Walton is a 19-year-old and a law student I find very, very hard to believe. Unless England has undergraduate law or he is some sort of prodigy who got his undergraduate degree at 18. I'm 20 and I'm a year away from finishing undergrad and going to grad school for neuroscience.
Walton, seriously, you need to loosen the hell up. Have a beer, it's legal for you guys. Watch some Monty Python if they still televise it on the Beeb over there.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself | November 6, 2008 10:05 PM
Pete Rooke,
It isn't the pedophile priests that anger me. Any group with a large population is going to have a statistically significant number of sexual predators.* It's how the church hierarchy went out of their way to protect the pedophiles that causes my rage. If the church turned the pedophiles over to the appropriate authorities when they first came to light, my anger wouldn't exist. But when Cardinal Law and other bishops outright lied to police and prosecutors, apparently with the full approval of the man who's now "Christ's Vicar on Earth," then you must excuse me if I feel somewhat irked at your precious church.
*I don't have any concrete evidence, but I strongly suspect that the number of pedophiles in the Catholic priesthood is higher than that of the general adult male population. When an organization makes normal sexual behavior illegal for its employees, it seems reasonable that those employees will find other means to express their sexuality.
Posted by: Katharine | November 6, 2008 10:09 PM
Here's an idea:
If you're heterosexual and against Proposition 8, do some good old-fashioned bum play for gay men's rights and some good old carpet munching (although I'm sure this is done already) for lesbians' rights. We know the fundies despise anal sex and cunnilingus.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008 10:13 PM
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm not always so much
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | November 6, 2008 10:13 PM
The task at hand is to remove the the poker he has planted firmly up his backside. I suggested a hooker because I figured s/he would be much cheaper than a proctologist and just as effective if part of the handle is still sticking out.
Posted by: John Morales | November 6, 2008 10:14 PM
'Tis Himself,
well, yeah. The priesthood is all-male and obligate celibate (i.e. no lawful expression of sexuality allowed), and those over whom they have power tend to be children in their care.Posted by: Patricia | November 6, 2008 10:14 PM
Why Emmet, that's down right slutty!
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | November 6, 2008 10:18 PM
It does.
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | November 6, 2008 10:22 PM
Why, thank you, Patricia: flattery will get you everywhere.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 6, 2008 10:23 PM
I must be slow today. PR showed up because of the description of the stoning, the thought of which turned him on. DOH. We always knew he had something to hide.
Posted by: Kel | November 6, 2008 10:28 PM
PR longs to live in the time of Jesus, so he could show he is without sin by casting the first stone.
Posted by: IST | November 6, 2008 10:30 PM
hmmm... the "Islam is peace" diatribe is starting to look as if it's made of one of the targets they use at terrorist training camp... I'd love to buy into that if it weren't for the fact that stories like this keep popping up. This is not the work of a few extremists, this is the work of a vile, disgusting ideology that permeates the entire religion.
Posted by: Zaphod | November 6, 2008 10:41 PM
IST: while christianity has come a long way (mostly, I would argue, by way of ascending non-belief), you should look up "auto da fe'" before you judge these islamist barbarians too harshly.
Posted by: Patricia | November 6, 2008 10:41 PM
Yes, actually I do know it will get me everywhere. That's why I lay my flattery on thick, it gets me over, under around and through, every time.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 6, 2008 10:42 PM
fixed
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | November 6, 2008 10:51 PM
'Tis Himself @#356,
Indeed, you make the case well. But it isn't over. They haven't changed. The Catholic Church Hierarchy, from the bishops up to the Pope, is still a vile child-rape enablement mafia. The Vatican continues its policy of non-cooperation with law-enforcement (police enquiries to the Vatican are returned unopened), at least half-a-dozen serial child-rapists and accessories after the fact to child-rape, like Cardinal Law, continue to live in the Vatican, beyond the reach of civil justice in the jurisdictions where they committed their crimes, and there have been documented cover-ups in South America recently, after they supposedly "came clean". In 2001, then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, instructed bishops that, in future, the Vatican would make all decisions pertaining to allegations of clerical child-abuse. This puts a lie to any claim made that the infamous Crimen Sollicitationis was "misinterpreted" by bishops without Vatican approval -- the Vatican is doing exactly the same thing.
In the mid 19th century, the Church defrocked child-raping priests and handed them over to the civil authorities for prosecution. Until they return to that policy, the Church remains in an abject state of moral turpitude.
Posted by: Azdak | November 6, 2008 11:02 PM
@Zaphod
Is such a thing possible? Seriously.Posted by: Zaphod | November 6, 2008 11:12 PM
Azdak: Certainly it is possible, if in the judging you overlook the fact that they are humans, too. Sad, stupid, vicious and benighted humans, but humans nonetheless. Just like the European ancestors who participated in the auto da fe'.
Posted by: Houdini1218 | November 6, 2008 11:36 PM
Kitty Genovese.
That's all I'm saying.
Posted by: John Morales | November 6, 2008 11:44 PM
Houdini1218, I can't agree with you that this represents an instance of the Genovese syndrome - I see it more like the "Stanford prison experiment" effect.
Posted by: j h woodyatt | November 6, 2008 11:50 PM
Katherine writes: "If you're heterosexual and against Proposition 8, do some good old-fashioned [s3xx0ring...]"
Um, I'm probably up for it... where and when are we all meeting up?
Posted by: Art | November 6, 2008 11:51 PM
Such killings are, IMHO, nearly always an attempt to stop change and to maintain established social, sexual and hierarchical categories and structures. Typically for people to maintain themselves within an established comfort zone and/or position of advantage.
People engaged in such practices are, in effect, trying to keep the 'other' and change at bay by having the victim represent the archetypal other and change.
Once this sort of activity gets started it quickly gathers momentum and attempting to stand in its way makes you automatically an 'other' and a person blocking the will of the community.
If you catch it early and have enough advantage/s like political, economic power, authority, or an edge in firepower or muscle to counter the forces pushing for execution than you might nip it in the bud. But once your facing a crowd of hundreds and the people involved have significant power and control your not going to have much traction. If objection without putting yourself at risk is possible then of course it makes sense to do that.
But in such tightly controlled and mono-cultural communities anything but mild objection and discreet non-participation could get you in a hole next to their original target. It sounds very heroic and noble but it is just uselessly self-defeating. As much as I would like to project that I would boldly stand up to the crowd and powers that be I know how such events tend to turn out if you don't have an army standing behind you when you make your stand. Failing that your just sacrificing yourself for no gain and allowing the extremists to target you for elimination now or later.
You have to pick your fights. And survive long enough to build connections, coalitions and enough power to start to moderate and steer these sorts of displays with an eye toward eliminating them altogether.
As sad as it is the best you might be able to do is document the event so it can be held up to the community and world later so they can't deny it or equivocate and/or to simply walk away.
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