Religious fanatic murders child and gets a slap on the hand

[kungtotte]

[quote name='Ser Scot A Ellison' post='1739988' date='Mar 31 2009, 18.31']As I said my contention is not that people promote athiesm with violence. My contention is that if you remove religion from the equation people [i]still[/i] do very bad things. Therefore, in my opinion, dispite Rockroi's mockery, I believe the common element in very bad acts is that they are commited by people, regardless of their rational for commiting the attrocities.[/quote]
Oh I agree completely that religion isn't the root of all evil, this was my point in responding to Rockroi actually. For most evils, religion was a tool, not the cause.

[quote]Who's saying religion is without flaws?[/quote]
My understanding of TP's post was that because I claimed that some evils couldn't be attributed to religion that you could also not attribute the good things to religion, a sort of all or nothing thing.


EHK, it's really not hard to find several examples of terrorists who committed their acts without any religious motivation at all, so do you honestly think that Osama bin Laden would have had a hard time finding recruits motivated by something other than religion?

Also what Kalbear said. I will assume that the Pope's motivations were largely religious, so I will grant you that the scale of the Crusades would probably have been smaller had there been no religion involved, but it's really not hard to find many examples of massive military campaigns waged for the common reasons: Resources, land and they bloody look different.

[Maithanet]

[quote name='Ser Scot A Ellison' post='1739988' date='Mar 31 2009, 12.31']As I said my contention is not that people promote athiesm with violence. My contention is that if you remove religion from the equation people [i]still[/i] do very bad things.[/quote]

Scot,
There is no question that people will still do horrible things to one another, religion or no. I haven't seen anyone argue that removing religion from the equation would result in an end to atrocities.
But don't you think that the Strict adherence to fundamentalist beliefs of religion that is seen in cultures across the world (but by no means in all religious people) makes it [i]easier [/i]for atrocities to be committed?

[Lord Mord]

EHK,

[quote name='EHK for a True GOP' post='1740018' date='Mar 31 2009, 09.54']To back up Tony (I think that's starbuck?)[/quote]


That's me, brother.

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote name='kungtotte' post='1740023' date='Mar 31 2009, 11.58']EHK, it's really not hard to find several examples of terrorists who committed their acts without any religious motivation at all, so do you honestly think that Osama bin Laden would have had a hard time finding recruits motivated by something other than religion?[/quote]

To essentially kill themselves in an effort to maximize innocent civilian death tolls when they or their local people are not under any direct violent assault from the nation attacked, yes I think Bin Laden would have a hard damned time finding recruits. Do you think someone in Sudan is gonna give a shit about a tiny, domestic, ethnic conflict in Israel Israel without the whole Jews vs. Muslims bit? Hell, there wouldn't even be an Israeli-Palestinian conflict to worry about sans religion.

[quote]Also what Kalbear said. I will assume that the Pope's motivations were largely religious, so I will grant you that the scale of the Crusades would probably have been smaller had there been no religion involved, but it's really not hard to find many examples of massive military campaigns waged for the common reasons: Resources, land and they bloody look different.[/quote]

The Pope most likely does not respond in any fashion to a call for aid from some culturally and geographically distant people in the east under onslaught from another even more foreign people without them being 'Christian brothers' under attack from evil heathens. And if there is a call, the kings, nobles, and commoners of the West do not respond to without similar reasons. It won't simply be less people going on crusade, it would most likely be none. The Duke of Lorraine or Brittany might like the idea of the 'treasures of the Holy Land', but he and most of the other dukes, barons, kings of the land are gonna find it quite unfeasible to capture and exploit largely on their own or with a small contingent. And your men at arms and commoners are gonna raise some eyebrows about taking up arms on behalf of some effeminate, decadent greek snobs.

[Rockroi]

[quote]Rock, you asked what things were done with religion that were good that couldn't have been accomplished elsewise. I ask the corrolary - take anything you choose (technology, political views, government, ethnicity, whatever you like) - what have they provided that couldn't have been provided some other way?[/quote]

Comparing the gross encompassing term "religion" with an ethnicity is awkward at best, as it would be in trying to compare it with technology. I mean, its not just comparing apples to oranges; its comparing apples to "thermodynamics."

My point is that religion in and of itself has never produced anything that people could not have produced on their own in communal fassion or through natural works. We did not need a supernatural flood to get us all to do good by our fellow man; its hardwired into our DNA- man is a social creature and we crave social interaction and identification. In there are the nodes to do good; to care for each other and to be honest; not to steal; to stay faithful to a life-partner, etc.

Therefore, my point is that religion is strictly and entirely optional. The opposite is just nonsense- and that is PRIOR to Moses coming of the Mount, the Jews were committing adultary left and right; lying to each other, stealing etc. And that only through these holy slabs were we all able to live just and decent lives. Hog. Wash. Its completely ludicrious.

Therefore, once we identify that religion is but an option in our lives and that people are fully capable of doing the right thing completely and fully irrespective of religion, we have to start seperating the wheat from the chaffe. What aspects of religion are truly good and decent in and of themselves and are not present WITHOUT religion. Charity? Hardly- some of the most effective charity groups and missions are wholly secular (the UN for example; the United Way). We would have charity if Jesus never existed. Community? I mean, isn't the United States like proof positive that you do not need reliogion in ANY FORM to have a successful nation?

But the counter-point is stark: what HARMS have been done that but for religion would be unknowable?

-From the 1950's through the 2000's the Catholic Church was involved in the whole sale cover-up of lietrally thousands of child rapes (now almost whimsically called "molestation"). Can you fathom TO ANY DEGREE any other organization (save a reliogious one) that could get away with such whole sale immorality for so long? I mean Ford? Union Carbide? And the kingpin, Arch bishop Bernard Law ... now safetly in the Vatican away from the long arms of US Justice (which have fallen so silent).

-Since almost biblical times religious men have openly and unapologetically lobbed off the tips of infant boy's penises; virtually BILLIONS of boys have had their penises hacked by religious men since, more or less, the dawn of time. And the reason? One has never surfaced (other than the most obvious- to cut down on the pleasure of sex). But what other group- a Communist Government perhaps or maybe a really enthusiastic telemarketer -could getr ANYONE to do that to baby boys for generations.

-No nation on Earth was capable of performing the Crusades with the sole exception of the Catholic Church getting young men to kill other young men over NOT security or conquest BUT because God said so.

How can we rectify this? I understand that some religions do some good, but by that same token Hamas gives out free food sometimes and Moussolini made the trains run on time. That does not outweigh tthe horrors done by religion in the very name of religion.

[EHK for Darwin]

Not knocking you Rock, being a big Hitchens fan myself, but it does seem like you transcribed almost word for word a few of his standard interviews and rants. :)

[Lord Mord]

EHK,

[quote name='EHK for a True GOP' post='1740038' date='Mar 31 2009, 10.13']The Pope most likely does not respond in any fashion to a call for aid from some culturally and geographically distant people in the east under onslaught from another even more foreign people without them being 'Christian brothers' under attack from evil heathens. And if there is a call, the kings, nobles, and commoners of the West do not respond to without similar reasons. It won't simply be less people going on crusade, it would most likely be none. The Duke of Lorraine or Brittany might like the idea of the 'treasures of the Holy Land', but he and most of the other dukes, barons, kings of the land are gonna find it quite unfeasible to capture and exploit largely on their own or with a small contingent. And your men at arms and commoners are gonna raise some eyebrows about taking up arms on behalf of some effeminate, decadent greek snobs.[/quote]


Not only that, but unless I am very much mistaken, the Dukes of Aquitaine and the Kings of Flanders and the Kings of Spain were actually devout people, yes? Once again, they may well have been collaterally venal, but they would never have been moved to war in such a distant place on behalf of a distant prince unless that prince had bound them by religion and they could be convinced that God had given them his blessing.

They may not, and I stress [i]may[/i] not have given a shit how many feeble girlish foreigners they would be obliged to kill, but their own serfs and their own gentry would also be put to the sword. While this may not have been a deep personal loss, the loss in productivity and in political stability would not have been inconsequential. And all of this is quite beside the additional fact their own personal fortunes were staked to these lunatic adventures, in the way of financing their journey there and back and their equipment.

[Gorn]

[quote name='EHK for a True GOP' post='1740013' date='Mar 31 2009, 18.48']It also causes no real harm to the individual and not doing so may lead to hygiene problems, social anxiety and/or ostracization. Like it or not, getting clipped is a cultural norm, has some benefits, and no real drawbacks. Female castration is another matter entirely.[/quote]

I know it's off-topic, but would you support someone who tattooed his child? What about eyebrow piercings on an infant?

If you're 18, and you want to get clipped, go ahead. However, performing an irreversible surgery on your non-consenting child is, IMO, wrong.

[Lord Mord]

Gorn,

[quote name='Gorn' post='1740067' date='Mar 31 2009, 10.31']I know it's off-topic, but would you support someone who tattooed his child? What about eyebrow piercings on an infant?

If you're 18, and you want to get clipped, go ahead. However, performing an irreversible surgery on your non-consenting child is, IMO, wrong.[/quote]


I am inclined to agree. As for its being a hygiene issue -- that's up to parents to pass onto their children. If they're too busy to attend to this notion, perhaps they should not have become parents? Now that they are, it is not for [i]their[/i] convenience that mutilation should become acceptable.

[Kalbear]

[quote]-No nation on Earth was capable of performing the Crusades with the sole exception of the Catholic Church getting young men to kill other young men over NOT security or conquest BUT because God said so.[/quote]So you agree that security and conquest are normally used? And some times religion dresses these things up? Okay. But so does Lebensraum, motherland, ethnic cleansing, Monroe Doctrines...

I dunno, Rock. Religion doesn't provide anything special that other things in theory couldn't, but that can be said for all sorts of things humans introduced. Do I need a car? Does a car solve something that a horse couldn't?

Do people need alcohol?

Do they need tylenol?

People do horrible things. Religion is one reason they use to rationalize it. Taking away religion wouldn't take away the horrible things. Crazy person who believes she's a french dauphine living in the US and who believes her son will be resurrected is going to be crazy without religion.

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1740074' date='Mar 31 2009, 12.37']People do horrible things. Religion is one reason they use to rationalize it. Taking away religion wouldn't take away the horrible things. Crazy person who believes she's a french dauphine living in the US and who believes her son will be resurrected is going to be crazy without religion.[/quote]

Its not a matter of existence or non-existence of horrible things. Its about severity and frequency. Which religion drastically increases.

[Shryke]

[quote name='EHK for a True GOP' post='1740109' date='Mar 31 2009, 13.56']Its not a matter of existence or non-existence of horrible things. Its about severity and frequency. Which religion drastically increases.[/quote]

What's your proof?

Horrible shit happens without or without religion needing to help it along.

[Kalbear]

[quote]Its not a matter of existence or non-existence of horrible things. Its about severity and frequency. Which religion drastically increases.[/quote]Okay, you've made a falsifiable statement. Let's go with that.

If religion drastically increases horrible things, we should be able to find examples of times and places where a lack of religion drastically reduced these horrible things, right? And since we want to be specific, let's clarify this to organized religion only; crazy cults of 5 people don't count any more than Manson's followers count.

Can you show a single case where removal of religion corresponded with a reduction in horrible things? I can show a number of cases where removal of religion had either a deleterious effect of horrible things (Stalin, Khmer Rouge, China) or had no discernible effect one way or another. If you can show a single instance where removal of religion actually helped matters, I'd be curious.

[Dancing Queen]

[quote name='TerraPrime' post='1739867' date='Mar 31 2009, 10.46']If someone willingly follow a religion that demands honor killing, then I have no problem with them getting killed.[/quote]

Honor killings occur in a religious environment in which women are systematically taught from birth that they are inferior to men and must submit to men. I would argue that a woman in these circumstances has been brainwashed and that her ability to "willingly follow" that system of faith is impaired. Ignoring such a woman's death because of religious reasons simply adds another layer to her victimization.

I'm really not comfortable with saying anyone can cause (or passively allow) another's death in the name of religion. Many/most religions teach that human life is valuable. The people who kill or fail to preserve human life in these cases seem to be focusing on one aspect of their faith (such as blood transfusions or saying "Amen") while ignoring the larger life-affirming "spirit" of their belief systems. In addition, these cases tend to involve one person in authority (parent, father/husband, spiritual leader) making decisions that harm someone in their care. It's one thing to take your own life for your faith, and something else entirely to kill someone else to satisfy [i]your own beliefs[/i], especially if that person believes they cannot refuse do what you say.

I am a strong proponent of religious freedom. However, I believe authority carries with it accountability for the well-being of those one oversees. The idea that some people are excused from the consequences of harming those in their care is really repugnant.

[TrackerNeil]

[quote name='TerraPrime' post='1739971' date='Mar 31 2009, 12.20']Re: TN

Religion. Pedophilia is not a religion. Refusing blood transfusion is.[/quote]

Oh, I get that. What I [i]don't[/i] get is why you seem to think that harm to children is OK when it is perpetrated in the name of religion but not in the name of pedophilia. Either way harm is being done, and I'd argue that it's easier and less intrusive to prevent the former than the latter. Even leaving that aside, I don't understand why religion merits such a (to my mind) startling exception in terms of our general policy of seeing that children are properly fed, cared for, housed, etc.

[Lord Mord]

EHK,


So your argument is one of pragmatic inference based on proportion. Okay.


May I ask, what are the proportions of religious to non-religious charity? Have you statistics to hand? And, of course, given the context of your argument, it is insufficient to restrict ourselves to the past few years: what are the proportions since at least the start of recorded time?


Clearly, the good doesn't wash out the bad, in the sense religions don't get a pass for their institutional misdeeds simply because they've also helped out occasionally. But surely, if it's all about pragmatics, we can allow the institutions to atone?

[Benjen Stark]

[quote name='The Khaleesi' post='1739389' date='Mar 30 2009, 21.48']What about the parents who refuse transfusions and leave their kids mother- or father-less? Freedom to practise religion is not worth one child's life, IMO.[/quote]
Famous quote: "Those who trade freedom for security are doomed to have neither." Not quite the same, but close enough for me.

We have to allow the stupid and wrongheaded to enable others to make breakthroughs and dispel the myths of our culture. You either have stasis or lives lost, in the real world. Stasis usually ends up worse for all involved, unless you actually believe we have really reached the magical utopian ideal? Do you have any idea how much hostility there was to the obviously stupid idea of doctors washing their hands before touching a patient? You can give examples all day long, but it still won't change the fact that there is no society that can allow beneficial freedoms without allowing harmful ones.

[quote name='Max the Mostly Mediocre' post='1739399' date='Mar 30 2009, 21.58']These two sentences seem contradictory to me.[/quote]
Maybe you missed the "If she regains sanity" part?

I know a woman with post-partum psychosis. Years later, she has not recovered and still does not think anything is wrong with her despite what the doctors, police, lawyers, and social workers all say, let alone her now divorced husband. She keeps trying to live a "normal" life and it never works out. Her husband eventually decided he had to divorce her just to separate her from their child. I have also known people who recovered from mental illness, and they were horrified to confront their own memories with a rational mind. Lets just say lots of self-recrimination and apologies were involved for past actions.



[quote name='Shryke' post='1739678' date='Mar 31 2009, 05.26']People are a dangerous cancer that the world would be better off without.[/quote]

Sad, but true. Unless he misspoke and meant "humanity" instead of "the world".


[quote name='Rockroi' post='1739924' date='Mar 31 2009, 10.43']Oh, and before you think its “just the Old Testament” (ie- the parts most Christians just ignore):[/quote]

Last I checked, the Christian faith was based upon the works entitled Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The rest is more considered context and was debated heavily before the creation of the Bible and continued to be debated afterward.

The unfortunate thing for anybody who would like to nail any ideology down is that it changes over time. Whether that ideology is religious or secular, it is interpreted by people. People create elaborate conflations in order to reinforce what they already believe. It doesn't really matter what you give them. They will find ways to reinforce something close to their starting point, even if it means dismissing the evidence before them. This has been shown in psychological experiment after experiment. Religion has nothing to do with the amazing ability of humans to discard facts in order to make events confirm to a preexisting world view. It is simply the obvious scientific conclusion.

Thus, the obvious conclusion is that any ideology can be perverted to evil ends or redeemed to good ones if you have enough people tinker with it. Any ideology more than a decade or three old will be heavily tinkered with, so you will be able to find extremely positive and extremely negative examples of pretty much anything.


Or, as I like to put it sometimes, nothing is certain but uncertainty.

[quote name='TrackerNeil' post='1739925' date='Mar 31 2009, 10.43']I don't know, TerraPrime...I think we can draw a legitimate distinction between a parent who smokes around a child and a parent who deliberately and consciously starves a child to death. I don't really see that said slope is all that slippery.[/quote]

I don't believe it is fair to conflate a case where Terra agrees that religious freedom is not the issue with his reversal of the issue. You should compare to extremely wrongheaded, but not technically criminal religious views. The case in question is criminal regardless of religion or lack thereof.



[quote name='kungtotte' post='1739936' date='Mar 31 2009, 10.54']Rockroi, It's hard to take you seriously when you think the Inquisition, the Crusades and 9/11 would not have happened sans religion. I bet you think the conflict in Northern Ireland was caused by religion as well?[/quote]

In a sense he is right. Before the advent of more modern religious and ideological moralities, the standard method of dealing with a defeated enemy tribe was to kill everyone you could find. The next most standard method was to make anybody who seemed malleable or valuable a slave and kill the rest. So the atrocities probably would have looked different.

But then. Rockroi admits he knows little about Maoist China. I imagine he also knows little about the Khmer Rouge, the Rwandan massacres, the civil war in the Congo, etc. There is often an artifact of focus upon a singular issue which makes it easy to miss broader historical context. See the whole reinforcing what we already believe thing. ;)




[quote name='EHK for a True GOP' post='1739986' date='Mar 31 2009, 11.31']What possible force is gonna motivate an entire continent to abandon their lands, assets, and families to travel halfway across the world in a journey riddled with constant hardships and dangers but religion? What exactly is there to purge via torture and interrogation without religion? And who in their right mind thinks its a good idea to commit suicide while taking as many civilians with you as possible against a country you're not at war with without religion? No, these things would not have happened without religion.[/quote]

So... What was up with Napolean's march to Russia then? Or Alexander the Great's invasion of Persia? Or the USA's insistence upon reaching the Pacific Ocean? I take it those were all pure exercises of religion? Not say, an opportunity to reap rewards combined with a few oppressive systems that simply demanded the lesser ranks die at the behest of the greater? Did you read ASoIaF? Why would any country ever invade another by your logic? Yet they do all the time with or without religious pretext.

Ask Pol Pot what there is to purge without religion. Sedition, treachery, education, moderation, sanity, etc. He only killed 20% or so of the people in Cambodia via torture and/or working them to death with an explicitly non-theist ideology.

The suicide bomber existed amongst the not too terribly religiously extreme Japanese before it became a commonplace feature of the middle east. Perhaps you've heard the term kamikaze before? It did not originate there. As long as war has existed, there have been fanatics and berserkers. They all have some sort of excuse for their suicidal action, but one has to suppose that some degree of it is there already. I'm not aware of many school shooters inspired by Columbine being excessively religious. Yet they continue to perform mass murder-suicides. Perhaps I am wrong?


I'm out of time to catch up further.

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote]What's your proof?[/quote]

Didn't we just finish a section on the Crusades, Inquisition, and 9-11?

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1740116' date='Mar 31 2009, 13.02']Okay, you've made a falsifiable statement. Let's go with that.

If religion drastically increases horrible things, we should be able to find examples of times and places where a lack of religion drastically reduced these horrible things, right? And since we want to be specific, let's clarify this to organized religion only; crazy cults of 5 people don't count any more than Manson's followers count.

You're asking for historical counter-factuals...which are purely the realm of speculation. Strong arguments can be made on the basis of these various 'what-if's', but in the end its just educated guesswork.

Can you show a single case where removal of religion corresponded with a reduction in horrible things? I can show a number of cases where removal of religion had either a deleterious effect of horrible things (Stalin, Khmer Rouge, China) or had no discernible effect one way or another. If you can show a single instance where removal of religion actually helped matters, I'd be curious.[/quote]

Due to the secularization of Western society kids are actually taught science in science class, homosexuality is no longer criminalized, and people are no longer burned for witchcraft, tortured for being false converts, or persecuted and/or slaughtered for being the descendants of Jesus's murderers. Most books aren't banned or burned. We can see tits on HBO. Scientific research isn't fucked with too badly. Unpopular discoveries or opinions aren't violently repressed. Pagan or heathen slaughter is no longer a popular pasttime. Theological disagreements rarely result in bloodshed. We don't have too many Holy Wars anymore. The subservience of the wife is no longer absolute. A husband can be legally prosecuted for raping his wife in most states. A significant reduction in blasphemy convictions. Did I mention tits?

[Kalbear]

[quote]Due to the secularization of Western society kids are actually taught science in science class[/quote]Women weren't taught this until the 1960s. Black kids weren't taught this until the 70s. And again, doesn't count - religion wasn't removed from the equation here; either we were secular (in which case it just changed over time in a secular nation) or we aren't (in which case we changed over time in a christian one)
[quote]homosexuality is no longer criminalized,[/quote]Homosexuality was criminalized in that secular country. So doesn't count. Religion wasn't removed any more than it used to be.
[quote]and people are no longer burned for witchcraft, tortured for being false converts, or persecuted and/or slaughtered for being the descendants of Jesus's murderers.[/quote]No, they're tortured for looking like terrorists, burned for looking different, and persecuted and/or slaughtered because they happen to live on land that we want or has resources we desire.

[quote]Most books aren't banned or burned. We can see tits on HBO. Scientific research isn't fucked with too badly. Unpopular discoveries or opinions aren't violently repressed. Pagan or heathen slaughter is no longer a popular pasttime. We don't have too many Holy Wars anymore. The subservience of the wife is no longer absolute. A husband can be legally prosecuted for raping his wife in most states. A significant reduction in blasphemy convictions. Did I mention tits?[/quote]How are these in any way actually positively correlated with a reduction or removal of religion?

Was the Civil War - the US' most deadly war - correlated with religion?
Was the trail of tears?
Was Guantanamo Bay?
Was Iran/Contra?
Was Vietnam?
Was Iraq?
Was Afghanistan?

The removal of religion in the US hasn't happened. Have atrocities by the US drastically reduced?

[TrackerNeil]

[quote name='Benjen Stark' post='1740160' date='Mar 31 2009, 14.32']I don't believe it is fair to conflate a case where Terra agrees that religious freedom is not the issue with his reversal of the issue. You should compare to extremely wrongheaded, but not technically criminal religious views. The case in question is criminal regardless of religion or lack thereof.[/quote]

I'm conflating nothing; I'm simply responding to the slippery slope argument TerraPrime made. I think it is possible to take a step in one direction, when circumstances dictate, without walking the whole distance.