Well, I hope you realise that no dialogue is possible with your approach. You're giving no reasons at all why you think you're right - you don't even want to try. You take it as "intuitively obvious", but that's not helpful at all.

If you can't figure out and need it explained to you why putting a woman (or man) in a hole and throwing rocks at their head until you do so much physical damage that you kill them, and doing this simply because they committed adultery then you are too morally disgusting to be worth engaging. Why should anyone who is not a professional psychologist waste time on explaining to you why torturing someone to death in this way is wrong any more than we would waste time explaining to someone why raping someone as a punishment for their crimes would be wrong? There are certain things that no civilized individual would contemplate doing, and yes, there are reasons for that that any half-decent ethical theory can provide. But you're beyond all that. The best thing for you to do would be to crawl back into the hole from which you emerged and leave the moral debate on these boards for those with at least a reasonable degree of human empathy.

Anyway, here's a picture of an actual stoning victim for you.

I am.

What a silly question!

I just checked my dictionary and barbaric does not mean immoral. — Agustino

Which is why I checked how you use it. And of course, no value judgment at all where it's defined as "savagely cruel". Please continue with the back pedaling. It's entertaining.

If you can't figure out and need it explained to you why putting a woman (or man) in a hole and throwing rocks at their head until you do so much physical damage that you kill them, and doing this simply because they committed adultery then you are too morally disgusting to be worth engaging. Why should anyone who is not a professional psychologist waste time on explaining to you why torturing someone to death in this way is wrong any more than we would waste time explaining to someone why raping someone as a punishment for their crimes would be wrong? There are certain things that no civilized individual would contemplate doing, and yes, there are reasons for that that any half-decent ethical theory can provide. But you're beyond all that. The best thing for you to do would be to crawl back into the hole from which you emerged and leave the moral debate on these boards for those with at least a reasonable degree of human empathy. — Baden

So the majority of people in Ancient Judea lacked a reasonable degree of human empathy? If that is so, probably the entire Ancient world lacked a reasonable degree of human empathy... if that is the case, how come we suddenly gained this empathy that they lacked?

I am not saying we should stone adulterers, I am just saying that I don't necessarily see such punishments as morally wrong, just disgusting to our modern sensibilities. So I want you to explain to me how we go from disgusting to our sensibilities, to immoral - I am asking the question because I see that there have been many people, in fact, entire cultures in the past, who didn't see it this way.

Which is why I checked how you use it. And of course, no value judgment at all where it's defined as "savagely cruel". Please continue with the back pedaling. It's entertaining. — Benkei

Right, and next to that definition it says "unsophisticated, primitive". Their punishments were primitive, you would expect savages to behave that way. But primitive or savage isn't the same as immoral.

I am asking the question because I see that there have been many people, in fact, entire cultures in the past, who didn't see it this way. — Agustino

So what? Cultures, like individuals, can be morally wrong. You need that explained to you? What exactly is wrong with you?

As Zizek says (somewhere), one mark of a civilized society is that certain things are considered without the need for debate as right and wrong. We have a basic moral background, which allows us to consider ourselves above your beloved barbarism. When some morally sick individual such as you talks about rape, slavery, or torture to death by stoning (for a moral infraction that is not even a crime) as being a form of justice, we call the mental help professionals. We don't debate them. We are above that. It's called progress.

So what? Cultures like individuals can be morally wrong. You need that explained to you? What exactly is wrong with you. — Baden

Why were they morally wrong - how did they become morally wrong in the first place? And how do we know that? Again, you don't seem to understand the difference between "X offends our sensibility and we would never do it", and "X is morally wrong and we would never do it".

For example. Take the Holocaust. We can say that the Holocaust not only offends our sensibility, but it is also morally wrong, and we would never do it. And I'm pretty sure that literarily any reasonable person, from the Ancient or from the modern world would concur that the Holocaust is immoral. So position in history doesn't really matter to coming to this conclusion.

morally sick individual such as you — Baden

Right, well, thanks, but I haven't insulted you nor misrepresented your position.

As Zizek says (somewhere) one mark of a civilized society is that certain things are considered without the need for debate as right and wrong. — Baden

Well, philosophy is about questioning all kinds of matters that would otherwise not be questioned. I am interested to know why such societies found such forms of punishment acceptable and moral, and we don't. My view is that the acceptable degree of violence as a form of punishment within a society varies historically- I'm not so quick as you to claim that it necessarily is morally wrong. You are obviously not interested - you just like to think that you are right.

You said:

Extreme violence, barbarity, murdering, raping, pillaging, etc. are evil. — Agustino

-emphasis mine

It is clear what you mean with the word and have meant with the word in the past. No dictionary is going to tell us how you actually use it but that sentence above puts it succintly enough. It has been used by you continuously as a moral condemnation. So you condemned stoning in this thread, hence moral relativism. That this doesn't compute with your incomprehensible approach to ethics is because your moral system is nonsense and evil. At least your initial moral intuition with regard to stoning people to death was initially correct. Your misplaced rationalisation of what you "really meant" when that meaning was abundantly clear is what makes you an immoral character. Not only are you dishonest with us but with yourself as well.

Don't give me this self-righteous stuff about philosophy. You are not peddling philosophy any more than ISIS are, and you're not going to get any more respect for what you're doing than they would. Torturing a woman to death by standing above her while she's in a hole and throwing large rocks at her head until you've broken it into so many pieces that she dies is obviously morally wrong just as killing Jews for no reason other than their ethnicity is. If you are trying to convince us you are not utterly degraded morally because you can see the latter is immoral while still claiming the former is moral, you're failing. Again, you don't need a philosopher, you need a psychologist.

Also, what the hell man?! You know everyone is going to press that little reveal button. :vomit:

I know, sorry. But this is the reality. This is what Agu is condoning as moral. Real people today, men and woman, are suffering the punishment that he is trying to paint as just and moral. This along with holy books being used in an equally sick way to justify slavery and rape. None of this has anything to do with a civilized approach to religion or morality and just reflects an animal level of barbarism. And then Agu will ask, "But what's wrong with animal barbarism?"

Agu's "just and moral" society of fear, hatred and lack of human rights where religious police can grab women off the street and torture them to death or you can be tortured to death for not obeying any of the tenants of their holy books is basically a classic dystopia.

Here's a first hand description of an actual stoning. Of Agu's "just and moral" punishment for adultery:

"An Execution in Ghazni: Stoned for Adultery

"When the soldiers reached the stake, they inexpertly drove several nails into it -- and lashed the prisoner's hands to these nails, at the same time securing her ankles to the bottom of the stake. When they stepped back, the dirty white chaderi fell completely over the bare feet and the prisoner was wholly masked. She was still free, however, to look out upon the world of hate-filled faces. I turned to watch the mullahs and did not see what happened next, but I heard a thudding sound and a gasp. I looked around quickly...to see that a rather large stone had struck the woman and fallen at her feet. The gasp must have come from her. Now the men at my right, the ones who had eaten with me and brought me to the scene, knelt to find stones...they began throwing at the shrouded figure. From all sides stones whizzed toward the stake, and most struck, and it was obvious that punishment for adultery in Afghanistan was severe.

The Woman refused to cry out, but a cheer soon rose from the crowd. One powerful man had found an especially good stone, large and jagged, and he threw this with force,aiming carefully at her body, and it struck so violently in her abdomen that soon the first blood of the afternoon showed through the chaderi. It was this that brought the cheer...another stone of equal size struck the woman's shoulder. It brought both blood and cheers...A large man with unerring aim pitched a jagged rock of some size and caught the woman in the breast, blood spurted through the torn chaderi and at last the woman uttered a piercing scream... men from all sides gathered fresh ammunition.

The sagging body was struck eight or nine times in the next fusillade, but mercifully the woman could not have know. Now a burly man shouted that he had found the perfect rock and the others must stand aside. The crowd obeyed and watched breathlessly as he took careful aim, whirled his arm, and launch his missile with ugly force. It flashed across the fifteen yards separating the men from their target and sped accurately as intended, striking the unconscious woman in the face. Quick blood marked the spot and the crowd cheered.

The blow was so terrible that it wrenched the prisoner's hands from the nails and allowed her to collapse in a heap about the stake. As she did so, the crowd broke loose and rushed to the fallen body smashing it with boulders which no man, however powerful, could have thrown from a distance. Again and again they dropped the huge rocks on the fallen body until they crushed it completely, continuing the wild sport until they had build a small mound of stones over the scene..."

http://lobojosden.blogspot.com/2010/09/death-by-stoning-description.html

Animal barbarism at its moral best.

It seems even Ancient Jews had trouble with it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_and_corporal_punishment_in_Judaism

The harshness of the death penalty indicated the seriousness of the crime. Jewish philosophers argue that the whole point of corporal punishment was to serve as a reminder to the community of the severe nature of certain acts. This is why, in Jewish law, the death penalty is more of a principle than a practice. The numerous references to a death penalty in the Torah underscore the severity of the sin rather than the expectation of death. This is bolstered by the standards of proof required for application of the death penalty, which has always been extremely stringent (Babylonian Talmud Makkoth 7b). The Mishnah (tractate Makkoth 1:10) outlines the views of several prominent first-century CE Rabbis on the subject:

"A Sanhedrin that puts a man to death once in seven years is called a murderous one. Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah says 'Or even once in 70 years.' Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiba said, 'If we had been in the Sanhedrin no death sentence would ever have been passed'; Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel said: 'If so, they would have multiplied murderers in Israel.'"[11] — wiki

Interesting. Anyway here's more (this time not an actual stoning but an accurate representative video of one). Again, so people make no mistake about what Agu's thinks is morally worthy of debate and is a just punishment for adultery.



Essentially the moral equivalent of walking around on your hands and knees and eating shit from the ground.

And I'm going to keep doing this until Agu realizes that no-one will sink to the level of even justifying this by debating it. It speaks for itself.

Why would anyone take the following samples as more than archaic, barbaric customs and stories, that we've since outgrown?

When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it.
And if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you.
But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it.
And when the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword,
but the women and the little ones, the livestock, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder for yourselves. And you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you.
Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here. — Deuteronomy 20:10-15

And Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, who had come from service in the war.
Moses said to them, “Have you let all the women live?
Behold, these, on Balaam’s advice, caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against the LORD in the incident of Peor, and so the plague came among the congregation of the LORD.
Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him.
But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves.
Encamp outside the camp seven days. Whoever of you has killed any person and whoever has touched any slain, purify yourselves and your captives on the third day and on the seventh day.
You shall purify every garment, every article of skin, all work of goats’ hair, and every article of wood.” — Numbers 31:14-20

(Quarrels about translations, context, what have you, are irrelevant if this cruft can be used to justify immoral actions, and is installed in impressionable children.)

As to war strategies and tactics there are other ancient writings that are much better, e.g. Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

Exactly. Thank you.

So the majority of people in Ancient Judea lacked a reasonable degree of human empathy? If that is so, probably the entire Ancient world lacked a reasonable degree of human empathy... if that is the case, how come we suddenly gained this empathy that they lacked? — Agustino

You seem dumbfounded for some reason. Did you not pay sufficient attention in your history lessons at school? Do you not read history books? We used to stone people to death, burn people at the stake, crucify people, put people on the rack, keep people as slaves, until we gradually progressed from barbarism to the considerably more civilised and enlightened period in which we presently reside. It didn't happen all of a sudden. You can actually look up the history of how and why each of these gruesome and perverse stains on human history came about, and how and why they fell out of practice or were outlawed in most places. The psychology of it probably has to do with the dark side of our nature, backwards thinking, religious extremism, herd mentality, aversion to change, ignorance, abusive authorities, and so on. Then the freethinkers began to question, and speak up, and stand against, sometimes at great cost.

Right, well, thanks, but I haven't insulted you nor misrepresented your position. — Agustino

You’re suggesting that advocates of barbaric and inhumane punishments such as stoning should be respected?

Where do you think this goes? Your arrogance suggests you somehow think this line of thought supports your position. How's that, then?

I am interested to know why such societies found such forms of punishment acceptable and moral, and we don't. — Agustino

Because they were operating in the darkness of an inculcated superstitious belief that that was what God wanted. And then Christ came along and said, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone".

If you continue to persist with this disgustingly perverse unphilosophical nonsense, I would be forced to come to the conclusion that excommunicating you would not be unjustified, as I see no reason why a site such as this should be so lenient as to continue to tolerate and play the host to that kind of degenerate "thinking".

Alright I see, I looked at the images and video you put up and I agree that it is immoral and I was wrong. I will need to look at those Scripture passages in more detail to see what's going on in there, hopefully when I have more time. Thanks for pointing this out and sorry for thinking this could be moral.

:gasp:

It’s an inconvenient truth for religious traditions that horrible things were sanctioned in the past which is identified with their origin. Society and culture have evolved, [although technically one should never describe such things in evolutionary terms as evolution is never the least concerned with anything other than propagation.] All I can say is welcome to the twenty first century.

I will need to look at those Scripture passages in more detail to see what's going on in there, hopefully when I have more time. — Agustino

https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Stoning

Thanks for taking a look and being so reasonable about it. :up:

For what it's worth. There's a few issues to unpack here. Jesus was sent to fulfill the Law.

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. — Matthew

Here's an important clue as to what fulfill meant and it doesn't mean "obey" the Law. Or at least, not under the interpretation of the Law offered back then as a strictly legalistic endeavour. The law, to Jesus, was justice, mercy and faithfulness (Matthew 23:23) and mercy and forgiveness was emphasised in his sermon on the Mount. That sermon also emphasises the moral character of the law but not the punishment. He only mentions ending up in hell as punishment, not capital punishment.

Looking at John 1-11. The adulterer was guilty but forgiven (she was judged by Jesus). We obey the Law even when punishment is humane and even when we forgive.

Also, the trap the Pharisees set up in that event wasn't that both the man and woman had to be present but because the romans forbade stoning other than imposed by Roman courts and adultery want in the list of capital crimes. Mosaic Law required it.

I'm sure there's more in this but it's been almost 30 years since I studied the Bible and turned atheist.

Nice!

Society and culture have evolved, [although technically one should never describe such things in evolutionary terms as evolution is never the least concerned with anything other than propagation.] — Wayfarer

I disagree: evolution is evolution and it is, per se, not concerned with anything. Evolution is adaptation that happens naturally due to interactions between the evolving entity, whether that be an individual, a society, or a species, and its environment.

It's an interaction between internal and external conditions. If what you said were correct then you would be contradicting yourself in saying that society and culture have evolved. The fact that human society in general has evolved is no guarantee that it has improved, but I think it is fair to say that in fact human society in general has improved, mostly insofar as it has freed itself from the entrenched dogmas of tradition, and all the atrocities which were committed in their name. Modern society is obviously still replete with problems and far from perfect, though.

To return to the OP, the evolution of the idea of human rights is a large part of that improvement and is very far from being "anti-Christian", even though it might not be in accordance with some of the more repugnant draconian religious dogmas which have survived the Enlightenment.

I disagree with the assertion put forth that human rights are anti-Christian. I agree that when one looks at the ten commandments their purpose are to limit the actions of the followers of Christianity, but that does not put them into opposition with human rights. When laying out the rights of American citizens in the constitution they talk about certain unalienable rights given to humans that cannot be taken away, even by the laws of the United States. I think that this is where the main gap in understanding is for the author of this post. Allow me to give an analogy to illustrate my point.

Under the constitution there are rights given like freedom of speech and freedom of worship that protect people’s rights to speak and worship freely. Now say that there is a child born into a home where the parents of this child tells them that they are not allowed to speak foul language and that they will practice Christianity. By doing these two things are the parents restricting the rights of the child or performing actions in opposition to human rights? Of course not! The parents of this child are simply laying out guidelines for a life that they think will lead the child to success and health.

The parents are not attempting to strip the rights of the child, at the end of the day the child is going to speak and believe whatever they hold to be their own. In the same way when God laid out the Christian decalogue for the Israelites he was not trying to strip them of their rights. As creator God endowed human beings with the freewill that allows them to do these things such as choose what to say and what to believe.

The 10 commandments instead are a moral code that God sets forth for those that choose to follow him to uphold in order to lead a life deemed healthy and successful in the eyes of God. Restricting the rights of those that hear these commandments and not allowing them to break them was never a part of the discussion. In this way the Christian decalogue and human rights are not at odds with each other, but are instead each stepping stones in the determination of the moral code that each human being chooses to uphold.