Secular governments protect us from getting stoned to death.

[K8-EEE]

Getting stoned to death for having sex that "God" doesn't approve of is condoned in the Torah, Bible and Koran.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jcbgBJ1ocaseo35kPx_wfPo7B9_wD9GS9TPG0

If that's not cruel and barbaric, what is?

What's going in Iran right now REALLY GOOD EXAMPLE why church and state should be separate. I'm told that Turkey, with a 99% Muslim population, does not execute any criminals, much less people accused of "illicit sex." Because they have a secular government in Turkey rather than an "Islamic Republic."

Theocracies always completely suck. Read "The Scarlet Letter" to see how fun Christian theocracy was here!

Yet there are elements in the Republican party who are constantly fighting for more "Judeo-Christian" government! WTF for? You already can't kill or steal. They want to force us to Not Covet? Or Keep Holy The Lord's Day, or do they want to arrest people for Taking The Lord's Name In Vain or what. WHY do we need "Judeo-Christian values" in government? We don't....and if we don't value our secular government they will chip away at it until we have no rights that "God" doesn't approve of.

[AzDar]

1. Religion is a pox.

[K8-EEE]

2. It should never be forced on anybody

I personally find a lot of things in the Bible to be disgusting and don't want a "Biblical government" of masters and slaves and women owned by their fathers and husbands, thank you very much.

[canetoad]

4. Absolutely correct

The problem with a religious government lies in the fact that centuries or millenia old texts must be interpreted to provide a basis for law. No matter that these writings may have been allegorical to begin with or based on oral traditions from an even more ancient time.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

7. There are degrees of pox

when was the last time this century xtians stoned someone to death?

[Triana]

9. They still stone people to death. They just don't use stones to do it

They have other means. Like, the media.

[Bill McBlueState]

23. which of course is pretty far removed from actual stones.

not perfect, but a vast improvement.

[Triana]

46. it's not as physically painful but it can have physical side-effects

when a person (or people) is harassed and crucified by the media outlets for years....effects their health - badly. Stress, loss of livelihood, insomnia, etc. They promote assinine wars, destruction of entire economies, etc. - all to protect their corporate taskmasters and make profit. They'll tell a lie about anybody or anything if they can make a buck off it.

It's modern-day stoning. The corprat-owned media are evil. Instead of lynching people with nooses, we now do it with the "news".

[cali]

26. oh for the love of reason.

thank you very much but any sane person would take their chances with the media over being buried to the fucking neck and stoned to death.

sheesh.

[immoderate]

47. Does dragging behind a car count?

Though I must admit modern xtians prefer a more civilized lynching.

--imm

[uppityperson]

48. Matthew Sheppard. Oh, I'm wrong. That was just pistol whipping to death.

[Ernesto]

3. works for me nt

[WinkyDink]

5. Not in the New Testament, which, for Christians, supercedes the Laws of the Torah.

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Torah#The_Place_of_the_Torah_in_Christianity
(Exception: Ten Commandments, which, by the by, are in our secular laws against murder, theft, and perjury!)

I am, however, a pretty strict secularist!

[WCGreen]

6. But they conveniently forget about that coveting thing...

If there was no coveting there could be no capitalism...

[K8-EEE]

15. There would definitely be no advertising without coveting

"Keeping up with the Joneses" = coveting Jones's goods.

[K8-EEE]

17. Except for the Leviticus homa-seckshul parts of the OT

Those still seem to work for the Christians....

[AnArmyVeteran]

22. I eat shellfish, so according to the Bible I'm going to hell.

But Hitler can have a 'come to Jesus' moment just before he dies and he gets to go to heaven. Some system Christianity has. A 'born again' Hitler is accepted by 'god' but someone who works for others and helps those in need all of their lives goes to hell just because they refuse to believe in fairy tales.

Leviticus says it's an abomination to eat shellfish. There are a lot of other things that are considered 'evil' in the Bible that will get you stoned to death. I wonder. Why would any 'all knowing' god unleash so many religions on the earth when it was still so primitive? You'd think a god that 'always was and always will be' could have waited another few hundred years until at least the printing press was invented, or better still, the invention of film or video recording.

[WCGreen]

30. exactly

[GodlessBiker]

8. They just get us electrocuted or lethal injected to death.

[Posteritatis]

10. Not for adultery or homosexuality they sure as hell don't. (nt)

[K8-EEE]

18. Yep....getting killed by the state for having "wrong" sex is

One of the joys of theocracy.

[GodlessBiker]

20. True. But the OP title focused on the death sentence, not the crime for which it was imposed.

[Posteritatis]

21. There's a whole post's worth of otherwise after that title. (nt)

[cali]

28. way to ignore the body of the post which elaborates on the title.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

11. There are many reasons why our founders wanted separation

between church and state, after all!

Highly recommended.

[struggle4progress]

12. Um ... I don't think the Quran actually advocates stoning for anything.

The ancient Hebraic scriptural laws regarding stoning reflects a practice that disappeared many many centuries ago. The standard Christian canon contains a well-known prescription, "Let the one without sin cast the first stone," together with an abundance of texts indicating no one is without sin

Of course, theocracy deserves our opposition. But for immediate practical benefits in Iran, one should concentrate first on the problems of barbaric punishments, unequal rights of women, incommunicado detention and torture, inadequacies of defense, and bizarre legal rules like the right of judges to convict based on their own "knowledge" without evidence

[K8-EEE]

19. Didn't Mohammed prescribe stoning?

If not in the Q'uran than some other "holy" writing?

[struggle4progress]

25. Let's not play games. You wrote "Getting stoned .. is condoned in the .. Koran."

As far as I can tell, that is not actually the case. I am not enough of a scholar on the diverse subject of Islam to distinguish carefully between the various secondary texts, or to comment on their provenance, but it is clear much of the Islamic world opposes stoning

In thoroughly Islamic Indonesia, for example, the practice is illegal. Similarly, here is current news from Bangladesh:

... One Land, One Law in Bangladesh
Last week a Bangladeshi High Court ruled that all judgments and punishments outside of the legal system, including those made by religious authorities, are illegal ... In particular the court noted that punishments such as caning, whipping or stoning are in direct violation of the Bangladeshi constitution that states no one shall be subject to cruel, inhumane, or degrading punishment ... http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/modernmuslim/2010/07/one_land_one_law_in_bangladesh.html

[K8-EEE]

32. OK you're right! But for some reason it's a Muslim thing

Why is it??

[struggle4progress]

33. Well, actually, brutal inhumanity is not just "a Muslim thing"

Perhaps you should read up on the history of lynch law in the American South, which many people alive still remember
or about the events in Germany (which had been a scientific and cultural center of western civilization) in the 1930s and 1940s
or about (say) what apartheid was really like in South Africa
or about the events in Guatemala and El Salvador in the 1970s and 1980s
or about any number of other reasonably recent events

The fact is that people around the world regularly find excuses for all manner of grisly abuse of their neighbors.

The struggle for human rights has a long and continuing history. Shining lights into dark corners and organizing effective publicity really helps

[K8-EEE]

34. Stoning = Islamic Republic

Why is that?

[struggle4progress]

37. A better question is: How to stop it? In the case of Iran,

we know that they find international publicity and outrage very embarrassing

[K8-EEE]

38. Absolutely......POUR ON THE RAGE!

But is it a religious issue? Most definitely....no person who isn't in some kind of really BAD religion is going to go for this idea that your bury an adulterer (ie, person with sex life outside of marriage) and then throw stones at their head...SLOWLY....until they SLOWLY AND PAINFULLY DIE.

No sane person would go along with that, unless God/Allah was pushing them along.

[Shallah Kali]

13. Christian Reconsturctionists want to back stoning & some are right friendly with pols like Bachmann

Bachmann Signs on to Fringe Fest
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/individuals/gary-north

Other speakers include Gary North, son-in-law of Christian Reconstructionist guru R.J. Rushdoony and an open Reconstructionist himself:

While many Christians believe that biblical law is a guide to morality and public ethics, when interpreted in faith, Reconstructionism is unique in advocating that civil law should be derived from and limited by biblical law. For example, they support the recriminalization of acts of abortion and homosexuality, but also oppose confiscatory taxation, conscription, and most aspects of the welfare state. Protection of property and life needs grounding in biblical law, according to Reconstructionism, or the state set free from the restraint of God's law will take what it wishes at a whim. Accordingly, Reconstructionists advocate biblically derived measures of restitution, a definite limit upon the powers of taxation, and a gold standard or equivalent fixed unit for currency.

Another Reconstructionist also scheduled to speak is Gary DeMar of American Vision, whose mission is to see "an America that recognizes the sovereignty of God over all of life, where Christians apply a Biblical worldview to every facet of society. This future America will be again a 'city on a hill' drawing all nations to the Lord Jesus Christ and teaching them to subdue the earth for the advancement of His Kingdom."

So that is whom Bachmann has signed on with - a bunch of Birthers, fake prostitutes, anti-gay militants, rhetorical bomb-throwers, and Christian Reconstructionists.



Public Stoning: Not Just for the Taliban Anymore
Christian reconstructionists believe democracy is heresy and public school is satanic -- and they've got more influence than you think.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.alternet.org%2Fstory%2F40318%2F

re we in danger of an American Taliban? Probably not today. But Alabama's "Ten Commandments Judge" Roy Moore is aligned with this congregation, and one-third of Alabama Republicans who voted in the June primary supported him. When you see the South Dakota legislature outlaw abortions, the Reconstructionist agenda is at work. The movement's greatest success is in Christian home schooling, where many, if not most, of the textbooks are Reconstructionist-authored tomes.

Moreover, the Reconstructionists are the folks behind attacks on science and public education. They're allied with proselytizers who have tried to convert Air Force cadets -- future pilots with fingers on nuclear triggers -- into religious zealots. Like the communists of the 1930s, they exert tremendous stealth political gravity, drawing many sympathizers in their wake, and their friends now dominate the Republican Party in many states.

snip

[Dr Morbius]

14. I wish youtube had the original version of this.

But I would not feel so all alone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu1hxPqRDak&feature=related

[Canuckistanian]

16. I don't know why all of our laws

Should be taken from a small group of fiercely patrilineal, semi-nomadic desert people who lived 2000 years ago.

Because that's the way some fundies think we should run our societies.

[K8-EEE]

39. +1 nt

[K8-EEE]

40. +1 nt

[malaise]

24. So who protected the doctors murdered by the

anti-choice religious zealots?

[cali]

29. uh, did the state execute those doctors? No. The state

actually has protected doctors who work at women's clinics. that the state has sometime failed does not make the state culpable.

Your comparison is utterly ludicrous.

[K8-EEE]

43. Yes, we are talking state-ordered death not criminal offenses

I feel like doing the Sesame Street Song, "one of these things is different, one of these things is not the same, can YOU tell the effing difference?" (paraphrasing)

[uppityperson]

49. This poster asks about xians, not state but xians.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8727229&mesg_id=8727356

Could be why some of us are talking about people, not state sponsored executions.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

27. Religion and government mix as well as...

oil and water. The last 20-30 years have proven that as well as anything else, particularly when you consider exactly how *moral* many of the "family values" politicians whom were busily pushing their brand of Christian morality on the rest of us actually were.

I don't begrudge other people their faith- as long as their "faith" doesn't require them to convert or kill other people (or force anybody to live under a government based on one particular group's interpretation of their divine law).

Society's laws should be based solely on what is in the best interests of the public-at-large IMHO.

[K8-EEE]

35. +1

Republicans are really great at saying everything "doesn't work" well here's what "doesn't work" and I mean EVER: THEOCRACY!

[nemo137]

31. I'm going to keep banging this drum

Democrats can be, and often are, blinkered and bigoted, but I can't recall any of them being outright dominionists. This is why keeping control of Congress with the Dems is, and can only be, a good thing.

[K8-EEE]

36. i'm with you and thank you!!

We secularists, rationalists, humanists of EVERY religion or NO religion need to find our voice....THIS IS NOT OK!

[woo me with science]

41. Pol pot banned all religion.

Barbarity is not limited to the religious.

[K8-EEE]

42. Not advocating and rules on religion

i never said all barbarity was religious, rather, that any religion that worships a God who CONDONES burying somebody and then throwing rocks at their head until they are dead is not any God that is of any interest to me. I'm not going to worship that God, thank you very much. Or Pol Pot or any barbaric human either.

[Recursion]

44. Religion is a scapegoat

Stalin and Mao didn't need religion to do what they did. The problem is governments that want to terrify their people: they'll use any means, including religion, to do that.

[K8-EEE]

45. Stalin and Mao made their own religions

which they were gods of and which had an "inerrant" philosophy etc.

Not really getting how "loving" and "most merciful" God/Allah could condone burying a woman to her neck and throwing rocks at her head until she's dead...I mean are they loving and merciful or psycho Gods?