Stoning people to death

[Calm]

19 minutes ago, Atheist Mormon said:

I didn't imply that. If we didn't invent "it" we'd find another lethal element to keep our population in check.

Then it is not religion that creates genocide, but human nature.

[Atheist Mormon]

4 minutes ago, Calm said:

Then it is not religion that creates genocide, but human nature.

Correct. Everything comes from human brain.

 

[Atheist Mormon]

12 minutes ago, Calm said:

But you have no clue what life would hepave been like without religion.  As far as anyone can know, it could have been much, much worse as well alas better.

There is no nonreligious in sufficient time periods humanity to compare our earth's history to in order to get realistic projections from.

It is hard to take anyone making claims such as yours as "reality" seriously.  It comes across as very superficial thinking.

 

Ok Calm perhaps I'm going to come across insulting you but that's not my intention.......You are saying "But you have no clue what life would hepave been like without religion"'    I'll answer like this; " Oh I spent my life with an abusive wife/husband, I wonder if life would be different if if I've made a different choice" 

[Gray]

11 hours ago, Bobbieaware said:

The scriptures present the character and nature of God in all his aspects. Each aspect is true and valid. Not unlike his human children, he is a multifaceted and complicated being who can show loving kindness one moment and exhibit fierce indignation the next.

That's a harmonization. Like all harmonizations, it's based on a theological end goal rather than the beliefs and intent of the writers of scripture. Which is fine I guess, as eisegesis is an ancient Christian tradition, found all over the NT. But eisegesis is also intensely personal and subjective.

Where does Plato come into it? Not trying to badger you, but are you using Plato as some kind of shorthand for something else? Is Plato really so bad? Without him we wouldn't have our concept of the immortal soul, after all.

Edited November 27, 2017 by Gray

[Gray]

11 hours ago, Bob Crockett said:

 

OK.  Pick a book which, read in its entirety, holds out Jesus as one who loves and accepts the sinner for who she or he is.  Unconditionally.  The New Age Jesus.

According to whose interpretation? Any of the gospels can be interpreted that way. The Jesus of Mormon theology isn't the "new age Jesus" that you seem to be referring to, but he's closer to that than the fire and brimstone Jesus you referred to earlier.

Edited November 27, 2017 by Gray

[The Nehor]

On 11/25/2017 at 9:44 PM, Darren10 said:

Our justice system is designed yo separate society from punishment. It's to separate decisions made on passion. While that is not entirely possible  in any system man can create our justice system relies heavily on intellect in order to decide on guilt and punishment. 

Having people see stoning would have a passionate affect and the film The Stoning of Soraya did precisely that to raise awareness of its use in the Middle East. 

 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stoning_of_Soraya_M.

The Green Mile did the same regarding the use of the electric chair.

I disagree. Our justice system is designed to separate the victim from the punishment both to remove vengeance and culpability from the victim. If society becomes distant from the punishment being meted out in our name then we are probably doomed.

[Calm]

Atheist Mormon, I don't know what your personal experience with religion is, but I am talking about humanity in general.  There are lots of pros and cons of religion out there as well as lots of pros and cons of lack of religion even if one assumes religion is a completely man made construct and there is nothing save imagination at the bottom of it.

Saying life would be better without religion is like saying current life would be better without TV and other forms of modern communication.  It actually might be, but our culture has been so deeply impacted we really can't realistically imagine all the consequences of its absence so it might not be as well.

Religion itself is too broad and varied for an analogy to be made to an abusive spouse, imo.  At best, one could compare it to family where you have a lot of different personalities that act in a variety of ways at different times in their lives, thus having different impact on the individual over time and the individual also has an impact on the other members of their family, so it all gets intertwined and who is ultimately causing what to happen is difficult to determine.

Edited November 27, 2017 by Calm

[The Nehor]

11 hours ago, Bob Crockett said:

Jesus is like a refiner's fire.  He separates the sheep from the goats.  Who can abide the day of His coming?

We bend our will to His, not the other way around.

Actually we surrender and he makes his will our own in an individualized sense through a unique form of reconciliation for each person. We all become Christ through submission but we do not become identical.

[omni]

12 hours ago, Bobbieaware said:

So when in each of every one of the verses I quoted from 3 Nephi 9 the Lord says that he took decisive action to utterly destroy each of the cities mentioned, you don’t take him at his clear and unambiguous word? Do you believe the Lord specifically commanded the prophet Nephi to take the life of Laban?

Short answer - nope!

[Darren10]

17 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I disagree. Our justice system is designed to separate the victim from the punishment both to remove vengeance and culpability from the victim. If society becomes distant from the punishment being meted out in our name then we are probably doomed.

I don't know exactly what you mean by society becoming distant from punushment leading to our doom but if I understand it correctly I would agree with you. Society us connected to punishment. Punishment us set by legislation by representatives elected by society. My focus was on the system we have for justice. It is to remove passion from deciding guilt and punishment. That's done by the courts who follow legislation (or at least should). Vengeance is very easily sought when people become passionate. 

You original post said our opinions about capital punishment would change is we are to witness executions. I agree but wanted to point out that we created a system to separate societal passion from guilt and punishment. As I originally posted, that cannot be done completely but our system is designed to rely heavily on intellect and reason over passion. Passion is not eliminated but it is reduced. Pushed towards the bottom in our system of justice. 

[The Nehor]

5 minutes ago, Darren10 said:

I don't know exactly what you mean by society becoming distant from punushment leading to our doom but if I understand it correctly I would agree with you. Society us connected to punishment. Punishment us set by legislation by representatives elected by society. My focus was on the system we have for justice. It is to remove passion from deciding guilt and punishment. That's done by the courts who follow legislation (or at least should). Vengeance is very easily sought when people become passionate. 

You original post said our opinions about capital punishment would change is we are to witness executions. I agree but wanted to point out that we created a system to separate societal passion from guilt and punishment. As I originally posted, that cannot be done completely but our system is designed to rely heavily on intellect and reason over passion. Passion is not eliminated but it is reduced. Pushed towards the bottom in our system of justice. 

I disagree. If we wanted intellect and reason to rule we would overhaul the jury system or replace it entirely with trained judges used to dealing with criminality. Juries are not given the relevant statutes and an explanation of the laws until after the evidence is all presented. The system is not based on reason though individual jurors might use it. 

[Darren10]

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I disagree. If we wanted intellect and reason to rule we would overhaul the jury system or replace it entirely with trained judges used to dealing with criminality. Juries are not given the relevant statutes and an explanation of the laws until after the evidence is all presented. The system is not based on reason though individual jurors might use it. 

Now we're getting off topic. In terms of deciding guilt, the judiciary relies *heavily* on intellect and and reason. All gave a right to be tried by our peers and that us good. But typically there needs to be trained lawyers in a criminal case. In fact, an accused would stand eith reason to file for a review of his or her case when his or her lawyer wasn't adequately educated or even incompetent to represent him or her in the trisl. Fuethermore, the burden of proof is on the state. The state must provide evidence to fibd an accused guilty. This all separated society's passion with finding guilt and deciding punishment. Society is still very much involved but to decide guilt and punishment their passion is scaled back and intellect and reason reign. I do not see how this is otherwise not true.

Now, go back and stay within the context if your original post. You stated that if we were obligated to via, which directly implies an admission that we are not made to view, a capital carried out, that many of us would change our minds on using capital punishnent. That supposedly we would see it as barbaric and oppose it. That's exactly why films such as the Stoning of Soraya intended to do within the Persian world and Middle East in general which still stones people to death. I myself long ago (long before I watched the Greene Mile) decided that the electric chair us way too cruel a punishment to meet out for outer justice system. I support the firing squad, hanging, lethal injection but not the electric chair. 

"Juries are not given the relevant statutes and an explanation of the laws until after the evidence is all presented."

Assuming you are talking about how our system fu ctions now, the first time I got a jury duty call was for a capital crime where a 12 year old shot his father after he picked him up from school. Lots of law was provided during the jury selection. I made it yo the last round so in my experience I learned a lot about the law for a capital crime just by going through the rounds for jury selection. I'm sure there was more legalities given during and after the trial though. I followed the trial a but from the news repirts. The trial lasted a month. 

[The Nehor]

4 hours ago, Darren10 said:

Now we're getting off topic. In terms of deciding guilt, the judiciary relies *heavily* on intellect and and reason. All gave a right to be tried by our peers and that us good. But typically there needs to be trained lawyers in a criminal case. In fact, an accused would stand eith reason to file for a review of his or her case when his or her lawyer wasn't adequately educated or even incompetent to represent him or her in the trisl. Fuethermore, the burden of proof is on the state. The state must provide evidence to fibd an accused guilty. This all separated society's passion with finding guilt and deciding punishment. Society is still very much involved but to decide guilt and punishment their passion is scaled back and intellect and reason reign. I do not see how this is otherwise not true.

I've been in too many courtrooms to believe this. We like to pretend we presume innocence but if the defendant is sitting in the courtroom next to a defense attorney most people do not default to innocence. But it is myth. Lawyers know this very well. They know they have to get their client to present a certain image to have a hope in the trial. They also know how much less likely it is you will be acquitted or get a lenient sentence if you are a minority in the United States.

4 hours ago, Darren10 said:

Now, go back and stay within the context if your original post. You stated that if we were obligated to via, which directly implies an admission that we are not made to view, a capital carried out, that many of us would change our minds on using capital punishnent. That supposedly we would see it as barbaric and oppose it. That's exactly why films such as the Stoning of Soraya intended to do within the Persian world and Middle East in general which still stones people to death. I myself long ago (long before I watched the Greene Mile) decided that the electric chair us way too cruel a punishment to meet out for outer justice system. I support the firing squad, hanging, lethal injection but not the electric chair. 

I am less concerned with the humanity of the method of execution and more with who carries it out. In a stoning the community all participate. An incentive for the community as a whole to be convinced of the target's guilt as they are responsible in a more visceral way for the execution. The kind that can haunt you. Also why in stonings the witnesses were often expected to cast the first stones.

4 hours ago, Darren10 said:

"Juries are not given the relevant statutes and an explanation of the laws until after the evidence is all presented."

Assuming you are talking about how our system fu ctions now, the first time I got a jury duty call was for a capital crime where a 12 year old shot his father after he picked him up from school. Lots of law was provided during the jury selection. I made it yo the last round so in my experience I learned a lot about the law for a capital crime just by going through the rounds for jury selection. I'm sure there was more legalities given during and after the trial though. I followed the trial a but from the news repirts. The trial lasted a month. 

Not an instruction on how to use the law. A vetting process to boot jurors that either attorney are convinced will be unable to support their side. In a normal jury trial the judge does not lay out the particulars of the law violated until the very end. If reason were to rule the day the jurors would be given these facts before the trial begins so they could weigh the evidence with those statutes in mind. Instead they get an info dump at the end and then are set off to deliberate.

[Darren10]

30 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I've been in too many courtrooms to believe this. We like to pretend we presume innocence but if the defendant is sitting in the courtroom next to a defense attorney most people do not default to innocence. But it is myth. Lawyers know this very well. They know they have to get their client to present a certain image to have a hope in the trial. They also know how much less likely it is you will be acquitted or get a lenient sentence if you are a minority in the United States.

I am less concerned with the humanity of the method of execution and more with who carries it out. In a stoning the community all participate. An incentive for the community as a whole to be convinced of the target's guilt as they are responsible in a more visceral way for the execution. The kind that can haunt you. Also why in stonings the witnesses were often expected to cast the first stones.

Not an instruction on how to use the law. A vetting process to boot jurors that either attorney are convinced will be unable to support their side. In a normal jury trial the judge does not lay out the particulars of the law violated until the very end. If reason were to rule the day the jurors would be given these facts before the trial begins so they could weigh the evidence with those statutes in mind. Instead they get an info dump at the end and then are set off to deliberate.

Thank you for that reply. 

Not that things are always carried out the way they should be, but the system we have does indeed presume innocence. During the jury selection I mentioned there was at least two times the accused say next to his attorney. Both times he was very nicely dressed and looked quite innocent. Obviously the child’s attorney, a very good one but his name escaoes me but he had a local radio show during this time and so I was familiar with him, wanted his client to look presentable in court. In the end the death penalty was not an option by law because of the child’s age but he was found guilty and sentenced. 

Yes, the law exaplained to us potential jurors was to weed out those favorable and unfavorable for both the prosecutor and defense. I went I think three days, more if you count the days they canceled the selection process. I’ve no doubt that in a court room that the law is explained at the end to the jurors after all the evidence is presented but I do not necessarily view this as a means to allow passion to be at the forefront of the decision making process. In fact, the process in and of itself is set to present evidence and along the way the defense may object to evidence and the judge needs to rule in favor of allowing it or not allowing it. I don’t think that explaining the law beforehand would increase reason or not. Passion plays a big part no doubt. Everyone understands that empathy and anger lead people to make decisions. But but the system we have does discourage it to be the main force for making a decision of guilt upon an accused. 

As for supporting or not capital punishment, weren’t you talking about supporting it or not based on people watching and even actively participating in a particular gruesome form of it? “I do wonder if stoning were the accepted method of capital punishment now and people were expected or even required to participate if our stance on capital punishment might be influenced. There is something to be said about not allowing people to distance themselves from community actions.” Again, the answer is of course it would be influenced; that’s precisely why activists such as those behind the film The Stoning of Soraya show it being done. For me it would influence how capital punishment is carried out, not condemning it entirely. 

[Not Sure]

On 11/26/2017 at 6:45 PM, Atheist Mormon said:

On 11/26/2017 at 6:40 PM, Calm said:

Then it is not religion that creates genocide, but human nature.

Correct. Everything comes from human brain.

Human nature is territorial and religion tends to act as a a stimulus that results in an aggressive territorial response when human brain (s) feels that the territory is being is being infringed on.  

So yes it is the human brain that creates ideas of genocide when talking about it at the individual level.

But it is also true that religion thoughts as a meme that are propagated in human brains is inducing the behavior (again, simple stimulus/response).  Remove the stimulus then you have one less what of ending up at that response.

[Calm]

19 minutes ago, Not Sure said:

 

But it is also true that religion thoughts as a meme that are propagated in human brains is inducing the behavior (again, simple stimulus/response).  Remove the stimulus then you have one less what of ending up at that response.

Cfr please

[Not Sure]

7 hours ago, Calm said:

Cfr please

Cfr=?

[Calm]

Call for reference

[Gray]

10 hours ago, Not Sure said:

Human nature is territorial and religion tends to act as a a stimulus that results in an aggressive territorial response when human brain (s) feels that the territory is being is being infringed on.  

So yes it is the human brain that creates ideas of genocide when talking about it at the individual level.

But it is also true that religion thoughts as a meme that are propagated in human brains is inducing the behavior (again, simple stimulus/response).  Remove the stimulus then you have one less what of ending up at that response.

I don't think so. It's all down to the types of beliefs we're talking about. Both secular and religious ideologies can turn sour when they value some proposition over human life and liberty. Extremism and fundamentalism tends to lead people down these roads, whether through secular or religious ideology.

[Not Sure]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Call for reference

Which point would you like a reference to in the sentence you quoted? 

Obviously, meme is from The Selfish Gene, the book that coined the phrase meme.   Good book, would recommend it to all. 

Are you disputing that religions cause territorial behaviors?  Even aggressive territorial behaviors?

Remove the stimulus then you have one less what of ending up at that response. - this is a hypothetical proposition to promote thoughts on aggressive territorial behaviors.

[Not Sure]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

11 hours ago, Not Sure said:

Human nature is territorial and religion tends to act as a a stimulus that results in an aggressive territorial response when human brain (s) feels that the territory is being is being infringed on.  

So yes it is the human brain that creates ideas of genocide when talking about it at the individual level.

But it is also true that religion thoughts as a meme that are propagated in human brains is inducing the behavior (again, simple stimulus/response).  Remove the stimulus then you have one less what of ending up at that response.

It's all down to the types of beliefs we're talking about. Both secular and religious ideologies can turn sour when they value some proposition over human life and liberty. Extremism and fundamentalism tends to lead people down these roads, whether through secular or religious ideology.

I agree with this statement especially as it is concerned with the main topic of this post "stoning people to death" and the treatment of people who are gay.   Territorial responses are common in human behaviors and territorial responses can be stronger than the Altruistic response option.

I especially like the part about specific beliefs.  But now we need to identify the beliefs that are associated with aggressive territorial responses.  I'll give an example, the belief in a chosen people.  Is there a belief that you where thinking of?

[thesometimesaint]

2 hours ago, Not Sure said:

Which point would you like a reference to in the sentence you quoted? 

Obviously, meme is from The Selfish Gene, the book that coined the phrase meme.   Good book, would recommend it to all. 

Are you disputing that religions cause territorial behaviors?  Even aggressive territorial behaviors?

Remove the stimulus then you have one less what of ending up at that response. - this is a hypothetical proposition to promote thoughts on aggressive territorial behaviors.

Gold, Glory, and the Gospel.

[Calm]

8 hours ago, Not Sure said:

Which point would you like a reference to in the sentence you quoted? 

Obviously, meme is from The Selfish Gene, the book that coined the phrase meme.   Good book, would recommend it to all. 

Are you disputing that religions cause territorial behaviors?  Even aggressive territorial behaviors?

Remove the stimulus then you have one less what of ending up at that response. - this is a hypothetical proposition to promote thoughts on aggressive territorial behaviors.

Do you have anything besides the book to support your ideas?

[Not Sure]

32 minutes ago, Calm said:

Do you have anything besides the book to support your ideas?

My ideas?  I only wish I came up with the idea of memes.  The  model of memes have been amazingly successful for the last 40 years.  So much that pretty much everyone that has been on the Internet has at least heard of the term.  Although most only know its informal meaning of a viral gif or video (not too far away from the author's formal definition and model of memes).  That said no model is without its criticism, but it has had a profound impact on real life study of the spreading of ideas.

I found this question kind of odd, honestly.  It hasn't been established that anything more is need on either your side or my side.  That book is the book that the idea of memes started with, I don't know that any thing else is need to have an introductory conversation about it.  Certainly, I could recommend more but let's start with the basics first.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Not Sure said:

My ideas?  I only wish I came up with the idea of memes.  The  model of memes have been amazingly successful for the last 40 years.  So much that pretty much everyone that has been on the Internet has at least heard of the term.  Although most only know its informal meaning of a viral gif or video (not too far away from the author's formal definition and model of memes).  That said no model is without its criticism, but it has had a profound impact on real life study of the spreading of ideas.

I found this question kind of odd, honestly.  It hasn't been established that anything more is need on either your side or my side.  That book is the book that the idea of memes started with, I don't know that any thing else is need to have an introductory conversation about it.  Certainly, I could recommend more but let's start with the basics first.

The question isn't odd if you understand I want to know how well grounded you are in the subject.

I am not suggesting having an introductory conversation, but rather showing whether or not you have more than a superficial understanding so that when you make claims about implications of such concepts, it shows if there is more than a casual speculation of stuff you have read a book or two on.  A high percentage of everyone on the board is good at doing that.  Actual proficiency and even academic training is much rarer.  The latter tend to be able to easily report references showing foundation for their claims (Clark Goble and Robert K Smith are great examples).  The former, not so much...though google sometimes helps as I can often demonstrate.

Generally speaking moderators don't accept pointing to a whole book and saying 'read that' as sufficient for a CFR (see below) Specific quotes are generally required, preferably with links, both for further information and so others can judge how accurate your interpretation is for themselves to the best of their own ability.

Is it your hypothesis (removing one stimulus of a particular type will always decrease that type of behaviour as opposed to allowing the rest of that type of stimuli---either specific or general---to have greater influence and thus no change on net influence so behaviour remains unchanged even if input changed) or part of someone else's meme theory?

It has been some time since my behavioural psychology classes, but I remember theory behind altering general behaviour in humans, such as territorial behaviour, as more complicated than extinguishing pecking at a light by removing the reward of food after training the behaviour in chicks.  'Remove stimulus, remove behaviour' comes across as an overly simplistic application to me when speaking of the possibly highly instinctual territorial behaviour and the highly complicated concept of religion (for example, what is the "religion" stimulus you see as removable, atheism for example does not always mean lacking in superstition...I knew a number of atheists in Russia who were into folk healing such as tying a red thread around one's head for a headache, does your "religion" stimulus include superstition or other 'unorganized' beliefs as well organized faiths, is it the organization that primarily matters in your view or the faith beliefs? ).

"Refusing to provide appropriate references to support your statements"

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/66537-board-guidelines-update-please-review-before-posting/

I personally see even speaking of removing "religion" as a rather naive concept even if one assumes there is no deity given how long religious  behaviour appears to have been a significant part of human behaviour, for example burial customs and Gobekli Tepe 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-first-temple-83613665/

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131216-la-chapelle-neanderthal-burials-graves/

 

Edited December 2, 2017 by Calm