A follow-up to the Brazilian child rape case

Do they always excommunicate people involved in abortions, or just when they want to get attention?

The Church hasn't reformed at all. They've just made sure to hide their backward, authoritarian nature in more liberal countries.

I wonder if they bothered to excommunicate the rapist? Or at least vow to do so as soon as someone is convicted of that particular act? Somehow, I doubt it, on both counts.

~David D.G.

ftfa:

Now a Church spokesman says all those involved, including the child's mother and the doctors, are to be excommunicated.

I didn't see the word, have or has, PZ.

I'm sure that poor girl and her family feel thrilled with the church's forgiving attitude towards her. After all they have been through such a "compassionate" organizations support must feel great.

My wife's parents are deep into the Catholic woo. They are very nice people, and kind to a fault, but they are so hep on Jesus and all of the associated foolishness it's depressing. However, they did use birth control eventually. She didn't want the 17 children her mother had. Luckily, my wife abandoned all that BS to become an more pragmatic pagan type.

There are simply no words to express my disgust for this brain- and heartless patriarchal organization.

So the situation met the criteria of a legal abortion in Brazil, but the Church decides "God's law is above man's law" Whatever happened to "render unto Caesar"?

I'll take cherry-picking for $1000 Alex

"Old enough to be raped and bear children, but not old enough to be responsible for decisions about her reproductive tract, apparently."

Was the abortion the 9 year old's decision?

Agreed, Nefie. That's precisely what it says.

Somehow, this Fail Blog image seems appropriate.

David: Why should they excommunicate the rapist?! He was obviously acting under God's divine direction. It's the horrible mother and those nasty doctors who thwarted God's will! God never gives us more trouble than we can handle so that girl must have been in some cosmic way, asking for it. She probably just played at home and went to school, and God knew she could handle more than that. In fact he knew she was so capable he gave her TWINS. Think of the faith that God put in that little child to give up her own childhood (and maybe her life) to bring two precious new lives into this nearly empty world of ours. Those monsters who took those babies from her, who robbed her of all that trust and responsibility that God gave her were obviously in the wrong and surely their screams from the abyss will be a joyous thing to hear in Heaven.

I think we should encourage this behavior. The Catholic Church should excommunicate anybody who acts sensibly: that way, it'll only be filled with the most starry-eyed of crazies and we can more effectively marginalize and ignore them.

Oh no, excommunication!!! What do we do?

OH.... wow. Okay. I was pretty much aghast at the 1st post.

I'm sure it's easy for us, and me to say "ah- they're better off without that mumbo-jumbo"- but considering it was their spiritual faith etc, to be excommunicated is just extra wrong, and I imaging (someone of them anyway) are forever crushed by that....

Pfft. Like excommunication means anything today.

Bear ye witness, all those apologists who keep saying that the reprehensible behavior of a few Christian individuals cannot be an indictment of the whole Christian religion:

YES, IT CAN BE, AND IT IS! They are supposed to be compassionate people! Compassion, my arse!!

This is the religion (just like any other organized religions of the world) that breeds insanity, cruelty, and mindlessness - all in the name of a non-existent being.

Monsters.

The "culture of life" once again being exposed as a cult of life.

David D.G. @ #2

You hunch is right. No excommunication for the step-father-cum-rapist. The justification? "(Archbishop) Gomes Sobrinho said: 'He committed an extremely serious crime. But that crime, according to canon law, is not punished with automatic excommunication.'"

Isn't that just the most consistent logic? Thankfully it sounds like most lay Catholics in Brazil were on the side of the girl and think the archbishop was being too conservative on this issue.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/258800,lula-blasts-archbishop-f…

Now a Church spokesman says all those involved, including the child's mother and the doctors, are to be excommunicated.

I didn't see the word, have or has, PZ.

What is your point? Do you really think that "are to be excommunicated" leaves any possibility that they won't be?

The difference between he Catholic Church and a pile of dog-shit is that I can find a use for dog shit in the compost pile... Which, therefore, puts it above the Catholic Church in all respects.

Cool. These people have gotten another hour or two back on Sundays.

And how many priests accused and/or convicted of child molestation have been excommunicated? Oh, Catholic Church. You and your priorities are just so adorably hilarious. And by hilarious, I mean appalling.

Speaker to Third (and Second) Graders,

"Why should they excommunicate the rapist?! He was obviously acting under God's divine direction"

You aren't making any sense. Since God doesn't exist and Catholocism doesn't sanction sex outside of marriage, evolution obviously had much more to do with this. The human male is very attuned to signs of fertility and opportunistic in exploiting vulnerable females. There is probably a genetic basis for the step-father's behavior. The genetic basis for protecting the child from eploitation by "bad" genes was apparently missing, the biologic father. Some of the criticism of the Catholic response is justified, but this part of your mocking and criticism is not.

Pfft. Like excommunication means anything today.

Maybe not to you or me, but to Catholics it does mean something. Look at all the brewhaha over that Holocaust denying Bishop getting "recommunicated".

What is your point? Do you really think that "are to be excommunicated" leaves any possibility that they won't be?

There is a difference between somebody being shot, and somebody being murdered.

Also, there seems to be some confusion about this story. In this article:
http://www.examiner.com/x-2370-Denver-Early-Childhood-Parenting-Examine…
They have the girl excommunicated, and traveling from Costa Rica to Nicaragua for the abortion.

To be consistent with its long tradition as the world's largest pedophilia institution, the roman catholic church has a moral obligation to defend the step-father who we - immoral god-less people - naively would call a rapist or pedophile.

However, since the roman catholic church does not like to publicly acknowledge their age-old tradition of institutionalized pedophilia, they conveniently want to to let this 9-year old girl get killed by her own pregnancy than accept abortion of the twins and are making this the moral issue of the day.

Many of you believe that this is the worst you have seen.

It is not.

The same roman catholic church is doing things millions of times worse!

The roman catholic church claims that condoms are immoral because they kill babies. I can picture a baby accidentally putting a plastic grocery bag over its head and suffocating but, for the life of me, I cannot see how a baby would do the same with a condom. Can you?

Many people in Africa will not use condoms because the roman catholic church tells them that they will go to hell when they do use them. Conveniently the bush administration colluded with the roman catholic church to ensure that supply of condoms to Africa remains limited.

Because of unprotected sex (human nature cannot be stopped by bishops), HIV has become an epidemic of epic proportions.

Now get this:

Every year, 1.6 million people die in Africa of AIDS. That is equivalent to 1.5 "nine-elevens" every day year after year.

Simply immoral.

Another proof that religion poisons everything.

I view excommunication as receiving the highest medal of honor for those who had not yet concluded that being associated with any religion is the most honorable conclusion.

As I said in the previous thread, “Excommunication is a reward for Doing The Right Thing™.”

So no, the alleged rapist has not, and will not, be excommunicated. He, after all, followed the priests' example and did the right thing.

Disclaimer: I do not know what has or will happen to the alleged or actual rapist(s?). I'm still extremely upset at both the rape (always appalling but especially so in this case) and the fuckwits response to it, including but not limited to the batshite insanity of a magical dog's “laws”—which they alone can interpret—as always being superior to common sense and decency.

Do they excommunicate all catholic American governors and presidents who practice death penalty and send soldiers to wars?

They should excommunicate all your soldiers who saved Europe in 1945, because they killed German soldiers, and, you know, the law of God is above any human law.

It's easy for us to laugh at the non-penalty of excommunication, but I'd bet that at least some of the people who helped that child will be in anguish for the rest of their lives because of their loss of community and fear of eternity in Hell. We can say they're better off now, but isn't that just trivializing their suffering?

I'm amazed by the depth of evil in that despicable church. Lie about the holocaust, fine... or it would have been fine, but for the PR uproar. Just don't try to help a suffering child.

Why should they excommunicate the rapist?! He was obviously acting under God's divine direction.

I can see where Christians might take a lenient view of rapists. After all, in their mythos, Mary was raped by God and the result was Jesus, without whom they'd have to find another excuse of their atrocities. (Not that there's any shortage of other religions to use as an excuse.)

Africangenesis - I hope you were joking in #24, because if not you really are an ignorant piece of shit. If you can't see the church' punishing the folks who helped the girl but not the one responsible, you are among the lowest of the low.

I'm in my 30's and for about 6 years, I really tried hard to become a devout Roman Catholic. That period of my life was, without exception, the most self destructive of my life.

Today, on most days I am an Atheist and at times a skeptical Deist.

This story disgusts me. Shame on the Roman Catholic Church and their fucked up theology of insanity.

@Peter(#1): I Agree that they haven't reformed, and while they try to hide their true nature, it does come to the surface from time to time. And SLW13(#23): Their priorities are all sorts of mucked up.

As an example - check this out: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/754190/controversial-priest-widens-…
and the follow up here: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,27574,25070316-3102,00.html

Basically a priest has been fired for allowing women to preach the homily, breaking rules to do with holy communion and blessing same-sex unions.

Yeah, the Catholic Church is all about tolerance and love...

Additionally, looking at what the priest was sacked for is interesting. If he was accused of being a kiddie-fiddler he would have been moved to another diocese and hidden away. But bless a gay marriage and let a woman preach and say goodbye to your job.

Katrina: Failblog link FAIL!

Africangenesis @#24,

Since God doesn't exist and Catholocism doesn't sanction sex outside of marriage, evolution obviously had much more to do with this. The human male is very attuned to signs of fertility and opportunistic in exploiting vulnerable females. There is probably a genetic basis for the step-father's behavior.

You, Sir, are sick, sick and rotten to the core, which is amply evident from your pathetic attempt at justifying this horrendous act by taking pretentious pot-shots at evolution and genetics - both of which you clearly do not understand.

Doesn't excommunication free the husband to divorce the mom? That way he can get a whole new set of six year olds to begin molesting.
Damn religion.

Damn. It had been such a lovely day up until now...nice weather, an octopus in a box, and dinosaur tracks. Then I read about this, and can't help but feel angry and depressed. There's just so much evil in this story, I don't even know where to direct my anger. The Archbishop who will excommunicate those helping the girl? The rapist? The Catholic Church as an institution?, or all the individuals who believe in it, thus giving it power? It's just too many people to be mad at, and I don't have enough energy to do it.

Africangenesis | March 6, 2009 4:24 PM

"Old enough to be raped and bear children, but not old enough to be responsible for decisions about her reproductive tract, apparently."

Was the abortion the 9 year old's decision?

Obviously she would rather suffer horribly and die in pregnancy or labor.

rethink whether they even want to be associated with such a contemptible organization.

With out hesitation, I gladly remain associated with Mother Church.

So according to the Catholic Church, the right thing to do in this situation would be to force the 9 year old to carry twins to term which very likely could result in the death of the 9 year old and twins also. Some culture of life, sick bastards.

Wonder what that crazy old coot Donohoe thinks about all this? Probably hasn't said a peep about it but damn if you insult a wafer watch the F' out!

Wow, most times I'm content to blame the fringe elements of the Catholic Church for the craziness but that the church of the largest Catholic nation in the world would choose to respond in this way really shocks me.

It's horrible, sad and shows a complete lack of compassion and love (agape) for this girl. Pharisees, the lot of them.

Newfie @#26: The Denver rag appears to be confused (ie: incompetent). If you follow their link to the CBS source story, the Nicaragua case, while sounding similar, is from 2003. Seems like a case of doing their fact-checking using Google, and then not reading the results very carefully. At. All.

IAmMarauder @ 34:

*rolls eyes at Catholic Church* Well, to be fair, we women do tend to get awfully uppity sometimes. One of these days, we really should learn our proper place.

With out hesitation, I gladly remain associated with Mother Church.

Your insipid, vacuous obliviousness is noted.

They're not even trying to pretend to be decent people. It's almost as if they actually believe they do good. Fascinating.

Is it not high time for us to shake this enormous burden called religion? When are we going to grow up?

If there any Catholics reading this blog, would you let me know if this means that only the mother and doctors will burn in the fires of Hell, or will the child also spend an eternity in Hell if she doesn't ask for forgiveness for being raped?

Reply to #2:

Not that I know off. + They will probably appoint the rapist a priest now ;) I'm starting to get the idea that being a perverted kid molester is a requirement to get in...

PZ, it seems like you don't understand, or willfully ignore, that the Catholic Church considers an abortion to be murder. Pro-choicers seem to often whine about how ridiculous the other side seems if you don't consider it to be a murder, but THEY DO.

Although in this case, I suspect that there would certainly be health complications since the child was 9, I think that if you consider killing the fetus to be murder, what should you think about something like this?

Now, I won't claim that the church isn't acting at all ridiculous. How often do they bother to excommunicate other murderers? Not often, I suspect. I suspect that they don't even excommunicate most abortion doctors, and have simply decided to do so in the most extreme and morally controversial case for some terribly ill thought out reason. However, I think it's disingenuous to characterize their decisions the way you do "she can't make a choice about her body," when to the church it's obviously not considered her body, but another person that the doctors killed.

The Denver rag appears to be confused (ie: incompetent)

Thanks for clearing that up, Eamon. Durned amateurs.

AVSN - Your blood soaked damned church is responsible for crimes against humanity that are so horrific it's sickening to read them. I'll bet you haven't studied the history of your filthy church.

Do you approve of the French catholics that had children flogged while they were forced to watch their parents burned at the stake, and then burned the children next?

ChrisZ, you too are a complete asshole. The fact that they consider the POTENTIAL of life to be more important than what happened to a little girl, the fact that they consider the doctors to be more evil than the person who is likely responsible, make their entire rationale foolish.

or willfully ignore, that the Catholic Church considers an abortion to be murder

Of course he willfully ignores it. Just because they base their decisions on false premises doesn't mean it's not false, nor that the decisions ultimately favor people who cause actual harm to actual people over those who don't.

but another person that the doctors killed.

For definitions of "person" of "tiny blob of cells that might have the potential to be born to a 10 year old in an abusive family", of course.

PZ, it seems like you don't understand, or willfully ignore, that the Catholic Church considers an abortion to be murder. Pro-choicers seem to often whine about how ridiculous the other side seems if you don't consider it to be a murder, but THEY DO.

That it is considered murder by these monsters is the entire point, nicely juxtaposed to their incompassion towards actual people.

Wait, what? The Roman Catholic Death Cult thinks these people did horrible things, so they're going to punish them by giving them their ... freedom?

The catholic church does not excommunicate ALL child murderers. Their motivations are vile, and their apologists more vile.

PZ, it seems like you don't understand, or willfully ignore, that the Catholic Church considers an abortion to be murder.

That view is factually untenable, morally bankrupt, and logically problematic even with its premises granted, therefore it can be ignored.

Or are we supposed to not criticize Timothy McVeigh because he really did believe that the government was an "evil empire" too?

#53

But whether or not it's murder isn't something factual, it's an opinion that has very much to do with the definition of life, and why murder is wrong. It's a complicated mess of an idea, but it's not something that is factually inaccurate and therefore worthy of ridicule. At least, I don't think it's something that should be willfully ignored in order to make them look even more foolish, when there logic from that premise (not demonstrably false) seems at least somewhat coherent.

#52

I'm not quite sure how presenting the Catholic Church's point of view makes me a complete asshole . . .

As for rape vs. murder and which is more evil, I think that's obviously murder. Again, I understand that you do not agree with their premise that abortion is murder, but given that premise I can see why they might consider the doctors to be more evil.

Patricia @51:
"Do you approve of the French catholics that had children flogged while they were forced to watch their parents burned at the stake, and then burned the children next?"

Holy hell that's terrible D:
When did that happen, French revolution? Inquisition? Did the assholes even need a special occasion?

The step-father responsible for the rapes fled, apparently after years of abusing this girls disabled 14 year old sister. Which apparently is STILL not as bad as terminating the pregnancies of a child who would have DIED carrying these pregnancies to term. Oddly enough, people forget that we don't give minors the choice in their own reproductive habits (I'm sure the Catholic Church would be first to say that asking a 9 year old to decide on her sexual habits is wrong) so perhaps they could consider that the Doctors were saving her life? No? Oh well...

By the way, even the President of Brazil has condemned the move too and he's a devout Catholic.

I think ChrisZ is coming from the angle that, since the Catholic hierarchy truly believes abortion is categorically murder, we have to respect the actions it takes based on that belief.

Well, no, we don't. Their beliefs are bullshit, no matter how genuinely they believe them. We're all aware that they are sincere assholes.

You certainly won't hear me complaining about churches that want to start turning people away.

ChrisZ | March 6, 2009 5:45 PM:

PZ, it seems like you don't understand, or willfully ignore, that the Catholic Church considers an abortion to be murder. Pro-choicers seem to often whine about how ridiculous the other side seems if you don't consider it to be a murder, but THEY DO.

It is unlikely the child will survive the pregnancy. It is unlikely that either fetus would survive the pregnancy. By their own standards, the Catholic Church seeks to replace 2 'murders' with 3 murders.

But a key piece of this argument is that abortion is not murder. To concede your opponent's central point is to lose the argument. Thus, pro-choice activists must never speak as if abortion is 'murder'. It is necessary - and entirely correct - to portray the other side as wrong, ridiculous, and, in this case, monstrous.

Yes, anti-abortionists, we understand that you claim abortion is murder. The rest of us are more concerned with living people, not potential life.

As for the excommunication, why aren't convicted murderers excommunicated? There's no doubt they killed people. So why do a bunch of professional virgins get the vapors over abortion but give folks who actually kill other folks a free pass?

#62

I don't think that you have to respect a belief just because someone truly believes it. Beliefs can be idiotic and worthy of ridicule. That's not entirely what I think PZ and many of you are doing.

I think that PZ and others are also ridiculing the Church for a logical incoherence that doesn't actually exist. That, at least, is how I read the comment about the Church thinking the girl

"Old enough to be raped and bear children, but not old enough to be responsible for decisions about her reproductive tract"

To the church, it's not just a "decision about her reproductive tract," it's a murder justified by a previous evil. PZ's comment is a straw man that I find distasteful, whether or not I agree with HIS premises or HIS conclusions overall.

Fuck the Catholic church.

They've screwed up more of my friends than I even care to count, even those who managed to recover somehow.

Bastards.

Nanu Nanu - The burnings were during the witch hunts. They were also doing genital mutilations and torture at the same time. In the fifteen hundreds the church made it legal to torture girls at the age of nine, and boys at ten and a half.

I've updated the news in the other entry, but I think here more people would read it.

In the news PZ mentioned the excommunication was mentioned as something that is going to happen, but in Brazilian Press it is meant as something that already occurred and there is even the reaction of one of the doctors.

Even Brazilian president, Lula, criticized the RCC, but I don't know much about that, because I only listened to it in the Afternoon news at the TV.

My posts from today's morning:

http://oglobo.globo.com/pais/cidades/mat/2009/03/05/medicos-adiam-alta-…

Just updating the news, not only the doctors, but also the mother of the girl were excommunicated. the girl wasn't (she said she wanted the children). The Minister of Health - José Gomes Temporão - stated that the RCC's decision was "radical and inadequate" and added:

"É uma questão que está na lei, a menina foi violentada. Tá na lei e está resolvido, o resto é opinião da Igreja. Essa posição não tem respaldo algum. Eu fiquei impactado. Levar a gravidez adiante traria risco à vida dela."

My translation:
"It is legal matter, the girl was violated. It is on the law and it is a done deal, the rest is the Church's opinion. That position doesn't have any legal support. It had quite an impact on me. Going on with the pregnancy would put the girl's life at risk."

Dr. Fátima Maia, the responsible doctor said (it is on the printed newspaper, not the on line version of it):

"Sou católica, mas dirijo uma entidade que está habilitada a fazer o aborto legal. Teria feito novamente. Se não fosse assim, essa criança poderia no mínimo ficar estéril, ou até morrer."

My translation:

"I am Catholic, but I'm director of an entity that is qualified to make legal abortion. I would have done it again. If it weren't done, this child could become sterile, at the minimum, or even die."

The Minister of Environment reaction (he is not a religious person and certainly not a Catholic):
"Como cidadão eu fiquei revoltado com essa posição da Igreja. Exatamente nessa hora que as pessoas precisam de conforto a Igreja vem criminalizar a vítima. É uma coisa medieval"

"As a citizen, I was outraged with this position of the Church. Exactly at this moment, when people need comfort, The Church comes and criminalizes the victim. It's a medieval thing."

The newspaper's reaction (O GLOBO's) - Just FYI, this journal usually is much respectful of RCC's opinion and treats it with much more deference than any other religious spokespeople in Brazil.

"Na questão do aborto na menina de 9 anos engravidada pelo padastro, o entendimento da reação violenta da Igreja fica ainda mais difícil diante das circunstâncias."

My translation:
"On the matter of the abortion made on the 9 year old impregnated by her stepfather girl, it is still more difficult to understand the violent reaction of the Church, in face of circumstances."

Just so that you can see the reactions here in Brazil. On the "opinion of the readers" part of the newspaper, there are five messages, all of them against the Archbishop.
#340

And there is an op-ed article named "Faith and Intolerance". It is by a Catholic woman, a journalist and she says (my translation - forgive my English)

"Believing or not the life begins since conception is an inner private matter and each one's belief is not to be debated at large."
"In the case at Pernambuco [that's the Brazilian state where it happened], what is a case of public interest is the Catholic church's attitude of punishing, at the legal and religious levels, those who acted supported by law, common sense and medical recommendations. The absurd, the coward, the unacceptable is the idea of using faith to punish those who try to allow that a nine-year-old child gather the remains of her broken childhood."

As I said yesterday the power of RCC in Brazil is much smaller than people might think, just looking at religious stats. People are members of the Catholic Church because they are baptized and make the main rituals, but they feel quite comfortable to say their inner beliefs are different from the precepts or RCC.

@#68

Yes, but hundreds of years later, they did say sorry.

So that's okay.

If you read either portuguese or spanish, you can see the follow up of the case here (and some further links): http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/cotidiano/ult95u530540.shtml

The most outrageous part is this: the archbishop said the abortion was even worst than the rape itself!

I believe that's called sarcasm, ChrisZ.

So, to the Catholic Church, helping that girl is immoral, whereas raping her is not, or at least more immoral than raping her.

thanks patricia
Why is it that everytime I learn something new about the church it's something terrible that will give me nightmares?

#72

I agree it was sarcasm, but it was sarcasm that I found distasteful and unfair.

Newfie:

Now a Church spokesman says all those involved, including the child's mother and the doctors, are to be excommunicated.

I didn't see the word, have or has, PZ.

According to doctrine, they have already been excommunicated latae senteniae - automatically - for their roles in the procurement of the abortion, and the bishop technically only made a public declaration of that fact and didn't pass the sentence.

The fact that the girl's life was in danger doesn't prevent the excommunication. Under strict doctrine, abortion is permissible only to save the life of the mother when the fetus would die anyway even if all efforts were made to save it. If it's a choice between the fetus or the woman, the church says the fetus must be saved.

Not that this changes any of it from being a pile of hooey or excuses the Catholic Church for its misogynistic woo.

@Hank Bones #19

From your link:

Gomes Sobrinho, archbishop of Olinda and Recife, defended his decision in an interview published Friday by Brazilian daily O Estado de Sao Paulo.

Abortion "is a silent Holocaust," he said.

When asked why he did not excommunicate the stepfather who sexually abused the girl, Gomes Sobrinho said: "He committed an extremely serious crime. But that crime, according to canon law, is not punished with automatic excommunication."

He said, "Abortion is even more serious. The church and the whole world condemn the Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews. What is happening (with abortion) is a silent Holocaust."

Words fail me at the bullshit the Archbishop is spitting out. Somebody please tell me how lending medical assistance to a nine-year old girl who could be (or already is) mentally and emotionally scarred for life, is considered a more condemnable act than repeated rape and child abuse.

That, and nailing a fucking wafer? Your know your priorities are seriously messed up when a piece of bread takes priority of a very real problem

Holocaust? Well you should know all about it, Archbishop - your fucking organization looked the other way when it happened! admittedly there were members of the clergy who did what they could, but even then that wasn't with the blessings of the Vatican. It was more of them being able to help DESPITE, not because, of their being priests.

Thanks for the info, Silvia. Great jorb.

ChrisZ #66

PZ's comment is a straw man that I find distasteful, whether or not I agree with HIS premises or HIS conclusions overall.

Yeah, yeah, we understand. You're in favor of a organization that protects pedophiles and hates abortions (but not murders). How do you justify a bunch of professional virgin males have any standing to make pronouncements on what women do with their bodies?

He said, "Abortion is even more serious. The church and the whole world condemn the Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews. What is happening (with abortion) is a silent Holocaust."

This is also factually untrue, especially the part about the church.

I think that PZ and others are also ridiculing the Church for a logical incoherence that doesn't actually exist

The Church's position is not coherent with their actual practice, as they don't excommunicate murderers as a routine matter of canon law (as you yourself point out). If they did, I would still find their stance on abortion profoundly distasteful and immoral, but I'd at least grant that they had some consistency in their position. But this is not about "murder", it is about abortion. The Church doesn't care when adults, or even babies, are murdered -- it cares about controlling the uteruses of women.

@happyfunball

Sometimes, I wonder if that doctrine of the fetus being first over the mother is some sort of insurance that even if the child is born, there won't be any evidence that said child was actually the priest's.

Just to give a more precise news about Brazilian president's reaction, there's a little video here:
http://noticias.uol.com.br/ultnot/agencia/2009/03/06/ult4469u38415.jhtm

My translation of his declaration (that was during a Press Conference):
"As a Christian and as a Catholic, I deeply regret that a bishop from the Catholic Church has such a conservative behavior. It's not possible to allow a girl that was raped by a stepfather to have this child, because her life was in danger. I think that on this issue medicine is more correct than the Church."

To Sven @ 45: Not only am I not oblivious, I guarantee I think more than you did before making your comment

To Patricia the Vulgar @ 51: I do know the history of the Church. I will put this to you (as I assume from your response you are an atheist (or worse Atheist)): Is the bloodshed caused by atheist regimes created by communist or totalitarian states any less damnedable?

Come back when you know what your talking about.

@ 'Tis Himself #79

Careful - that sounded like an ad hominem attack. Not that it matters in this situation. Regardless of their standing, who the hell do they think they are to render judgement over somebody else's health?

I see that in my post #79 I was so angry that I became almost incoherent. The last sentence should read: "How do you justify a bunch of professional virgin males having any standing to make pronouncements on what women do with their bodies?"

The Roman Catholic Church of Brazil has excommunicated everyone involved in the abortion, except the child

Not quite everyone -- the rapist is still a communicant. After all, he only raped his stepdaughter over the course of years (apparently starting when she was seven.) That's not nearly so serious an offense as trying to save her life.

Similarly, since some Muslims truly believe that an insufficiently covered up woman, or one who is chatting with a man on Facebook(!), deserves to be "honor killed", we have to respect the actions they take based on that belief. And if my beliefs require human sacrifice to Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young (pre-1923 reformation), well you just have to respect that too.

[Excommunication has some serious social and personal/psychological consequences, especially in a devoutly Catholic country. But it is reversible in most cases, apparently you have to basically confess and repent and all that. By the rules of the church, a rapist or murderer or whatever is also totally hosed until he confesses, and if he gets communion before then it not only doesn't count but it just makes God madder and madder every week. Plus, this is sort of weird, a priest who absolves a murderer is automatically excommunicated, except if he absolves him at the time of his death. Before that, no good.]

Thanx Silvia, it is good to hear that there is outrage in Brazil as well!

ChrisZ -
I see it this way - the priests (bishops, etc) of the Catholic Church interpret what God's Law is. In fact, that's their major purpose, to be between God and the lay believers. Therefore, it is actually the decision of the *Catholic Church* whether abortion is murder or not - unless one believes that they're the mouthpiece for God. The Catholic Church must be aware of this; otherwise they wouldn't ignore some parts of the Bible and find in it the things that they want to be true. They might believe God guides them in this, but they have a vested interest in keeping people ignorant, superstitious, and fecund.

rethink whether they even want to be associated with such a contemptible organization.

With out hesitation, I gladly remain associated with Mother Church.

Cool. How long have you been into evil? Or are you merely hosting a few demons?

My best guess is that if all the ordinary Roman Catholics told their Bishops that there would be no more money/tithes until the RC church reconciled itself to modern circumstances (no easy treatment of pedophile priests, women priests, accepting divorce, use of contraception, a softened stance on abortion) then there would be a sudden reinterpretation of scripture.

Challenge the Church where it hurts - the coffers. Me cynical? Nah.

Does anyone have an email address for The Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho? I would like to write him to ask him to include my name in the list of people he has excommunicated this week.

Wait, what? The Roman Catholic Death Cult thinks these people did horrible things, so they're going to punish them by giving them their ... freedom?

Anyone else thinking of Br'er Rabbit and the briar patch?

Patricia #68,
today Catholics claim that almost none of the witch executions were incited, ordered or carried out by church personnel, that it was almost exclusively the 'worldly' authorities who did so. They are correct in that the act of torture and execution in itself was almost always carried out by the state/local nobility/militias etc. But the Church gave explicit or implicit divine authority to those carrying out the act. Today we realize that someone approving of torture isn't really innocent just because someone else happened to be the torturer's employer. Church figures had tremendously more authority back then - even a hint of falling out of favor of the Church was enough to bring about compliance and subordination.
Of course there were also superstitious mobs hunting witches without any clerics present - but remind me, when exactly did the Church (or the Protestant one later) clarifiy that witchcraft was a superstition?

That's right - never.

Kausik Datta#36,

Evidently you believe that evolution can do no wrong. We are not worshippers here. If you want infallability you will have to find something fictional to worship.

and thank you happyfunball. :)

I was of the mind that if there was enough stink about it, a higher power in the hierarchy could step in and stop the excommunication.
/raised Anglican.

Doctorb @ 90: please note that the 'honor killing' you mention is not a precept of Islam. It is a carryover from the tribal cultures that Mohammed converted.

AVSN #84

To Patricia the Vulgar @ 51: I do know the history of the Church. I will put this to you (as I assume from your response you are an atheist (or worse Atheist)): Is the bloodshed caused by atheist regimes created by communist or totalitarian states any less damnedable?

Come back when you know what your talking about.

Almost every time an atheist points out how many people were killed by various church groups for heresy, blasphemy, or even (gasp) being a member of a different church group, the goddist apologist trots out "da atheist commies killed whole bunches of people." What the goddist apologists fail to recognize is that while their church killed people in the name of their benevolent, loving god, "da atheist commies" were not killing people in the name of atheism.

Yes, Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot were responsible for the deaths of millions. But these millions were not killed because Mao et al were atheists. Mao & Co's atheism was coincidental to the killings.

@Silvia

Would you happen to know any contact details for the doctors and the girl's mother? It's easy enough to blast the Archbishop for this mess, but I think it's more important to send out support for those excommunicated.

We gotta let 'em know they're not alone.

I was born and raised catholic but somehow, in spite of a strict catholic upbring, developed some modicum of common sense and rejected everything they stand for. I called the headquarters of the local archdiocese, explained I would like to be excommunicated and asked if they could provide proof in the form of a nice certificate, suitable for framing. They hung up on me. Bastards

it. If it's a choice between the fetus or the woman, the church says the fetus must be saved

I was under the impression (from reading Colleen McCullough's The Thornbirds a couple of decades ago, I'll admit) that the official Catholic position was that no choice can be made between the woman's life and the fetus's - it's up to God to decide.

As I recall from the book, the handsome but tortured priest (yes it's a soap opera) who has for years loved and lusted after the woman who is pregnant (not by him, as far as I recall) and in extremis explains the official doctrine but tells the doctor to save the woman regardless. Perhaps parish-level priests are more in touch with human feelings (their own and others') than those who rise in the hierarchy.

Maybe this church official is hoping for a raise in status and pay. Bishop Cyril was elevated to sainthood by the vatican when he had the pagan university lecturer Hypatia dragged into a church and slashed to death with oyster shells in the name of gawd. (fifth century)

Keep standing up for the church catholics, there's lots more where that came from. Sick bastards.

@Tubbolard #98 -- Noted. Perhaps the killing of apostates would be a better example.

(Also, The Arcane Temple of Shub Niggurath abandoned human sacrifice in 1923).

After I posted the video of the president, I've noticed that in that piece of news it was written:

"Dom José Cardoso Sobrinho disse também estar "muito satisfeito" com as declarações de apoio que tem recebido de religiosos do país e do exterior em relação à sua atitude de alertar para a excomunhão os católicos que praticam o aborto.

The translation:

Don José Cardoso Sobrinho also said that he is "very content" with declarations of support for his atittude of warning that Catholics who make abortions get excommunicated that he has been getting from priests from the country and abroad.

llewelly,

"Obviously she would rather suffer horribly and die in pregnancy or labor."

Not, "obviously", but perhaps "evidently" if silvia#69 is correct: "she said she wanted the children"

As PZ said, apparently "not old enough to be responsible for decisions about her reproductive tract".

This story has me so sick to my stomach. F@#$ the church and the F@#$ing cross they road in on!

Felix - Try Pope John XXII in 1320, Pope Innocent VIII in 1484, I don't have an entire list of the popes bulls memorized, but two should get you started.

Don José Cardoso Sobrinho also said that he is "very content" with declarations of support for his atittude of warning that Catholics who make abortions get excommunicated that he has been getting from priests from the country and abroad.

A Catholic bishop is being supported by other Catholic clergy. Quel suprise!

Doubting Foo#107,

"This story has me so sick to my stomach."

There is probably quite a bit of history and cultural anthropology that you also might want to avoid.

The strange thing is, I recall the priests in my college had a very different opinion on abortion. Granted abortion was still wrong for them, but given extreme circumstances, they honestly felt the mother's health was more important. It was essentially a lesser evil.

They argued for this point by stating that a typical mother would have very strong emotional connections with a larger social structure, a family (husband, other children, siblings, etc.) People who depended on her, and would stand to lose very much if she died. The mother's death would result in a ripple effect within that could potentially devastate an entire community.

I agree it was sarcasm, but it was sarcasm that I found distasteful and unfair.

Boo-fucking-hoo. You know what I find "distasteful and unfair"? The proposition that a 9-year-old rape victim should be forced to bring a set of twins to term even if it puts her in mortal danger.

@Silvia

I'm afraid the Acrhbishop's statement carries more weight than some of us assume. Here, congressmen are already being threatened with excommunication if they announce their support for an upcoming Reproductive Health Bill.

The sad thing is the Bill isn't even supporting abortion - it calls for comprehensive sex education programs for schools, and proper education on the use of contraceptives.

AVSN - Tis Himself gave the same answer to you re: Pol Pot and Stalin that I would have.

I do note to your credit that you carefully avoided mentioning the catholic Hitler.

AVSN @ 84: "Is the bloodshed caused by atheist regimes created by communist or totalitarian states any less damnedable? Come back when you know what your talking about."

I think you mean "damnable." Come back when you learn how to spell. Or fix your grammar. Or both.

Best part about this: The father, who raped his 9 year old daughter will not be excommunicated.

In addition to everything the poor girl's been through, she will probably grow up believing she has been at fault in all this.

Africangenesis wrote:

Evidently you believe that evolution can do no wrong.

As should anyone - well, anyone with a clue. How, exactly, can evolution do 'wrong'? It's a process; it has no moral compass. Can peristalsis do wrong? Fossilisation? Flight? Gravity?

Sheesh.

Yes, Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot were responsible for the deaths of millions. But these millions were not killed because Mao et al were atheists. Mao & Co's atheism was coincidental to the killings.

To say nothing of the fact that Communism is a religion in all but name.

Wowbagger#118,

That was my point, but you stated it more precisely.

I think we can safely say that PZ's place on pages 1, 3, 8-9, and 14 of Bill Donohue's 2009 Why is everyone so mean to us? report is secure.

AVSN | March 6, 2009 6:40 PM

To Sven @ 45: Not only am I not oblivious, I guarantee I think more than you did before making your comment

To Patricia the Vulgar @ 51: I do know the history of the Church. I will put this to you (as I assume from your response you are an atheist (or worse Atheist)): Is the bloodshed caused by atheist regimes created by communist or totalitarian states any less damnedable?

Come back when you know what your talking about.

Now, now, AVSN, that tone doesn't sound quite Christian.

And what's with the "atheist (or worse Atheist)" line? Is that a belaboured joke? It sounds like you've swallowed the foolish meme that atheism is equivalent to a religion.

(Even if it were, I doubt that atheists would capitalize the word, since it isn't based on the proper name of a fictional supernatural entity.)

Is the bloodshed caused by atheist regimes created by communist or totalitarian states any less damnedable?

No but it was done in the name of the "religion" of communism and led by authoritarian dictators who built cults of personality. It was all about control. The paranoia about the masses rising up was the biggest motivating factor.

Atheism had as much to do with it as did socialism.

If you can tell me what tenet of Atheism says you must murder then I'll agree. While you're at it, tell me what source that comes from.

Rev. BDC wrote:

Atheism had as much to do with it as did socialism.

Even more significantly, atheism had as much to do with it as a-unicornism or a-minotaurism. How, exactly, can the simple lack of belief in something inspire anyone to do anything?

AVSN - Actually I'm not just an Atheist, I'm a vulgar, obscene, gruesome baby eating atheist. The whole blog is just infested with the same Ilk. You've fallen into hell.

@Rev. BigDumbChimp #123

Basically, the root cause would be ideological dogma?

Patricia #108,
interesting points there. Wikipedia on the Pope Innocent bull is very revealing: "The bull, which synthesized the spiritual and the secular crimes of witchcraft,[6] is often viewed as opening the door for the witchhunts of the early modern period. However, its similarities to previous papal documents, emphasis on preaching, and lack of dogmatic pronouncement complicate this view.[2] The Catholic Encyclopedia dismisses the importance attached to the encyclical in the context of the ensuing witch hunts as "altogether illusory."[7]

Some scholars view the bull as "clearly political", motivated by jurisdictional disputes between the local German Catholic priests and those of the Inquisition who answered more directly to the pope.[8]"

In other words, if it's not crystal clear that a specific act was directly attributed to Church doctrine by a specific person and recorded reliably, the CC had nothing to do with it, no matter what the Pope said before or what some witchhunter wrote after the fact. The hypocrisy is so appalling there should be a new word for it. Like, Catholic or something.

What a tragic story - religion really does make you insane, doesn't it... and to think that my parents made us go to woo school here in St. Paul for YEARS; unfortunately, at least two of my sisters are still heavily afflicted with mysticism. I'm so sick of these delusional bastards ruining the world.

Hey ChrisZ, I have a question for you.

You are the last adult in a burning fertility clinic that is about to collapse. Down the hall to the left you see a cowering 2 year old girl trapped. Down the hall to the right is a vat full of dozens of frozen embryos. You estimate you only have time to save one or the other before the building collapses. Do you save the girl or the vat of embryos?

According to your astounding logic, its a perfectly morally legitimate answer from the Catholic doctrine to save the vat of embryos rather than the girl since there are so many more "lives" that would be saved. On the other hand any idiot with half a brain and a mere smidgen of morals understands how disgustingly repugnant any bastard that would make that choice is.

In summary, fuck your Catholic doctrine apologetics asshole.

fuck your Catholic doctrine apologetics asshole.

Isn't that a little harsh? What would Matt Nisbet say?

Actually I'm not just an Atheist, I'm a vulgar, obscene, gruesome baby eating atheist. The whole blog is just infested with the same Ilk. You've fallen into hell.

Fuckin' right!

It's come to me! The One True Explanation for ALL wars and genocides. The Holocaust, the Crusades, the killing fields, the Rwandan genocide - EVERY SINGLE one of those horrors was perpetrated by committed A-unicornists! World peace will be achieved as soon as we convert everyone to the peaceful, loving Way of the Unicorn.

AVSN @ 84:

"Is the bloodshed caused by atheist regimes created by communist or totalitarian states any less damnedable? Come back when you know what your talking about."

Blood is shed every day by people with beards. But a bearded murderer doesn't murder because he is bearded - the beard is irrelevant.

Now substitute "beard" with "atheist" and you might understand.

The Catholic Church has shed millions of gallons of blood over the centuries directly because of the nature of their beliefs.

Ergo: religion kills. Atheism does not. Granted, some atheists do kill, but not because of their atheism.

Religion can always be twisted into a justification for killing. Atheism - never.

I don't think I can make it any clearer.

Africangenesis @#96:
You expose your ignorance the moment you open your mouth. Evolution is a process; it has no power to do wrong or right. Only creationists, idiots and Christian apologists try to ascribe a motive to evolution to justify their own vapid arguments.
The fact that you are using the same fallacy about evolution and genetics (Holy Shit!) to justify the horrendous rape of the little girl is quite telling, actually. Shame on you.

So, the Brazilian president 'regrets' the Church's decision. How about representing the constituency's interests and tell them to stop harassing, blackmailing and extorting his people with their scare tactics. But he can't do that - he's a member of the club and probably too scared himself to dare rationality.

AVSN @ 84,

(or worse Atheist)):

Yo, dipshit! I'm an Ex catholic Brazilian born *ATHEIST* and I'm going to perform unholy blasphemous satanic rituals and conjure up all that is evil from the depths of everlasting hell and unleash them upon your Assinine Vacuous Stupid Nonsense.

So there, now what are you going to do about it, fool? BWHAHAHA!

Felix - There are others, but I would have to dig through a pile of books to find them. Did you also see where originally the church had made it heresy to believe in witchcraft, the Canon Episcopi of 906?

Patricia, thanks for that too. I had some interest in the topic some years back and read a few good books, but my knowledge has rusted. No more time now, but I'll mark that and read up about it.
The cool thing for Christians is that they always have the fallback position 'we got the new Holy Spirit patented insight by personal revelation'.

I'm thinking about this from the twisted logic of the Catholic Church.

If God is the source of all morals and ethics, as most church-going Catholics probably believe, the church — which has a direct line to God through the Pope — is absolutely the only arbiter of what's moral and what's not.

Any Catholic who disagrees with the church — on ANY issue — has no more moral justification than does an atheist.

Thus, no matter how irrational it seems to a reasonable person, rape can easily be more moral than the use of condoms, and an abortion can bring excommunication for everybody but the rapist who made it necessary.

Hey, it's stupid-on-steroids, but it's obviously what they believe.

Patricia @51:

The French catholics that had children flogged while they were forced to watch their parents burned at the stake, and then burned the children next?

Patricia @68:

In the fifteen hundreds the church made it legal to torture girls at the age of nine, and boys at ten and a half

Source(s) please.

Patricia @103:

Bishop Cyril was elevated to sainthood by the vatican when he had the pagan university lecturer Hypatia dragged into a church and slashed to death with oyster shells in the name of gawd. (fifth century)

You're being a bit economical with the truth there.

It's more of their desperate attempt to control women. A lot of people think the muslims have the market cornered on female subjugation, but not so. The early church really hammered it every chance they got. Here's one you don't hear too often:

Christians are not allowed to teach their daughters singing, the playing of instruments or similar things because, it is neither good nor becoming. Commandments of the Fathers, Superiors and Masters, circa 576 AD.

Pilty,

The Spanish Inquisition tortured and killed thousands.

Torquemada became the inquisitor-general for most of Spain. He was responsible for establishing the rules of inquisitorial procedure and creating branches of the Inquisition in various cities. He remained the leader of the Spanish Inquisition for fifteen years and is believed to be responsible for the execution of around 2,000 Spaniards.

I just sent an e-mail to the secretary of our local bishop asking how one can get excommunicated. They will probably want me to come down there to see if they can change my mind, but they've never met anyone as stubborn as me.

Thank you, Lula, for speaking up.

Do you think there are very many elected politicians in the US who would be willing to speak up in such a circumstance?

every time i see the word "excommunication" i think of bernard law, and how he is not only NOT excommunicated, but on top of a board in charge of clergy discipline, and wonder why he's not in a jail cell.

this is disgusting.

AVSN @ 84

Even if I was as an atheist obliged to defend the actions of other people who also happened to be atheist (which is frankly as stupid as saying that by subscribing to the RCC you obligate yourself to defend the actions of jihadis because they are also theists) it is worth remembering that genocides encouraged and perpetrated by the RCC still killed more human beings by a wide margin, especially as a function of population. Even if you don't accept that the RCC position on condoms in africa does not constitute a near genocide, even if you don't believe the church should be faulted for the crusades--remember the way the RCC treated the native Americans, encouraging and justifying repeated genocides over the course of hundreds of years--genocides which resulted in the almost complete depopulation of an entire continent of almost 54 million people.

Seems to me Africangenesis is shaping up to be an excellent troll for the dungeon.

AVSN, Piltdown Man, what are your reactions to and positions on the rape, abortion, and the RCC's ongoing response to this case?

Patricia @140:

Christians are not allowed to teach their daughters singing, the playing of instruments or similar things because, it is neither good nor becoming. Commandments of the Fathers, Superiors and Masters, circa 576 AD.

What's your source for that quotation, please? I'm not aware of any text of that title.

Piltdown Man - You have been here long enough Pilty to know I don't bullshit about stuff I write about the church.

Torture - Coulton, Inquisition and Liberty, 154-155

You might also want to check out the Codex Juris Canonici which finally made torture illegal in 1917.

French burnings - Robbins, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology, 229.

Hyapatia - Ellerbe, The Dark Side of Christian History, 8.

I'm being brief so that people don't have to read through a full screen of drek if they have no interest in it.

Piltdown Man, as a Catholic, what's your take on this situation? Should the girl have had the abortion or not? Why or why not?

Considering that the bible teaches to offer our virgin daughters to a rapist mob when you have angels over for dinner, and catholic priests' sexual inclinations I'm not surprised with the bishop's attitude...

Kudos for my president Lula and his ministers.

Even more significantly, atheism had as much to do with it as a-unicornism or a-minotaurism. How, exactly, can the simple lack of belief in something inspire anyone to do anything?

Good point. Except i don't accept your silly aunicornism.

CAN YOU PROVE THERE ISN'T A UNICORN? CAN YOU? HUH?

DID YOU KNOW THAT VLAD THE IMPALER WAS AN AUNICORNIST?

'Tis Himself @141:

Pilty,
The Spanish Inquisition tortured and killed thousands.

So has the United States of America. I was specifically inquiring about the following statements by Patricia:

The French catholics that had children flogged while they were forced to watch their parents burned at the stake, and then burned the children next

In the fifteen hundreds the church made it legal to torture girls at the age of nine, and boys at ten and a half

I was just curious to know where she derived this information.

Christ on a cracker Piltdown Man! It's your damned religion.

Redmond, When the Drummers Were Women, 139.

Am I the only person that buys books anymore? *snivel*

Patricia the Vulgar, OM #154

Am I the only person that buys books anymore?

Not hardly. Today I went to the used bookstore and sold them 40 books (10 hardcover, 30 paperback) and bought 12 books (8 hardcover, 4 paperback). I probably would have found more books to buy but my wife dragged me away with some excuse about being hungry and wanting lunch.

Patricia @149:

Piltdown Man - You have been here long enough Pilty to know I don't bullshit about stuff I write about the church.
Torture - Coulton, Inquisition and Liberty, 154-155
You might also want to check out the Codex Juris Canonici which finally made torture illegal in 1917.
French burnings - Robbins, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology, 229.
Hyapatia - Ellerbe, The Dark Side of Christian History, 8.
I'm being brief so that people don't have to read through a full screen of drek if they have no interest in it.

Patricia, those are secondary sources.

Do Coulton, Robbins and Ellerbe provide their primary sources?

"If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." Florynce Kennedy

their primary sources?

I would imagine these are now dead...

This is extremely sad. First a rape then 2 murders and a bunch of excommunications. this world is so sad.

You're a douchebag Facilis. No murders took place except for the hit on your sense of reality.

That was knocked off a while ago.

As Silvia already noted, the brazilian newspapers are reporting that the doctors and the girl´s mother were already excommunicated and that the bishop responsible has the support of Vatican officials. So this isn´t just the work of some crazy backwoods bishop, it´s approved by some of the higher-up nutjobs in Rome.

What I found particularly disgusting was a comment in an opinion column that was moderately critical of the church´s actions (http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/pensata/gilbertodimenstein/ult508u53…).

"A regra da igreja é clara. A lei da igreja é clara.
Quem não quer ser religioso é absolutamente livre para não ser.
A situação é difícil e complicada. O Bispo foi precipitado em fazer as excomungações, deveria ter observado melhor o processo canonico, e não levar a público tal questão.
Claro, nossa imprensa que adora falar mal e perseguir a igreja católica e os cristãos, aproveitou a polemica e saiu noticiando para todo mundo!)"

I´ll do a quick translation:
"The rule of the Church is clear. The law of the Church is clear. Those who are not religious are absolutely free to be so. The situation is difficult and complicated. The bishop was too quick in doing the excommunications, he should have followed the proper canonic process and not have taken such a question to the public realm. Of course, our press, which loves to bash and persecute the Catholic Church and christians, has made use of this complicated issue and spread it to the whole world."

So, apparently, some catholics believe that not only the Church was right in considering a necessary abortion worse than murder but that it should have tried to hush things up and keep the press out of it! The insanity of it all truly hurts a reasonable person´s brain. Thankfully quite a bit of the people counted as catholics here in brazil (at least in the more developed parts of the country) are quite liberal and don´t follow the Church´s more insane doctrines (banning of condoms, no sex before marriage, no abortions etc.), which really makes them anything but catholics. Unfortunately, a good part of the country is still extremely poor and it is exactly in those regions that the Church still holds considerable influence among the people and how they live their lives.

As a brazilian atheist who was baptized by the Catholic church at birth, this just makes me want to go up to a priest and ask him to find some way to excommunicate me as well. The pleasure of seeing my name removed from their lists and no longer associated in any way with these despicable acts would be immense.

Piltdown Man - Ellerbe doesn't. Her book is the only one I have at hand right now, the other two are on loan to friends.

Redmond went to some of the countries in question and did research in the temples and museums herself.

Are you saying they're wrong? Do you ask for original sources for the bible?

I'll remind you all of Piltdown's opinion of history, demonstrated on previous threads: if something makes Catholicism look good then it happened; if, on the other hand, it makes Catholicism look bad then it is either a fabrication or an exaggeration made by enemies of the church in order to besmirch its good name.

It would be a badge of honor to be excommunicated by the Catholic Church.

Apparently the Brazilian church is not satisfied with pedophile priests ruining lives so they attack child rape victims and their families and communities.

Catholic Church - forever immoral and unethical

Thus, no matter how irrational it seems to a reasonable person, rape can easily be more moral than the use of condoms, and an abortion can bring excommunication for everybody but the rapist who made it necessary.

Hey, it's stupid-on-steroids, but it's obviously what they believe.

It's not as stupid as what some people have told me they believe. For example , when I ask them to account for the absolute, universal ,objective, immaterial ,invariant laws of morality they tell me that things like molesting children for fun are not absolutely wrong.(One of those relativists had claimed in another thread that is was wrong for Catholic priests to molest boys- talk about inconsistency.)

Patricia @154:

Christ on a cracker Piltdown Man! It's your damned religion.
Redmond, When the Drummers Were Women, 139.
Am I the only person that buys books anymore?

I see. Does Redmond provide a footnote detailing where exactly she got this quotation from? Does she specify which scholarly modern edition of this "Commandments of the Fathers, Superiors and Masters, circa 576 AD" she consulted? Or perhaps she mentions the particular archive where she consulted the original manuscript?

+++

BTW, I found the following review on Amazon (from the periodical Booklist) of Layne Redmond's When the Drummers Were Women:

"Women's spirituality circles have taken to drumming in a big way. Redmond has been a leader in reintroducing the frame drum, which, she persuasively argues, has been an instrument of spiritual transformation for millennia. Her marvelous book brings together mythology, history and prehistory, personal experience, musical lore, and scientific information on the healthful effects of drumming. Scores of illustrations show stately goddesses holding frame drums, wild maenads tossing their heads as they pound, and priestesses sanctifying space with the rhythms they beat. Redmond's own story of learning drumming in a society in which women are still actively discouraged from taking up the drums is a paradigm of female experience. Wise and passionate, Redmond's book will find a ready audience, made up not only of those who have attended her popular workshops but also of other women drawn to the ecstatic pulse of the drum."

For some reason it put me in mind of this.

Facilis the Fallacious Fool. There are no absolute, objective, immaterial, invarient laws of morality, any more than there is evidence for your imaginary god. Your are a failure at logic and reason, and your keep repeating your refuted allegations over and over like that makes them true. It just make you look stupid.

To Fernando @135

(or worse Atheist)):
Yo, dipshit! I'm an Ex catholic Brazilian born *ATHEIST* and I'm going to perform unholy blasphemous satanic rituals and conjure up all that is evil from the depths of everlasting hell and unleash them upon your Assinine Vacuous Stupid Nonsense.
So there, now what are you going to do about it, fool? BWHAHAHA!

Nothing whatsoever. If you are an atheist, then you don't believe in any deity, including Satan. I must therefore conclude you are a liar, and will make no such attempt at ritual.

I will "give you props" for the "Assinine Vacuous Stupid Nonsense" bit. Clever. Never mind that AVSN is my title and intials. As I always do with your type, I will agree to disagree and leave you to your rantings.

Fascillis - Just which poster here told you that it is not absolutely wrong to molest children for fun?

It's not as stupid as what some people have told me they believe. For example , when I ask them to account for the absolute, universal ,objective, immaterial ,invariant laws of morality they tell me that things like molesting children for fun are not absolutely wrong.(One of those relativists had claimed in another thread that is was wrong for Catholic priests to molest boys- talk about inconsistency.)

For fucks sake you are a moron facilis! Morality is provisional, not universal. Protecting children is not wrong without there being humans and the ability to molest others. Stop playing the dichotomy between absolute universal morality and the absence thereof. If you don't understand this distinction, then how are you ever going to understand what other people say on the matter? Stop being wilfully ignorant.

Step-father rapes 9-year old, she becomes pregnant with twins and doctors decide that to save the live of the innocent rape victim they abort the twins. The step-father now is a church hero and the doctors are excommunicated.

None of this controversy would have happened if the step-father had killed the 9-year old before the doctors could terminate the twins.

Now, tell me again why the world's largest pedophilia institution claims to have a patent on the definition of what is moral and what is immoral?

Let's all bombard our local churches and demand to be excommunicated in solidarity with these Brazilian doctors.

Like someone else on this blog writes, the church can do much less damage if it becomes public how few members they really have.

facilis,

Does the specifically Catholic concept of Christianity provide the answers, via revelation, regarding the god which you claim is responsible for these universal absolutes?

If not, why not? Why is your version of Christianity better than the Catholic one?

Piltdown, please pay attention to facilis' answer. I'd like to hear your response.

Africangenesis @#24
Kausik Datta @#36
Africangenesis @#96
Wowbagger @#118
Kausik Datta @#133

You're all being idiots.

Africangenesis was (probably wrongly and in a stupid context) providing a explanation for the step-father's behaviour using evolutionary psychology. Kausik Datta (wrongly) interpreted this as a moral justification, likely by way of the 'natural means good' fallacy. Africangenesis (rightly, but with stupid wording) pointed out this fallacy. Wowbagger and Kausik Datta then (wrongly) assumed the stupid wording meant he was assigning some sort of moral imperative to evolution, rather than just indicating that it can lead to unpleasant results (see- barbed penises, Christian apologists).

Piltdown Man, please answer #s 147 and 151.

facilis, if you ever want to get anywhere intellectually, you have to be able to understand the point of view by which you are arguing against. You've made no attempt to actually try and understand where people come from on the subject of morality, rather you have applied isolated examples to your own. And of course when you do this you'll find them inadequate. But that's a mark of pigheaded ignorance, and anyone who cares about actually furthering their own intellectual position would seek to avoid that behaviour.It's obvious you don't understand where anyone who has argued on morality is coming from, do you think we are asking you to read up on the science of morality just to get you to go away? It's because without understanding an opponent's position, you'll never learn anything. For all you ever get is confirmation of your own agenda. If you want to argue on the subject, try and put yourself into the shoes of those you are arguing against. Try and rationalise the world the way they do, and from there you will have the ability to poke holes in it. Until such time, you just come off as a child.

What happens to the girl?

Piltdown Man - Yes, she does have a note regarding this quote.

Commandments of the Fathers, Superiors, and Masters (A.D. 576), trans. W. Riedel. Quasten, Johannes, op. cit., pp. 81-83.

I fully expect you to make fun of feminist books. Now I'll look at your link to see if you disappoint me.

Piltdown Man - Nope your link did not disappoint. You could not have tried harder to misunderstand Redmond's book.

Facilis, it wasn't murder just because you falsely claimed it was. For someone who claims that absolute morality exists, you seem to be quite willing to dispense with the truth.

By the way, the child's life was in danger. Doesn't that bother you at all? Don't you understand that she and the fetuses would all have died? You must be a bishop, because I have never met a Catholic layperson as cold, heartless, amoral and out of touch as you present yourself here.

Canon 1398, guys and gals. Anyone who obtains, performs or helps with an abortion is automatically excommunicated. It's one of the very few sins that merit such a consequence.

I wonder how many new atheists there are today?

A number of Catholic/ religious apologists have been wining at the consensus negative opinion expressed here on the actions of the Catholic church in general and the Brazilian Archbishop in particular concerning the rape of a 9 year old Brazilian girl and the subsequent abortion. To all those apologists: STATE EXACTLY WHAT ARE YOUR VIEWS ON THE ISSUE, not your sophistry.

@ Pilty- are you so ignorant as to not know the history of the Catholic church that you need others to supply you with specific sources, i.e. your argument is at the level of 'show me your sources or I will not believe mammals have hair.'

@Facilis

when I ask them to account for the absolute, universal ,objective, immaterial ,invariant laws of morality

Will you be providing the link to their full, formal treatment and explication as soon as you're done typing up the universal, invariant, immaterial, absolute laws of logic?

Do you presuppositionalists ever feel even the tiniest urge to support any of your assertions with facts?

I'm quoting a secondary source here, Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, but she was a reputable historian and she quoted the sources, so you can look it up. For almost a thousand years, the Church said that if someone dreamed that you were out doing witchy things, it was just a dream and was not evidence. Just before the witch hunts really got rolling, the Church changed its standards. They decided that if someone dreamed that you were out doing witchy things, and your spouse swore that you were asleep in bed all night, you had fooled your spouse by magic and you were a witch. Then they would torture you into giving the names of other supposed witches.

Among the witchfinder's tools was a large needle, like a small skewer with a handle. In theory there was one numb spot on a witch's body where the Devil had kissed. The witchfinders would carefully stab people all over looking for that numb spot. There is is a museum one of these tools. I'm not sure if I found this in A Distant Mirror. The tool in question has a secret button that lets the needle slide up into the handle. That would enable the witchfinder to find a "numb spot." So they could cheat to condemn an innocent person, even by their ridiculous standards.

"Now the adults, those who approved, who carried out this abortion, are excommunicated."

The church thinks excommunication is a bad thing.

It's a badge of honor.

"It is my obligation to alert the people, so that they may fear the laws of God."

Got it. You like to intimidate people.

Go fuck yourself.

@ Michael J #181:

Not nearly enough.

@Pilty- Are you also a holocaust denier? Just wondering what sources would be needed for you to accept what is already all to well known.

Fuck the Catholic apologists, they're a bunch of arseholes. Here's some typical Catholic behavior:

Pope Innocent VIII's infamous Witch Bull of 1484, launched several centuries of persecution of so-called witches. Several hundred thousand women, children and men (about 20%) were tortured and burned at the stake or hanged. The Malleus Maleficarum (the Witches Hammer or Handbook of the Inquisitors), available online here as a pdf - http://www.burningcross.net/crusades/malleus-maleficarum.pdf], written by two Dominican monks, was perhaps responsible for more widespread bloodshed than any other publication (Christian or otherwise). The policy of torturing, burning and hanging of supposed heretics has been the church's policy for centuries, whenever they could get away with it. Between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries about a half a million people were executed for witchcraft, most of them women.

Do you presuppositionalists ever feel even the tiniest urge to support any of your assertions with facts?

If Facilis is any indication, no.

On Rwanda:

Priests, nuns and even Bishops were indicted and a great many were convicted (by war crimes tribunals) for being directly responsible for the senseless slaughter of thousands of innocent Tutsis. Many clergy turned over those who had taken shelter in their churches to the machetes of the Hutu militia. The hatred and division between the Hutus and Tutsis was propagated by the missionaries as favorable for their objectives of conversion to Christianity.

One priest even burned down his own church to kill hundreds of Tutsis who had taken sanctuary there. Two priests were sentenced to death in 1998 for their roles in this genocide and two Benedictine nuns who supplied gasoline for the burning of Tutsi civilians sheltered in their church fled to Belgium where they were later convicted of complicity to murder.

“Sister Maria Kisito, who received 12 years, and her Mother Superior, Sister Gertrude, who received 15 years, were convicted of aiding in the slaughter of some 7,000 people who sought refuge at their convent in southern Rwanda. Prosecutors argued that they called in Hutu militiamen to drive people out of the convent knowing they would be killed, and later provided gasoline that militiamen used to set fire to a garage in which about 500 Tutsis had taken refuge.” (Washington Post, June 9, 2001)[6]

Seriously, I really mean it when I say fuck the Catholic apologists. Not that the RCC took responsiblity:

Of course the Catholic Church has claimed their clergy were acting independently of the church, even though much of the most notable genocide occurred in churches and it is well known that the church's policy has been for centuries to divide and convert, to sew dissention between ethnic groups and then move in and take advantage of the chaos to offer Christian solace and conversion.

Does everyone notice that Facillis the Frightened has bravely turned and run away from answering my question about just which poster here said it's OK to molest children for fun?

Come out Facillis you little git.

@ Moses # 188

Can you give me the source for that? I'd like to read more.

Well, no. I'm really going to hate reading it, since I'm not much for violence, abuse of power, racism, misogyny, xenophobia, murder, extortion and naked greed.

...why are people catholic again?

Oh Moses that is horrible! I must have missed that news bit. Horrible.

No wonder Pilty ran away.

Then there is this:

Dr Kinsey, head of the Kinsey Institute, revealed this about the worst of us:

"One important aspect of the incest offenders against adults was obvious during the reading of each case history in our search for varieties of offenders, This is their ability to be religious, moralistic, intolerant and sexually inhibited, and at the same time to live a life of disorganization, drunkenness, violence, and sexual activity opposed to their religious tenets.

"This incongruent usually occasions no psychological stress, or at least none that cannot be relieved by periodic open repentance. The incest offenders against adults were the 'most religious' of any offenders, nearly half being classed as devout. Nearly all of these devout men were members of Pentecostal sects or were 'hard-shell' Baptists and Methodists."

I have found Serial Killers similar to Incest offenders in their ability to be very religious, yet do activities opposed to their religious tenets and suffer no psychological stress.

Hitler was a Roman Catholic alter Boy and wrote of wanting to be a Catholic priest. He and his men in charge of killing six million Jews were Catholic religious fanatics until death.

Stalin went to college to be a Protestant Christian minister. He became president of Russia and time after time had millions murdered.

Really, we're going to listen to a Catholic apologist?

It's in a file I copied from a web page/blog post: The Partial History of Christian Missionary Atrocities

http://www.burningcross.net/

Moses - Holy shite, I didn't know Stalin was studying to be a minister! That sure foils all the gawdists that come here and spout off that he was an atheist mass murderer.

Kinsey has been discredited as any kind of authority on normal OR abnormal sexuality--using criminals as his research subjects.

Rape is a foreign invasion, not God's will, and I favor the rape kit at the hospital immediately after the event --though that may be an abortion of fertilized ovum. No way to know, as I understand it.

In the case of a 9 year old victim of rape resulting in pregnancy, the child and parents (somebody responsible, not the rapist stepfather obviously) should have the say --mostly the child. Was she even mature in body enough to survive birth of twins? It is possible --but unseemly and unfair to her --however, wonderful people have been the products of rape, so the Catholic church rightly considers the humanity of the fetus, even in cases of rape.

Not being Catholic, I believe in the role of the Holy Spirit in the life and free will of the believer and consider a decision like this one between victim and God. But only for rape and life of mother. Abortion should not be used for birth control. As it is, I believe that men not wanting responsibility are repsonsible for many abortions--pushing their girlfriends to get them.

Barb the Bimbo is back, as stupid in her opinions as ever. Your god doesn't exist and your bible is fiction.

Re: above indictment of Pentecostals, Methodists, Baptists, etc. That's really silly considering that the Catholic Church's celibate laity have had an awful time.

I've been in evangelical Christendom all my life and never known any immoral ministers or immoral active laymen, for that matter. I heard about one lapsed minister in our state conference several years ago. It's true that pentecostal churches have more charlatans --because you can be theatrical, faking it, and money-grubbing and have an independent congregation where you won't be accountable to anyone.

The devil is attracted to church and so he works on people there -and new converts may be particularly vulnerable to fall back into old ways. But the men and youth leaders and teachers I have known have been godly people. however, the bigger the ego of a person in ministry, the greater the possibility that he will get on some kind of power trip and fall into sin. There are more men of good character in churches than you'll find in any other groups --of that I'm certain. I'm married to one, the daughter and granddaughter of one, the daughter-in-law and grand-daughter in law of another, and the sister of a moral brother --and I have more moral uncles and aunts than immoral. I had one philanderer uncle and one by marriage who was alcoholic and found in bed with the neighbor's wife. Neither was a church-goer. I have some relatives who do not live biblically --but they did not consider themselves to be devout Christians, nor were they active in Bible-believing congregations. Devotion to Christ and church make all the difference in the world in a man's character and ability to be faithful in marriage.

And granted, I'm sure there are some non-Christians who can make the same claim --to have good values and character.

Wonderful people have been the products of rape... Barb you complete moron.

Did you even read the story, blog whore? An 80 pound 9 year old girl! You damn christians are just as sick as the catholics and muslims when it comes to child molesting. Do you really think 50 shekels of silver is worth this poor little childs ruined life?

Barb the Bozo with still no intellectual quality to her inane screeds. Barb, we don't give a shit what you think, since you are such a dunderhead.

The devil... ah haw, ha, ha!

Barbs got the devil going.

That tops even Piltdown Man.

There are more men of good character in churches than you'll find in any other groups --of that I'm certain.

I wonder why you are certain?

I've been in evangelical Christendom all my life

Oh that's right, because you've lived a life full of experiences outside your sheltered little world. You surely know how the rest of the world is.

I've been in evangelical Christendom all my life and never known any immoral ministers or immoral active laymen, for that matter. I heard about one lapsed minister in our state conference several years ago. It's true that pentecostal churches have more charlatans --because you can be theatrical, faking it, and money-grubbing and have an independent congregation where you won't be accountable to anyone.

ugh

Devotion to Christ and church make all the difference in the world in a man's character and ability to be faithful in marriage.

Humm that's strange. I give to charity, I volunteer and I've been faithful to my wife of nearly 7 years.

Odd it is.

Barb is hilarious. Yes Barb the Bozo I am laughing at you. HAHAHAHAHAHA. One doesn't need to be a mentally challenged Xian like yourself to be faithful. I have been married five times longer than the good Rev. to my Redhead, and I haven't strayed either. Barb, you keep lying to yourself, which means you lie to others like us. Quit lying to yourself.

I donate to the local food bank, I volunteer at the veterans home, and I've been faithful to my husband for 34 years.

Let's go Barb. The godless are ahead.

Did you know that in 1945 the bishop of Berlin, Cardinal Graf von Preysing, gave permission for Catholic doctors to perform abortions? The circumstances were that the Red Army had just committed at least 100,000 rapes in Berlin.

So it appears that there's precedent for even a bishop to put aside the customary punish-the-victim-suffering-is-good dogma and behave like a sane and decent human being- if he wants to.

The Church hierarchy is a mafia- the evidence is overwhelming and the Brazilian bishop is morally no better than a mob triggerman.

I didn't know that. One more instance of the catholics being two faced.

I'm sure Piltdown Man will show up again when the thread is long dead and swear none of what everyone has posted is true.

@Barb

Not being Catholic, I believe in the role of the Holy Spirit in the life and free will of the believer and consider a decision like this one between victim and God. But only for rape and life of mother. Abortion should not be used for birth control. As it is, I believe that men not wanting responsibility are repsonsible for many abortions--pushing their girlfriends to get them.

Coming from a country that's suffering from a horribly bloated population, I beg to differ on your opinion.

Around here, it's either you learn contraception and birth control, or give birth to a child that's doomed to be malnourished, maltreated, and will most probably end up being the next mugger on the street that'll stick a knife in your back when they get older.

Rape is a foreign invasion, not God's will

Lo, a day shall come for the Lord when the spoils shall be divided in your midst. And I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem for battle: the city shall be taken, houses plundered, women ravished
(Zechariah 14:1-2)

When you go out to war against your enemies and the LORD, your God, delivers them into your hand, so that you take captives, if you see a comely woman among the captives and become so enamored of her that you wish to have her as wife, you may take her home to your house. But before she may live there, she must shave her head and pare her nails and lay aside her captive's garb. After she has mourned her father and mother for a full month, you may have relations with her
(Deuteronomy 21:10-14)

Thus says the Lord: 'I will bring evil upon you out of your own house. I will take your wives while you live to see it, and will give them to your neighbor. He shall lie with your wives in broad daylight.
(2 Samuel 12:11-12)

They must be dividing the spoils they took: there must be a damsel or two for each man
(Judges 5:30)

As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you.
(Deuteronomy 20:10-14)

Moses was furious with all the military commanders who had returned from the battle. "Why have you let all the women live?" he demanded. "These are the very ones who followed Balaam's advice and caused the people of Israel to rebel against the LORD at Mount Peor. They are the ones who caused the plague to strike the LORD's people. Now kill all the boys and all the women who have slept with a man. Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves.
(Numbers 31:14-18)

They told the men of Benjamin who still needed wives, "Go and hide in the vineyards. When the women of Shiloh come out for their dances, rush out from the vineyards, and each of you can take one of them home to be your wife! [...] So the men of Benjamin did as they were told. They kidnapped the women who took part in the celebration and carried them off to the land of their own inheritance.
(Judges 21:20-23)

Most excellent Tulse! Way to be gruesome.

Good night sweethearts.

A child of 9 bearing children is nothing new to the Catholics, assuming we're still in the middle ages. Richard the II was bethrothed to Isabella of France when she was six.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_II_of_England

Marriages back then were basically consumated once the girl achieved "womanhood"...ten? eleven? twelve?

And wives pretty much stayed pregnant until they either died or the husband found a younger mistress.

Granted, that because of the mortality rate at that time, what with the plagues, crusades, famines and such, it was probably a good thing that there was no birth control - we might have died out as a species...it still doesn't make it right that children should bear children.

The point is, we know better now. And aren't exactly in jeopardy of dying out. At least, not yet.

Religion is evil. Always has been and always will be.

Tulse,

Good stuff. On two other occasions so far I've illustrated how ignorant Barb is of scripture regarding her hateful, murder-loving, human-loathing god. It's like she's got no idea at all about the monster she worships.

At this point the only question worth asking is if the ignorance is willful or not.

At this point the only question worth asking is if the ignorance is willful or not.

hard to say. She claims to live a very sheltered life so it could be unwillingly ignorant as a result of remaining closed up in her little world.

But I bet it's a little willful as well.

The christian god-idea allowed the girl to be rape then thought hmmm, better put a baby in there as well, a gift from their god-idea!

Christians are way sick, sick, sick, running neck to neck with the rapists.

Barb | March 6, 2009 11:22 PM

I've been in evangelical Christendom all my life and never known any immoral ministers or immoral active laymen, for that matter. . . .

And granted, I'm sure there are some non-Christians who can make the same claim --to have good values and character.

Barb, I find it remarkable that you know the inner life of every single male in your church so well that you can be confident that not a single one of them is hiding a streak of "immorality" (I thought everyone was a sinner, according to your religion), but your acquaintance with people outside your church is apparently so limited that you can't say from actual personal knowledge that non-Christians of "good values and character" exist.

Maybe you should get out more.

Barb you are aware that your god is supposed to be omniscient and omnipotent right? Thus nothing happens without him at least allowing it?

Even worse (1) it isn't particularly clear why free will is a moral good when it's primary function on the christian view is that it causes bad things to happen. (2) Free will may be compatible with omnipotence, maybe even with omniscience and omnipotence, but it is certainly not compatible with an omnipotent omniscient entity who is also the reason that you have the sort of characteristics that you do, the "author of the universe." (3) Free will may not even be scriptural, (the Calvinists, Lutherans, etc.)

At any rate it is manifest that if there is a god, this is god's will, which makes your god a monster.

Yes, please Barb, tell us what you think about your god endorsing rape in his holy book.

Look on the bright side. The Catholic church has been losing members for a while, especially in Latin America. Since those evil secularists and protestants took away their power to raise armies, acquire heavy weapons, and torture and kill at will, people have been leaving the church in waves.

It is a myth that all the Mexicans flooding into the USA are catholics. Quite a few are protestants. Without looking up the numbers, it is something like 20-30% of this population segment.

Same thing is happening in South America. The choice isn't between being catholic or being an excommunicated catholic or an atheist. People vote with their feet for a variety of alternatives and the protestants have picked up a lot of excatholics.

There is a huge gulf between the celibate clergy and the members in the first world. With Ratzinger it is getting wider rather than narrowing. Without a new Reformation, the RCC will just end up marginalized.

Greetings!

I have never been able to understand a pro-lifer thinking it allowable to abort a pregnancy in the case of rape/incest/etc.

After all, we would not hold it moral to murder someone merely because their father is a rapist, yes?
And, presumably, abortion is murder, yes?

Can anyone throw some light on this for me?

Thanks in advance!

I have never been able to understand a pro-lifer thinking it allowable to abort a pregnancy in the case of rape/incest/etc.

Consistency is not their strong suit. Especially when they can use the different standards to enforce the boys club.

"The devil is attracted to church"

Really? Aw man. I thought he was cool.

Hmmm. Barb hasn't replied to my question about what she thinkss of her rape-inciting god (great cites, Tulse). I wonder if she's in a different time zone and has gone to bed or if she hasn't replied because she hasn't got a (good) answer?

Damn living in Mountain Standard Time! Discussions are practically over by the time I get online.

Barb probably is serving her master at the moment.

@ plum

heh try living in central china

Hmmm. Given how things are running, I think it not at all unlikely for the Bishop to excommunicate Lula, as I'm sure the Bishop would consider Lula's criticism of the church as tantamount to support for the abortion. Just because the support comes after the act is no reason for the church to add another name to the list of the damned, after all.

@Tulse

Great verses, but do you know of any similar stuff from the New Testament? Some of the smarter apologists might try to evade the argument by citing true Christians don't adhere to OT laws.

Hey, good! A few people are still awake!

I don't get how Catholics can criticize their Church's stand on one issue (birth control, abortion for 9-year-old rape victims) but still believe in the authority of the Church on everything else.

That Brazillian archbishop is (supposedly) in direct apostolic succession from Peter. If the official Church can be so hideously wrong on one issue, doesn't that kind of undermine the reliability of their entire doctrinal edifice?

Jennifer L | March 7, 2009 1:28 AM

Hmmm. Given how things are running, I think it not at all unlikely for the Bishop to excommunicate Lula, as I'm sure the Bishop would consider Lula's criticism of the church as tantamount to support for the abortion. Just because the support comes after the act is no reason for the church to add another name to the list of the damned, after all.

Logically you're right, Jennifer. Endorsing a sin that calls for instant excommunication ought to excommunication-worthy itself. But I'll bet the archbishop doesn't do it. The Catholic Church has a history of cozying up to the powerful, regardless of their (perceived or real) moral shortcomings.

At plum

well you could say the same thing about the bible itself--how many misleading statements, monstrous deeds, and outright lies before a book is no longer regarded as holy?

My guess is that it's more about some remnant of tribalism than anything else.

do you know of any similar stuff from the New Testament? Some of the smarter apologists might try to evade the argument by citing true Christians don't adhere to OT laws.

You're right that the god of the New Testament is a lot less rape-y than the one in the Old Testament, whose all about smiting and pillaging and genocide and stuff. And so sure, Christians can rightly say that Jesus never told anyone to slaughter an entire city of people and rape its virgin girls.

But that's completely irrelevant to the claim that Barb tossed off, which is that "Rape is [...] not God's will." In the cited cases, it clearly was...unless Barb want to repudiate the god of the Old Testament (and given his personality, you'd think a lot of the Kumbaya Christians would want to).

It can all be boiled down to the fact that God finally got laid. After a couple thousand years of having to take care of himself, Mary came along and he finally got some. Once he got him some ass his whole attitude changed.

It happens to everyone.

#232
that is possibly the greatest interpretation of scripture of all time

You're right, GBM and Tulse. Consistency is not hobgoblin that troubles the Christian mind (or in Barb's case, her sorry excuse for a mind).

Rev. BigDumbChimp | March 7, 2009 1:47 AM

It can all be boiled down to the fact that God finally got laid. After a couple thousand years of having to take care of himself, Mary came along and he finally got some. Once he got him some ass his whole attitude changed.

It must have been the release of vasopressin.

It seems to me that christians use the first part of the bible as guidance for wars, punishment, and other day to day actions. Whereas, they use the last part of the bible for telling how wonderful they are. I think in practice, when it was written, the first part was a guide for the rulers, while the last part was intended for the commoners. The rulers could justify their actions and the commoners were stirred up as needed. It is used in the same way now too.

I've never seen anything that suggests that the old part was no longer the word of their god-idea. Invasion of Iraq - check.

They still sell both parts as one wholly book, if the old part is obsolete they won't publish it.

Silvia, thanks very much for the information and translations.

Looking for more info/reports on the case, I found this at a site I have never heard of before, The Latin American Herald Tribune. I have absolutely no idea as to the reliability of that site, but they are reporting (in addition to the facts previously cited) some additional bits, some of which Silvia has previously kindly provided:

The ruling by the archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, to excommunicate those responsible for the abortion has already been described as “radical” by Brazil’s Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao.“Two things shocked me: what happened to the little girl and the position of that prelate who, mistakenly, says that he is defending a life but puts at risk another that is equally important,” Gomes Temporao said.The abortion was induced with medicines on Wednesday and the girl, who was four months pregnant with twins, is now in good health and has been released from hospital.…The stepfather, who admitted the abuse, was arrested last week accused of raping the girl and her 14-year-old sister on a number of occasions.

The health minister seems to get it. And I'm happy the girl is apparently physically Ok.

But this is the first (that I've seen) that the alleged rapist, the stepfather, has apparently admitted it. Or that the girl was c.4 months pregnant (I'd assumed, given her age and small size/weight (reported to be c.80 pounds), she'd gone to the hospital much sooner).

The Irish Times (which is a very reliable site, and along with The Grauniad, one of my favourite newspapers), confirms the alleged rapist, the stepfather, has admitted it. They are also reporting:

Before the abortion was carried out the archdiocese’s lawyers threatened to charge the mother with homicide, citing the Brazilian constitution’s guarantee to the right to life.

Let's repeat that: The magic dog's official holey rapists accused the mother of murder. (And to think I was just beginning to calm down…!)

Other reported bits:

… Archbishop Cardoso Sobrinho has denied media reports that he personally ordered the excommunications. “I simply recalled what is in church canon law. Excommunication is automatic for those who participate in an abortion. I did not excommunicate anyone, just remembered the church’s law which says they are automatically excommunicated,” he said.…The doctor who carried out the procedure has defended his actions. “If the pregnancy had continued, the damage would have been worse, being a high risk pregnancy. The risk would have been of death or at the very least that she would never have been able to become pregnant again,” Dr Olímpio Moraes told O Globo newspaper.“There are two legal justifications for abortion envisioned by the law, which are rape and risk to life. She [the girl] falls within the two and, as a doctor, I could not let a girl of nine years be submitted to this suffering and even pay with her own life.”But Archbishop Cardoso Sobrinho has dismissed the fact that the abortion was legal under Brazilian law as irrelevant to the question of excommunication. “God’s law is above whatever human law. So when a human law is contrary to God’s law, this human law has no value,” he said.

Prior to the abortion, the magic dog's official holey rapists wanted to use “human law” to charge the mother with murder. After the abortion, those same pedophiles say “… human law has no value”.

In case there's any doubt this magic dog's official rapist is a raving nutter:

The archbishop made clear that the excommunication did not extend to the young girl at the centre of the case. Archbishop Cardoso Sobrinho is a leading member of the Brazilian Catholic Church’s conservative wing and a firm opponent of abortion which he calls a “silent holocaust”.

A “silent holocaust”? Bull fucking shite! A “silent holocaust” is what you and your automaton co-arseholes did about/during the holocaust, or what they did to the rationale people of Europe for centuries earlier, burning them alive and otherwise torturing them. Present-day stupidity includes claiming condoms aren't a protection against acquiring HIV and other patent nonsense.

Piltdown Man implies that Patricia is lying when she says that the church authorised torture, merely because she doesn’t have primary sources to hand. Is he being facetious, or is he just plain ignorant about the history of the appalling superstition he seems to belongs to?

I do have a primary source. It is the papal bull “Ad Extirpanda”, issued by Pope Innocent IV in 1252, which can be regarded as the founding document of the Inquisition, and authorises the use of torture.

The key paragraph (no. 26) reads: “ The head of state or ruler must force all the heretics whom he has in custody, provided he does so without killing them or breaking their arms or legs, as actual robbers and murderers of souls and thieves of the sacraments of God and Christian faith, to confess their errors and accuse other heretics whom they know, and specify their motives, and those whom they have seduced, and those who have lodged them and defended them, as thieves and robbers of material goods are made to accuse their accomplices and confess the crimes they have committed”.

In other words the pope here orders the secular authorities to force the “heretics” to confess, using all means short of killing them or breaking their limbs. Too squeamish to actually mention the word “torture”, this was how the church authorized such instruments as the rack – a perfectly godly implement, since it did not actually break the arms or legs of the people it tormented.

Note too that under torture the ”heretics” were expected not only to confess their own thought-crimes, but to implicate others.

There is much more horror in this papal bull. The following comes from paragraph 21: “Whoever shall have the audacity to arrange the escape from custody of a male or female heretic, or shall try to prevent the arrest of such a person: or shall prevent the entry of an official into any house, or tower, or any place to hinder arrest, or prevent the gathering of evidence concerning such persons, shall have all his goods, according to the law at Padua when Frederick was emperor there, consigned to the state in perpetuity, and the house that was barred against the official shall be levelled with the ground and its rebuilding prohibited, and the belongings found therein shall be awarded to the officials making the arrest”.

Or paragraph 23: “If at any time a non-heretical man or woman state that heretics in custody, who have already confessed, are not heretics; or if perhaps the non-heretics demand that the aforesaid fraudulent persons should be released from life imprisonment, though they are nevertheless convicted heretics and must be acknowledged such; the persons who create this snare, accordingly to the aforesaid law shall resign all their property to the state in perpetuity”.

So anyone who dared to suggest that the inquisitors may have arrested the wrong people would lose all his possessions.

Of course, the provisions in this document that the property of heretics and anyone who tried to protect them could be seized created a racket. Unscrupulous priests and laymen would denounce people as heretics merely in order to obtain a share of their expropriated goods.

It is technically true that torture and burnings at the stake were carried out by the secular authorities – but only because they were instructed to so by the church. Any ruler who failed to seize and torture "heretics" would be cast out of the church. Remember – this was a time when the Catholic church claimed the right to dictate to kings and emperors, and would excommunicate those who got too uppity.

Or, as the text of “Ad Extirpanda” puts it: ”Whoever defaults in this regard shall lose the character of head of state or governor. Heads of state and rulers so acting will lose absolutely all guarantees of non-aggression from other governments. No one is obliged to offer fealty to such persons, or ought to do so, even if, afterwards, they submit by swearing the oath. If any head of state or ruler refuses to obey, each and all, these statutes, or neglects them, besides the stigma of forswearing, and the disaster of eternal infamy, he shall undergo the penalty of seeing his country lose its borders”. (i.e it could be subject to invasion, with the blessing of the church)

That is a primary source.

Now I wouuld like the catholic apologist Piltdown Man to give me the primary source for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The gospels are all secondary sources – none of the evangelists was present at the supposed event.

Let’s also have a primary source for the ten plagues of Egypt, and the crossing of the Red Sea. The Book of Exodus, probably written during the Babylonian Exile, perhaps a thousand years later, is very much a secondary source, and absolutely nothing in Egyptian archaeology confirms these tall stories.

paul fauvet | March 7, 2009 4:19 AM

Piltdown Man implies that Patricia is lying when she says that the church authorised torture, merely because she doesn’t have primary sources to hand. Is he being facetious, or is he just plain ignorant about the history of the appalling superstition he seems to belongs to?

I do have a primary source. It is the papal bull “Ad Extirpanda”, issued by Pope Innocent IV in 1252, which can be regarded as the founding document of the Inquisition, and authorises the use of torture

Oh, but paul, I'm sure you don't have the ACTUAL primary source. It's probably in the Vatican Library or somewhere. All you have is an alleged COPY of a primary source. In fact, even worse! Unless you read Latin, which it must have been written in, all you have an alleged COPY of an alleged TRANSLATION of a primary source.

Why bother to argue, why not just blame, illogically, without proof and stupidly?

Christian killed a cat, all christians are cat killers. Evangelist preacher had a homosexual relationship, all evangelists are homosexuals crack addicts. The devil is attracted to church and so he works on people there, therefore all people must be converted to and gotten into a church.

See, simpler and on par with the opposition so they would have no problems of getting the idea.

The human male is very attuned to signs of fertility and opportunistic in exploiting vulnerable females. - Africangenesis

Speak for yourself.

There is probably a genetic basis for the step-father's behavior. - Africangenesis

So that's all right then.

The genetic basis for protecting the child from eploitation by "bad" genes was apparently missing, the biologic father.

You might have taken account of the fact that many children live with stepfathers rather than their biological fathers when you were opposing the state intervening to protect children from sexual abuse in one of our early disagreements - but of course the point wasn't ideologically convenient to you then.

Apparently my comments have been taken as apologetic, which they are not meant to be, so let me try once more to clarify my original point, in a probably futile attempt to have a logical and coherent discussion over the internet.

The Catholic Church has their head up their ass in this case. Not only do I disagree strongly with their premise that aborting a fetus is equivalent to the murder of a conscious adult, but they have very clearly taken advantage of a widely circulated story in a horribly failed attempt at making some sort of public statement to reinforce this view.

I in no way intend to justify their response (not that excommunication is such a terrible fate) based on some idiotic moral relativism.

My one and only intended point, was that PZ has set up a straw man (look it up if you don't know what that is). I don't care whether or not I agree with someone, if they can't make a 200 word blog post without committing a logical fallacy it upsets me. It's not even a very good straw man, because it barely follows at all as it's stated, but I'll give PZ the benefit of the doubt about what he's trying to say since I have become well aware of how easy it is to misunderstand someone over the internet.

For example , when I ask them to account for the absolute, universal ,objective, immaterial ,invariant laws of morality they tell me that things like molesting children for fun are not absolutely wrong.(One of those relativists had claimed in another thread that is was wrong for Catholic priests to molest boys- talk about inconsistency.)

The phenomena and relationships described by the laws of physics (which are closer to "if...then" than "thou shalt"), and their emergent properties at various levels including the chemical biological, neurological, psychological, and social, are such that certain actions in certain contexts will tend to fairly predictably increase happiness and decrease suffering, and that other actions will tend to decrease happiness and increase suffering. Accepting as an axiom that happiness is, in general, desirable and worth striving for (note: even theists affirm this, as evidenced by their offer of perfect happiness after death as a reward for following their creeds in life), these relationships render certain actions, and certain general approaches to various situations, more desirable, and combined with the capacity for discerning patterns, planning future actions, and anticipating results which the human brain has developed, we are able to determine, by consideration of the likely consequences, which course of action is more desirable. Thus, just as scientific laws can be derived that describe the observed behavior of the mechanical, electrical, etc. interactions of elements of certain physical systems, less precise and more complex "laws" about what behavior is likely to produce what result can be derived from observation of human social systems and of individual humans. Of course, these "psychological and sociological laws" don't themselves impart a value to the consequences of the various courses of action which they are used to consider - we must choose to view happiness, for ourselves and others, as desirable - but the laws of physics don't tell us that we shouldn't want buildings to fall down, either, and this doesn't seem to have hampered civil engineering.

Anyway, unless you've got a coherent resolution of the Euthyphro Dilemma to share, I suggest that literally putting bullets through your own foot would be more productive than bringing up moral relativism as a target of attack.

As far as I’m concerned,Father Jose Cardoso Sobrinho is no better than the bastard who sexually abused this young girl. In trying to force her to carry the pregnancy to term, shows that the Catholic church has lost touch with reality and consider women as nothing more than baby factories. The fact that they haven’t spoken out against the paedophile who raped this young girl is even more telling; but then Catholic church has kept quiet about and protected the paedophiles within it’s midst for years.

I cannot see how it is possible for anyone belonging to the Catholic church to support, defend, or even try and excuse the views expressed by Father Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, and doing so it makes them no better than the bastard who raped that young child.

I'm a regular lurker at Pharyngula so I "know" and enjoy the comments of the regulars here. I learn a lot from you guys.
But, seriously, Fascilis the Fuckwit and Barb the Brainless are really starting to become annoying - followed closely by Piltdown Twit. I haven't even gone to Barb's blog for fear of destroying brain cells. I honestly think that Barb is probably the stupidest person on the planet, and that's no mean feat considering G.W.Bush and Sarah Palin still inhabit it.

Moses - Holy shite, I didn't know Stalin was studying to be a minister! That sure foils all the gawdists that come here and spout off that he was an atheist mass murderer. - Patricia, OM

He was "educated" at a seminary, but it was for the Russian Orthodox Church, not Protestant as Kinsey says, if Moses has the quote right. There seems no doubt Stalin became an atheist, but his education must certainly have taught him many useful lessons in enforcing ideological uniformity!

The genetic basis for protecting the child from eploitation by "bad" genes was apparently missing, the biologic father.

You might have taken account of the fact that many children live with stepfathers rather than their biological fathers when you were opposing the state intervening to protect children from sexual abuse in one of our early disagreements - but of course the point wasn't ideologically convenient to you then.

Wait, WHAT?!

Azkyroth@247,
I can't recall the thread, but africangenesis believes parents own their children. His hatred of the state is such that he opposes it having the power to prevent parents having clitoridectomy and infibulation carried out on their daughters, or to investigate suspicions of child physical or sexual abuse - he claimed such abuse was rare (as so often, he knows better than the relevant experts who say otherwise), because parents s are "biologically constrained" not to exploit their children. He did not note (and I missed making the point myself) that step-parents are not so constrained - indeed, if one wants to trace all human behaviour to natural selection, as he often appears to do, exploiting or even killing stepchildren could very plausibly have been selected for - we know that male lions, for example, routinely kill the cubs when they take over a pride.

Barb wrote in #197:

Rape is a foreign invasion, not God's will,...

Okay, so, then everything isn't God's will?

Can't you guys come with a little cheat-sheet or something? An internet version of a t-shirt that lists on it those particular aspects of the nuttery that you believe?

I dunno, something like:
I believe ridiculous propositions 1-12, 14-20, and 22, but not 13, 21, or 23-25. Why? Well, because proposition 13 must be false because of the use of the evil number, and 21 and 23-25 are just too ridiculous for me to believe as being true.

Barb:

I don't doubt that in some cases a religious upbringing, or religious conversion, causes a person to live more morally than s/he otherwise would have done. But as has been demonstrated to you, it is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition; there are many moral people who are not religious, and many religious people who are immoral.

And, in any case, this misses the point. I don't reject religion because it is "evil" or "immoral"; this would be a foolish generalisation, and would be irrelevant to the question of whether religion is actually true. Rather, I reject religion simply because of the sheer lack of empirical evidence in favour of belief in an interventionist God. Put simply, religion makes extraordinary metaphysical claims and does not adduce any evidence in support of them. Christianity makes an exceptional claim; that a particular Jewish carpenter two thousand years ago was a divine being who performed miracles and was physically resurrected from the dead. It has no evidence to back this claim other than four pseudonymous documents of uncertain date and provenance. How, then, can we be expected to believe it? And if we do choose to believe it on faith, despite the lack of evidence, then how do we distinguish between religious claims that are truthful and those that are not?

As to the moral issue at hand: I'm no fan of abortion (and have taken a lot of abuse here for my misgivings about it). However, I don't see that the Church's stance on this particular case can possibly be morally defended. Even if one assumes that a 15-week-old foetus is a human being with a right to bodily integrity, then it was still justified to perform this abortion in order to save the girl's life. The fact is that, if she had been forced to carry the babies to term, both she and the babies would probably have died; in such a situation, it is clearly the best course of action to save one life out of three, rather than losing all three. The doctors did what any sane, moral person would have done; and penalising them for it is simply wrongheaded. Is the Church seriously saying that it would have been morally better to let the girl die along with her babies?

me2 @ #145

I'm with you there - I'm a lurker here and really enjoy reading the threads - however currently Barb is getting particularly annoying (for me). I HAVE been over to her blog and she has a couple of regulars on there who will convince you that she is only one of many truly stupid people on the planet. I read in one thread that her marvellous Doctor husband said that most homosexuals he has known through his practice were abused as children (and hence their abuse is why they are gay). I have to force myself from not reading more of that rubbish because I spend the rest of the day fuming.

ChrisZ@243,
I'm going to assume you're being genuine, but I do think you've got the wrong end of the stick.

There is no straw man in PZ's post.

However you consider the position of the Catholic Church, it is wrong, and inconsistent.
There is no regard for the welfare of the injured party, the nine year old girl. There is not even any regard for the unborn, since they would not survive either. There is no condemnation for the abuser.

If the church were as worried about murder as they make out to be in the issue of abortion, they would excommunicate murderers. But they don't. This inconsistency gives the lie to what they are doing.

They are playing politics with the life of a young girl. This is evil, knowingly done.

I'm sure Plum Grenville is being ironic - but the original Latin text of "Ad Extirpanda" is easily available, since papal bulls were far from secret documnts (though in this case I bet the modern church wishes that all copies were safely hidden away in the Vatican library).

As for excommunication, there are two types - there is automatic excommunication where the sin is so heinous that those who commit it are automaticlly kicked out of the church. Apparently this applies to abortion, but not to genocide.

Then there are the excommunications of prominent people who have so irritated the Vatican that they are formally named as excosmmunicates.

Over the years the list of those excommunicated includes two Holy Roman Emperors (Henry IV and Frederick II), three English monarchs (King John, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I - even though the latter two were not Catholics), Martin Luther, Napoleon, and Fidel Castro.

It is perhaps worth noting that, although Adolf Hitler was bought up a Catholic, he was never excommunicated.

Catholics should ask themselves: what kind of organisation could possibly consider Elizabeth I as worse than Hitler?

eeeek sorry, me2 @ #245

"And how many priests accused and/or convicted of child molestation have been excommunicated?"

Two local ones were defrocked but not excommunicated. IN the south of England Archbishop Murphy O'Connor moved an abusive priest from the complaining parish and shielded him from prosecution. He was punished by being promoted to Cardinal. This was at the time when the Cardinal in charge of the Office for the Congretation of the Faith was taking a very hard line on abusive priests: hardline in defense of the Church's right to handle these cases in house and saying that going to the secular authorities was wrong.

That Cardinal is now the pope. And of course, even a paedophile priest is still a good priest: his sacraments are still valid, they made up a rule top say it's so.

WAY back up at #84 AVSN spouted

Is the bloodshed caused by atheist regimes created by communist or totalitarian states any less damnedable?

I've never understood how this argument from 'atheist regimes' even came about. They believed in Communism, plain and simple. If anyone asked Stalin or Mao what it was that they believed in - that would be their answer. Atheism, or is this instance the rejection of otherworldly rulers, was a consequence of their particularly held beliefs. They were also the new priesthood of their movement, after all they were the ones who knew the mind of 'the people' (rather than god's mind) and how best to apply it to those in their thrall. Communism, as applied in much of the world, was just as magical a belief system as the Catholic Church. With the greatest loss of life directly resulting from rejecting reality, rejecting evolution, because they disliked how it jarred with their world view, and damn all those who starved to death because of it.
To call them 'atheist regimes' is both simplistic and foolish, and has as much bearing on why they did what they did as calling them 'Full head of hair regimes' or 'en-moustached regimes' or 'fond of the colour red regimes'. Atheism was only what they did NOT believe, Communism was what they DID believe. In much the same way that Buddhists are called Buddhists and not atheists, despite technically being so.

"(Archbishop) Gomes Sobrinho said: 'He committed an extremely serious crime. But that crime, according to canon law, is not punished with automatic excommunication.'"
Of course it isn't. They wouldn't have any priests left if it were. *rimshot*

And even if, say Pol Pot would have killed in the name of atheism, how that would make it any more acceptable for any other person to say torture heretics for confessions and then kill them in the name of god with some horrible and torturous way so they would be saved?

What is the basis for such a thought process that if one killed hundred in the name of holy Woolly Mammoth then others are devoid of blame if they merely kill from ten to twenty people in the name of (insert favourite cult) as that is clearly much smaller number?

(Archbishop) Gomes Sobrinho said: 'He committed an extremely serious crime. But that crime, according to canon law, is not punished with automatic excommunication.'

Now, as Tulse noted, rape is actually condoned in the bible. So he's off the hook for that one (whew!), and maybe I'm being obtuse, but isn't adultery specifically condemned? I'm pretty sure it's even one of the ten commandments--you know, like "thou shalt not kill".

"Old enough to be raped and bear children, but not old enough to be responsible for decisions about her reproductive tract"

For Catholic church, everyone is old enough to be raped.

It was sad enough when I read the original article, and now they add insult to injury. I feel so sorry for the poor girl.

Walton #250, Good post--thoughtful, clear, and discerning. You used to write such unmitigated, hovering-on-the-fence crap! It's great to see such significant improvement in your critical thinking. Now please work on your cartoonish grasp of Libertarianism.

As a recovering catholic, I now excommunicate myself. Not that the church hasn't done equally contemptible things in other areas, but this is supremely awful. How about girls impregnated by priests? Are they allowed to abort? Somehow I bet they had the full blessing of the church.

AVSN: Is the bloodshed caused by atheist regimes created by communist or totalitarian states any less damnedable?
_______

What in Jebus' panties is an atheist regime? Atheism is simply the lack of god belief. A communist or totalitarian state is a communist or totalitarian state because communism/totalitarianism is the belief which guides the formation and implementation of government policies and dictates (not atheism). The idiots that keep trotting out this particular inanity (as if it is fresh, important, and meaningful) are grasping at straws as they need the extra stuffing for their various strawmen whose sodden and rotten stuffing keep getting torn to shreds.

A government guided by Enlightenment principles which would include that government is secular has nothing to do with its opposite, that is, communism/dictatorship/totalitarianism. Such governments are guided by Enlightenment principles, and not by lack of god belief. Show us such a guided, secular government which have committed atrocities on the level of Pol Pot, Stalin, and Hitler and then we can talk.

Yeah, Walton, how dare you hold your childish views on individual liberties, freedom from coercion, and the right to self-determination are incompatible with atheism. We want you to think for yourself where religion is concerned, but politics are a settled question. Heretic.

Arrgh, somehow that got garbled... it was supposed to have been "...views. Individual...".

#253 paul fauvet,
they allegedly had Pope Honorius I (625-638) excommunicated 40 years posthumously, according to wikipedia. This for the heresy of declaring that Jesus had no human will and was therefore not truly human (monotheletistic heresy). In fairness, this is disputed, as by official doctrine excommunications cannot occur posthumously and cease to exist with a person's death. So they couldn't excommunicate Hitler now even if they wanted to. Usually the grounds for excommunication are manifest conflicts with doctrine and/or church law. Like heresy, breaking the confessional secret or appointing bishops without the Holy See's sanction.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of state of the Vatican, explains:
"Certainly the excommunication is a very austere deterrent which the church has been applying since the first centuries against the worst offences. However, I must note that the excommunication touches only those as a punishment which have an ecclesiastical conscience in any manner. On Hitler or Stalin to impose an excommunication, would have been useless because they would not have regarded it meaningful. To the outside it is a signal, unfortunately, this does not help the conscience in conversion. The conversion comes from God, however, it is also a fruit of the evangelic announcement. If we remember the hard words of Pope Johannes Paul II in Agrigento (against the mafia). These words have touched some hearts. Also the courageous testimony of the shepherds can change something. We know, that in cases of war, violence, Camorra, ‘ndrangheta or mafia the conscience of a single person can change the position of many." (my quick translation)
http://www.oecumene.radiovaticana.org/ted/Articolo.asp?c=258263

In other words, excommunication is a tool to pressure (submissive, gullible or superstitious) individuals, not to demonstrate the Church's opposition against deceased criminals or establish any metaphysical facts or supernatural consequences. Therefore, as anyone asking for his own excommunication can be seen as not caring about doctrine or Church anymore anyway, the excommunication itself is pointless. In countries with membership registries, it will of course influence their official statistics; and it will have a manifest impact in countries where members pay mandatory fees (church tax).

Speedwell, this is not a libertarian blog. If you want to spout off about your libertarian idiocies, do it elsewhere. We are not fucking interested in how ignorant you are about basic economics, politics, and sociology.

'Tis, I wasn't proposing to start a discussion about libertarianism. But if you fear being seen condoning my transgression against the unwritten law that Atheists Must Not Have Heretical Politics, despite the lip-service given to Enlightenment ideals in this very thread, then I suppose I can't really blame you.

After reading the comments of Catholics and Protestant evangelicals (who have identified themselves as such) at various threads on this blog, I have concluded that Catholics are much more disgustingly scary (which is saying a lot since the protestant evangelicals are fairly creepy). The Catholics hold a barren, hostile, ruthless, stark, impoverished view of the world while the evangelicals hold a sheltered, cozy, silly, muddled, and cartoon-like grasp on the world. If a gun was pointed to my head to choose any religion, it would be the evangelicals. Really, Catholics, hire a public relations firm and fire the Pope.

(Speedwell, I said cartoon version of Libertarianism. You apparently jumped to the conclusion that I am anti-libertarianism. I am not.)

Speedwell,

Sadly, the flag-bearer for that particular sociopolitical concept on this blog is - of late at least - the odious Africangenesis. I think he's alternately bored and horrified us so much that the very mention of the 'L-word' has everyone conditioned to react with revulsion.

I don't get into it with him because I know even less about economics than I do about evolutionary biology. But there's still a part of my brain that starts screaming 'wrong!' at so much of what he says.

That some of the others here are sick of hearing about it - particularly on threads where it's almost completely tangential to the conversation - doesn't surprise me.

Posted by: speedwell | March 7, 2009 9:12 AM

'Tis, I wasn't proposing to start a discussion about libertarianism. But if you fear being seen condoning my transgression against the unwritten law that Atheists Must Not Have Heretical Politics, despite the lip-service given to Enlightenment ideals in this very thread, then I suppose I can't really blame you.

No, we're just tired of the stupid. As we can clearly see in the meltdown of the economy and financial sector, in the conversion of much of the Chicago School and even Greenspan, your pie-in-the-fucking-sky economic philosophy is bankrupt.

People are not rational. People are not nice. Without the imposition of regulation, markets fail through moral hazard like they always have. Bottom line is that your laissez-faire free-market shit does not work because it is, frankly, obsolete and based on a fantasy, not reality.

So, yes, we're damn sick and tired of it. Our market/economic/social reforms and protections were gutted by your fellow travellers. We're paying the price. And it's huge.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | March 7, 2009 1:47 AM

It can all be boiled down to the fact that God finally got laid. After a couple thousand years of having to take care of himself, Mary came along and he finally got some. Once he got him some ass his whole attitude changed.

It happens to everyone

FTW.

Pro-lifers, here's the thing, you hate abortion. Got it. You consider it "baby murder." Really bad stuff. Got it. But it's not that simple.

Because here's the thing, what you are actually advocating here is not only "outlawing murder" but ALSO "forcing pregnancy and birth." You can't do the one without doing the other, not when we are discussing abortion.

Now, at this point you say, "Well, the women CHOOSE to become pregnant, by having sex, protected or not, THEREFORE, it is okay to FORCE them to remain pregnant and give birth. They have, by their actions of having sex, forfeited the use of their body to another for 9 months and their birth canal for a matter of hours. Well, except in the case of rape, but let's leave that out of the equation for now.

So, here's the thought experiment: A madman kidnaps a child and threatens to kill it in nine months. In order to stop the madman from killing the child, the man says, "In nine months, I will, at random, take a woman off the street, and, if she has had sex at any time in the last nine months, I will force a grapefruit into her vagina, a sort of forced birth in reverse. If she refuses, I will kill the child. Remember, I'm only going to grab a woman who choose to have sex in the last nine months, she was warned what would happen if she had sex, and the life of a child is at stake. So, let me force a grapefruit into the vagina of the women or I'll kill the child."

Now, the questions is, should the STATE, in the interest of saving the life of THE CHILD, FORCE the WOMAN to take the grapefruit in the vagina, because she had sex, sometime in the last nine months?

Because, that is, basically, what the anti-abortion/forced birth position is. Because a women choose to have sex nine months ago, the state can now force her to push a grapefruit sized head out her vagina, whether she wants to or not. As someone who just witnessed a pregnancy and birth, I can't understand how anyone could force anyone else to undergo such a thing against their will. such a thing would be called torture if we could inflict it on people at will. We usually call the unwilling use of a woman's vagina rape. But, the term "rape" does not do the actual reality of this situation justice.

@Barb

Hi. I'm happy that you have faith and live a godly life. Honestly, no sarcasm meant.

But - you also appear to believe that the Devil is real. Presumably you also believe that he is the Father of Lies? In which case how do you know that you are leading a godly life and not some cunning perversion expounded by the Devil?

How do you know that people you respect aren't the ignorant tools of the Devil, doing his work?

I often worry that certainty may mislead as much as doubt does; when I hear of people using their religious faith, or godless philosophy, to justify their opinions and actions, I worry.

Hello Barb the Bimbo (thank you Nerd of Redhead for the name)

I posted on your blog in response to "BIBLE QUIZZING AT THE HOLLAND FREE METHODIST CHURCH"; read it.

PS I forgot to ask why is your church called The Holland FREE Methodist Church? Do you have to pay to attend?

Whoops! Last sentences to Barb the Bimbo should have read

PS I forgot to ask why is your church called The Holland FREE Methodist Church? Don't you have to pay to attend?

Silly question I know; of course you have to pay to attend; church is NEVER free.

That some of the others here are sick of hearing about it - particularly on threads where it's almost completely tangential to the conversation - doesn't surprise me.

speedwell is well aware of the months and months and months of endless discussions of propertarian fantasies on this blog. She's even participated in them herself. Her nonsense rhetoric about "heretical" politics is just that.

AVSN @ 184,

OMG, I had no idea that my attempt to deliberately hide the truth of my true intent was so obvious. I hang my head in shame that my deception has been uncovered by your Astute Vision Searingly Narrowed upon my transparent lies.

Uh, actually it was just a lame attempt at ridiculing your capitalization of "Atheist" and calling it worse than the ordinary garden variety of atheism.

(as I assume from your response you are an atheist (or worse Atheist))

It still think that is funny as hell! Maybe some else here can come up with even better riducule of it.

"Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of state of the Vatican, explains:
"Certainly the excommunication is a very austere deterrent which the church has been applying since the first centuries against the worst offences. However, I must note that the excommunication touches only those as a punishment which have an ecclesiastical conscience in any manner. On Hitler or Stalin to impose an excommunication, would have been useless because they would not have regarded it meaningful."

That's rubbish. The reason Pope Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth I of England was not because Elizabeth might have "regarded it as meaningful", but in order to urge English catholics to rise up and overthrow her. That was very explicit in the bull of excommunication - and it is why English catholics were subsequently regarded as traitors.

Now why could Pope Pius XII not have done the same thing about Hitler - excommunicate Hitler and at the ame time release German catholics from any obligation to obey the state headed by Hitler? Hitler might not have "regarded it as meaningful", but millions of German catholics would have.

Pius XII was not opposed to the political use of excommunication. In 1949 he excommunicated all members of the Italian Communist Party. but he never excommunicated either Mussolini or Hitler.

So here we have a pope who never lifted a finger against fascism, but excommunicated the most significant Italian organisation that fought against fascism. And now he's on the road to canonisation.

SC: People are not rational. People are not nice.

True. But the State is also composed of people, is it not? And in a democracy, the leaders of the State are elected by people, are they not? Why is it that you do not trust people to govern their own lives independently, on the basis that said people are neither rational nor nice, but at the same time you are willing to trust "the people" collectively to impose "regulation" coercively on everyone? Is a large mob of people any more rational or nice than an individual person?

"'Tis, I wasn't proposing to start a discussion about libertarianism. But if you fear being seen condoning my transgression against the unwritten law that Atheists Must Not Have Heretical Politics, despite the lip-service given to Enlightenment ideals in this very thread, then I suppose I can't really blame you."

No, it is simply the fact that in order to endorse libertarianism in the ways walton and others who post here have, you have to deny reality and turn into a habitual liar. That is the problem.

Further to my post at #281:

"It is often said that man cannot be trusted with the governance of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the governance of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him?"

@ Ryogam (#274)

I understand your point and don't disagree with it, but that metaphor was almost as disturbing as the story in the OP.

And a little condescending. You make it sound like a forcing a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term would just make her uncomfortable for a little while. Your scenario (aside from being weird and and creepy) ignores two of the most important aspects of the "forced pregnancy" problem, the psychological well-being and health of the mother.

In any case, you don't really need a metaphor to describe the situation. The reality is far more frightening. Telling the stories of women who live in countries where abortion is illegal (Chile, Nicaragua, and El Salvador for example, where it is illegal even the case of rape or for therapeutic reasons and so directly endangers the lives of women) would be a far more enlightening strategy.

Is a large mob of people any more rational or nice than an individual person? - Walton

More rational than the most irrational; nicer than the nastiest. Presumably, Walton, you don't think the dangerously psychotic or psychopathic should be restrained in any way - because that is what your line of argument implies. Also, in some circumstances a large group (your use of "mob" is a telling piece of dishonesty) demonstrably do make better decisions than even the most rational individuals - see James Surowiecki The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many are Smarter Than the Few.

Incidentally, you should try and get your attributions right: the line you quoted @281 was from Moses, not SC.

On topic (!): Vatican backs abortion row bishop.

Fernando @ 279

I did realize you were being comic. And to clarify, your use of english marks you as a native speaker, therefore likely not brazilian.

Secondly, those who label themselves as capital A Atheist (or are "Scarlet Letter Atheist" as Dickie humorously puts it) are worse than the ordinary garden variety of atheist.
Vocal, vitriolic advocation of such nonesense (à la Dawkins) does qualify one to the 'worse' catagory.

PS Don't expect a response to any comeback you make. I'm about to lose my machine for a few days, and I make it a rule to stop reading the comments after #300. (PZ, how about paging the comments?)

I often worry that certainty may mislead as much as doubt does; when I hear of people using their religious faith, or godless philosophy, to justify their opinions and actions, I worry.

What does that leave us? Dowsing rods?

Walton@283,
Whenever I see the slaveowning hypocrite and rapist Jefferson quoted on the topic of liberty, I reach for my sick-bag.

The point of the democracy you so despise, of course, is that no-one should be "trusted with the governance of others" - that those with current legislative, administrative or judicial power remain accountable to others.

Walton @ #281,

Not only did I not say that, nor would I say that, but your response is completely bizarre given that you know I'm an anarchist. WTF?

"Catholic archbishop" anagrams to "Archaic phobic sloth".
I don't buy astrology, but is there something to anagrams?

Why is it that you do not trust people to govern their own lives independently,

Is there a bottom to this pit of ignorance, delusion, and projection?

We haven't hit it yet...

SC, OM - Would you take a look at the remarks by Facillis in #165?

Am I wrong in interpreting him to mean that someone on this blog told him it is not morally wrong to molest children for fun? I want to be sure I'm understanding him. When I asked him to name the person he ran away. He's probably lying again.

Not only did I not say that, nor would I say that, but your response is completely bizarre given that you know I'm an anarchist. WTF?

Sorry. I directed it to the wrong person. I was intending to make another post in response to you but I got things mixed up. Just ignore me.

(It's been a long week. I was up till 5.30am last night due to my responsibilities in a student society in which I hold office, and have been constantly fielding phonecalls and emails all week due to my position in another student society. Plus, I have two essays that need doing which I haven't started, and I'm exhausted. So I apologise if I'm talking crap, but I would think it can be excused under the circumstances.)

Walton, get off the internet and start writing essays.

Walton - Do you realize you've fallen into a completely predictable pattern of commenting?

It's OK, Walton. I appreciate the clarification.

I will ask you to ponder your own phrase "trust people to govern their own lives independently," though - what is meant by "people," by "govern," and by "independently."

'Tis, I wasn't proposing to start a discussion about libertarianism. But if you fear being seen condoning my transgression against the unwritten law that Atheists Must Not Have Heretical Politics, despite the lip-service given to Enlightenment ideals in this very thread, then I suppose I can't really blame you.

What the hell? I remembered speedwell being an intelligent poster.

ChrisZ #59
I'm not quite sure how presenting the Catholic Church's point of view makes me a complete asshole . . .

There!

Arnaud's love of terror and killing was perhaps above average, even for a senior churchman. It was he who was responsible for the mass burning alive of "many heretics and many fair women" at Casseneuil", for the massacre at Béziers, where some 20,000 men, women and children were killed in an "exercise of Christian charity", and for the immortal words "Kill them all. God will know his own"

He wasn't excommunicated, y'a bet...
Trash, religioids are TRASH!!!

Devotion to Christ and church make all the difference in the world in a man's character and ability to be faithful in marriage.

You're very right, you and I agree. I've been cheated on once. She was a devout Christian, went to church twice weekly. I've never been cheated on in my relationships with atheists.

So you're right, it *DOES* make all the difference.

Walton: "So I apologise if I'm talking crap"

Walton, you always talk crap - nothing else. I don't believe any of it, nor the reason you give here.

Faciis:

For example , when I ask them to account for the absolute, universal ,objective, immaterial ,invariant laws of morality they tell me that things like molesting children for fun are not absolutely wrong.(One of those relativists had claimed in another thread that is was wrong for Catholic priests to molest boys- talk about inconsistency.)

Patricia - I think it possibly hinges on the word "absolutely." Maybe someone told him, correctly, that it was wrong based on a shared human morality but that there was no trnascendental justification for this. People like Facilis and Eric seem to live in such dread of existential angst/freedom/responsibility that they will not allow themselves to face the fact that we live in an indifferent universe in which our morality is ultimately, in the last instance defined by us as social beings. I don't know if they really believe what they're saying about these essential moral absolutes founded in divine command or about rejecting concrete moral justifications as inadequate, but I do think it's all about fear (understandable fear, but fear nonetheless).

(Facilis' reckless disregard for proper comma use is, however absolutely immoral. :))

Er...

(Facilis' reckless disregard for proper comma use is, however, absolutely immoral. :))

(I was on the phone.)

And now, the Vatican is backing the bishop. Is anybody here surprised?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7930380.stm

A senior Vatican cleric has defended the excommunication in Brazil of the mother and doctors of a young girl who had an abortion with their help.

The nine-year-old had conceived twins after alleged abuse by her stepfather.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re told Italian paper La Stampa that the twins "had the right to live" and attacks on Brazil's Catholic Church were unfair.

The old stuffed cassock is not even taking into account the risk to the health and even life of the 9-year-old girl. This kind of stuff is really below contempt.

SC - Yes, Facillis is one of the better artful dodgers around. *rolls eyes*

I don't believe any of the regulars would say such a thing. Even watching him weasel when pressed may not be worth the effort. I don't have your patience. :)

SC,

In any comment correcting grammar or punctuation, the chances of a grammar or punctuation error become more likely.

Was it ever decided what the name of that law should be?

Irene,

Do you really think that a bunch of middle-aged to ancient virgin males care in the least for the welfare of a poor, 9 year old girl?

While I like Obama, I just realised he would NEVER criticise a religious organisation as powerful as the Catholic Church for doing something so contemptable.

The president of Brazil has massive balls.

Tis Himself - Got your gruesome on today? *smirk*

I don't believe any of the regulars would say such a thing.

It could just be born out of a complete lack of understanding of where other people are coming from. Try to explain that the morality of man are contingent on the society they are in, and in facilis' mind he can't separate the difference between god-given absolute morality and moral subjectivism. Personally I think facilis should go and attack a bear cub in full view of it's mother. Maybe then he'll realise that the desire to protect ones young from harm is not contingent on God saying it's wrong.

AVSN @ 286

Fernando @ 279

I did realize you were being comic. And to clarify, your use of english marks you as a native speaker, therefore likely not brazilian.

So sorry to disappoint you bro, meu caro irmão sou de São Paulo (capital).

You are correct in that I do speak the Anglo vernacular with native fluency and I do the same with Brazilian Portugues.

BTW in case you're interested I also speak fluent Hungarian, hint that's my first culture.

Since I only speak three languages fluently and two others with passable proficiency I am not quite the polyglot that many others in my extended family happen to be. They would be most amused that someone could be so certain as to my provenance based their assessment of my fluency of a language. LOL!

OT, but should be of interest. BBC2 is screening a 90-minute documentation on The Satanic Verses, the fatwa and subsequent events, at 21.00 GMT tonight (i.e. in 15 minutes). I imagine this is downloadable from outside the UK, but i'm not sure.

I imagine this is downloadable from outside the UK, but i'm not sure.

This is the reason God invented Bit Torrent.

Kel - I'm probably giving this more thought than Facillis deserves.

True. But the State is also composed of people, is it not? And in a democracy, the leaders of the State are elected by people, are they not? Why is it that you do not trust people to govern their own lives independently, on the basis that said people are neither rational nor nice, but at the same time you are willing to trust "the people" collectively to impose "regulation" coercively on everyone? Is a large mob of people any more rational or nice than an individual person?

Hence the establishment of constitutions and the rule of law. What's your point?

I was just googling for more information about Brazil's concordat history, so I searched for "concordat watch brazil." Answers.com had this for the wikipedia entry:

Criticism

Secularists criticise concordats as being an infringement of human rights. Concordat Watch is a bigoted Anti-Catholic group.

President Luiz Inácio da Silva of Brazil did not sign a concordat with the Vatican as was hoped by pope Joseph Ratzinger during his visit to Brazil in 2007. The principle of separation of church and state was the basic reason for the disagreement between the parts. Usually Brazil is considered the largest Catholic population in the world. Unofficially, however, many follow other creeds and are only nominally Catholic.[2]

http://www.answers.com/topic/concordat

The actual wikipedia page doesn't have the sentence I bolded, though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordat#Criticism

Aside from the fact that one sentence and a historical blurb is not enough regarding the extensive criticism of concordats, that someone managed to get that assertion about Concordat Watch added to the wikipedia page long enough for it to be picked up by Answers.com is more evidence that there is an effort to propagandize these information sources. Does anyone know how to get the Answers.com entry updated to reflect the deletion of that sentence? Is there a wikipedia editor who could maybe summarize some of the criticisms from Concordat Watch or wherever and fill out that section?

Kel - I'm probably giving this more thought than Facillis deserves.

Or at the very least, more thought than facilis has put into it. If he ever wants to be taken seriously, he needs to try to get in the mindset of his opponent. Then, and only then, will he be able to understand their point of view well enough to be able to make criticisms. Until such time, all it's ever going to be with facilis is "the impossibility of the contrary proves my position" without him ever understanding what the contrary really is.

@ 'Tis Himself #307:

Expecting them to care the wellbeing of the girl? No. But one would have hoped a senior Vatican spokesman to care about the Catholic Church appearing at least a little bit compassionate and discerning.

Posted by: ChrisZ | March 6, 2009 6:25 PM

#72

I agree it was sarcasm, but it was sarcasm that I found distasteful and unfair.

Boo fucking hoo. Go fuck yourself you sanctimonious prick.

I've noticed Welshmen don't mince words.

In any case, you don't really need a metaphor to describe the situation. The reality is far more frightening. Telling the stories of women who live in countries where abortion is illegal (Chile, Nicaragua, and El Salvador for example, where it is illegal even the case of rape or for therapeutic reasons and so directly endangers the lives of women) would be a far more enlightening strategy.

Actually, I think it's helpful to push people outside of the mental framework of "abortion" given that it's one of those topics where many normally sensible people's brains are known to just shut down.

What does that leave us? Dowsing rods?

Reflection and rational thought. Any time I find myself thinking that what I think should be done is at odds with my religion/philosophy/politics (pick your own tribal belief) I re-examine my beliefs carefully.

While I know that most of my thoughts are emotionally driven and often aimed at keeping me in my comfort zone, it seems a waste of expensive protoplasm not to use the rational parts of my brain. This doesn't mean that I reject emotional responses like compassion, it just means that I try to improve on the kneejerk response.

(although they do seem to have a distaste for vowels) ; )

My apologies Fernando. You're right I should not assume. I did btw get that you probably weren't entirely brazilian. Your last name being the give-away. I am familiar with the word "Magyar' from the fact I am a notephile (banknote collector, not sure if notephile is even an official word). I am aware that "Hungry" is an exonym, and not the native name of the country.
Like you I speak more than one language. (English and French, and passable spanish. Wouldn't mind learning Portuguese. I find the differences and simularities between languages of great interest.)
(Yeah I know I said don't expect a response, but besides being a slow day, I don't lose my machine for another hour or so.)

Oh right NOW the Asshat Virgin of Sainted Name, gets apologetic!

I'm fascinated. Do go on Tubbolard. ;)

Should I make popcorn?

These stories make me incredibly angry.

The Church and anti-choicers don't care about the girl or the twins she was carrying. Their interest is in controlling people. Even if it costs the woman her life.

It's as simple as that.

And I should know. I used to be an active anti-choicer.

There's more lunacy behind this story than you think!
There's a point in catholic doctrine which has not been touched, but is relevant for abortion questions: there's an argument in rcc theology on whether one can be redeemed without being baptised, and if yes, under what conditions (they e.g. agree that an unbaptised person living among christians basically can't be redeemed however "good" he/she is). - You may also remember that the new pope abolished limbo, which was where unbaptised babies went to, which is a part of this discussion.
Now if baptism is a prerequisite for redemption, then it becomes "logical" that if you have to choose between an abortion and killing a baptised child you have to choose killing the baptised child, because the child will be redeemed, while the fetus not necessarily. This "explains" why according to them, murder and rape and torture and pedophilia and most other cirmes can be pardoned, while an abortion cannot.
I must add that this distorted "morality" disgusts me even more than the history and the sins of the rcc. I'm quite sure that nowadays even most theists would assess a person's morality based on what one's doing and on their intentions, rather than on "formal" things like being baptised or attending church.

And don't forget that the nazi SS members wore a belt buckle with the words "Gott mit uns" (God with us) on it as a part on their uniform.

The Catholic Church has always allowed abortion where the mother's life was in danger (there are various Catholic moral bases for this position often approximately summarized as "given two evils, take the lesser of the two where there are no options". The doctor involved said the little girl could have died (and common sense endorses that view). So I don't follow why the prelate excommunicated anyone. An abortion would have been a Catholic Church endorsed moral option. I guess I will have to get more details. Let me give a shout out to the translator of the local press to English. Yours was welcome light in a world of heat.

E.V. Guilty as charged, as my friends, oh and enemies, would readily testify. BTW, coming from you, I consider that a real compliment.

As to vowels, it's not that we have anything against them as such, it's just that we do love our consonants :). Especially for the initial difficulty they tend to give to those learning Welsh. Though once learnt along with a few basic rules, Welsh should be relatively easy, both speaking and reading, as it is a phonetic language, unlike English.

Thomas Cahill #329

The Catholic Church has always allowed abortion where the mother's life was in danger (there are various Catholic moral bases for this position often approximately summarized as "given two evils, take the lesser of the two where there are no options".

I believe you're wrong about this. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia article on abortion:

Abortion was condemned by name, 24 July, 1895, in answer to the question whether when the mother is in immediate danger of death and there is no other means of saving her life, a physician can with a safe conscience cause abortion not by destroying the child in the womb (which was explicitly condemned in the former decree), but by giving it a chance to be born alive, though not being yet viable, it would soon expire. The answer was that he cannot.

AVSN @324,

While we do not agree on superstition and Catholicsm...

[truce] I will grant that I share your fascination with language. If you already speak fluent French and Spanish you probably know that learning another latin based language such as Portugues will be quite easy.

Re Hungary and Magyarország

http://www.imninalu.net/Huns.htm

Taking language as the starting point, we have to consider on one side the whole complex of peoples that may be regarded as Huns (Hunogurs, Bulgars, Magyars, Sabirs, etc) and on the other side, the relationship between Sumerians, Scythians, Hurrites and Elamites.

[/truce]

Thanks John. (I think...) *knits brow*

E.V. LOL. I was being sincere. I am rarely anything but honest and if being sarcastic, ironic or similar on the net, I will usually signal it in some way.

And now the Vatican has waded in...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7930380.stm

SC, OM @ 302

People like Facilis and Eric seem to live in such dread of existential angst/freedom/responsibility that they will not allow themselves to face the fact that we live in an indifferent universe in which our morality is ultimately, in the last instance defined by us as social beings. I don't know if they really believe what they're saying about these essential moral absolutes founded in divine command or about rejecting concrete moral justifications as inadequate, but I do think it's all about fear (understandable fear, but fear nonetheless).

Not to be unfair to Facilis (i.e. about to be unfair) I tend to wonder if a large part of the desire for a concrete moral structure comes from a proportional desire to do evil. From listening to the morality = religion crowd, I get the impression that the only reason they don't go on a multi-state homicidal rampage is because they think god told them not to. This also seems to greatly disappoint them.

Of course building a moral code on what your imaginary friend says isn't a real stable foundation. Sure murder is wrong. Today. God could change his mind tomorrow. It's god, it can do whatever it wants, including make murder ok. I had steak for dinner friday night, fifty years ago that was "wrong". There's no difference between the church deciding "ok bring on the meat" and "remember what we said about abortion? Yeah, just forget that, it's cool now".

If the church did that, there would obviously be another schism. Which make perfect sense since when people say "I believe in the word of god" what they really mean is "I believe god agrees with me".

I hope that made some sort of sense, and I appologise for what I suspect was some wonton cruelty to the common comma. I don't have anything to add about the main topic because... well I mean, fuck.

Moses @188, thanks for the info. I note that the number of people (mostly women) killed by the Church in their witch hunts in the 1400s and 1500s was less than the number of women who die every year, now, from the effects of excess fertility and unwanted childbirth (World Health Organization statistics).

Barb, you don't have to worry about a prompt rape test dislodging a fertilized ovum; it usually takes at least several hours for the sperm to reach an ovum and it's often still up in the Fallopian tubes.

The exception for rape victims shows that advocating forced childbirth isn't about protecting potential babies, it's about punishing women for enjoying sex or deciding on their own as moral beings that they will have sex. I will believe that a fertilized egg is a person when you can saw up an acorn and build a full-sized house with it.

Knockgoats,

"There is probably a genetic basis for the step-father's behavior. - Africangenesis

So that's all right then."

Hardly, I was making the point that evolution rather than Catholocism was a more likely contributer to the step fathers behavior. Evolution is not a justification, it is Kausik Datta that assumed that an evolutionary explanation was a justification.

Knockgoats,

"His hatred of the state is such that he opposes it having the power to prevent parents having clitoridectomy and infibulation carried out on their daughters, or to investigate suspicions of child physical or sexual abuse"

Actually, it isn't "hatred" of the state, it is mistrust, recall that unlike the anarchists, I at least keep the state around. I don't think Kropotikin spoke out about female genital mutilation or male circumcism. A state can't be trusted with the power to correct every wrong taking place in the privacy of homes.

While I have fancied myself more realistic about human nature than the anarchists, I now am beginning to wonder if even my more jaded view of evolution's legacy in human nature may have been a bit optimistic. While I knew that some cultures considered the sexual exploitation of children "normal", what we have been calling "rape" by western standards is mild compared to what is depicted here:

http://www.psychohistory.com/originsofwar/07_childAbuse.html

I can't vouch for the site, so I'm asking if its characterizations are supported by cultural anthropology?

I don't think Kropotikin spoke out about female genital mutilation or male circumcism. - Africangenesis

I doubt he knew about FGM; and while I oppose male circumcision other than for genuine medical reasons, mentioning it alongside FGM as if the two were comparable just shows your usual grotesque lack of a sense of proportion.

A state can't be trusted with the power to correct every wrong taking place in the privacy of homes. -
Africangenesis

So, carry on raping, abusive fathers and stepfathers! Remember, you own those children! Africangenesis will protect you from that abusive state!

Patricia, #211

I have three questions for you.

1. Which of the 12 tribes of Israel had a serpent for their totem animal?

2. Which of the 12 tribes of Israel were notorious homosexuals?

3. Name the other tribe of the kingdom of Judea.

That's right, a tribe of snake venerating faggots has survived up to today. :)

Knockgoats,

"So, carry on raping, abusive fathers and stepfathers! Remember, you own those children! Africangenesis will protect you from that abusive state!"

And when states claim ownership of the children we get conscription, world wars, forced abortions, feydaeen, Hitlers children, communist youth, etc. Do you really think that those controlling the state are a different race than the abusive fathers and stepfathers?

Africangenesis,

Have you ever thought about addressing Knockgoat's point?

Africangenesis,
On de Mause, his work is certainly not widely accepted, but I don't think it can easily be dismissed, given the number of anthropologists' accounts of child abuse in small-scale societies he can call on. There are certainly strong tendencies among anthropologists both to extreme cultural relativism, and to "noble savage" myths. On the other hand, de Mause relies partly on the accounts of missionaries, who have an obvious motive for denigrating non-Christian societies. More generally, his apparent assumption that those small-scale societies that lasted long enough to be studied by anthropologists are/were typical of those existing worldwide in the upper Paleolithic or Mesolithic is unjustified - we simply don't know whether they were or not. The former existed almost entirely in harsh environments.

Suppose de Mause is completely right, though. What this would show is:
a) As the state got stronger, child abuse tended to decline (correlation is not causation of course; both could result from some third factor).
b) Human behaviour is strongly influenced by the social context; "human nature" is extremely plastic.

Alan Kellogg,

Perhaps it is beyond you, but it is a lesser of two evils point. We even let serial killers go free if the state can't meet its burden of proof, because we know that a state that can imprison without trials, without standards of evidence, and without burdens of proof is far more dangerous than a serial killer.

That's right, a tribe of snake venerating faggots has survived up to today. :)

Holy Crap!

I KNEW Lair of the White Worm was a documentary!

Africangenesis@345,
It's true there are real dangers of state intervention into family life when it is unjustified. But the rational and humane response to this is not your shoulder-shrugging "let the child-rapists get on with it, as long as they do it it private", any more than the risk of wrongful conviction is reason to let serial killers continue their crimes unchecked: it is powers to intervene, combined with safeguards - just as in the case of criminal trials. Of course, doing this properly is expensive - it might even require (try not to get a fit of the vapours here) raising taxes.

Knockgoats wrote:

Of course, doing this properly is expensive - it might even require (try not to get a fit of the vapours here) raising taxes.

You inhuman bastard!

Of course, doing this properly is expensive - it might even require (try not to get a fit of the vapours here) raising taxes.

Okay, now you've started something.

I can't vouch for the site, so I'm asking if its characterizations are supported by cultural anthropology?

I'm not sure it's supported by human biology. Some of those abuses are real no doubt, but he says that some Aboriginals would routinely "pull away a large part" of a young girl's womb and cut the rest of the womb criss-cross with a knife??

You people have been on too many hijacked libertarian threads..:-)

It gets worse, now the vatican agrees!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7930380.stm

BBC news from Northern Ireland about an Irish bishop who has agreed to "stand aside" to aid an investigation into the handling of allegations of clerical sex abuse in his diocese.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7930191.stm

The last paragraph reads "In a statement, Cardinal Seán Brady, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, said: 'This is an indication of the importance which the church gives to safeguarding children and caring for the needs of victims.'"

Sometimes I wonder if there is any hope for humankind.

Do you really think that those controlling the state are a different race than the abusive fathers and stepfathers?

No - as you well know, I think we need democratic control of the state - and, although this is not directly relevant here, the economy. It is clear from empirical evidence, whether we accept de Mause's claims or not, that human behaviour is highly plastic. It is also clear, again from empirical evidence, that systems of collective, mutual, democratic social control can work quite well. Things go badly wrong when when any individual or group holds untrammelled power over, or ownership of others - as you would allow to parents, and totalitarians would allow to the state. Let me ask you this: who exactly do you think "those who control the state" are, in the USA, the UK, Sweden, India, Japan, or other states with reasonably well-established political democracy? Do they have untrammelled power?

me ask you this: who exactly do you think "those who control the state" are, in the USA, the UK, Sweden, India, Japan, or other states with reasonably well-established political democracy? Do they have untrammelled power?

In general, no - but that is because most of those countries do not merely have democracy, but liberal constitutional democracy in which certain rights are protected even against the will of the democratic majority. Most of them also incorporate checks and balances, to prevent one person - however popular - from expanding the power of the state beyond its proper limits.

Some are, of course, better than others in this regard. The US Constitution is generally quite good at limiting the powers of government officials (though it doesn't go far enough, and gives the President far too much power in the realm of foreign policy, for example - witness Nixon's bombing of Cambodia without consulting Congress). By contrast, the UK system of government, based as it is on absolute "parliamentary sovereignty", and with the monarch and House of Lords no longer acting as effective checks on the majority's will, is dangerously close to being an elective dictatorship.

I disagree entirely with your assertion that democratic popular majorities make better decisions than individual people. Democratic popular rule is marginally preferable to tyranny or oligarchy because it is possible to remove vicious and corrupt leaders without having to assassinate them. However, it is certainly no guarantee of good decision-making: witness Proposition 8 in California, or the constant election of completely incompetent leaders in most democratic countries. A large group of people - I won't use the term "mob" if you prefer - is no more able to make good decisions than the average individual person. Your frequent contention that "better education" will solve this problem is, with respect, unrealistic. Who is to decide what constitutes "better education"? In a state ruled by the uneducated majority, how could one impose such "better education"? And does education magically transform a stupid, credulous or malicious person into a beneficent and intelligent one? The reality is that absolute popular rule is a dangerously flawed idea. I do not want the majority to impose their ideas and views on me; and likewise, I have no right to impose my ideas and views on anyone else.

The only solution is to have a constitutional framework in which government's powers are very tightly limited and circumscribed. The US Constitution is an appropriate model, but I'd rather have a collective executive (like that in Switzerland) with extra constraints on its power, as well as much more firm constitutional protection for individual liberties, particularly private property rights. Ideally, it wouldn't matter how we select our leaders (hence why I think FPTP vs. PR is a complete non-issue), because their powers would be so tightly constrained that they would not be able to interfere excessively with our lives.

In a free society such as the one I outline, some people will, of course, through stupidity or malice, screw up their own lives and (more regrettably) their children's lives. However, this is still preferable to allowing a majority to impose the same foolish standards on everyone through democratic fiat. I'd rather my neighbour didn't teach his kids creationism, for instance; but it's still better than the majority forcing everyone's kids to be taught creationism. I certainly do not assert that parents "own" their children; children are independent human beings. But because they are not autonomous adults, their interests must inevitably be looked after by someone else; and I would rather this were done by individual parents (albeit with the threat of removal/prosecution in cases of serious abuse, of course) than by public authorities acting at the whim of the populace, because the latter means that the stupid views of the majority are imposed on everyone's children.

A further point: I have personally known people who vote in general elections out of an ill-defined sense of "public duty", but have no interest in or knowledge of politics; they often vote on an arbitrary basis, such as picking the first name on the list. I also know many, many people who have swallowed their parents' party affiliation (whatever that may be), but who really know nothing about politics and simply vote for the same party in every election without applying any thought to the question. One should take this into account in asserting that democratic majorities make good decisions.

The lack of humanity demonstrated by walton, africagenesis, and their ilk, is approached only by their dishonesty and lack of intelligence. it's rather scary to think that these type of folks are walking around.

(albeit with the threat of removal/prosecution in cases of serious abuse, of course)

Isn't that precisely what us dirty liberals are arguing for?

Walton, they pay their taxes and follow the agreed societal rules so they get whatever representation they choose to vote for. Irrespective of how they decide, or not, to make that choice. Admittedly, in a perfect world, everyone would make an informed choice. However, insisting on an informed choice is as dictatorial as removing the vote from those who refuse to become informed. Even systems that mandate your presence at the voting booth allow you to spoil the ballot without penalty. Real freedom includes the freedom to be stupid, not like the freedom you would limit to your 'elite' voter.

I disagree entirely with your assertion that democratic popular majorities make better decisions than individual people. - Walton

I did not make any such general assertion. Why not try reading for comprehension before spewing out your tired "libertarian" garbage yet again? You're such a fucking bore, Walton.

Your frequent contention that "better education" will solve this problem is, with respect, unrealistic. Who is to decide what constitutes "better education"? In a state ruled by the uneducated majority, how could one impose such "better education"?

A better education is one that gives children access to the resources they need to learn, and the critical thinking skills they need to make use of them. How about looking at the real world for once? Those societies with the best publicly-funded and regulated education systems also tend to have low rates of crime, religious dogmatism and conflict, economic inequality (oh, sorry, you think that's a good thing), social strife, etc. Looking at the real world shows clearly that good educational systems can be established - if your silly objections were valid, that could never have happened, could it?

And does education magically transform a stupid, credulous or malicious person into a beneficent and intelligent one?

Here I must admit you have a point: your own case shows clearly that it does not.

The reality is that absolute popular rule is a dangerously flawed idea.

Perhaps that's why no-one is advocating it.

I do not want the majority to impose their ideas and views on me; and likewise, I have no right to impose my ideas and views on anyone else.

But that is exactly what you want to do, by limiting the scope of democracy in favour of your "libertarian" ideology.

because their powers would be so tightly constrained that they would not be able to interfere excessively with our lives.

Or do anything useful. In particular, they would be unable to prevent parents or step-parents abusing their children (as africangenesis wants); or to restrain powerful private economic interests. Since this is so blindingly obvious, and since they propose no alternative way of controlling such interests, I conclude that this is exactly what "libertarians" want, because they think they will be among those powerful private economic interests.

Knockgoats, if you think AG's comments on evolution are a little confusing, consider some of the comments he made on the Texas Freedom Network blog (pasted below). Keep in mind that these all came from one person:

"Evolution leaves too much to chance. Evolution tends to find local instead of global optima. Evolution made a mistake by using the same genetic code for different species making transpecific disease transmission too easy. Evolution shouldn’t have abandoned the capability to synthesize vitamin C in the primate line, nor the capability to regrow limbs. Evolution allows too much junk to be retained in the genomes. Evolution definitely has its weaknesses."

"I currently don’t see anything in evolution that I would characterize as a weakness, but it has had weaknesses in the past, and it is embarrassing to single it out as needing protection."

"I am a staunch Darwinist of the Dawkins, Dennett and Pinker ilk, and I don’t favor creationism."

"I see just about every aspect of life from an evolutionary perspective, but that doesn’t mean I agree with evolution, it has made some poor choices."

"I’m not afraid to evaluate anyone’s idea of a weakness of evolution or to have evolution called a theory, even in front of impressionable college bound high school sophmores."

"Calling evolution a fact is dumbing down the curriculum. Evolution has changed too much over the years to be called a fact, unless of course, it is a fact now and wasn’t then. And if it changes again tomorrow, then do we revise what is or was today?"

"Evolution is a fact, only if “fact” means “theory”, or if you are flexibly spinning away inconsistencies in a way that would do a biblical ierrantist proud."

"Evolutionary theory hangs together beautifully. We have yet to find anything living which isn’t evidence for it, shared and related genes all speak to common anscestry, the fossil record is rife with transitional, related and extinct forms. Such a small percentage of life is ever fossilized that it is no suprise that there are gaps in the fossil record. But that is not problematic, it is expected under the laws of thermodyamics, the past is not completely recoverable, information has been lost."

Now I must go and do something useful. I've no doubt more "libertarian" spew is on its way, and if I stick around I'll feel impelled to clean it up.

Shut up everyone and listen to me. My turn to suggest a game. It's I spy.
I spy with my little eye, something beginning with "g".
Your go!

I'm going shopping. There had better be some good replies when I get back, or I'll start to spill the beans on the real PZ Myers. You have been warned!

Grimalkin?

OK then, you bastards - you asket for it.
Uncomfortable PZ fact no. 1:
His mother was a virgin for many, many years.
More awful revelations will follow.

AthonyK, asket for what?

In particular, they would be unable to prevent parents or step-parents abusing their children (as africangenesis wants); or to restrain powerful private economic interests. Since this is so blindingly obvious, and since they propose no alternative way of controlling such interests, I conclude that this is exactly what "libertarians" want, because they think they will be among those powerful private economic interests.

What they want is the old robber baron oligarchy of the 19th Century. Walton has waxed nostalgicly about the Victorian Golden Age, when the Upper Ten Thousand lived very well and the vast majority lived very poorly.

AthonyK, asket for what?.
How dare you omit my "n" and mock my speech impedidmett! Oh, Myers, you've really got it coming now...

AnhonyK LOL

Uncomfortable PZ fact number 2:
PZ is a monogame.
Face red yet boss?
More, much more, to come,

How dare you omit my "n" and mock my speech impedidmett! Oh, Myers, you've really got it coming now.

Yeah, well you dress funny! You part your hair in a strange way too.

I wear Imperial robes at home and a Star Wars costume when out. What's wrong with that?
Not good enough, 'Tis.
*sigh*
Uncomfortable PZ fact number 3:
PZ was once, briefly, entirely deifined by just one fused cell. Hah!

Well, right now I'm feeling madder than a creationist in a science lab.
Hello!.
You just won't shut me up you know.
So - where are all you thinkers? Church?
Uncomfortable PZ fact number 4:
PZ had never basked in the love of Jesus.
Imagine, a life without experiencing that!

Not good enough, 'Tis.

That's Mr. 'Tis to you, poopyhead.

If you and I were woodchucks I could chuck more wood than you could chuck, even if you could chuck wood, which I doubt.

Hey 'Tis - your asscracks itching.*titter*
Speaking of which:
Uncomfortable PZ fact number 5:
Topologically PZ is no more than a simple torus.
Hurting yet Myers?

See that, ladies and non-ladies? Anthony skirts the whole question about whether, if he were a woodchuck, he could chuck even the smallest stick. Mighty suspicious behavior from one so intent on belittling our doyen.

skirts the whole question

Creationist bingo? Gotcha!

And as for belittling the fucking doyen, it's your fault for bebiggening him too much in the beginning. I will not be silenced! I will speak out!

Not playing? Wankers.
Do I have to come back when the clever Pharyngulites are on line?
Very well, then.
I shall return.....

Watit till Myers' next posting. I'll show him.

On a much lighter note, I am currently redesigning the decimal system. Do any reader of a mathematical bent, or even just keen counters, have any suggestions as to which numbers I should leave out. My current, initial, thinking is that 37 should go. What do you think?

one of the many reasons i was glad i was never catholic
they truly do hate women and my pop was already one of the worst male chauvinists around ..that would have made a miserable girlhood even worse

Now I'm really mad. Talking to myself, I feel like a fucking christian praying.
Won't stop me, though - it doesn't stop them.
Where were we?
Oh yes, uncomfortable Myers fact number 6:
PZ does not understand the workings of his computer, and the true ways of the Internet utterly elude him. Therefore, PZ does not belive in computers.
How stupid it that?

Nobody's playing with you because you're a non-wood chucking non-woodchuck.

Oh and don't worry PZ, I won't mention the thoughts you had about your first girlfriend. Promise! (but ewwwww!

Fuck can I chuck wood! No fucking wood chucker chucks more fucking wood than I can fucking chuck. Fuckin wood-chuck fuckers!

All right then, neutral topic. What's your favourite disease, and why?

I don't know. You guys spend endless hours talking to repulsive fuckwits about magic boats. Whassamatter - scared of me?

Sure you can chuck wood in your present state, but if you were a woodchuck you couldn't chuck wood. See my post #375. QEfuckingD!

And Myers - you're no better. He hasn't always been a Professor you know...

No 'Tis. Your post no.375 was no more than a pile of pseudo-truths wrapped in a sheaf of meanigless erudtion and powdered with science dust. Utter Fail.

How many nuns could a nunchuck chuck if a nunchuck could chuck nuns?

A nunchuck? Nunsuch chucker.

Ha! You think you have refuted my concise, concrete arguments yet offer not a shred of evidence. I have given undeniable confirmation and corroboration of your inability to chuck wood whilst in your putative woodchuck simulacrum. You can't even muster the least demonstration of any wood chuck aptitude. Again I say, Ha!

You can say Ha! till it turns into a screaming rictus of death, 'Tis.
And unless you concede, at last, my overwheliming rhetorical superiority, I must warn that I will reveal...
THE SINGLE UNDENIABLE FACT THAT FALSIFIES EVOLUTION
You would be, single-handedly, handing AiG victory.
Do you want that?
And, don't think I've finished with PZ yet either.
No siree... Beardy fucker.

My current, initial, thinking is that 37 should go. - AnthonyK

What???? You're crazy! No, you just need to find the smallest uninteresting number, and get rid of that.

O.91 is pretty dull too. Out?

Look, now really, you will have to help out here. I've turned a thread about a horrible world event into a frolicksome cavalcade of brilliant nonsense.
Got you priorities wrong again, athieists?

THE SINGLE UNDENIABLE FACT THAT FALSIFIES EVOLUTION

Not that. Anything but that. I concede. If you were a wood chuck you might possibly perhaps be able to chuck wood, if the wind was blowing in the right direction and you had sacrificed a virgin gerbil to the woodchuck gods.

What is with you and woodchucks? Fucked over by one too many of those wood-chuck fuckers were we?
There's no such thing as a Woodchuck.
Got it?
Now, where's my grovelling apology?

I'll start talking about Libertarianism if you're not very careful, and then we're all fucked...Oh, and that fact may still emerge...

where's my grovelling apology?

The woodchuck ate it. Rumour has it she then upchucked, but this hasn't been confirmed… however, if I do find an wookchuck chucking up, I'm quite happy to send her (or him, as the case may be) to you.

Oooooh - now you've done it!
Alright then, I think that governments are created with certain inalienable rights, which can, and should, trump those of individuals. Your thoughts?
Bastards. I did warn you....

AnthonyK@398,

But is it the smallest uninteresting number? That's the one it's safest to pick on!

Oooooh - now you've done it!
Alright then, I think that governments are created with certain inalienable rights, which can, and should, trump those of individuals. Your thoughts?
Bastards. I did warn you....

Walton, Africangenesie, and facilis will all join in. And so will you, Nick.
Well, it's your own fault.

Now, where's my grovelling apology?

Whenever you're ready to give it, I'll accept it or not, depending on how I feel.

And, you are right. The smallest uninteresting number is, in fact, 0.000000161. Thankyou for the correction. I still can't decide which numbers between 84 and 98.6 to ditch. The number system is way too clogged up round there.

Oh 'Tis, in the long run you are so dead...

Sweet crucified Myers! Throw me a line here! All right then, for you gentleman, which is your favourite breast, right of left?
If that's not too difficult a question. Hell, even those with less than an honours degree can answer that!
Oh, and Myers, you're still on the back burner. Like a cliff full of fossils, I never forget.

Oh 'Tis, in the long run you are so dead...

Bring it on. But I warn you, I'm an Internet Tough Guy!

AnthonyK - You need some ginger ale friend. :)

Sorry Patricia. I'm standing in a room of my own, shouting absolute bollocks at the top of my voice, and no one is listening! You can see why I'm upset. Incidentally, on a lighter note, I'm thinking of having plastic surgery to have my prehensile tail restored. You're a lady, what do you think? Yay or nay?

I suggest eliminating all numbers ≥ 50. That way, I'll be forever young(ish) without having to redo any birthdays (no, I don't want a second 6th birthday!). If there aren't any of those inconveniently large and silly numbers, then no more birthdays! Groovy.

Haven't found the woodchuck, yet, sorry, but did find an upchucked something… Not quite sure what it is, looks vaguely like the number π, clearly another candidate for removal.

I felt like I was doing that yesterday, so I gave up. :)

Nah, a tail in the back would compete with the one in front, so I'd advise against it.

Thankyou blf. I was thinking of keeping 6 anyway, as it's a triangle number - and a perfect number too, and I happen to really like triangles, and perfection. At least one of the numbers below 50 has to go though. Any age you were very unhappy that you would like rid of? I mean, it's hardly as though you did much before about the age of 2 - but perhaps we could remove a whole slew of horrible memories with just one number less. Get in quick, mind, else they'll all be gone, and then there would we be?

So I gave up. :)

Well, I hope you're not suggesting that I give up.
Besides, I haven't finished with that Supreme Bastard PZ yet, oh boy have I got things to say about him!

The smallest uninteresting number is, in fact, 0.000000161. - AnthonyK

Wow! The very smallest uninteresting number of all! What an interesting number!

*very shrill voice*
God, how much more of this can you guys take?
Nearing endgame.
Uncomfortable PZ fact number 7:
For a large part of his life, PZ was wholly enamoured with, and convinced by, a "deity" who performed miracles and rewarded only good boys for their good deeds.
Yes, Myers is pwned!
Feet of clay, feet of clay.

Hell, I have trouble remembering what I had for breakfast today! And you want me to recall bad years…!

If you get rid of all (positive?) integers below 7 or so, then you won't have said anything mean about Pee Zed, and so maybe we'll fill generous and not break both of your legs. You're still gonna get reported to the Brazilian rcc though, and man, are you gonna be in the deep doo-doo. They'll probably excommunicate you. And break your other leg.

Shite. “Feel”, not “fill”. Shoots remaining fing—

Shit, I missed out number 3. Well I guess I was only ever perfect for my mother, and then not for long.
It's a setback. Don't worry, reason will prevail.

No, no, carry on.

I've been neglecting my twirling and french naughty things sorting lately, so I quit posting to catch up. I'm sure you'll agree those are two serious pursuits, highly in need of maintaining.

I was wondering why that frisbee was getting bigger and bigger, then it hit me...

blf, the integer problem is interesting. I tend to feel rather negative about some of them, a few strongly so, but I don't want that to influence my choices.
I can't help wondering if my scheme to improve the decimal system isn't a tad too ambitious.
Still, with that attitude, Newton would never have discovered Australia, would he?

So that's where my frisbee went! Fecking wanker stoles it!!!1! We's is gonna breaks both of your legs. You're gonna look like Humpty Dumpty on a really bad day. The Brazilian rcc will have to sweep you off the floor before theys can deals with you.

Any age you were very unhappy that you would like rid of?

I'd like to get rid of being 19 and 20. That's how old I was ever so many years ago when I was in beautiful, sunny Southeast Asia.

Ha ha you can't touch my legs - I have a prime number of them, and that's magic!

Fucking internet fuckers. Oh, go over to Pharyngula, they said, there's clever people over there, witty people, and the boss is a real hoot...
No, don't talk to me, you meanies. I'll have to go over to Raptureready and tell them that it just isn't going to happen. You want those fuckers off the internet and messing with your heads? Hmmm? PZ fact mumber 3 (renamed 7a to prevent confusion} coming soon.

Christ in a Taco, you atheists are hard, hard bastards. I'm going to take a break soon, for a Leper quiz, so the full import of my revelations will not be reavealed till then.
But in the meantime here's PZ Myers uncomfortable fact number 7a(formerly number 3 - administrative reasons). Ready for this:
PZ regularly excretes large amounts of waste, consisting mainly of dead gut cells, which looks and smells horrible.
Not the god you though he was, eh, pzsycophants?

Ha ha you can't touch my legs - I have a prime number of them, and that's magic!

I'm quite happy to give a try. I just found my meat clever. The big rusty one. Now, which legs don'tya need the most? Wadda say to that, frisbee thief? Your puny magic against a wacking great hunk of sharp metal…

At #377, 'Tis Himself wrote:

See that, ladies and non-ladies? Anthony skirts the whole question about whether, if he were a woodchuck, he could chuck even the smallest stick.

And, we need to know if Anthony's skirts are minis which don't come anywhere close to covering his knee roll.

Well, Anthony...?

Um, Anthony, it IS Sunday afternoon and all, and there is a missing hour in the day. Were you doing something you shouldn't have in the lost hour? How much proof did it have?

Hmmm cleaver - meet BLF. BLF meet cleaver.
Not so cleaver now, are we eh?
I'm fucking fucking off now, to go the quiz. 3 hours, then I'll be back...*manical laughter* prepare to meet your doom, oh Myers fans - wanna see behind the beard?
And so you shall! Bing!

And while I'm gone, something for you to ponder:
The awesome complexity and pitiless beauty of the universe.
Eat your heart out Christian God!

Gruesome Lee Picton - Anthonyk does seem a bit wound up. I've advised him to have a ginger ale, but it doesn't seem to have helped. ;)

My clever is very cleaver. And it's got your name engraved on it now. You're doomed, doomed, I say white cat wakes up, looks alarmed, and runs out of the control room…

Patricia, I think he did have a ginger ale, just not via the intended orifice. I understand it's rather painful that way, so no wonder he's a lot wound up. Just stand well back—preferably on another planet—'cuz when he finally goes SPRONG there'll be bits flying all over the place…

Unless I gets to 'em first with my clever.

blf - Oh dear! He didn't just do that with the ginger ale?

AnthonyK:

NEVER pour ginger ale up your jelly meat!

*wonders off clutching pearls*

Knockgoats#354,

"Let me ask you this: who exactly do you think "those who control the state" are, in the USA, the UK, Sweden, India, Japan, or other states with reasonably well-established political democracy? Do they have untrammelled power?"

I know in the US the federal control of the education system is increasing, and history is already whitewashed. I'm less familiar with the UK's education system, but I know I was appalled in 2005 when I visited the British War Museum and found no mention of the continued blockade of Germany following the WWI armistace, causing over a million to die of starvation. I've seen news stories of Japan's educational systems ommission of the rape of Nanking and other WWII atrocities. Somehow I doubt that the Sweden and Norway education systems are covering the expulsions of labor organizers and publishers such as my great grandfather. I've just seen reports on CSPAN on the millenial generation in the US. They are already more trusting of authority and government than any previous generation. When the government in control of the education systems, the question becomes will the people even know when they are facing untrammeled power.

Ben#361,

I still think one of the best topics for a debate with creationists is "The weaknesses of evolution". Every "weakness" of evolution looks a whole lot worse for intelligent design. I don't know what you hope to gain by all those quotes out of context. You should have at least provided links to each one.

How badly is the RCC hurting in Latin America, once its main stronghold? Mexico City recently legalized abortion. Rio may well soon follow suit, thanks to this idiotic Prince of the Church.

"I know in the US the federal control of the education system is increasing, and history is already whitewashed."

Africagenesis, how can you stand to tell such blatant lies? You are truly an ignorant S.O.B.

dean, dean, dean#443,

get your head out of the sand.

Hey, I'm back! Africangensis, shut the fuck up about Libertarianism, it was settled long ago, and you lost.
Prepared yet? - then let us proceed. PZ Myers, let's see which one of us is the true LEADING EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGIST. And, for those of you unused to the PRINCIPLES OF UNIVERSAL TRUTH I shall occasionally capitalize things because, if it's good enough for nutters, it's good enough for me. Ready?

Oh, and also I shall reveal the SINGLE FACT which UTTERLY DISPROVES EVOLUTION.
And no more caps, they are beginning to displease me, and that wouldn't do at all. I don't like being displeased.

AnthonyK, you've disproven Intelligent Design. Congrats!

I don't like being displeased.

Like we give a damn about your displeasure.

Bastards, hardly a single mention - well, I'll show you - I'll show you all.

First, a quick commercial, from one of my sponsors:
"Feeling Hungry?
Try some FOOD.
FOOD - it made you what you are! FOOD mmmmmmm!"
Back soon.

Allrighty, now where was I. Ah yes, Professsor Myers.
Uncomfortable PZ fact no. 8:
Were it not for a single Adenine molecule in a crucial place on chromosome 5 - PZ Myers would have been born - with a TAIL. Uh huh. Oh Yes. And they would have called him "monkey boy" at school, and "primate Patsy" and many other cruel names. No wonder he is so desperate to validate his ape ancestry!

Africangenesis@440,
No answer to my question, I see. There's no such place as the "British War Museum"; it's the "Imperial War Museum". If you can't even get the name right, one has to wonder about the accuracy of your recollection of the contents - though it wouldn't surprise me if it omitted information discreditable to the UK - military historians have a tendency to whitewash their own country's history. However, believe it or not, the UK government doesn't dictate the content of museum displays.

Now, let me repeat the question: who exactly do you think "those who control the state" are, in the USA, the UK, Sweden, India, Japan, or other states with reasonably well-established political democracy? Do they have untrammelled power?

AK47*

Your arguments are too big for my jelli meat to handle.

u haz pwn'd all. all r baz r blng to u!

*I call u dat bcoz 'o ur rpd-fyr logiks!

AnthonyK - Don't be hasty. I did mention you, and gave you stern and helpful advise about your jelly meat. ;)

Knockgoats, you are correct, although technically the British never fought any wars. They were merely "successful armed struggles" against Bad Men who were trying to do Bad Things. No contest, no wars. See?

Ichthyic - I think him fall down and go SPRONG!

FOOD - it made you what you are! FOOD mmmmmmm!"

I no ndz fud. My hart iz perptul moshun mashinz!

Too late now, Particia, I'm on fire. Oh, by the way, that left sleeve's just a little too long, I think. Best cut them both off and make a cardigan. And blue is isn't really your colour, though it would do for your sister-in-law.

Knockgoats,

It should come as no mystery to you that those in control of those democratic countries are the ones interested in working for the government and controlling the lives of other people. I already mentioned the control of education increasing the threat of untrammeled power. In the US you can add the increased ignoring of constitutional constraints. Fortunately, power still exchanges hands peacefully. We shouldn't be complacent about that given the increasing distrust of elections. F.A. Hayek pointed out that people who get power, are usually those that want it and lack the moral compunctions against using it. The worst rise to the top.

But before we get facts number 9 and 10, and the awful truth that science won't tell you, a little housekeeping.
First, from my survey 28% of men who expressed a preference preferred the left breast. 54% like the right one better (incidentally, the sample did include a number of lesbians, who were most welcome to take part). But the overall winning choice, with 83% of respondents, was both breasts - this is up from 65% last year. Thankyou to all who participated.

those in control of those democratic countries are the ones interested in working for the government and controlling the lives of other people

Is your favorite movie "Brazil" by any chance?

First, from my survey 28% of men who expressed a preference preferred the left breast.

It entirely depends on which side of the bed I'm lying on.

In any case, I tend to prefer the breast that is furthest from me, as it is the most natural to reach over to.

*honk*

have to bend my arm too much to grab the one closest.

*honk*

see?

Ichthyic,

"Is your favorite movie "Brazil" by any chance?"

Currently it would either be "The Americanization of Emily" or "Dark City".

Regrettably, however useful it might be to world of mathematics, I have abandoned my attempt to remove any numbers at all from the decimal number system. The least popular number was 280,376,954,008. However it was felt that this number, though universally regarded as a totally stupid fucking amount of anything, was not worth the trouble of abolishing.
I offered, using my diminished number model, to prove the Reimann Hypothesis, but my offer was rejected by the one-plus-one fascists at the World Institue of Numbers (Base 10 division) . Now I know how the creationists feel when their modest attempts to insert free thinking into science lessons fail.
I shall shoulder the disappointment and move on, as I must. *sigh*

Everyone - Back slowly away from AnthonyK...he's on a mission... HOLY BATSHIT!

He's been bitten by a MORMON!

Run away!

"Dark City"

Is that the one with Keifer Sutherland about the aliens controlling the minds of everyone in the city?

interesting.

HOLY BATSHIT!

...what Robin said to Batman after visiting the bat-outhouse post consuming a particular large amount of very spicy vindaloo.

Icthyic - ye rival - funny sound effects about ladies' breasts really aren't funny. Schoolboy humour, I think. Sorry to drag you off from your discussion with Africangenesis, but I really think this is more important. Maybe he'd be prepared to have it at some other time.
Still to come - two more irrefutable facts and the collapse of Mr Darwin's clever theory.
Watch this space.
No, not that one, this one.
Just here. See?

Or does no one care?
I mean if you really don't want to, you know, know I can do so little for you. I thought I'd tell you the truth, but I'm not sure I. let alone you, can handle it.
What should I do? Fuck, it's at times like this that I really really wish that god did exist: I'm sure he'd tell me what to do.

Fortunately, power still exchanges hands peacefully.

Finally, an admission of a simple truth - well done!

We shouldn't be complacent about that given the increasing distrust of elections.

Indeed not. Why does the word "Diebold" come into my mind at this point?

F.A. Hayek pointed out that people who get power, are usually those that want it and lack the moral compunctions against using it. The worst rise to the top.

But of course this only applies to those in the public sector - never, never to those who own vast amounts of wealth and/or run large companies - they are all scrupulous, nay saintly individuals, who would never dream of infringing the rights or freedom or safety of anyone in any way (don't mention United Fruit, or Union Carbide, or Turner and Newell, or...); of cheating (don't mention BCCI, or Worldcom, or Enron, or Madoff, or Conrad Black, or Stanford or...), or of using their wealth to influence governments or public opinion (don't mention Murdoch, or Berlusconi or Conrad Black (again)). Perish the thought!

Perhaps I should have avoided shellfish, or mixed fibres, or anal sex. I've certainly done something to upset him I mean I've never even had anal sex. I thought about it briefly, once, but decided it was a proposterous idea (what does Barb see in it, I wonder) Oh well. Man It's tough when god doesn't believe in you.
But what do you care? You're only atheists.

Oh that's it, I'm all done in. I don't feel I can carry on. Must...tell...truth....

Ichthyic - Your breast technique is wasted on young wastrels.

Having been honked many a time myself I can appreciate the difference between a bold *HONK* and a lower case *honk*.

No one has ever been so reckless as to try honking the brass bosoms. ;)

Knockgoats#470,

I agree, that is why it is best to restrict corporations and individuals to voluntary relationships with prohibitions against fraud. You see rather than worshiping individualism, this type of freedom circumscribes what they can do whether a part of government, or corporation, or not. There is no reason to assume that individuals can be trusted not to coerce just because they become part of a government, corporation or other collective.

Give me a sigh oh Unlord! I'm having a yardsale next week and without a sign no one will know. It will merely be "yard art" and that's pants.

AnthonyK - See, thats what happens when you pour ginger ale up your jelly meat, disregard breast honking advise, and get bitten by a Mormon.

It's been a big day for you my lad, now best toddle off and drink massive amounts of alcohol, honk a few breasts, and get someone to suck out that Mormon venom. (Good luck with that.)

Patricia @ 208:

I'm sure Piltdown Man will show up again when the thread is long dead and swear none of what everyone has posted is true.

"Ask, and it shall be given you"

paul fauvet @239:

Piltdown Man implies that Patricia is lying when she says that the church authorised torture, merely because she doesn’t have primary sources to hand. Is he being facetious, or is he just plain ignorant about the history of the appalling superstition he seems to belongs to?

No, I don't deny the Inquisition sanctioned the limited use of torture. I was querying Patricia's assertions that

French catholics ... had children flogged while they were forced to watch their parents burned at the stake, and then burned the children next

In the fifteen hundreds the church made it legal to torture girls at the age of nine, and boys at ten and a half

Patricia @162:

Piltdown Man - Ellerbe doesn't. Her book is the only one I have at hand right now, the other two are on loan to friends.

In which case I'll regard their allegations that:

French catholics ... had children flogged while they were forced to watch their parents burned at the stake, and then burned the children next

In the fifteen hundreds the church made it legal to torture girls at the age of nine, and boys at ten and a half

as ... unproven.

Patricia @177:

Piltdown Man - Yes, she does have a note regarding this quote.
Commandments of the Fathers, Superiors, and Masters (A.D. 576), trans. W. Riedel. Quasten, Johannes, op. cit., pp. 81-83.

Fair enough, although it would be interesting to know to whom the quotation is attributed - a pope or just some obscure polemicist? It would also be helpful to know the social & ecclesiastical context of the alleged remark. At any rate, by no stretch of the imagination can it be held up as "what the Church teaches".

Monado @ 184:

I'm quoting a secondary source here, Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, but she was a reputable historian

Reputable? Possibly. Her Wiki entry says she was a "self-trained historian and author [who] focused on producing popular history ... the author of books that aspired to be more popular than the established classics of the field."

and she quoted the sources, so you can look it up.

I'm afraid I can't as I haven't got a copy of her book. Since you obviously do, why don't you share the source?

For almost a thousand years, the Church said that if someone dreamed that you were out doing witchy things, it was just a dream and was not evidence. Just before the witch hunts really got rolling, the Church changed its standards. They decided that if someone dreamed that you were out doing witchy things, and your spouse swore that you were asleep in bed all night, you had fooled your spouse by magic and you were a witch. Then they would torture you into giving the names of other supposed witches.
Among the witchfinder's tools was a large needle, like a small skewer with a handle. In theory there was one numb spot on a witch's body where the Devil had kissed. The witchfinders would carefully stab people all over looking for that numb spot. There is is a museum one of these tools. I'm not sure if I found this in A Distant Mirror. The tool in question has a secret button that lets the needle slide up into the handle. That would enable the witchfinder to find a "numb spot." So they could cheat to condemn an innocent person, even by their ridiculous standards.

You don't make it clear which bit you're referring to in the bolded statement; presumably not the bit for which you confidently stated Tuchman gave her sources.

mothra @ 187:

@Pilty- Are you also a holocaust denier?

If you're referring to the Shoah, the answer is no.

Just wondering what sources would be needed for you to accept what is already all to well known.

In the case of Patricia's original allegations, I would say Inquisition trial proceedings.

Moses @ 188, apparently quoting some other source which he doesn't name:

The policy of torturing, burning and hanging of supposed heretics has been the church's policy for centuries, whenever they could get away with it. Between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries about a half a million people were executed for witchcraft, most of them women.

"Half a million people" my arse. In the entire history of the Inquisition, about six thousand people were executed. Which is less than half the number executed in the USA over the much shorter time period that benighted country has been in existence. (And of course it's the merest fraction of the number of victims of the abortion holocaust.)

Moses @194:

Dr Kinsey, head of the Kinsey Institute, revealed this about the worst of us:
"One important aspect of the incest offenders against adults was obvious during the reading of each case history in our search for varieties of offenders, This is their ability to be religious, moralistic, intolerant and sexually inhibited, and at the same time to live a life of disorganization, drunkenness, violence, and sexual activity opposed to their religious tenets."

Ah that perverted fraud "Dr" Kinsey. Well they do say you can judge a man by the company he keeps. so here's an interesting photograph of "Dr" Kinsey visiting the notorious "Abbey of Thelema" in Sicily, where Aleister Crowley practised various rituals with his followers until Mussolini sent the Great Beast and his crew packing. The gentleman on the right acting as Kinsey's guide is underground film-maker and Crowley devotee Kenneth Anger, whose psychedelic flick Lucifer Rising starred Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey in the role of 'Satan'. Appearing alongside LaVey was Anger's bum-boy Bobby Beausoleil in the role of "Lucifer". Beausoleil would later carve a distinguished career for himself as a Manson Family associate.

Small world isn't it?

SC @302:

People like Facilis and Eric seem to live in such dread of existential angst/freedom/responsibility that they will not allow themselves to face the fact that we live in an indifferent universe in which our morality is ultimately, in the last instance defined by us as social beings.

Kel @ 310:

... the morality of man are contingent on the society they are in

In saying that the viability of a particular ethical position depends upon social convention, are you not in fact saying that morality may change with the Zeitgeist?

Does that mean that burning people was the stake was in fact perfectly "moral" when society deemed it so, and only became immoral when society changed its mind?

Conversely, not so long ago, the view that abortion was a monstrous crime was the social norm. So was abortion wrong then but OK now?

If you believe that, on what basis can one condemn pro-lifers for trying to change public opinion and make abortion evil again?

But it I go they'll just carry on discussig Librianism and the world is lost!
Fucking miserable one-lifers, I hope you all die! (peacefully, a long time from now, and having acheived a good life) You bastards! The truth dies with me!

Pilty, not all churches believe abortion is evil and should be banned. And your church, which is suffering from the plague of child abuse, should really shut the fuck up on moral matters until all the abusers are in prison. What part of that don't you understand?

Fucking Librarianists, this is my thread now
Why don't you all fuck off and go to a country where the state looks after you tolerably well, you are not tortured for sharing your views, and social responsibilty is enshrined in the law, equal for all.
Oh I forgot.
You all live in one.
Sheesh

Piltdown wrote:

"Half a million people" my arse. In the entire history of the Inquisition, about six thousand people were executed. Which is less than half the number executed in the USA over the much shorter time period that benighted country has been in existence. (And of course it's the merest fraction of the number of victims of the abortion holocaust.)

So - you're bragging about how one predominately Christian society has killed slightly fewer people* than another predominately Christian society, both in direct defiance of the laws passed down by the god the people of these societies worship and the teachings of his alleged son sent to save us all?

A question: how do you walk? I would think all those bullet-holes in your feet must make it very difficult.

*Adults, that is; the abortions aren't relevant to me and shouldn't be to you. Why? Because the bible makes it quite clear Yahweh doesn't consider abortion much of a problem. Have you forgotten that?

Piltdown Man - Since I predicted (witchcraft) that you would deny what I wrote because you disagree with it, and you show up and do just that, why do you feel you have a bitch coming? We have your number, we get it. If you don't like a quote, or statement it's wrong? Bullshit.

I'm not a catholic scholar, are you? If so, tell us were those edicts over turned? Were those bulls renounced?

Do you agree with the way the church is handling this case of the nine year old girl Pilty?

Perhaps I should have avoided shellfish, or mixed fibres, or anal sex.

hmm.

you could try sodomy with mussels?

wouldn't that combine all 3 things?

"Ask, and it shall be given spewed on you"

spew away, oh spewer of much watery puke.

I'll make sure to stand far away from the bucket.

*yawn*

@patricia:

Since I predicted (witchcraft)

ooh, ooh! can u turn me into a newt?

"get your head out of the sand."

Typical, Africagenesis - you are all assertion and nothing to back it up. What an ass.

Piltdown Man - Did you bother to check out the sources I gave you, or do you simply dismiss them because they are mainly women, such as you did with the feminist Layne Redmond?

Ichthyic - Wait, are you sure you want a down grade from a shark to a newt?

It won't be easy, and the soft floppily-doppily bits are MUCH smaller.

Thankyou for your kind words, Ichhthyic. My vote goes - to you. It will be last ever, alas!
I cannot contiune on this thread. My mission lies in tatters. I feel like Jesus when he preached the Sermon In The Brothel - penniless and unloved.
I had thought to attract readers of the far-left, Darwinist, atheist branch of thought. I did my best, I can do no more.
I gave you sparkling word-play, elegant philosphical conundrums("Why does no one answer my rhetorical questions?"), insane flights of wicked fancy, swearwords, and a scintillating, well-meaning yet harsh, attack on the Beloved Leader.
And what do you prefer?
Liberfuckingtarianfuckingism.
From a bunch of people who've never been tortured in their entire fucking lives, and never will be. Experts!
Well, I've shot my bolt. I have nothing left to give.
No more absurd attacks on shadows (spookily reminiscent of our real enemies), no more appeals to collective unreallity, no more abuse of da boss, no more glorious flights of fancy, inspired by the thought that someone, somewhere, might appreciate them, and give me that fucking molly, just this once. This is my best - I can do...no more...
Adieu!
And now you'll never...really...know
Aaaaagh! Tell...Barb...KY...was...Jesus'....favourite ;)

In saying that the viability of a particular ethical position depends upon social convention, are you not in fact saying that morality may change with the Zeitgeist?

Yes, to an extent. Slavery was perfectly acceptable only 200 years ago, treating women as property 100 years ago, racism 50 years ago, homophobia 25 years ago. We have to look at the zeitgeist of any given society before condemning the actions of there within. Though this doesn't throw down the gauntlets to moral subjectivism - it's merely a recognition that morality is dependant on those who participate in it. But this is only one aspect of morality, remember that we are programmed by our genetic code to behave in certain ways. If you don't believe that, go and attack a bear cub while the mother is watching.

Does that mean that burning people was the stake was in fact perfectly "moral" when society deemed it so, and only became immoral when society changed its mind?

You're neglecting genetic predisposition in attacking this worldview. Morality is at a whole, a social construct. But remember that we have a genetic code that has been shaped by our social interactions over millions of generations. We are, in effect, programmed to behave in certain ways. One more thing, stop working in absolutes. Seldom is there any behaviour that is perfectly moral or perfectly immoral. There's a grey area that all of this works on, and the scales change their balance over time.

So it's back to troll-stomp duty is it? Sigh.
Hey what do you think atheists do before the afterlife?

"Social constructs" eh. You can talk about anything in the universe and you talk about "social constructs"
Oh, sorry, don't listen to me. I'm trying to see how the experts do it.
No offence, Kel. It's not you, it's me.

AnthonyK - You are being bull headed and naughty. Just like a pissy-boy, you stay up late when you should go to bed.

Have a drink, honk yourself, and carry on. ;)

I'm just trying to get Piltdown Man to go attack a bear cub in front of it's mother. If he survives the endeavour, maybe he'll realise that protection of the young may be something more than simply obeying God's command.

No Patricia, no one is listening to me!(insert hysterical sobbing emoticon) I must away!

Kel - Pilty is being his usual slimy self. I should know better that to let him blow up my petticoats.

Unless a triune group of Pharyngulites begs me to continue...

I really must know, who gave AnthonyK the puppy uppers?

AnthonyK - OK, as the pagans say - stay if you will, but leave if you must... here's a sugar tit. )>