Post by pim on Oct 11, 2012 11:42:18 GMT 10
I'd read how Julia Gillard's "sexism and misogyny" speech in Parliament had gone viral and was being commented on around the world. Including in a racy US magazine I'd never heard of called Jezebel. So OK I decided to see for myself. I found the article on Gillard's speech but what I found more interesting was their exposés on the religious fruitcakes and obscurantists in sections of US public life. So I dropped the Gillard thing and focussed on the obscurantists.
Two of them are from Arkansas and the first one has the wonderful name of Charles Fuqua. I kid you not! Here's the title of his book and the link to the article.
Charles Fuqua God's Law: The Only Political Solution in jezebel.com/5950211/arkansas-gop-candidate-endorses-death-penalty-to-discipline-rebellious-children?tag=politics
Just as Muslim extremists are calling for Sharia law, this guy is calling for Biblical law. Here's what he has to say about what to do with children who disobey their parents. Read on!
The maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of family discipline. Therefore, a child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all other children of the importance of respect for parents. The death penalty for rebellioius children is not something to be taken lightly. The guidelines for administering the death penalty to rebellious children are given in Deut 21:18-21
So, OK what does Deuteronomy 21:18-21 actually have to say about rebellious children?
Deut 21:18-21:
18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;
20 And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
This passage does not give parents blanket authority to kill their children. They must follow the proper procedure in order to have the death penalty executed against their children. I cannot think of one instance in the Scripture where parents had their child put to death. Why is this so? Other than the love Christ has for us, there is no greater love then [sic] that of a parent for their child. The last people who would want to see a child put to death would be the parents of the child. Even so, the Scrpture [sic] provides a safe guard to protect children from parents who would wrongly exercise the death penalty against them. Parents are required to bring their children to the gate of the city. The gate of the city was the place where the elders of the city met and made judicial pronouncements. In other words, the parents were required to take their children to a court of law and lay out their case before the proper judicial authority, and let the judicial authority determine if the child should be put to death. I know of many cases of rebellious children, however, I cannot think of one case where I believe that a parent had given up on their child to the point that they would have taken their child to a court of law and asked the court to rule that the child be put to death. Even though this procedure would rarely be used, if it were the law of land, it would give parents authority. Children would know that their parents had authority and it would be a tremendous incentive for children to give proper respect to their parents.
Yeah, I know! Juicy stuff innit! But wait! There's more! There's another Republican guy in the Arkansas state legislature whose name is Loy Mauch (where do the Yanks get these bizarre names from?) who says: ‘If Slavery Were So Godawful, Why Didn’t Jesus Condemn It?’. Go ahead! Read the context: jezebel.com/5950302/yet-another-arkansas-legislator-is-nuts-if-slavery-were-so-godawful-why-didnt-jesus-condemn-it?tag=politics
In other words, the Bible does not explicitly condemn slavery so it must be OK. Perhaps Veritas or Skippy - or Fat if his busy schedule gives him the opportunity - could point us to passages in the Bible that explicitly target the practice of regarding human beings as property and treating them as stock, much as a farmer would regard the animals on his farm as "stock".
But I'm not some sort of paleo-atheist with an agenda. The issue of slavery and the issue of putting rebellious children to death at the time that the Bible was written - or more importantly, edited! - was reflective of human society at the time when the primary source of energy for human societies was human muscles (beasts of burden and wind & water were useful adjuncts) and therefore slavery was, perforce, a necessary and vital part of the economies of these ancient societies. In ancient Rome slavery was the prime energy source of the Empire and the slave trade had become its principal economic activity. It was how the Roman legions paid for themselves. Christianity did not challenge that economic paradigm. As for parents having the power of life and death over their children, this didn't just exist in Biblical times, I know enough about the plays of Shakespeare to be aware that the Bard himself in plays relating to what were for him "modern" times - such as Romeo and Juliet and ancient settings such as A Midsummer Night's Dream portrays parents as having the power of life and death over rebellious children. Juliet, for instance, is betrothed by her father to another man than Romeo and the possibility of her being condemned to death by her father should she defy him on this matter is ceretainly mentioned in the play and indeed reflected the mores of Renaissance Italy, some 2-3000 years after the society portrayed in Deuteronomy.
So what is this all about? I'll tell you. Islam does not have a monopoly on religious fruitcakes who want to abolish the secular state and institute a theocracy in which the laws are derived from some sort of sacred book. In Afghanistan there is a murderous bunch of religious fanatics whose obscurantism and misogyny are such that they shoot 14 year old girls who want to go to school. Appallingly, they will sweep back into power when the Allies leave and they will reimpose the vilest and most backward and deadliest form of Sharia law on the populace of that unhappy country. I'm not suggesting that these Arkansas fruitcakes are the same as the Taliban but they stand in the same continuum. It disturbs me that people who hold these views get to propagate them in the legislature of the state of which Bill Clinton was once a governor.
It isn't just Arkansas. There is another fruitcake in the state of Georgia who says that the Big Bang Theory, Evolution and Embryology are “Lies Straight from the Pit of Hell” jezebel.com/5949370/georgia-republican-big-bang-theory-evolution-and-embryology-are-lies-straight-from-the-pit-of-hell?tag=politics Note that this guy isn't some tin pot state politician, he's a Republican representative in the US Congress.
This isn't loopy fringe stuff - correction! it IS loopy fringe stuff!! - but what's disturbing is that it's there in a forum jostling for space, and being given the space, along with what you'd normally consider to be rational mainstream discourse. The obscurantists are out there - and they're in there - and they're active, powerful and cashed up. Should we be worried? Hmmm, no not at this stage. But we certainly should be concerned.
Two of them are from Arkansas and the first one has the wonderful name of Charles Fuqua. I kid you not! Here's the title of his book and the link to the article.
Charles Fuqua God's Law: The Only Political Solution in jezebel.com/5950211/arkansas-gop-candidate-endorses-death-penalty-to-discipline-rebellious-children?tag=politics
Just as Muslim extremists are calling for Sharia law, this guy is calling for Biblical law. Here's what he has to say about what to do with children who disobey their parents. Read on!
The maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of family discipline. Therefore, a child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all other children of the importance of respect for parents. The death penalty for rebellioius children is not something to be taken lightly. The guidelines for administering the death penalty to rebellious children are given in Deut 21:18-21
So, OK what does Deuteronomy 21:18-21 actually have to say about rebellious children?
Deut 21:18-21:
18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;
20 And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
This passage does not give parents blanket authority to kill their children. They must follow the proper procedure in order to have the death penalty executed against their children. I cannot think of one instance in the Scripture where parents had their child put to death. Why is this so? Other than the love Christ has for us, there is no greater love then [sic] that of a parent for their child. The last people who would want to see a child put to death would be the parents of the child. Even so, the Scrpture [sic] provides a safe guard to protect children from parents who would wrongly exercise the death penalty against them. Parents are required to bring their children to the gate of the city. The gate of the city was the place where the elders of the city met and made judicial pronouncements. In other words, the parents were required to take their children to a court of law and lay out their case before the proper judicial authority, and let the judicial authority determine if the child should be put to death. I know of many cases of rebellious children, however, I cannot think of one case where I believe that a parent had given up on their child to the point that they would have taken their child to a court of law and asked the court to rule that the child be put to death. Even though this procedure would rarely be used, if it were the law of land, it would give parents authority. Children would know that their parents had authority and it would be a tremendous incentive for children to give proper respect to their parents.
Yeah, I know! Juicy stuff innit! But wait! There's more! There's another Republican guy in the Arkansas state legislature whose name is Loy Mauch (where do the Yanks get these bizarre names from?) who says: ‘If Slavery Were So Godawful, Why Didn’t Jesus Condemn It?’. Go ahead! Read the context: jezebel.com/5950302/yet-another-arkansas-legislator-is-nuts-if-slavery-were-so-godawful-why-didnt-jesus-condemn-it?tag=politics
In other words, the Bible does not explicitly condemn slavery so it must be OK. Perhaps Veritas or Skippy - or Fat if his busy schedule gives him the opportunity - could point us to passages in the Bible that explicitly target the practice of regarding human beings as property and treating them as stock, much as a farmer would regard the animals on his farm as "stock".
But I'm not some sort of paleo-atheist with an agenda. The issue of slavery and the issue of putting rebellious children to death at the time that the Bible was written - or more importantly, edited! - was reflective of human society at the time when the primary source of energy for human societies was human muscles (beasts of burden and wind & water were useful adjuncts) and therefore slavery was, perforce, a necessary and vital part of the economies of these ancient societies. In ancient Rome slavery was the prime energy source of the Empire and the slave trade had become its principal economic activity. It was how the Roman legions paid for themselves. Christianity did not challenge that economic paradigm. As for parents having the power of life and death over their children, this didn't just exist in Biblical times, I know enough about the plays of Shakespeare to be aware that the Bard himself in plays relating to what were for him "modern" times - such as Romeo and Juliet and ancient settings such as A Midsummer Night's Dream portrays parents as having the power of life and death over rebellious children. Juliet, for instance, is betrothed by her father to another man than Romeo and the possibility of her being condemned to death by her father should she defy him on this matter is ceretainly mentioned in the play and indeed reflected the mores of Renaissance Italy, some 2-3000 years after the society portrayed in Deuteronomy.
So what is this all about? I'll tell you. Islam does not have a monopoly on religious fruitcakes who want to abolish the secular state and institute a theocracy in which the laws are derived from some sort of sacred book. In Afghanistan there is a murderous bunch of religious fanatics whose obscurantism and misogyny are such that they shoot 14 year old girls who want to go to school. Appallingly, they will sweep back into power when the Allies leave and they will reimpose the vilest and most backward and deadliest form of Sharia law on the populace of that unhappy country. I'm not suggesting that these Arkansas fruitcakes are the same as the Taliban but they stand in the same continuum. It disturbs me that people who hold these views get to propagate them in the legislature of the state of which Bill Clinton was once a governor.
It isn't just Arkansas. There is another fruitcake in the state of Georgia who says that the Big Bang Theory, Evolution and Embryology are “Lies Straight from the Pit of Hell” jezebel.com/5949370/georgia-republican-big-bang-theory-evolution-and-embryology-are-lies-straight-from-the-pit-of-hell?tag=politics Note that this guy isn't some tin pot state politician, he's a Republican representative in the US Congress.
This isn't loopy fringe stuff - correction! it IS loopy fringe stuff!! - but what's disturbing is that it's there in a forum jostling for space, and being given the space, along with what you'd normally consider to be rational mainstream discourse. The obscurantists are out there - and they're in there - and they're active, powerful and cashed up. Should we be worried? Hmmm, no not at this stage. But we certainly should be concerned.