Warning. Reading this may cause you to feel a compulsive need to bathe afterward

[theweaselking]

Ah, yes, WingNutDaily: Where they run editorials that say "Rape is the woman's fault, rape and adultery are identical in every way (and that's also the woman's fault), and only Christians have any cause to think that rape is morally wrong."

Selected quote: "it is quite easy to make numerous cases for the inherent common good of rape on societal and social Darwinist grounds that are more powerful than the comparatively nebulous cases to the contrary."

... and Christians wonder why atheists think they're insane when they say "If God didn't tell me not to rape and murder and kill, of COURSE I would! All the time! Everyone would! There's no reason not to, if you won't go to hell after you die!". Free clue, dude: You're a creepy sociopath, and we think you're insane because you're declaring that YOUR INVISIBLE FRIEND is the only reason you have for not doing the heinous things that YOU ARE PROCLAIMING A CONSTANT DESIRE TO DO.

Comments

[aberrantangels]

Free clue, dude: You're a creepy sociopath, and we think you're insane because you're declaring that YOUR INVISIBLE FRIEND is the only reason you have for not committing the heinous crimes that YOU ARE ADMITTING TO HAVING A CONSTANT DESIRE TO DO.

I sometimes want, after a typical Cal Thomas column, to write in to the local paper that runs his columns and say "Not all of us are like Mr. Thomas, depraved psychotics who are only restrained from wading to the hips in blood by the fear that Hell is waiting." But I prefer my limbs un-torn from each other, so I never send that letter.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

... why would you get torn limb from limb? Besides, send it. It's a good thing.

Oh, and I edited the phrasing a little. I like this one better.

[aberrantangels]

... why would you get torn limb from limb?

Sorry; that was the reason why I didn't send it when I was living in Mississippi. Here in PA, I'd just shut myself out of ever being able to get a job again.

Besides, send it. It's a good thing.

It'd certainly be cathartic.

Oh, and I edited the phrasing a little. I like this one better.

So do I, now I see it.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

You warned me.

You warned me and I read it anyway.

(Christians don't wonder why aethists think they're insane. Christians may wonder why they get lumped in with all the icky Christians.)

[ryusen.livejournal.com]

I have long wondered about people who believe that morality stems from religion... or even specifically "a certain" religion. Seeing as how rules liek "don't kill" and "don't take my stuff" have been around far longer than said commandments...

I think that's why i liked certain aspects of Buddhism. The founder of Jodoshinshu, once had to educate his followers. basically he taught that we were already saved, because of the mercy of Amida Buddha. His followers went crazy and he had to teach them that even if your soul is saved, you must still be moral for morality's sake... nice.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Antinomianism. Look up Johannes Agricola.

Then, when you're done that, read Night Of The Antinomian (http://rebecca.hitherby.com/archives/000420.php).

[ryusen.livejournal.com]

You want me to READ? that's funny .p

[torrain.livejournal.com]

No no. You see, it's funny, and that's why he wants you to read.

[takhisis.livejournal.com]

(Here one must note the intellectual poverty of the rape mythologists. If rape concerns power, not sex, then how is it possible for the simple absence, or worse, withdrawal, of consent to immediately transform a "date rape" situation from an inherently sexual one to one where sex plays no role at all?)

Oh. My. Crap. This guy is blind to the very obvious difference he is outlining in his own words, and he's calling the rest of us "intellectually impoverished"?

I don't know whether to laugh at the guy for being a moron, or weep at the idea that he really doesn't know any difference between consensual erotic arousal and a sociopathic adrenaline rush from deliberately injuring and humiliating another human being.

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

>>>>>he really doesn't know any difference between consensual erotic arousal and a sociopathic adrenaline rush from deliberately injuring and humiliating another human being.<<<<<

He is Christian.

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

Vox Day is a crazy bastard- you should browse his other columns.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I've seen 'em.

[catlin.livejournal.com]

I love how selective these flakes are about what quotes they publish. The Christian Bible excuses rape, in the story about Lot. The Koran calls rape a foul thing. Morality is what men make of it, not what is written in any book.

[toku666.livejournal.com]

What's with his hair?

[elffin.livejournal.com]

He reads like a Philosophy major. I want to see his definition of "moral", "morality", and "morals". It's probably extremely specialised and highly crafted, and not the commonly accepted one I learned from a dictionary, nor the slightly more restricitve one I learned in my western philosophy courses.

And I'll eat my hat if "There may be a genuine moral argument against rape to be made outside of the Judeo-Christian ethic, but I have yet to hear it." is true. One Word: Buddhism.
I mean, he equivocates ethics and morality in the same sentence. I'm willing to bet that he's operating under the unstated assumption that an ethics that /roughly approximates the same principles of the Ten Commandments/ is 'inside the judeo-christian ethic'. The assumption being that his religion is the font of all morality...

And this bit: "As I have previously asserted, most atheist and agnostic morality is parasitical, the cultural residue of previous generations."

*Ring, Ring* Hello and good day, this is Mr. Pot calling Mr. Kettle, -

HAMMURABI!

He rejects or ignores the fact that rationality is not relative. Rational morality is not a relative morality, and it does not merely source from Abrahamic religions.

It makes me mad that WorldNetDaily doesn't have a letters-to-the-editor for an editorial smackdown.

[elffin.livejournal.com]

Ah, but he does have an email address - vday@worldnetdaily.com. Time to write a very angry letter.

The rebuttal I've sent to him...

[elffin.livejournal.com]

To start off, I feel you are being disingenuous with some of the definitions that you are using in your recent column on WorldNetDaily about the 'Morality of Rape'. Specifically, I'd like to know exactly which definition of "moral" you are using, as well as "morals" and "morality" - it must be exceedingly different than the one I've learned from reading dictionaries, and different from the one that I know to be used by philosophers and ethicists.

The one I learned can be best stated by Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Gert, Bernard, "The Definition of Morality", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2005 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2005/entries/morality-definition/>

Which states:

"The term “morality” can be used either

1. descriptively to refer to a code of conduct put forward by a society or,
1. some other group, such as a religion, or
2. accepted by an individual for her own behavior or
2. normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons."

The rest of the entry is quite elucidating, and I suspect that you are at least /generally/ aware of its' content; I also suspect that the readers of WorldNetDaily are not.

I'd also take you to task for substantially misrepresenting Buddhism as lacking 'material grounds for condemning the perpetrator' - It does not seem that you've asked any practicing Buddhist what material or moral grounds there is against rape under Buddhism, but simple exegesised a mystical philosophical statement. Rape is harming another sentient being - specifically condemned in Buddhism.

The above seems to sufficiently rebut your statement of "There may be a genuine moral argument against rape to be made outside of the Judeo-Christian ethic, but I have yet to hear it." - that is, unless of course, you consider any sufficiently approximate set of ethics to the set of 'Judeo-Christian ethic[s]' to be inside the set - a bit of switching contexts and scopes on your audience, and presuming your preferred ethics to be the super-set, which I also consider to be disingenuous.

And next, This: "As I have previously asserted, most atheist and agnostic morality is parasitical, the cultural residue of previous generations."

I have one word in rebuttal - Hammurabi. Actually, I have many words, but 'Hammurabi' is specific to this instance; All morality is built upon the morality of previous generations, and Judeo-Christian ethics and/or morality does not escape that fact - and neither does Hammurabi's, which is a reorganisation of Sumerian law/morality/ethics. You seem to operate under the assumption that /all/ morality in the world flows exclusively from your religion. This is patently dishonest.

Finally,

"When each does what is right in his own eyes, all distinctions between right and wrong become meaningless." <- This is an untenable strawman of rational morality, and I suspect that you are aware of this fact.

You reject or ignore the fact that rationality is not relative. Rational morality is not a relative morality, and /today/ it does not merely source from Abrahamic religions. In cultures and regions, philosophies and religions that predate, were alien to, and/or were un-influenced by Abrahamic religions, history and anthropology have documented the arisal of moralities and ethics, and systems of law and religion, all founded on the notion of balancing the needs of men against the needs of societies. They all boil down to stating that theft is wrong, and extending that metaphor outward. The notion that rape is wrong did not originate with Judeo-Christianity, nor is it exclusive to it.