Yes, that is correct. I am using my society, that allows women to exist as equal citizens, and does not execute people for witchcraft, to state that a society that does allow for that is backwards and barbaric. This is how relative morality works.
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Saudi Arabia beheads woman on charges of 'witchcraft and sorcery'
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Yes, that is correct. I am using my society, that allows women to exist as equal citizens, and does not execute people for witchcraft, to state that a society that does allow for that is backwards and barbaric. This is how relative morality works.
How about using international declarations of human rights as a template for what is and isn't fucked up? Or are those culturally insensitive to people who like to execute witches?
No one culture us better than another...right?
FantasticMrFoxdie
Mumber
Good lord, What century is this...
speculawyer
Member
Yeah . . . I have respect for people and I try not to antagonize. But I don't have respect for religion. In fact is because I respect people that I don't respect religion.
Some people actually seem to think that we have no right to question the morality of long-standing traditions, apparently.
I act a bit like an accommodationist toward religion and superstition at times, in the interest of minimizing pointless arguments, but I snap out of that attitude when I hear about stories like the one in the OP.
Monocle
Member
You can't do that. It's imposing your values on other people, and that's bad. Or something.
No, what he's doing is having standards as a human being.
-COOLIO-
The Everyman
He's not using his society, he's using his own moral code which may or may not be a product of the societies he's grown up in. Regardless, because bad things happen in one place and bad things happen in another place doesnt mean that happen with the same frequency and severity. fucked up things happen everywhere but they happen mostly in places like saudi arabia because of their fucked up value system.
you might challenge that with 'well those are your values', true but history has shown that equal rights for everyone works out well, and oppressive societies dont. so there is a right and wrong. the system in saudi arabia is wrong.
That's a ridiculous statement lol, just depends on each person's definition of 'better'. To most people I assume a society that allows all citizens equal rights under the law, and doesn't KILL PEOPLE FOR CASTING IMAGINARY SPELLS, is better than one that does.
It's not a matter of cultural sensitivity, it's a matter of calling out backwards ignorant and debatably EVIL behaviour as what it is.
TooManyCircles
Banned
Normative relativism is what I argue for. You're implying your society is superior to theirs. That kind of thinking is detrimental to any discussion or how states get along with one another.
Human rights declaration are not culturally relative. Rather, it's universality causes it to be somewhat flawed. Your statement has been a point of debate for years.
Phoenician_Viking
Banned
That´s horrible. Beheading for witchcraft reminds me of the dark ages. Witch burning and all.
It´s called liquid gold. Get your analogies straight
It´s called liquid gold. Get your analogies straight
Slurpy2k20
Member
There's not a single society on the planet that allows 'all citizens equal rights under the law'. Not one. Some are closer than others, but still.
Monocle
Member
I don't see how any rational person would object to the claim that the aspects of our culture that promote human well-being are superior to the aspects of another culture that promote human rights abuses.
One doesn't wish to make the simplistic assumption that society A is good and society B is bad, just as one wants avoid the opposite trap of claiming that all societies are inherently equal. Or if you'd like a couple of ten dollar words, the antidote to chauvinism is not uncritical egalitarianism.
But your concept of "human rights" is just relative too, silly! We should just live and let execute witches or else we'll be oppressors.
They are only abuses if you classify them as such. His logic is ridiculous.
TooManyCircles
Banned
Really? I can't believe I've fallen so far into this straw man.
My point is this: this incident happened. But that doesn't make Saudi Arabia an" ass backwards", "barbaric" country. It has good things that outweigh its bad. But if people see it as some sort of evil country, they will remain ignorant of its positive qualities....
I'm not objecting to that. What I am objecting to, though, is the claim that all societies should be like the one that is seemingly superior. I argue that there is no way things ought to be. Things should progress at their own pace or be left as is.
I heard this the other day and I think it applies here. A demon believes evil is a great quality. An angel believes goodness is a great quality. Both think their ways are right, but no one will know which way truly is.
I'm tired as balls so this probably won't make sense when I wake up, but it makes sense now...so suck it.
I'm not interested in broad, abstract labels for something as large an abstract as a country. My beef is with a superstitious, irrational practice leading to the execution of someone who would have been guilty of nothing in many other parts of the world. The practice is wrong and it needs to change. I'm sure a good portion of Saudis think so too, and they should make some noise and try to get recognition.
TheNatural
My Member!
The hell it doesn't. As long as it's referring to the fucked up regime that allows this kind of bullshit. Maybe the Saudi citizens there think it's fucked up bullshit too and can't do anything about it, but it is ass backwards and barbaric for this shit to be sanctioned by the government.
When this kind of event takes place with government sanction...
crimzonflame
Member
I knew GAF would have a witchcraft beading defense force.
He's not defending the beheading rather arguing for the Govt's right to do so.
TooManyCircles thinks that the beheading was wrong, and is taking issue with labeling Saudi Arabia as a whole because of it.
evil solrac v3.0
Member
it isn't an "incident" THE SAUDI GOVERNMENT TRIED AND CONVICTED A WOMAN OF SORCERY AND EXECUTED HER! stop posting whatever it is you just posted, there is no getting out of this one, no moral relativism. there is no"right" here. this is wrong and you know it. try and join the 21st century and don't be an ignoramus.
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The Everyman
"BBC regionalist analyst Sebastian Usher says the interior ministry stated that the verdict against Ms Nasser was upheld by Saudi Arabia's highest courts, but it did not give specific details of the charges."
unless im misreading this somehow that means the country is ass backwards. i would assume that the highest courts in the land are representative of the laws of the country. saudi arabia has nice beaches, good healthcare for its citizens, palm trees and a lot of good shit, but it's an ass backwards country because of its fucked up laws alone.
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The Everyman
the angel is right
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
Say, hypothetically speaking, if the ties between Saudi Arabia and the US is cut completely, who will suffer more in the long run?
Monocle
Member
This is obviously true. But criticizing practices endemic to (or at least common in) Saudian Arabian society is not the same thing as criticizing the society itself. If I call an apple rancid I'm not denouncing the whole tree, much less all apples.
So you wouldn't intervene if you saw a man beating his pregnant wife in the street? You'd respect his house rules over your own instinct to protect a woman and her baby from harm?
Maybe you'd reconsider if your mother had been raped and then stoned to death under the pretense that she's a whore for "permitting herself" to be sexually violated. Such incidents have occurred, and they occur as a direct result of misogynistic—and yes, barbaric—cultural attitudes that anyone who values human life and the things that make life worth living will denounce as wicked and perverse. Not because one believes in wickedness as an abstract universal, but because there is no more fitting name for that which is antithetical to human flourishing.
speculawyer
Member
Seriously. It just doesn't make any sense. If she really could practice witchcraft, couldn't she just turn herself into a fly and fly out of the jail? (Or do some other witchcraft trick?) Thus, any such 'witchcraft' conviction is based on nothing. Anyone who is actually able to be held in jail based on witchcraft obviously isn't good enough at it to be a threat to anyone. (Because there is no such thing as witchcraft!)
Are you fucking serious? :lol
You'd know which way was super cool if the government knocked on your door right now for a bit of the ol' torture and beheading.
Monocle
Member
I'm not calling you a bigot, but you obviously have no respect for people who enjoy torture and beheading.
Unfortunately, when you have a theocracy holding a holy book to be true and infallible, and that holy book says that witches and djinns are real, you're left with this sort of result.
Monocle
Member
I find that his brand of hilariously unsophisticated moral relativism doesn't last long once you apply the thumbscrews. Or so I hear. From sources I don't know and haven't met and wouldn't want to. Wow, look at the time . . .
One needs a college education to weave such astounding tapestries of illogic.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
Please quote directly from the Qur'an where it states that witches are real. Go on, I would love to see the verses directly.
Slurpy2k20
Member
Did he really deserve a ban? I've seen people say much worse things and not get banned. He was making philosophical arguments (not that I agree with them).
Not debating the genies?
Monocle
Member
He was making the philosophical argument that killing a human being for doing something impossible is perfectly OK.
Slurpy2k20
Member
What the hell do you expect the UN to realistically do about this? If they can't stop mass genocides, massacres, pre-emptive wars where hundreds of thousands of killed, etc, I'm not sure why or how you'd expect them to get involved in such a case, especially since it's not really a common phenomena, even in Saudi.
-COOLIO-
The Everyman
might have been because he edited in "so suck it."
i dont think that was there before?
There are mentions of sorcery in the Qur'an, mainly relating to the story of Moses. The Pharaoh is described as "Their elder that taught them sorcery".
Monocle
Member
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