After all the gasps of outrage at the Catholicchurch’s response to that tragic story of a 9-year old rape victim’s abortion, the church has seen the light of reason and…actually, no. They just made it worse. The Roman Catholic Church of Brazil has excommunicated everyone involved in the abortion, except the child, who was excused on grounds of her age. Old enough to be raped and bear children, but not old enough to be responsible for decisions about her reproductive tract, apparently.
Remember this when anyone tries to tell you about their god of love, their religion of mercy, their source of all moral virtue.
Those involved who have been excommunicated ought to take this opportunity to rethink whether they even want to be associated with such a contemptible organization.
The president of Brazil has now spoken out against the church’s decision.
Was that a “yes” Allen K? Two more needed…
You let Pilty get to you? Shit, I just find him pathetic.
Patricia @483:
I didn’t deny what you wrote. I queried it.
Whereas if a quote pulled from some third-hand source confirms your prejudices against the Catholic Church it must be true …
Patricia @ 487:
You listed three secondary sources (Coulton, Robbins and Ellerbe). I queried whether they in turn listed any primary sources. You weren’t able to give a satisfactory answer (“Ellerbe doesn’t. Her book is the only one I have at hand right now, the other two are on loan to friends.”). So there’s not really very much for me to check. What do you expect me to do – order them from Abebooks? Don’t you know there’s a recession on?
How would I know that when you only provided their surnames?
I didn’t dismiss Redmond because she’s a woman, or even a feminist. I dismissed her because she’s patently a New Age dingbat, as a glance at her website will confirm:
… In the center of this chakra is heard the Anahat, the unstruck sound, the transcendental pulse of creation . When our thoughts dissolve and our consciousness centers into this chakra we perceive the unstruck sound buzzing hum of the energy of the universe. This buzzing bee-like hum is symbolized by the primordial mantra, Aum. According to the Spanda Doctrine, (the Doctrine of Vibration from the 13th century Hindu and Buddhist culture of Kashmir) reality is a living, pulsing energy emanating from the vibration of ultimate consciousness. The word, Spanda, represents both the rhythmic pulse of absolute consciousness and the inner pulse of personal consciousness. The radiant pulse or sparkling vibration, called the Sphurrata, is the light of consciousness buzzing in our heart center. The Anahata is the great chakra vibrating simultaneously in the heart of all beings etc
Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the occasional shroom session as much as anyone, but …
Eh, at least he’s capable of stringing sentences together, and actually thinking (to an extent at least) about what it is he claims to believe in. That puts him on a level above most of the woo-addled dingbats were get in there, crapping all over PZ’s nice, clean floor.
I tried my best to get him and facilis at each other’s throats but it didn’t work. Oh well, maybe next time.
Yes. That’s why you should never let your morals get in the way of doing what’s right.
Possibly, but the man believes in demonic possession so I find it hard to take him seriously.
As for facilis, he’s just a kid who’s never been exposed to anything outside his own worldview. He keeps saying his proofs for God are the impossibility of the contrary without even understanding of what the contrary is. facilis needs an education, Piltdown Man needs a lobotomy.
Kel @ 490:
And in another 25, 50, 100 or 200 years it could all change back again! “Whoever marries the zeitgeist will soon be a widower”.
So how on what basis do you condemn the Inquisitors? It wasn’t their fault – the Zeitgeist made them do it!
How does that differ from subjectivism?
Given that standards of morality have changed so dramatically over such a short period of time according to the prevailing Zeitgeist (“Slavery was perfectly acceptable only 200 years ago, treating women as property 100 years ago, racism 50 years ago, homophobia 25 years ago”), this genetic programming seems pretty ineffective!
So are you saying that, although we are indeed “programmed to behave in certain ways”, we nonetheless have the ability to overcome our genetic impulses? This is the line Dawkins always takes when he rebuts Social Darwinism. But by what criteria do we judge whether a particular genetically-programmed impulse is one that needs to be overcome? The Zeitgeist?
The zeitgeist didn’t make them do it, the zeitgeist is a means of explaining how morality is contingent on the society. We can condemn the inquisition in the same way that we can condemn the holocaust. Again, stop walking on the tightrope between absolute morality and subjectivity.
This is what sucks about explaining to people who think “Goddidit” is a perfectly acceptable answer, they just don’t get it. Again, I challenge you to harass a bear cub in front of it’s mother and see how far you get.
Piltdown Man – You are discarding Redmond’s book from a look around her website, and one reviewers opinion. She is a musician and an artist – yes, full of woo. But her book is filled with excellent factual material. You just don’t like her feminist opinions and don’t want to hear anymore about it.
I’d like to know why women’s woo is less worthy than your woo? After all, ours is far older. *Argument from authority, just like yours.
Patricia:
Hey we got women too.
Our woo got better windows.
Piltdown @477:
Well, that’s all right then. No biggie.
Those who were only tortured aren’t worth mentioning.
When I compare Jesus’ teachings in the NT, then think of the Church torturing and murdering others in his name, I see the starkest hypocrisy.
You hypocrite.
The Church has altered its own morality to conform with cultural norms, yet claims to be unchanging.
Your faith has made you a sick person Pilty.
How about a quote from 1592, Father Cornelius Loos:
Robbins, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology, 16.
How can you not condemn the Inquisitors? Defending the Inquisition is just plain wrong and disgusting.
Our woo got scary robes.
By my powers of witchcraft…I’m going to predict that Pilty is going to say – oh, but 1592 was soooo long ago it doesn’t count.
OK, let’s skip over that bloodbath to the twentieth century – Pope Leo XIII, the end justifies the means:
Lloyd M. Graham, Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (New York: Citadel Press, 1975) 468.
And now Pilty I am sick and tired of citing sources. If you don’t like one of my quotes in the future you can bloody well look it up for yourself.
Piltdown Man – You may have scary robes, but on Beltane us heathens got the flower covered nekkid.
Let’s see if I can type this: Piltdown’s righ… he’s…he’s right! phew
I must know who those guys are, and where.
Just curious, have you ever studied ethics in any capacity? If so, can you tell me at what section they said that following the zeitgeist was an acceptable form?
You’re focusing on the wrong part of what I said, overblowing one point to absurdity and arguing against that. This is as bad as saying “We came from animals so we should act like animals.” Rather what you should have gotten out of it is a descriptor of how we behave as opposed to how we ought to behave. It’s important we understand how and why we behave in certain ways, because from there we can take the obvious limitations of humanity and how we come to learn and build on that. Instead we get a sick fuck pushing some of the greatest travesties in human history as if they are condoned by the ignorance of behavioural modification.
If you can’t understand Pilty, this is why people think of religion as a dangerous enterprise. It not only teaches people to be ignorant, but it depends on people being ignorant to survive. So then we get the authorities burning young women alive, torturing non-believers and committing genocide all in the name of Ignorance. The study of morality has led to the conclusion that we are products of our environment, the way our brain shapes our behaviour is an unavoidable fact as much as it’s an unavoidable fact that we can’t fly. But we’ve also been built with a tool that has the power to transcend that, but sick fucks like you would prefer to reduce it to absurdity and pine for Ignorance. Learning how the world works is one of the grandeurs of man, ignoring that for the glory of Ignorance is downright dangerous.
Well, at least someone in the Brazilian government has a modicum of sense, unlike the member of the Catholic Church in Brazil.
“Africangenesis was (probably wrongly and in a stupid context) providing a explanation for the step-father’s behaviour using evolutionary psychology.”
Probably. As per usual, evo psych has been used to “explain” the worse behaviors of men by pretending that NOTHING else could possibly be at play here – no mental illness, absolutely NO societal conditioning, etc. – nothing BUT evolution explains why the stepfather committed this crime for years. Nope, just evolution explains it. Just evolution. Nothing else.
I suppose evolution is also to blame for the none to subtle suggestion in Africangenesis’s post that ALL men rape, or want to. (“The human male is very attuned to signs of fertility and opportunistic in exploiting vulnerable females.”)
(and it’s feminists that hate men?)
Sven DiMilo @516:
They’re Nazarenos, hooded penitents who process through the streets of Spanish towns and cities during Semana Santa (Holy Week). Made up of layfolk, there are various different confraternities distinguished by the colour of their robes & insignia.
White ones!
Purple ones!
Endor#519,
“I suppose evolution is also to blame for the none to subtle suggestion in Africangenesis’s post that ALL men rape, or want to”
No, Endor, you are responsible for that suggestion. I didn’t even use the word rape. Evo psych doesn’t disregard other influences and doesn’t have to in order to explain patterns in behavior. Abuse by stepfathers is more common than abuse by biological fathers, and rape in circumstances of social disorder and anonymity and collective mob behavior is more common than in stable society. A possible genetic basis expressed in the male does not mean that all men rape or want to. Hopefully we will have evo-psych explanations for social stability and behavioral phenotypes that don’t rape and oppose rape also.
Of course, statistically identified factors don’t apply in specific instances such as this one, mental illness may be a factor. The context which I made my statement was in response to a statement that the abuse occurred under “God’s devine direction”. The evo-psych hypothesis seems to have more statistical support.
Piltdown, as I notice you’re busy again ducking and weaving, may I remind you of Wowbagger’s questions to you, upthread @ #151, who asked you:
” “God’s devine direction”. The evo-psych hypothesis seems to have more statistical support”
AG, proving he’s an idiot every day of his life.
#522,
Children raise the most difficult moral issues. This child was a victim of what western societies classify as sexual abuse and exploitation and statutory rape. These societies generally agree that she could not have given informed consent to the sexual acts, presumably regardless of what she had known or witnessed previously. She was just too young.
Complicating matters is the fact that she wants the babies and not the abortion. There is the issue of whether she can truly give informed consent to either.
Then there is the medical issue of whether there is any reasonable hope for the fetuses. If child is unlikely to be able to carry the preganancy to term, could she carry them to viability, perhaps a caesarian a couple of months early, and given the likelyhood of a caesarian could she also have that explained to her and give informed consent.
Dean,
“AG, proving he’s an idiot every day of his life.”
Your avatar is so undistinguished that it is difficult to discover by means of a search whether you have ever made a substantive post. Can you point to a post where you have contributed to a scientific discussion and perhaps even cited some peer review literature?
AG- your posting of opinions and outright falsehoods hardly gives you any standing in the real world, let alone science. Defending the rape of a 9-year old is all the support I need to qualify you as an idiot or worse.
AG, opening your mouth and posting your amoral idiocy always shows your ideas in a bad light. The best way to defend them is to go elsewhere. Do so.
dean#526,
I’ve reviewed your posts, you have never posted anything of substance. Apparently, you also can’t read. Where did I defend the rape of a 9 year old?
Nerd of Redhead,OM,
Cultural relativism, the evolution of human morality, and aspects of our evolutionary nature which might not be so pretty are ideas which you apparently will see in a bad light no matter who is discussing them. Hide your head in the sand if you must.
Força Lula!
Incidentally, how has not mentioned that his name means “squid”? On Phargyngula!
“I’ve reviewed your posts, you have never posted anything of substance”
The fact that you agree with nothing I’ve said means a lot – I would hate to be in agreement on anything with someone as fundamentally dishonest as you.
Nerd of Redhead,
Re AfricanGenesis:
Do you really want to rank yourself with Dean regarding the man? Even Satan can speak truth when it suits his purpose. What AG said in comment #521 just happens to be true. To reject it because he said it, and so ignore the many people who have done research in the subjects covered, is to be a Dean, and a vicious, diseased Dean at that.
dean,
“The fact that you agree with nothing I’ve said means a lot”
I didn’t consider agreement at all, that would have taken more time. I just looked for substance or a bit of scientific literacy, or even on politics, which appears to be your focus, whether you tried to substantiate any of your opinions or personal attacks.
dean, #530
In so much as you’ve consistently said nothing, there’s really nothing anybody can agree on. What your comments do speak of is a deep rooted animosity towards mankind, combined with a pathic fascination with aberrant sexual practices and sexualizing and objectifying children.
Then there is the fact that reading for comprehension is a concept you have utterly no grasp of. We can see it in other people, but I don’t think we’ve ever named this particular learning disability. We could call it Dean’s Dyslexia and make you famous in the annals of medicine. But you’d probably think it was an honor.
Awaiting your fetid and ignorant reply.
A few nations, Malta, Vatican City (natch), Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Chile outlaw all abortions, period.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Nicaragua
After a similar case of a raped 9-year old in 2003, with a similar result, the Catholic Church influenced them to make abortion completely outlawed rather than allowing abortion for the health of the mother.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_El_Salvador
Shows us what happens with ectopic pregnancy in this country.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/magazine/09abortion.html?pagewanted=8&ei=5088&en=d855d80018cd6c56&ex=1302235200&partner=rssuserland
“According to Sara Valdés, the director of the Hospital de Maternidad, women coming to her hospital with ectopic pregnancies cannot be operated on until fetal death or a rupture of the fallopian tube. “That is our policy,” Valdés told me. She was plainly in torment about the subject. “That is the law,” she said. “The D.A.’s office told us that this was the law.” Valdés estimated that her hospital treated more than a hundred ectopic pregnancies each year. She described the hospital’s practice. “Once we determine that they have an ectopic pregnancy, we make sure they stay in the hospital,” she said. The women are sent to the dispensary, where they receive a daily ultrasound to check the fetus. “If it’s dead, we can operate,” she said. “Before that, we can’t.” If there is a persistent fetal heartbeat, then they have to wait for the fallopian tube to rupture. If they are able to persuade the patient to stay, though, doctors can operate the minute any signs of early rupturing are detected. Even a few drops of blood seeping from a fallopian tube will “irritate the abdominal wall and cause pain,” Valdés explained. By operating at the earliest signs of a potential rupture, she said, her doctors are able to minimize the risk to the woman.”
Patricia @ 514:
Thank you for scrupulously referencing Lloyd M. Graham’s book. Call me an incorrigible sceptic, but I can’t help noticing that Lloyd M. Graham doesn’t seem to have been as scrupulous in referencing his own sources. Where does this supposed quotation from Pope Leo XIII come from – an encyclical? An allocution? Your guess is as good as mine.
I did try googling it, though, and guess what? I actually got a couple of hits, both of which say the source of the quotation is a publication dating from 1975 with the scholarly-sounding title of … ‘Deceptions and Myths of the Bible’, by one Lloyd M. Graham.
Pathetic.
BTW, even if Pope Leo did say those words, he’s not saying “the end justifies the means”, as you put it – he’s saying that there are occasions when the death penalty is appropriate for criminal subversives. Anyone whose brain isn’t completely rotted away by liberalism would agree with that sentiment.
+++
Patricia @ 515:
You got the flower covered nekkid.
We got nuns.
+++
Patricia @ 512:
Yes I do defend the Inquisition. Not, I hasten to add, every action by every Inquisitor in every one of the 600+ years of its history. Sure there were abuses – can you name a single institution in the history of mankind that hasn’t had abuses? Any institution will have its fair share of bullies and sadists who have wormed their way into positions of power. That’s the Achilles’ heel of the “powers to intervene, combined with safeguards ” exercised by the “systems of collective, mutual, democratic social control” that Knockgoats advocates @ 347/354 — Quis custodiet ipsos custodes – who guards the safeguards?
What I defend is the institution of the Inquisition, ie a system of tribunals authorized to confirm reports of heresy and punish heretics, sometimes even by death.
Any developed society requires systems of authority, ultimately coercive, to keep the peace (police) and safeguard the state against external aggression (armies) and internal subversion (security forces). If evidence emerged that cells of fanatical extremists (left- or right-wing) were conspiring to undermine & overthrow the legitimate government of the USA, you can be sure the FBI would set to work to confirm that this was in fact the case and, if so, to apprehend the subversives. If apprehended, they would be interrogated, brought to trial and, if found guilty, punished.
Remember that Christendom, as it once existed, was a political entity. Since religion was the foundational principle of the state, how could it possibly be a private matter? Organized heresy was a direct existential threat to the entire fabric of societ – just look at the chaos and bloodshed caused by the Reformation.
John Morales @511:
Owlmirror would disagree – he sees Jesus as a bloodthirsty psychopath.
Kel @ 517:
What tool?
damn, it really is “invasion of the moronic trolls” week here on Pharyngula:
Charlie Wagner
Piltdown
Alan Clarke
Simon
Barb
RogerS
Nats
Silver Fox
…did I miss anyone?
I mean, WTF, is there a convention I missed or something?
cleanup in isle stupid, PLEASE!
Remember that Christendom, as it once existed, was a political entity.
You make it sound like its becoming such was some kind of happy accident:
“Yes, um, we hate to do this, ma’am, but, you see, well… we’re a political entity now. I have no choice but to torture you and then burn you alive.”
No! You disingenuous, authoritarian scumbag! Why was it a political entity in the first place? How did it get its stranglehold on the European kingdoms? Via the kind of tactics that found their epitome in the Inquisition!
You’re not even saying the ends justify the means; you’re saying the means justify the means. Unbelievable.
Pilty:
I seriously doubt you’ll catch many people here calling you that.
What a blithering idiot. The Inquisition was all about abuse. Its purpose was to find subversives and eliminate them, while at the same time using their torture-coerced confessions to prop up the idea that in the end, all will repent. I’d wager that if I began pulling your fingernails and toenails out, one by one, and holding hot pokers to your tender parts, you’d say just about anything. And even considering the highly improbable notion that one might resist such torture, I could just sign your name to the confession myself after you were disposed with, and claim that you confessed. That was the Inquisition, and it is indefensible.
What a Bushie thing to say. Of course they would be brought to justice, but as you so obtusely forget, torture is not justice. Torture is barbarism, and elicits information and confessions that are patently unreliable.
Wrong again, Pilty. The supression of the Reformation, namely the Church’s attempts to reverse it, was the source of all the bloodshed. That’s exactly like beating a slave for trying to escape, and then blaming the slave for the blood he shed. The offense is not the escape from dogma – it is the forcible repression of those trying to escape.
Pilty again:
And just to belabor the point a bit more, heresy was not a threat to society – it was threat to the church’s totalitarian stranglehold on that society. Big difference, but not one that I’d expect you to see, considering you obviously begin with the sad, servile presuppsition that the church should exert such a hold on society.
Pilty, your silence is truly deafening…
I’m trying to see what the the bad part of this -really – is, They’re not jailed, beaten, they were thown out of a -church- who’s moral values they don’t adhere to… Seems to me they’re better off outside its flock, along with anyone else who’s leaving the church in disgust over the decision..
A little late, but it seems there are some within the Vatican who do disagree with this move:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/03/16/MNUE16FRA0.DTL
Gee, I wonder where they’d get an idea like that, Fishy…
“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.”
Saying the stepfather isn’t responsible because he doesn’t have the right genes? Hard to defend.
“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.”
Hard to make a logical argument that a natural process can do right or wrong – another foolish statement. I note that you tried to cover your tracks by giving a nod to a post by Wowbagger.
The comment about “history is already whitewashed” is just stupid. I take it to mean you don’t like what is taught, so things are whitewashed. I stand by my posted comment on this.
finally, this rather confuing comment from Kellog:
What your comments do speak of is a deep rooted animosity towards mankind, combined with a pathic fascination with aberrant sexual practices and sexualizing and objectifying children.
An amazing bit of fabrication.
Keep ranting folks, if it makes you feel better.
Dean,
“Hard to make a logical argument that a natural process can do right or wrong – another foolish statement. I note that you tried to cover your tracks by giving a nod to a post by Wowbagger.”
I wasn’t covering tracks, I was just speaking two different “languages”. I acknowledged and agreed wowbagger’s disputing the use normative terms, yet at the same time there are also people for who the terms have meaning, even in such a context.
“The comment about “history is already whitewashed” is just stupid. I take it to mean you don’t like what is taught, so things are whitewashed. I stand by my posted comment on this.”
So you stand by your unsubstantiated accusations and your namecalling. How resolute of you. However, reaffirming unsubstantiated allegations, is not as effective a way of standing behind them, as actually substantiating them with evidence.
“So you stand by your unsubstantiated accusations ”
Look asshole – you haven’t given one bit of substance to back up your claims, and you have essentially lied about your earlier comments. The only thing you seem capable of of trying to argue by intimidation.