We are discussed by Erin Manning at Rod Dreher’s Crunchy @ BeliefNet. Manning starts out by talking about this site but her piece soon finds itself back in a well-worn groove, railing at the “new secular morality” with its supposed corollaries: Sixties liberationism, trashing of tradition, judicial activism, hedonistic pleasure-seeking, and so forth. Bradlaugh will be upset: his real agenda has been exposed!
P.S. Bonus assertion for reader study: “There is no logical secular reason to oppose the death penalty.”
“There is no logical secular reason to oppose the death penalty.”
How about “There is nothing more statist than giving the government the power to annihilate an individual.” And since we secularists don’t generally believe that there is any ultimate justice that will redress our fuck-ups, executing a person by mistake is much more worse in reality than it would be in a theistic universe.
In fairness, it’s clear from context that he means that nothing compels secularists to oppose the death penalty (this is just a version of the “atheists have no moral certainty” card – see the immediately following bit about people being nothing more than tissue). Less charitably, he only says that because he seems to think that a secular morality that isn’t distinct from a religious morality in every way demonstrates that the secular morality is somehow incomplete.
In general, he just seems deeply confused about why this site exists. He supposes that, because the contributors identify as secular, they identify with ‘secular values’, which he understands as liberalism. He wants y’all to “[stop] pretending that this [is] about separating religion and governance” and admit that you really believe that “the knuckle-draggers on the right can’t be trusted to toe the line, and must have their vote overturned by a more enlightened court”.
There is little worse than executing an innocent man. Better to let a dozen guilty people stay in jail than to execute an innocent one. And yes, we have executed many people who were later exonerated by DNA evidence.
Sadly, this is not a “conservative” position nowadays. I don’t know what to make of the mindless chest-thumping of the Republican Party sometimes.
From Walter’s post, it’s clear that the author is female. Hopefully I won’t be eviscerated as thoroughly as I would expect to be on some other secular blogs.
>He supposes that, because the contributors identify as secular, they identify with ’secular values’, which he understands as liberalism.
I don’t know about secular values, perhaps at some default level when being pressed by Christians; but this site does give many of the impressions one gets from other generic left-wing atheist/evolutionist oriented sites on the internet.
Capital punishment can be opposed on the grounds that it Isn’t generally applied equally, and that it has been known to kill those who have later been proven innocent. It also depends a great deal on what you think the purpose of capital punishment is.
If it is a scare tactic designed to scare axe murderers into giving up their axe murdering ways, then it can be supported or opposed based on effectiveness.
It can also be supported as a way of taking out societies trash, rather than leaving it in the can until it rots.
But what do we heathens know? With no supreme being to tell us what to do so we don’t have to think, we just wander around confused all day, each of us having our own opinion, which is inconvenient when trying to generalize about us.
“Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty.”
Ford, Henry
“There is no logical secular reason to oppose the death penalty.”
Robert M. Price has an interesting article on this here: http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/zara/sheep.htm
“There is no logical secular reason to oppose the death penalty.”
Well then, if there is no logical reason to oppose something, maybe that something is not a bad thing.
How come most death-penalty opponents are “secular,” while most (many?) death-penatly advocates are religious.
Be that as it may, the idea that cold-blooded killing of a captive individual is something states should refrain from doing can be defended without going through the motions of pretending that it is offensive to fill-in-Deity-here.
Personally, I’m as agnostic about the death penalty as I am about the existence of the Big Guy (Gal? Disembodied Spirit?). Categorically ruling it out in all conceivable cases strikes me of extremism.
“…but this site does give many of the impressions one gets from other generic left-wing atheist/evolutionist oriented sites on the internet.”
This sounds very much like a complaint that “all sites which don’t toe the line on religious dogma in government and rejection of modern science in preference to bronze age superstition are all the same and all liberal…”
“….strikes me of extremism.”
?
What the ?
“…strikes me as extremist.” Um… That’ll have to do.
Dear god-hating conservative site hosts: Please stop altering my posts so that they read as if they were written by some in-a-hurry-hack who really should get back to work.
Dreher’s position is predictable. But his main contention that there is no one trying to impose religion on government fails to recognize that the only reason that may be (it’s not true; there are many such people) is because the fight secularists have fought lo these many years. Absent that fight, and the Court cases Dreher would no doubt mock and distain, denial of the conflation of religion and government would be laughable.
“and that it has been known to kill those who have later been proven innocent.”
This is certainly a reason to oppose the death penalty. But where has it ever been proven in the modern era (the last 50 years or so) that *any* innocent person has ever been executed. Given it takes 30 years of i dotting and t crossing to execute someone that practically guarantees the innocent fish will be identified.
This bit of unself-aware self-parody kind of makes the case of my post above, but, I’m sure that is obvious…
Yes, Grant, you atheists are such heroes. All those Proestants who went to the stake and fought on the front lines for liberty and then who founded this nation on the strongest notions of liberty ever seen in the history of the world have nothing on you and your heroic secular atheist warriors for freedom.
Now, if you could, please go back in time to just the last century and tell your heroic-for-freedom atheist comrades-in-arms not to establish all those tyrannies and not to imprison, torture, kill, and generally police-to-soul-killing degrees all those people they did those things to. Thanks.
Now, if you could, please go back in time to just the last century and tell your heroic-for-freedom atheist comrades-in-arms not to establish all those tyrannies and not to imprison, torture, kill, and generally police-to-soul-killing degrees all those people they did those things to. Thanks.
If you’re alluding to Mao and Lenin, then there is an obvious rebuttal to your assertion – they weren’t atheists; they were, just like you, believers in a “Greater Power” – but they simply swapped out “Yahweh” for “Marx” and went about the imprisoning, torturing, killing, and generally police-to-soul-killing degrees that theists were known for.
@Panopaea,
“This bit of unself-aware self-parody kind of makes the case of my post above, but, I’m sure that is obvious…” Your inability to see beyond your blinders is not “unself-aware self-parody” on my part.
“Yes, Grant, you atheists are such heroes. All those Proestants who went to the stake and fought on the front lines for liberty and then who founded this nation on the strongest notions of liberty ever seen in the history of the world have nothing on you and your heroic secular atheist warriors for freedom.”
Interesting that I didn’t mention “atheists” in my post, but “secularists.” Here’s a clue: a religious-minded person can be a secularist, too. Many of the great secular victories have been fought and won by and with the assistance of religious Christians and Jews who understood that government has no business promoting, sponsoring, furthering or otherwise establishing religion.
(And, interstingly, the vast majority of those “Proestants” who went to the stake in the past, went so at the sword point of their fellow brothers in Christ, the Catholics (and vice-versa). And most often did so as a result of one or the other being the policy of the governing body. That is the evil that secularists fight.)
“Now, if you could, please go back in time to just the last century and tell your heroic-for-freedom atheist comrades-in-arms not to establish all those tyrannies and not to imprison, torture, kill, and generally police-to-soul-killing degrees all those people they did those things to. Thanks.”
See, here’s the thing, I, unlike you, don’t actually want any religion in politics, be it theism or atheism. The tired theocratic shout about “athiest commies killed 100 MIllION!!!11!!” fails to appreciate that the evil of the communist regimes came about as a result of their irrational belief in the tenets of communism and the integration of that irrational belief with the power of government. (Similar, the irrational beliefs of Nazi Germany [although there was a large religious component to those beliefs.])
A secularist would find that as appaling as any integration of any religion with government, because both are based on fundamentally irrational beliefs.
This bit of unself-aware self-parody kind of makes the case of my post above, but, I’m sure that is obvious…
Panopaea, the problem is that just about every, for want of a better term, unsecular commenter here has engaged in just that behaviour, and I include your good self in this. You and many others have made it perfectly clear repeatedly that you don’t consider us to be conservatives at all.
And as long as you hold this position, there will be nothing but Democratic governments in the US for the foreseeable future.
There is a logical, secular reason to support or oppose any public policy: You believe it would be, or not be, good for the country.
It sometimes seems that believers think we just can’t conduct public affairs at all without consulting the Holy Books.
>If you’re alluding to Mao and Lenin, then there is an obvious rebuttal to your assertion – they weren’t atheists; they were, just like you, believers in a “Greater Power” – but they simply swapped out “Yahweh” for “Marx” and went about the imprisoning, torturing, killing, and generally police-to-soul-killing degrees that theists were known for.
No, the Christian nations were fighting those godless regimes. The Soviets were self-consciously, self-identified, Christian-killing atheists. When they got power they imprisoned, tortured, murdered, and policed in a reign of terror unseen in the annals of world history. Your people. Atheists. Who confronted them? Who fought them? Who sacrificed their blood and their treasure to take them on in the field of battle? Christian nations. What kind of nations were those? Nations devoted to liberty? Yes? Are we seeing any clearer yet?
When you refuse to recognize anything higher than man; when you make man the measure; you then worship man. Human beings will either fear and revere their Creator or they will fear and revere man. Atheists are man-fearers and man-reverers. When you don’t recognize your Creator you worship false idols like Marx and Marxism and if not that then something else that will be equally useful to pull you down into a godless, hellish existence. The reason you are not now living in an atheist hell like the tyrannies of the 20th century is because you are living in a Christian nation and a Christian culture and civilization.
Panopaea:
Hitler and Stalin both had excellent religious educations. (Stalin was a seminarian: the frequent occurrence of expressions like “Bog velyel” — “God willing” — in his speeches was the cause of much secret amusement.) Their people remained largely religious: the Germans noted how captured Russian POWs invariably had religious medallions and such secreted under their uniforms. (This is in Nikolai Tolstoy’s book.)
So — it looks as though religious education produced terrorist dictators, and religious populaces are rather easily subdued by those dictators. Doesn’t it? And why was not the most emphatically Christian nation in Europe — Franco’s Spain — emphatically on the Allies’ side in WW2? Etc., etc.
And there either are gods, or there aren’t. If there aren’t, what is your point?
Nazi Germany? The Chinese? The Mujahideen in Afghanistan? Muslim separatists in Chechnya?
My dear Panopaea, I am British and proudly so. Never have I felt ever prouder of our Sceptred Isle’s innate distrust of demagogues, loudmouths, preachers and Roderick Spodes of all stripes (leaving aside all our other many faults) than when reading your hubristic rant.
Your verbal exhertions do serve one grand purpose though – it demonstrates in a very concise and salient fashion exactly why my ideological comrades in the US Republican Party deservedly lost the recent election and why sites like SecularRight are sorely needed.
Do you realise how absolutely bonkers you sound?
>And there either are gods, or there aren’t. If there aren’t, what is your point?
Don’t see how this question relates to what I wrote. Replace gods with demons, though, if I’m understanding your question (I didn’t reference gods, I referenced false idols, a different term that includes more than a Molech or a Baal or any other demon by any other name).
No amount of spin will turn the Soviets into Christians. This is, by the way, something only a black is white, up is down atheist would even want or need to attempt. And tyrannies aren’t defined by the beliefs, weak, vague or strong, of the tyrannized populace, which includes rank and file soldiers who often found themselves in the same prison camps as the people they help put there the week before.
If you have a need for empirical evidence why not look to history and human nature? It certainly demonstrates rather forcefully the depravity of fallen man. The existence of evil is something as well that atheists have to pretend not to see or find argument to spin it away. While they live comfortably in the midst of Christians and Christian culture and civilization.
Interesting, I have internet correspondents in England who have words for their fellow countrymen like yourself that I can’t repeat here. I.e., you don’t speak for your scepter’d isle. You have an island blanketed with socialist media and educational institutions turning out minds like unbaked dough, I will give you this, but God has His remnant in all lands and in all eras of the history of redemption, and that includes England.
@Panopaea
“No, the Christian nations were fighting those godless regimes. The Soviets were self-consciously, self-identified, Christian-killing atheists. When they got power they imprisoned, tortured, murdered, and policed in a reign of terror unseen in the annals of world history.”
Your argument refutes itself. There is no reason why secularists would have any desire to imprison, torture, murder, police or terrorize anyone for their religious beliefs. For those who favor rational government, doubly so. Keep it out of government, but believe whatever you want in your private life. That is the secular way.
Why, then, did the Mao’s and Lenin’s of the world do this killing and torturing, etc.?? Because they had an irrational belief system, which was integrated with government and which determined that the mere existence of another center of belief was a threat. They chose to eliminate that perceived threat. (Had they been explicitly religious, they would have shouted “heretic” and “infidel.”)
“Your people. Atheists.”
Your people. People who don’t believe in pixies.
Your people. People who don’t believe in Thor.
Your people. People who don’t believe that Forrest Gump is real.
Etc.
“Who confronted them? Who fought them? Who sacrificed their blood and their treasure to take them on in the field of battle? Christian nations.”
The South Vietnamese, Japanese and South Koreans fought. They weren’t Christian. The nations of Europe, which slowly during this time became less and less Christian. They fought. Atheists in everyone of these countries fought. They weren’t Christians. Jews fought. They aren’t Christians.
“What kind of nations were those? Nations devoted to liberty? Yes? Are we seeing any clearer yet?”
Are you?? You are almost there. “Nations devoted to liberty” is so close. What makes liberty flourish? Rational, secular government. So close.
“When you refuse to recognize anything higher than man; when you make man the measure; you then worship man.”
No, I don’t. I have no need nor desire to “worship” anything, so I do not do so. That is your problem. You are so wound up in your religious mindset that you can’t fathom life where those religious presuppositions don’t exist or are meaningless, so you deny that such a life is possible. You’re wrong.
“The reason you are not now living in an atheist hell like the tyrannies of the 20th century is because you are living in a Christian nation and a Christian culture and civilization.”
Nonsense. I am living in a country dedicated to the principles of the Enlightenment and devoted, if imperfectly, to a rational political life. The list of hell holes existing in Christian countries, cultures and civilizations needs no further explication than merely noting its existing; those hells would not have existed if your thesis were correct.
I’ve started a new thread based on Bradlaugh’s comment about Hitler and Stalin, so those pursuing the “totalitarianism is unbelievers’ fault” theme may want to pick up over there.
Not sure if it answers your question directly, but the Innocence Project has freed 16 people on death row, and they are just a small non-profit organization. It is silly to pretend that our legal system is anything approaching objective. Juries are swayed by emotional arguments, prosecutors lie, cheat, and mislead to get a conviction, cops are given the benefit of the doubt when they use anonymous informants to arrest people (informants who are themselves often indebted to the cops). Radley Balko has uncovered systematic misconduct (read: corruption) in Mississippi forensic testimony that has potentially sent thousands of people to jail, some to death row. You can read one article on his work here: http://www.slate.com/id/2184798/pagenum/all/ although you will find many more if you Google for “Radley Balko” and “Steven Hayne”.
The state is no better at administering justice than it is at administering any other industry. Americans have so much respect for their police and justice officers that we do not watch them critically, but we should, for they hold the powers of life and death.
Interesting, I have internet correspondents in England who have words for their fellow countrymen like yourself that I can’t repeat here. I.e., you don’t speak for your scepter’d isle. You have an island blanketed with socialist media and educational institutions turning out minds like unbaked dough, I will give you this, but God has His remnant in all lands and in all eras of the history of redemption, and that includes England.
Panopaea, with shrill replies like this, you’re doing yourself no favours at all – in fact, you’re sounding rather uncannily like this fellow. Would that you reflect on that instead of trying to save our souls here by means of boring us to death with hyperbole.
The state is no better at administering justice than it is at administering any other industry. Americans have so much respect for their police and justice officers that we do not watch them critically, but we should, for they hold the powers of life and death.
Jacob, that’s why I’m personally somewhat conflicted about the death penalty – whilst there are some crimes that are deserving of death (and I personally don’t buy the ‘its more of a punishment to keep them in jail’ argument, for several reasons), the fact that the state can have the power to end someone’s life is also terrifying. But I guess that’s the libertarian in me coming to the fore with this dilemma.
I’m with Grant Canyon in all of this, FWIW.
Panpopaea: I’m tempted to ask you to check your meds, wondering if you may have missed a cycle or two, but then I realized that would be uncharitable.
PS – Did you take your handle from pagan world-view you supposedly reject, or from the fruits of scientific thinking that you so often deride?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopea
The GOP needs a sista-souljah moment with the RR, methinks.
“There is no logical secular reason to oppose the death penalty, for one example, after all; a true secularist could just as easily see such an act as a necessary operation to remove an unsatisfactory and destructive collection of self-aware human tissue from the body politic before the cancer of his lethiferous actions spreads to other self-aware tissue collections.”
Bradlaugh should’ve quoted the whole passage, as I see nothing to object to after the semi-colon (nor I suspect, does Bradlaugh, as he once, probably jokingly (but what a joke!), said all prison inmates should be killed as a matter of social hygiene).
“I’m with Grant Canyon in all of this, FWIW.”
Smart one, that A-Bax…
While most of the death penalty debates in which I have engaged are with my co-religious folk (I am for keeping it available), I have justified it to myself, at least, on purely secular grounds, as public policy should be done. If a criminal has proven that he will continue to commits acts of violence, either in prison or outside, and incarceration is insufficient to protect society from him, then I will support the death penalty.
On a side note, I also think prison should be reformed so that they are fiscally self-sufficient, but that’s somewhat off-topic.
Magog, capital punishment isn’t necessary because we can instead separate the “unsatisfactory and destructive collection of self-aware human tissue” with life in imprisonment. An injustice of life imprisonment of an innocent may, at least to some extent, be remedied; an injustice of the killing of an innocent cannot.
Anyway, there’s no empirical evidence that the death penalty is effective. For such a drastic punishment to be used by the state, shouldn’t it’s efficacy be proven?
What is it intended to do? We have to establish that before we can determine whether it is effective.
It does not seem to me that there is any general consensus on precisely what capital punishment is intended to accomplish, so it is impossible to argue over whether it does so and whether there are better alternatives available.
Whenever christian apologisits like Panopaea recite the litany of totalitarian atrocities in the 20th century, for some reason they never include the Congo Free State, which was a slave colony created by the Christian King Leopold of Belgium and which experienced the degradation and slaughter of from eight to ten million people under Leopold’s rule. That is three times the toll of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. So where was the limiting influence of God-fearing Christianity in that example?
There are many more examples of colonial atrocities during the 19th and early 20th centuries, perpetrated under the rule of Christian monarchs, that never make the tally when computing these butcher’s bills of history.
Somebody up top wrote: “In fairness, it’s clear from context that he means that nothing compels secularists to oppose the death penalty (this is just a version of the “atheists have no moral certainty” card – see the immediately following bit about people being nothing more than tissue).”
Of course, it is also true that “nothing” compels Christians to oppose the death penalty… They just think that they are being compelled by something material.
My point is this: The entire argument that a moral structure cannot exist without God breaks down when you realize that ANY moral structure we now have exists without God.
It does not seem to me that there is any general consensus on precisely what capital punishment is intended to accomplish,
My own personal support for the death penalty is predicated upon two main planks: a) there are some crimes so severe the only possible punishment is death and b) rather less fashionably, revenge.
If someone is factually guilty of the kind of crime that today merits the DP — and despite the presence of some innocent fish based on government incompetence, the overwhelming majority of them are — I have no problem whatsoever seeing them executed and think it’s a shame that more of them aren’t.