Blood Atonement

[_beastie]

Just one quick comment, Fort - you are 100% wrong to imagine that my belief that the death penalty is an inappropriate punishment for adultery is due to my feelings about Mormonism in specific.

I can't think of one person I know in real life who would not agree with me - Mormon or no. Look at the world's reaction to Iran stoning the women who had committed adultery. It's barbaric.

[_Jason Bourne]

The death penalty is an antiquated from of punishment in almost all cases.

While I don't like the death penalty myself, I don't know how this comment could be justified. From a purely secular point of view there's nothing which invalidates it as a method of punishment. If my society chooses to reject it, but another society chooses to accept it, what is that to me? Can I judge them by my personal standards?

One may think that as a society we have moved beyond murder to take care of the misfits. What justifies the killing of another human? I am not sure. I have always been an avid death penalty supporter and even now there are cases where in my rage at the awfulness of the crime feel I could put the needle in the person's arm or flip the switch myself.

On the other hand, I think a worse punishment may be to let some of the miscreant live and incarcerate them forever in solitude.

[_beastie]

Yeah, ok great, I agree. So what's wrong with forgiving the guy who steals your car, instead of locking him away for three years, which achieves absolutely nothing except resentment, pain, and psychological damage, and is clearly punitive and vindictive?

I absolutely agree that the penal system should be reformed so that prisoners aren’t brutalized and dehumanized. I believe a great deal of focus should be on education. But I also believe it is necessary to separate offenders from the rest of society to protect society. I’ve said that all along. I do believe we send far more people to prison than we ought to be. I think it should be largely reserved for violent crimes, and non-violent criminals should be on house-arrest combined with work service to pay back their victims.

Quote:
While this particular conversation is obviously geared toward the LDS configuration, any theocracy that enacts the death penalty for adultery or the many other “crimes” theocracies usually attach to the death penalty ought to be condemned.


On what basis?

A society that kills, or, excuse me, “executes” people for writing books they don’t like or criticizing their religious leaders is an oppressive regime. Oppressive regimes brutalize their own people and often their neighbors. They rarely contribute to world progress, in terms of education and advances in knowledge and technology. Even if you don’t believe in human rights, you do believe in the social good. Look, for example, at Moslem countries that oppress their females, restrict their education and associations. Are they the leaders in today’s world, in any way other than control of oil? No. That’s what happens when you eliminate half of your population as contributing citizens.

No, I didn't say it was unrealistic in today's society. I think we should follow it. But it won't happen because most people today don't want to follow it, foremost among them the secular people. As I said, both Jesus' example and the Law of Moses only operate best within a largely moral community, which is an environment prevailing in no 1st world nation on this entire planet. They are best suited to small close knit social communities sharing common values, social communities which contemporary Western civilization is aimed at destroying.

I live in a community dominated by southern evangelicals. They are adamant supporters of the death penalty and aggressive police action and extensive incarceration in general. I have no idea why you think secular people are the “foremost” in not wanting to follow it, nor do I understand why you think Jesus stopping the execution of an adulteress means that there should be no incarceration or consequences at all for dangerous behavior.

Ok, great, so it's decent and civilized for people with power to refrain from abuse of that power, and it's decent to err on the side of caution in exercising this power. So how does this invalidate the death penalty as a punishment? It just means we have to be careful. Incarceration is equally irrevocable - you can't give someone their 5, 10 or 20 years back if they were wrongfully incarcerated.

It invalidates the death penalty as punishment for ADULTERY. You are clearly trying to extend this conversation into discussing the “real” death penalty, which many countries enact in response to murder. I’m not interested in that conversation.

I don’t believe people who commit sexual acts between consenting adults should be incarcerated, either.

Quote:
Yes, it is disproportionate to the crime.


Ok, in what way do you justify this statement? Is that a personal view you have, or is it objectively verifiable?

Adultery causes pain and often breaks up families, but it does not result in the loss of life. That is objectively verifiable.

Quote:
It also makes no sense from a social point of view. It is not going to resolve any problems.


Well they're not going to do it again, are they?

Then you should encourage the death penalty for all crimes. Just kill ‘em. They won’t do it again, will they?

It’s like the child abuse example. You laughed at Jersey Girl’s remarks, but, as a parent, I can assure it is possible to raise responsible, law-abiding children without beating them black and blue. In fact, parents who do beat their children black and blue often create even more behavior problems.

So I guess God can control people by killing them whenever they break his laws, but is he teaching them by doing so? Or is he doing the same thing that an abusive parent does, which is controlling through fear and violence? It’s not a productive manner of parenting.

You seem to be saying that the punishment is invalid because it is not a successful deterrent. Is that what you're saying? You also seem to be saying that as a punishment it doesn't resolve the cause of the crime. I don't know any punishment in today's society which is actually aimed at solving the cause of the crime. That is not the function of punishment.

I stated I agree that the penal system should be reformed. We are hurting ourselves as a larger society by allowing prisoners to be brutalized when incarcerated. But the fact is that sometimes we need to separate people, particularly violent people or sexually predatory people, from the rest of society to simply protect the rest of society. So that is the function it serves.

Killing people who commit adultery serves no function. It certainly wouldn’t help their children or, in general, their wronged spouses, either. It’s not protecting society in some way, either. It has no purpose, except in Brigham Young’s theology which stated that it was necessary for the person to obtain forgiveness in the next life.

How do you justify it by your own theology?

No, I believe that in a community such as Israel's adultery was a social evil which had destructive effects beyond the immediate relationship of the couple concerned, and that people who indulged in adultery were a grave danger to the social cohesion of the society. Personally I don't trust anyone who commits adultery, and fail to see how I could. In a community such as Israel's, they were a dangerous liability. David's adultery with Bathsheba set of a chain of events which plunged the nation into civil war, and left thousands dead. Ironically, he was forgiven, because forgiveness was available for adultery, but only under certain conditions.

Ah, this is the crux of the matter. People who commit sexual “sins” cannot be trusted in any manner. I don’t agree at all. While it’s possible that people who commit adultery have a larger problem with anti-social behavior that is certainly not always the case. Many people who have committed adultery are productive and trust-worthy in other aspects of social responsibility. They can be good parents, they can be reliable employers, they can even lead socially. Martin Luther King is a good example of someone who committed adultery but was a remarkable social leader whose actions resulted in greater social good.

I'm afraid totally sane people are not immune from taking a statement made with 100% clarity and blantantly disobeying it, whilst finding personal justification to do so. I give you corporate crime as the most prominent socially acceptable instance.

I see. So in your view, God has, indeed, communicated with 100% clarity, and only the rebellious and disobedient defy it. Can you tell me the name of the religion that holds this clarity? I’m not familiar with it, clearly.

This begs too many questions to be useful. You're placing the entire burden of communication on the sender, whilst completely exculpating the recipient. This is simply unrealistic.

Now you’re backtracking and seem to be saying that God really does communicate with 100% clarity but it’s human problems in receiving the message that messes it up. I don’t care which part of the equation you blame, but if the recipient can’t receive the message with 100% clarity, then the sender is not communicating with 100% clarity. You’re agreeing with me, you just don’t want to blame God for the problem. I don’t care if you blame God or not, the fact is that if a God exists, it is not possible for that God to communicate to human beings with 100% clarity.

No it doesn't, because if it did we wouldn't have the Anabaptists, the Mennonites, the Amish, the Quakers, the Christadelphians, and similar groups.

The existence of so many sects that contradict one another, all comprised of sincere people truly seeking God, is entirely the point.

I think that's like saying that it was hubris of Newton to claim he had made discoveries in optics and physics which no one else had. It would be hubris if he had denied the possibility of discovery to all other people, and it would be hubris of any religious group to deny the possibility of discovery to all other people.

This is a faulty comparison. God, by most definitions including the Judeo-Christian God, wants ALL people to know him and come to him. So for thousands of years, filled with millions of people seeking to know him and come to him, sometimes devoting their entire lives to that exercise, yet still, at the end, unable to have that 100% clarity means that the possibility is, indeed, being denied.

Of course perhaps you have adopted one of those theologies that is based on the idea of a pre-destination, and then you would have an explanation for why God refused to communicate with this 100% clarity for all those other human beings.

I look back on my Mormon conversion at the age of nineteen as an example of the arrogance of youth. I was so certain I was right, now I “knew” the answer, I “knew” what God was saying and what he wanted… a nineteen year old kid who really knew nothing about the world and how it works. Yet I “knew” when far greater minds and faiths than mine still struggled with the issue, sometimes after spending their lifetimes dealing with it.


I think we're getting to the crux of your objection to religion - your personal reaction to Mormonism.

No, fort. I object to the death penalty for adultery, just like the rest of the world does, and that fact has nothing to do with my personal reaction to Mormonism.

But let's face it, our checks and balances don't work, and we don't care that they don't work or we would fix them. So what exactly is the issue? We end up with a secular society which performs all (and more), of the evils which you attribute to a theocracy. That's human nature, you can't get away from it.

Yes, we still have problems, but nothing like the problems a full-on dicatorship or theocracy creates. Checks and balances are an imperfect solution, but they do have an effect. Just because we can’t achieve a perfect system is no reason to throw up our hands and embrace the very problems we were trying to avoid.

Goodness me no. They're simply a social fiction invented as a primitive method of crowd control. A theocracy without a personal theocrat. Voltaire said it best - 'If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him'. So the Declaration of Human Rights re-invented God. Human rights are just a way of protecting my desire to get as much as I want from society.

Fort, I fear there is an unbridgeable divide between our views that will render belaboring this conversation fairly futile. So this may be my last response on this matter. I trust that most people will agree with me, no matter what their religious persuasion. Human rights may, indeed, be a social construction, but they are a social construction with a clear purpose. Offering protection to other people based not on “earning” that protection, but by simple fact of humanity, is one way to ensure those same protections for oneself. It has nothing to do with “getting as much as you want” from society. It has to do protecting yourself and others from the inevitable – those with power tend to abuse those without.

The social construction of human rights, for example, is what has led to the slow eradication of the practice of slavery, for example, which used to be wide-spread. The social construction of human rights is what has led to the ability of females and minorities to access public education, for another example.

If you have a different translation, fine. But you stated that it could look like that, so why does it matter?


No I didn't state that it could look like that.

Yes, you did.

I said:

That is what a valid theocracy looked like??? A God who tells his followers to kill everybody except virgins, so the men can then have the virgins for themselves?

You replied:

That is what one particular valid theocracy looked like, yes. It does not mean that this is what a valid theocracy always looks like. By the way, I think you need to check the text of Numbers 31:18 (see the LXX).

See page two of this thread.

Quote:
God gets to do whatever the heck he wants to whatever the heck he wants.


No, actually He doesn't.

Of course he does. He can tell his followers to do whatever he wishes, and they are bound to obey, or be destroyed in some fashion.

f he wants the female virgin children of the culture that his people just massacred and “give” them to the males who just massacred their families and friends, God gets to do that, right?


Well no, they weren't actually 'given to the males'.

Moses was addressing his male captains. He said “No therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.”

And sure, he nor you have to care about my feelings about that. But I will have my own personal integrity by refusing to worship such a god if, by some bizarre chance, he actually does happen to exist.


Absolutely. Isn't free will great?

I make this choice based on my own “knobs”, which clearly you do not share. You did not create those knobs, nor did I. I do not have “free will” to believe in the sort of God you apparently are able to believe in.

Quote:
The priests of Baal.


I'm sorry, could you show me the part where they were struck dead just for being 'mistaken'?

The priests of Baal genuinely believed in their own god and his power to light the sacrificial animals. They were wrong. God struck them dead.

Quote:
Why would it matter even if it did apply to every crippled person?


It couldn't possibly apply to every crippled person, that's my point.

The point is that it was the fact of the deformity which disqualified them. The fact that this addressed the only family that had that access in the first place is irrelevant. The fact that it was solely their physical deformity that disqualified them is why it would not matter if it did apply to every crippled person. The insult is the same.

(the rest is just repetition)

Fort, I spent more time on this than I intended and I doubt I will do it again. There is just so little common moral ground between someone who believes the death penalty for adultery is justified and moral and someone who doesn’t, that conversation is pretty futile. I have other plans for this weekend, unless you add some new element to the conversation.

[_Fortigurn]

Just one quick comment, Fort - you are 100% wrong to imagine that my belief that the death penalty is an inappropriate punishment for adultery is due to my feelings about Mormonism in specific.

I didn't actually say that. Here's what I said:

I think we're getting to the crux of your objection to religion - your personal reaction to Mormonism.

Nothing about the death penalty.

I can't think of one person I know in real life who would not agree with me - Mormon or no. Look at the world's reaction to Iran stoning the women who had committed adultery.

Whether or not you can think of any people in real life who would not agree with you (and it's clear that there are plenty who wouldn't, or else that woman wouldn't be be in any danger of being stoned), this isn't anything to do with whether or not the death penalty is wrong.

It's barbaric.

Ah, now here we drift into personal opinion.

[_Fortigurn]

One may think that as a society we have moved beyond murder to take care of the misfits.

You make it sound like an advance to a higher stage. Why would you see it this way? When we face misfit nations, we just kill the people who make up their population. What's the problem?

What justifies the killing of another human?

What justifies cruelly depriving him of his liberty?

[_Fortigurn]

I absolutely agree that the penal system should be reformed so that prisoners aren’t brutalized and dehumanized. I believe a great deal of focus should be on education. But I also believe it is necessary to separate offenders from the rest of society to protect society. I’ve said that all along. I do believe we send far more people to prison than we ought to be. I think it should be largely reserved for violent crimes, and non-violent criminals should be on house-arrest combined with work service to pay back their victims.

Yeah great, but the person who steals your car is absolutely zero danger to society. And why can't you forgive him, instead of punishing him?

A society that kills, or, excuse me, “executes” people for writing books they don’t like or criticizing their religious leaders is an oppressive regime.

In your opinion. Can you see that you're just setting up your opinion as an alternative demagogue?

Oppressive regimes brutalize their own people and often their neighbors. They rarely contribute to world progress, in terms of education and advances in knowledge and technology.

The early Jewish and Christian societies are looking good then.

Even if you don’t believe in human rights, you do believe in the social good.

Most certainly. Even more radical than human rights, I believe in moral obligation and responsibility. That's an idea which is far more distasteful to Western society, which is why we reject it for a rules based violence oriented rights society (a rights based society will always, without fail, inevitably, resort to violence - it has no other option).

I live in a community dominated by southern evangelicals.

I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Well, perhaps Richard Dawkins, so he can face his fears and learn some tolerance.

I have no idea why you think secular people are the “foremost” in not wanting to follow it...

Er, have a look around the world sometime. Show me a secular society which teaches and practices forgiveness instead of punishment. Go on, name the top five.

...nor do I understand why you think Jesus stopping the execution of an adulteress means that there should be no incarceration or consequences at all for dangerous behavior.

I didn't say no consequences. Of course there should be consequences. Forgiveness should be the first. Look, either you believe in forgiveness instead of punishment, or you don't. Clearly you don't.

It invalidates the death penalty as punishment for ADULTERY.

Um, why?

You are clearly trying to extend this conversation into discussing the “real” death penalty, which many countries enact in response to murder. I’m not interested in that conversation.

No, I'm trying to understand your objection to the death penalty per se.

Adultery causes pain and often breaks up families, but it does not result in the loss of life. That is objectively verifiable.

Erm, it doesn't always result in the loss of life. I think that's safer to say.

Then you should encourage the death penalty for all crimes. Just kill ‘em. They won’t do it again, will they?

Wow, now you're going places. But no, I'm arguing for forgiveness remember? You're the one arguing for retribution.

It’s like the child abuse example. You laughed at Jersey Girl’s remarks, but, as a parent, I can assure it is possible to raise responsible, law-abiding children without beating them black and blue. In fact, parents who do beat their children black and blue often create even more behavior problems.

I laughed at Jersey Girl's somewhat naïve comment that simply speaking to a child will always result in its correction. This is completely untrue. All children are different. I have plenty of friends with 4, 5, 6 and 7 children, and some of them are good as gold, who only ever need a stern word, whilst others will not listen to a word you say, and need some form of physical restraint or correction.

This has nothing to do with beating children black and blue. Of course it's possible to raise responsible, law-abiding children without beating them black and blue. And I certainly agree that parents who do beat their children black and blue often create even more behavior problems.

So I guess God can control people by killing them whenever they break his laws, but is he teaching them by doing so?

No, God cannot control people by killing them whenever they break His laws, and no He doesn't teach them by doing so.

Or is he doing the same thing that an abusive parent does, which is controlling through fear and violence? It’s not a productive manner of parenting.

If people are only refraining from adultery because they're afraid of being killed, then they're particularly dsyfunctional adults whose social value is questionable in the first place.

I stated I agree that the penal system should be reformed. We are hurting ourselves as a larger society by allowing prisoners to be brutalized when incarcerated. But the fact is that sometimes we need to separate people, particularly violent people or sexually predatory people, from the rest of society to simply protect the rest of society. So that is the function it serves.

Um, why not just forgive them?

Killing people who commit adultery serves no function.

In your view.

It certainly wouldn’t help their children or, in general, their wronged spouses, either.

How do you know? You can't speak for other people.

It’s not protecting society in some way, either. It has no purpose, except in Brigham Young’s theology which stated that it was necessary for the person to obtain forgiveness in the next life.

I see this as more personal opinion.

How do you justify it by your own theology?

I don't need to justify it.

Ah, this is the crux of the matter. People who commit sexual “sins” cannot be trusted in any manner.

I didn't say that.

I don’t agree at all.

I expected that

While it’s possible that people who commit adultery have a larger problem with anti-social behavior that is certainly not always the case. Many people who have committed adultery are productive and trust-worthy in other aspects of social responsibility. They can be good parents, they can be reliable employers, they can even lead socially.

I agree. I still wouldn't trust them as far as I could spit them.

Martin Luther King is a good example of someone who committed adultery but was a remarkable social leader whose actions resulted in greater social good.

Yes it is ironic that he was a hypocrite, a liar, a cheat, a fraud, and an unprincipled media hound without a shred of integrity. But at least he served a useful social function. Give me Malcolm X any day. At least that man had honour. And look at Mao Tze Tung. An absolute nutter, but look at the greater social good he caused. Wonderful! He remains a personal inspiration to thousands of people, too. Let
s put him with MLK.

So in your view, God has, indeed, communicated with 100% clarity, and only the rebellious and disobedient defy it.

Yes.

Can you tell me the name of the religion that holds this clarity? I’m not familiar with it, clearly.

I'm sorry, when did I talk about a religion?

Now you’re backtracking and seem to be saying that God really does communicate with 100% clarity but it’s human problems in receiving the message that messes it up.

I've never said anything else.

I don’t care if you blame God or not, the fact is that if a God exists, it is not possible for that God to communicate to human beings with 100% clarity.

In your opinion.

The existence of so many sects that contradict one another, all comprised of sincere people truly seeking God, is entirely the point.

Ok, you missed my point.

So for thousands of years, filled with millions of people seeking to know him and come to him, sometimes devoting their entire lives to that exercise, yet still, at the end, unable to have that 100% clarity means that the possibility is, indeed, being denied.

So what?

Of course perhaps you have adopted one of those theologies that is based on the idea of a pre-destination, and then you would have an explanation for why God refused to communicate with this 100% clarity for ll those other human beings.

No. I believe He communicates all the clarity people need in a variety of ways.

No, fort. I object to the death penalty for adultery, just like the rest of the world does, and that fact has nothing to do with my personal reaction to Mormonism.

I said nothing about your objection to the death penalty being caused by your personal reaction to Mormonism.

Yes, we still have problems, but nothing like the problems a full-on dicatorship or theocracy creates. Checks and balances are an imperfect solution, but they do have an effect. Just because we can’t achieve a perfect system is no reason to throw up our hands and embrace the very problems we were trying to avoid.

Could you explain why these checks and balances create a society which functions like a dictatorship?

Human rights may, indeed, be a social construction, but they are a social construction with a clear purpose.

Er yes, threatening people that if they get in the way of what you want, you'll steamroll them with the legal system.

Offering protection to other people based not on “earning” that protection, but by simple fact of humanity, is one way to ensure those same protections for oneself. It has nothing to do with “getting as much as you want” from society. It has to do protecting yourself and others from the inevitable – those with power tend to abuse those without.

You see? It's all entirely self-centred. It has nothing to do with anyone else, it's all about protecting yourself from other people in the society, because under a rights based society they are your natural competitors for resources, and unfortunate impediments to the exercise of your own will.

The social construction of human rights, for example, is what has led to the slow eradication of the practice of slavery, for example, which used to be wide-spread. The social construction of human rights is what has led to the ability of females and minorities to access public education, for another example.

Oh good grief, it was the religious concept of love your neighbour which led to the eradication of slavery. The wonderful Declaration of Independence, with its lovely declaration of the rights of man (as long as you're a white Anglo-Saxon man living in North America, with a certain amount of property, over a certain age, and with a certain position in society), continued to keep and oppress slaves without batting an eyelid. You should know as well as I do that slavery in the US was only overthrown by the moral courage of the Christians who opposed it on Biblical grounds. The Quakers had been fighting slavery since the 17th century, over 100 years before the Declaration of Independence or the French Declaration of the Rights of Man. Christians had been fighting slavery since the 6th century. The allegedly 'enlightened' rationalists and skeptics didn't jump on the bandwagon until the 19th century. Bunch of johnny-come-lately hypocrites.

See page two of this thread.

You completely misunderstood what I wrote. I didn't mean it was to be understood the way you read it. I even corrected your reading of it. Perhaps I should have put those sentences around the other way.

Of course he does. He can tell his followers to do whatever he wishes, and they are bound to obey, or be destroyed in some fashion.

No, He can't.

Moses was addressing his male captains. He said “No therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.”

Good grief, I've dealt with this already. Why do you insist on reading a 17th century translation which I have already explained is not the text proximate to the source?

I make this choice based on my own “knobs”, which clearly you do not share. You did not create those knobs, nor did I. I do not have “free will” to believe in the sort of God you apparently are able to believe in.

I think that is a copout.

The priests of Baal genuinely believed in their own god and his power to light the sacrificial animals. They were wrong. God struck them dead.

Erm, I hate to break it to you, but God didn't strike them dead, and they were not struck dead for a simple 'misunderstanding'.

The point is that it was the fact of the deformity which disqualified them.

So what?

The fact that this addressed the only family that had that access in the first place is irrelevant. The fact that it was solely their physical deformity that disqualified them is why it would not matter if it did apply to every crippled person. The insult is the same.

I'm sorry, but what 'insult'? I'm never going to be chosen to play James Bond, but should I consider that an 'insult'?

Fort, I spent more time on this than I intended and I doubt I will do it again. There is just so little common moral ground between someone who believes the death penalty for adultery is justified...

I have never said I believe it is justified.

[_beastie]

Fort,

I really have no idea what you are justifying.

You're arguing about the translation of Numbers when you stated that a theocracy COULD look like that, so who cares if it's mistranslated in that instance?

Once again:

Yes, you did.

I said:

That is what a valid theocracy looked like??? A God who tells his followers to kill everybody except virgins, so the men can then have the virgins for themselves?

You replied:

That is what one particular valid theocracy looked like, yes. It does not mean that this is what a valid theocracy always looks like. By the way, I think you need to check the text of Numbers 31:18 (see the LXX).

See page two of this thread.

If you actually DON'T believe a "valid theocracy" could look like that, and wanted to use the mistranslation to defend it, then by all means, do so, but your current statements do not lend to that conclusion.

You argue that religion was the cause of the eradication of slavery while ignoring that religion also defended and justified slavery.

You rant about MLK while ignoring the social progress directly related to his actions, which was my point.

You assert that secularists are FOREMOST in clinging to the punitive system, but provide no evidence that they exceed believers in this regard.

You want to find out my objection to the death penalty "per se" when I am specifically arguing about the death penalty for the "crime" of adultery.

If you must know my opinion on the death penalty "per se", although that is not the topic of this thread but I think you cannot stay away from it, I have no objection to the death penalty in and of itself as a consequence of malicious, premeditated murder, IF our legal system is adequately set up to ensure that defendants have access to truly adequate defense, which they currently do not, and IF it can be proven that there is no racial bias in the administration, which cannot be proven today and studies demonstrate the opposite, and IF the entire system is competent enough to ensure that innocent people will not be executed for crimes they did not commit, which it currently is not. When those standards are met, I will not object to the death penalty PER SE for cases of aggravated murder, although we must recognize it is more expensive for society versus life imprisonment. In fact, I think it may be more merciful to some of these people to execute them and put them out of their misery.

[_beastie]

One more last point before I leave - for anyone, be it God or a human being, to communicate with 100% clarity, necessitates that those who have listened to the message, are sane, and not being deliberately deceptive, have ALL understood the exact message the communicator sent.

It is not an OPINION that this has never happened in the history of the world, it is a fact.

[_Fortigurn]

You're arguing about the translation of Numbers when you stated that a theocracy COULD look like that, so who cares if it's mistranslated in that instance?

I didn't mean to say that it looked like the way you were interpreting it as it reads in the KJV. I was trying to say that it looked like the way it is in the LXX. I'm sorry, but I was typing quickly, and I was more interested in addressing the other points. I meant to scroll back up and make that more legible, but I forgot about it.

You argue that religion was the cause of the eradication of slavery while ignoring that religion also defended and justified slavery.

No, I was a lot more specific than that. I argued (accurately), that it was not 'The social construction of human rights' which led to the overthrow of slavery, but 'the religious concept of love your neighbour which led to the eradication of slavery'. I referred specifically to the Christian understanding and application of this concept.

I haven't ignored the fact that some religions, and a large number of Christians also defended and justified slavery. But that's irrelevant to the point under contention. The point under contention was whether it was 'The social construction of human rights' which led to the overthrow of slavery, or 'the religious concept of love your neighbour which led to the eradication of slavery'. Clearly it was the latter.

So called 'human rights' activists (who weren't really 'human rights' activists, but 'privileged Anglo-Saxon male' activists), were sitting around twiddling their thumbs calling 'Boy, bring me a stingah!', while Christians got on with the hard yards involved in overthrowing slavery, starting long before the alleged 'Enlightenment'. This is a matter of historical record. It is not invalidated by the fact that plenty of Christians behaved just as badly as the 'human rights' activists.

You rant about MLK while ignoring the social progress directly related to his actions, which was my point.

I did not ignore the social progress directly related to his actions. I made specific mention of it.

You assert that secularists are FOREMOST in clinging to the punitive system, but provide no evidence that they exceed believers in this regard.

No I didn't say that. I said that secularists are foremost in rejecting the idea of a society based on Jesus' example:

No, I didn't say it was unrealistic in today's society. I think we should follow it. But it won't happen because most people today don't want to follow it, foremost among them the secular people. As I said, both Jesus' example and the Law of Moses only operate best within a largely moral community, which is an environment prevailing in no 1st world nation on this entire planet. They are best suited to small close knit social communities sharing common values, social communities which contemporary Western civilization is aimed at destroying.

That's what I said.

You want to find out my objection to the death penalty "per se" when I am specifically arguing about the death penalty for the "crime" of adultery.

But you've also expressed an objection to the death penalty per se, which is why I asked.

If you must know my opinion on the death penalty "per se", although that is not the topic of this thread but I think you cannot stay away from it, I have no objection to the death penalty in and of itself as a consequence of malicious, premeditated murder, IF our legal system is adequately set up to ensure that defendants have access to truly adequate defense, which they currently do not, and IF it can be proven that there is no racial bias in the administration, which cannot be proven today and studies demonstrate the opposite, and IF the entire system is competent enough to ensure that innocent people will not be executed for crimes they did not commit, which it currently is not. When those standards are met, I will not object to the death penalty PER SE for cases of aggravated murder, although we must recognize it is more expensive for society versus life imprisonment. In fact, I think it may be more merciful to some of these people to execute them and put them out of their misery.

Thank you, that's very clear.

[_Fortigurn]

One more last point before I leave - for anyone, be it God or a human being, to communicate with 100% clarity, necessitates that those who have listened to the message, are sane, and not being deliberately deceptive, have ALL understood the exact message the communicator sent.

Well yes, I agree. But my previous point was that people will be perfectly prepared to corrupt, ignore, or just plain disobey such a message, regardless of the fact that they have fully comprehended it with 100% clarity. I gave you the example of corporate crime, but there are plenty of others. When someone steals a car, do you think it's because they just didn't realise that the law said 'Don't steal cars'? Is it the fault of the legal system? Was the message simply not communicated with 100% clarity?

It is not an OPINION that this has never happened in the history of the world, it is a fact.

No, I'm afraid it's just an opinion. You now seem to be positing that there's not a single person who has ever been capable of communicating with 100% clarity. I find that difficult to believe, given that you and I are able to communicate with 100% clarity.