Iran to stone adulterer who confessed after torture.

[Ladewig]

Extraction of confessions via torture: bad.

As I said in an earlier post, the claim that the confession was the result of torture may not be credible.

But I will add - incorporating into law the idea that a woman's testimony is worth exactly 50% of a man's testimony: bad.

 

[caniswalensis]

I thought my meaning was obvious. When decent people allow evil to occur by doing and saying nothing they are almost if not as guilty as the evil doers.

Well, I got that part to be sure.

I agree with it to a certain extent, but I do not believe things are that black and white in the real world. Since bad people do bad things everyday, the logical conclusion to reach from what you have said is that everyone in the world is equally bad. (Hey, that may not be so far off! ) I do not really believe that is true, though. There are situations when a good person has no practical ability to stop a bad thing from happening. In which case, it is unjust to say they are bad for allowing it to happen.


The problem I have understanding you is in applying what you are saying to this situation in a practical sense.

Are you saying that everyone in Iran is evil? Everyone in america? The world? What do you think the group you are talking about should do to stop this? I am not trying to put you on the spot, I just wanted to get more detail on the practical application of your view.

Just for a hypothetical, let's say there is a man in the area that is asked to participate in the stoning. On the surface, it would be evil of him to do so. But what if he is only doing so to protect his family from retribution? Is it still evil of him to help stone this woman? Is he not a victim too? He is powerless to oppose a system that will end the lives of his family and himself if he does not do as he is told. Self preservation is a natural tendency in all living things. Is he evil for not going agaisnt that tendency?

Let's look at another hypothetical: A man living in America. He goes to work, supports his family, breaks no laws. He has no strong moral opinions about capital punishment, but consistently votes for canidates that oppose it, because he feels it would be better not to have it for reasons of cost effectivness. Year after year, canidate after canidate, the executions continue. Is he evil because he only works within the system to effect a change? Is he evil because he does not donate his spare time to activism against capital punishment? Is he evil because he does not see a moral objection to it?

Which leads us to another question: How do we as a society, and then as a species, decide wht we will call evil?

Regards, Canis

 

[GrouchoMarxist]

I personally don't need any exscuse for that. I do it just to kill time, ocassional.

You could start a new thread for that:

100 Reasons Why Islamic Revolution Is Stupid (Part 1 of 1,979)

 

[AvalonXQ]

But I will add - incorporating into law the idea that a woman's testimony is worth exactly 50% of a man's testimony: bad.

Agreed. A more accurate assessment is somewhere around 10-15%.

 

[Pardalis]

Well that's one small mercy.

Isn't Allah supposed to be infinitely Merciful?

 

[Nogbad]

I do not think the death penalty is a good thing and I believe it brutalises the society it purports to protect. I am heartened so many here agree that poor woman should not be stoned although I am tad bemused by some of the contortions to both condemn this sentence and support other death sentences.

The crime of adultery is no longer actually a crime in the West - although it used to be. In the US not so very long people were executed for burglary, horse theft and a variety of sexual misdeeds. Iran is behind the times but by fewer years than we care to think. One positive is that the Iranian people themselves are increasingly against this sort of punishment and I believe their Parliament outlawed stoning last year. However there are a dozen or so people that have been sentenced to stoning who have been death row for years and are still in danger of the sentence being carried out. The Iranian people need sympathetic support (rather than triumphalist support) to ensure that this horrible punishment is cast into the history books and that they too are encouraged to step into the 21st century.

Stoning is slow and painful with 20 or so men throwing dozens of rocks at a person buried up to their chest in the ground until the individual is dead (although not so long some supported the shooting of a kid for throwing a stone because the officer was in imminent fear of his life - perhaps importing a couple of Mexican kids could make the process a quick and immediate death) I see also that lethal injection was supported above. The process freezes the muscles to give the apparent look of a peaceful death but the lack of medically trained administrators (doctors refuse to do it) leads to mistakes in both dosage and application which can lead to a prolonged and unpleasant death, just like stoning.

Killing people is wrong M'Kay

 

[Nogbad]

Isn't Allah supposed to be infinitely Merciful?

In a rip your lungs out sort of way I think

 

[Ladewig]

deleted by poster

 

[fuelair]

I consider it outrageous that the savages in the US execute people.
The fact that execution is less humane, and imposed for other crimes in other places has no bearing on that.

You are free to, but that has no bearing on reality. My reality says no problem eliminating those who use violence or extended violence on innocent people - and I have no problem with it being in an excruciatingly painful and extended way. We are talking about a"crime" that has no harmful effect on anyone and commits no violence on anyone. Those who support that deserve nothing less than any other criminal of the type I noted in my 2nd sentence and I would happily provide them with it and feel no guilt (i.e. I would happily machine gun or stone the stoners, the judges/juries and those who tortured the woman here - and would lose exactly 0 sleep over doing so (actually, I would sleep sounder knowing I had done a good thing for the world)).

 

[Pardalis]

I think the fact that stoning is done by a mob of civilians makes it even more wicked than the US-style death penalty.

At least in the US, the killing is done privately, by policemen, who don't kill directly. It's still wrong, but it doesn't compare to a mob.

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

You are free to, but that has no bearing on reality. My reality says no problem eliminating those who use violence or extended violence on innocent people - and I have no problem with it being in an excruciatingly painful and extended way. We are talking about a"crime" that has no harmful effect on anyone and commits no violence on anyone. Those who support that deserve nothing less than any other criminal of the type I noted in my 2nd sentence and I would happily provide them with it and feel no guilt (i.e. I would happily machine gun or stone the stoners, the judges/juries and those who tortured the woman here - and would lose exactly 0 sleep over doing so (actually, I would sleep sounder knowing I had done a good thing for the world)).

That might be your reality. I'm glad I don't live in it.

 

[Rolfe]

Seems he'd have no trouble at all stoning someone according to the Iranian tradition, so long as he thought the crime was bad enough.

But if it gets done to someone whose crime he doesn't think is bad enough, he would feel justified in stoning the stoners.

Hey, fuelair, who died and appointed you God?

Rolfe.

 

[I Ratant]

Isn't Allah supposed to be infinitely Merciful?

.
None of those gods can be expected to handle situations satisfactorily in anyone's lifetime.
That's why they need the assistance of the god-shouters to demonstrate their inexorable "justice", people murdering people, rather than waiting for the final judgement at the Pearly Gates.

 

[GrouchoMarxist]

.
None of those gods can be expected to handle situations satisfactorily in anyone's lifetime.
That's why they need the assistance of the god-shouters to demonstrate their inexorable "justice", people murdering people, rather than waiting for the final judgement at the Pearly Gates.

You seem irate.

 

[I Ratant]

You seem irate.

.
Ya think?
Considering all those folks through history whose lives were shortened because they didn't do the right things at the right times to appease the self-appointed earthly representatives of the various big sky daddies, a distaste for those taking on the role of earthly representative developed.
Why not wait until a natural departure from this vale of tears, and let big sky daddy sort'em out?
He's supposed to be capable of that kind of thing.

 

[fuelair]

Seems he'd have no trouble at all stoning someone according to the Iranian tradition, so long as he thought the crime was bad enough.

But if it gets done to someone whose crime he doesn't think is bad enough, he would feel justified in stoning the stoners.

Hey, fuelair, who died and appointed you God?

Rolfe.

Now, now, don't be silly Rolfe - there is no god, me included. If there was, this whole discussion would not be necessary.

 

[Beerina]

In the US not so very long people were executed for ... horse theft

Horses were serious capital equipment for people. You stole a guy's horse, you stole his livelihood. And it wouldn't be as easy to find as nowadays.

The punishment kept rising with the rate of crime. Much like 100 years later in the 1970s.