Pharyngula::Vox gets vile, again

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Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Vox gets vile, again

PZ Myers • 67 Comments (last page)

Oh, jeez. Now Vox Day is making excuses for rape.

Actually, he's making a very convoluted argument that rape is only evil if the woman is chaste and Christian. Being pagan or Muslim means you don't get to complain about rape, nor can you protest if you have had sex outside of marriage.

To put it more clearly [Vox Day? Clear? Heh.], if a woman consents to extramarital sex, she is committing a moral offense which is equal to that committed by the man who engages in consensual sex with her, or by the man who, in the absence of such consent, rapes her. Christianity knows no hierarchy of sins. Since only the woman who is not entertaining the possibility of sex with a man and is subsequently raped can truly be considered a wholly innocent victim under this ethic, it is no wonder that women who insist that internal consent is the sole determining factor of a woman's victimization find traditional Western morality to be inherently distasteful.

I find Vox Day to be a thoroughly creepy and amoral creature, one I wouldn't trust within a thousand yards of my female relatives. I think he's twisted and insane, and hope he remains a fanatical Christian—the only thing that's keeping him on a leash seems to be his belief in a punitive deity.

He has this bizarre notion that atheists are necessarily amoral themselves, based on fallacious assumptions about how people operate when they aren't under the illusionary thumb of a god:

And while "might makes right" is the true essence of atheist amorality, it is not exactly the most convincing means of attempting to assert the moral evil of the rapist. As for Utilitarians in a demographically declining West, it is quite easy to make numerous cases for the inherent common good of rape on societal and social Darwinist grounds that are more powerful than the comparatively nebulous cases to the contrary.

This is so wrong. Most atheists don't base their morality on "might makes right"; it's based on the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you…an idea that's older than Christianity. I do not rape because I would not want to be raped, and I have empathy for other human beings.

Empathy is a very human thing, and if I had to, I could even rationalize it biologically as an extremely useful capacity for individuals living in social groups. I don't have any problem justifying morality on utilitarian grounds, either.

I'm also beginning to see one virtue to religion: as a shackle for psychopaths.

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Comments:

#52768: Orac — 12/07 at 09:10 PM

Can we stop paying attention to Vox Day? Its not like we write a rebuttal and grant a link everytime someone posts something on StormFront.

Hey, I do. Really.

No, actually, even I, tireless rebutter of Holocaust denial that I am, don't go that far, but your analogy made me chuckle.

Of course, one of these days, Vox is going to get a visit from the Hitler Zombie. There's certainly enough material there.

--
Orac “A statement of fact cannot be insolent.”
http://oracknows.blogspot.com

#52772: Federico Contreras — 12/07 at 09:28 PM
Great white post a real email address so we can send you props when you make a great post ya bastid.

> Of course it fucking does. Anybody who claims otherwise is living in denial.

Anyway, this was gold.

#52773: — 12/07 at 09:35 PM
I don't want to believe it. But there it is. And the even worse news is: Other psychos will go along with ....this....thing.

Next time a 'Believer' asks you why you don't rob banks and rape and pilage, etc. 'cause you don't believe in a God, whip this on them.

"Are you saying that without God, you'd be robbing banks, raping, pilaging, etc.?"

And when they respond in horror: "Of course not."

Give them this: "Then why, exactly, do you need the extra step to morality that you call God?" "In fact, who told you that you were immoral in the first place? Some church authority, I bet."

#52776: Federico Contreras — 12/07 at 09:57 PM
й Gee, I wonder how long before he refers to PZ as "pharyngirla," his usual favorite insult to be calling someone a "girl." й

Jeez, going to VD and actually reading his tripe would give me an ulcer. Seriously.

#52777: — 12/07 at 09:58 PM
Jason Malloy

"Jesus Christ was a monster not a moral philosopher. How else to describe someone who threatens "eternal suffering" to those who don't believe in his insulting fairytale assertions about his own "God"hood?"

Sometimes I think that the problem was back in those days life sucked so hard that in order to scare people you had to create a really nasty version of hell. So Jesus, or whoever put words in his mouth later, was just going with the times.

Then later when things got better, hell became equivalent earth today. Lots of Christians say that now -- we are in hell. Frankly, it's not too bad. There's a lot of nice places along the West Coast and Kuaui is pretty nice. I wouldn't mind pursuing the rock star angle next time around.

By the way, Jason, if a red pick-up truck tailgaits you, don't pull over. Just keep driving.

#52782: — 12/07 at 10:41 PM
Lots of Christians say that now -- we are in hell.

You mean gnostics?

In any case, I for one would appreciate it if I never had to see another post about VD. His writing, even excerpted, makes me literally ill -- and I've spent a lot of time going through the books and archives of the more radical of the radical right, so I'm inoculated to some pretty vile stuff. This guy, though, he makes Stormfront look like a bunch of Habermas-reading grad students.

#52784: — 12/07 at 10:49 PM
I noticed that nowhere in VDs (gotta love those initials) rant does the word conscience appear. The hallmark of a psychopath is the utter lack of a conscience. If anything holds a psychopath in check, it is shame. You can very effectively hide shame by professing religion. IIRC,the BTK killer was a prominant member of a local church. So was Canadas serial child killer Clifford Olson.
I think VD is a right wing pseud. He must be advancing his career by being outrageous. I hope so, God, I hope so.

#52788: Gerry L — 12/07 at 11:08 PM
The self-righteous believers who think that non-believers are without morals apparently operate under a different version of the Golden Rule: "The only sin is getting caught."

Since many of us don't believe in an all-seeing, all-knowing deity, we don't worry about god "catching" us so just go around doing all sorts of bad stuff. Hell be damned.

#52789: Johnny Logic — 12/07 at 11:09 PM
It is interesting to me—living in such a religion-saturated land—that ethics largely begins exactly where religious authority ends; namely, in the resolution of Euthyphro’s Dilemma: “Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?” Modernized and monotheized (if you will), the question is: “Are morally good acts willed by God because they are morally good, or are they morally good because they are willed by God?”

The first horn of the dilemma implies that morality is prior to God and, given his existence, that God is bound by it. Accepting this side of the dilemma makes God irrelevant to moral questions. Consequently, we are free to reason for ourselves about the merits of Kantian ethics, utilitarianism etc., and struggle to do the right thing, by our lights.

The second horn implies that God is prior to morality. Accepting this side of the dilemma involves a accepting a kind of arbitrariness exemplified by Abraham’s choice to sacrifice his son at God’s request. Had an angel not stayed his hand, the divine command theorist must conclude that Abraham would have done the right thing by slaying his son, merely because God demanded it.

There is a phrase for people who hand their ethical reasoning over to arbitrary authority (particularly books inspired by invisible men in the sky): moral retards.

#52790: — 12/07 at 11:11 PM

Ladies, run, don't walk, from any man who expresses such an opinion. (preferably after giving him a swift kick where his balls would be if he had any.)

Actually, I've always heard women should kick attackers in the knees. Hurts just as bad, immobilizes them better, and since it's lower the woman is less likely to fall over.

Some day someone will probably test this on Mr. Day.

#52791: — 12/07 at 11:15 PM
Gee, I wonder how long before he refers to PZ as "pharyngirla," his usual favorite insult to be calling someone a "girl."

I believe he's coined the neologism "Pharyngurla" for P.Z. Man, it's like the Algonquin over there, isn't it?

#52808: — 12/08 at 03:03 AM
M. L. Green wrote:

Next time a 'Believer' asks you why you don't rob banks and rape and pilage, etc. 'cause you don't believe in a God, whip this on them.

"Are you saying that without God, you'd be robbing banks, raping, pilaging, etc.?"

And when they respond in horror: "Of course not."

Nice thought - though I offer this up from FSTDT:

[Preceded by the question 'Hypothetically, if someone were to show you sufficient proof that it is likely that no deities exist, what would you do?']

"I don't know, I guess I would probably have sex with as many pretty women as possible and cheat on my taxes and few other things that I thought I could get away with without getting caught. I would also try to make as much money as possible by just about any means possible, ie using other people as stepping stones. And just live for immediate gratification." 'Ed', on the website 'Internet Infidels'

#52811: — 12/08 at 03:40 AM
I would tend to agree with the people who object to giving this sorry wanker the oxygen of publicity. He's behaving like an insecure child who knows he can get adults' attention by screaming bad words and pulling girls' hair. Time to stop reinforcing this behavior and send him to the naughty step instead?

#52813: — 12/08 at 04:05 AM
In many ways, these guys shed fascinating light on evolutionary psychology, making a mockery of their religious morality.

Adaptationist theory, such as on sexual morality or "TIT FOR TAT" implies that our concepts of good and evil are arbitrary, but once fixed, get inherited by everyone, since we're descended from the same ancestors.

#52814: — 12/08 at 04:06 AM
Johnny Logic:

As an example of God's arbitrariness Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac is not very apposite - you say 'had an angel not stayed [Abraham's] hand...' - but this is immediately a false premiss. God is the source of all good, and what he wills is good; Abraham proved that he knows this, and his faith is proved justified because the angel stayed his hand. That is, for Abraham to do God's will would have been right in any circumstances, but God's will was not that he should sacrifice his son. (A more important message of this story is how opaque God's will may really be, a message that many fundies seem to miss.) If I'd been advancing your argument, I'd have been more tempted to use the example of Job; the sufferings and deaths inflicted upon his family are far more morally questionable.

Additionally, Xtians don't 'hand their ethical reasoning over to arbitrary authority' (that is, they do not do so as a matter of definition); they turn to God for their sense of morality, and if you accept that 'God is prior to morality' (in your phrase) then He is by definition not arbitrary*. The fact that he doesn't exist has nothing to do with it, at least from a logical point of view, since Xtians do believe. (This is not to say logical arguments do not exist to demonstrate that such faith is non-rational, but the argument you presented does not lead to that conclusion.)

Indeed, the very concept of 'ethical reasoning' begs the question: if one strarts from the premiss that all morality derives from God, morality is not subject to reasoning (in the sense of reasoning over what constitutes right and wrong, at least, though moral decisions may be fraught even with an absolute moral authority). Devoting rational thought to what constitutes good is thus taking God's role unto oneself - one should instead pray for guidance. Failing to engage with moral dilemmas would be moral retardation if one did not believe in God; however, from the perspective of a believer God exists and so any action compliant with that reality is logically consistent.

I am probably totally failing to explain myself here, but I'm very bored and am stuck in the office with no work to do.

*Unless, of course, you take the view that God is prior to morality but not himself 'good' - a view which has fallen out of fashion since the Gnostics and whgich would certainly cause a Fundie's piss to freeze in his/her urethra.

#52817: Alon Levy — 12/08 at 04:19 AM
Is traditional Western morality the one where you shoot the Indians, steal their land and can rape their squaws if you want to?

Yes.

As for Utilitarians in a demographically declining West, it is quite easy to make numerous cases for the inherent common good of rape on societal and social Darwinist grounds that are more powerful than the comparatively nebulous cases to the contrary.

From a utilitarian perspective, the psychological damange done to a rape victim far outweighs the gratification given to the rapist. From a categorical perspective, rape hurts someone, treating her as a means to an end, and is thus immoral.

#52820: — 12/08 at 05:06 AM
For essays like his, does his argument hold up if run through a Hofstadter 'Personpaper' test? Rotate it 90 degrees and see if it still holds up...

\/ox discusses only rape by men of women. But if a man is willing to commit a sexual sin-- onanism, say-- is his moral offense no less than that of a man who, in the absence of such consent, rapes him?

Christianity doesn't have a hierarchy of sin, thus the bit about hatred in the heart being identical to killing in G*d's eyes. So a dying pedestrian cursing the drunk driver who hit that pedestrian is showing a moral offense at least as great as that of the driver's. Worse if the drunk driver had no intention of killing, but the pedestrian strongly hates the driver. (Unless, perhaps, the drunk driver was driving to a tryst? There is no hierarchy but these sins are additive, no?)

If a married man pretends to be single and has an affair with a single man who's pretending to be a woman, can that adulterer be raped? For if he consented to have adulterous sex with the 'woman,' is his sin any less because the other party also sinned?

And do crimes exist if Christianity doesn't mention them? All those property damage clauses of Hammurabi that Christ never mentions... can I purposefully flood my neighbor's field, if my neighbor is Christian? How about usary? Can I steal from my neighbor if I know that the neighbor commits the moral offense of loving money?

Are religions additive? Is a crime more crimeful, a sin more sinful, if multiple religions condemn it?

At any rate, its an odd sort of love VeeD is displaying: as we're none of us without sin we all get to cast stones? Or only Christians get to cast stones?

#52843: — 12/08 at 08:50 AM

I'm also beginning to see one virtue to religion: as a shackle for psychopaths.

Isn't this exactly why organised religion was formed, by accident if not by design? It assumes the worst about everyone.

#52846: — 12/08 at 08:59 AM
Orac says: " Gee, I wonder how long before he refers to PZ as "pharyngirla," his usual favorite insult to be calling someone a "girl." "

He already has, frequently referring to PZ as 'Pharyngula'.
Vox also seems to believe that even us atheists, agnostics, etc who aren't out committing violent crimes are guilty of 'moral parasitism', appropriating our moral behavior codes from some form of theology. Therefore, I guess he must be some form of technology parasite, unashamedly using 'the wheel' invented by pagans. Sigh

#52848: — 12/08 at 09:04 AM
"Are you saying that without God, you'd be robbing banks, raping, pilaging, etc.?"

And when they respond in horror: "Of course not."

I'm afraid, however, that many fundies would reply "of course I would rape and rob banks of there was no God".
Many religious people, like Vox, have a very weak moral character.

Morality is a tricky thing though, I don't think the Golden Rule really covers it all.

#52857: Johnny Logic — 12/08 at 09:33 AM
outeast,

As an example of God's arbitrariness Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac is not very apposite - you say 'had an angel not stayed [Abraham's] hand...' - but this is immediately a false premiss. God is the source of all good, and what he wills is good; Abraham proved that he knows this, and his faith is proved justified because the angel stayed his hand. That is, for Abraham to do God's will would have been right in any circumstances, but God's will was not that he should sacrifice his son. (A more important message of this story is how opaque God's will may really be, a message that many fundies seem to miss.) If I'd been advancing your argument, I'd have been more tempted to use the example of Job; the sufferings and deaths inflicted upon his family are far more morally questionable.

The quoted section above misses the point of the dilemma.

If what is good is merely what god wills, then why couldn’t have God willed that Abraham slay his son. God wouldn’t allow it? Why? Does Abraham have a sense of good beyond what he is commanded? For Abraham to believe with certainty that God is good, knowing that killing his son is wrong and acting like he would sacrifice him, safe in his knowledge that God cannot command it misses the point. This line of reasoning depends upon independent knowledge of what is good, thus it succumbs to the second horn of the dilemma.

To avoid this, one must accept that God’s authority is the ultimate arbiter of good, whether it means crashing into buildings with planes or feeding the poor in South America. This is an abdication of independent thought that becomes an epistemological puzzle: How can I know the true commands of God?

Devoting rational thought to what constitutes good is thus taking God's role unto oneself - one should instead pray for guidance. Failing to engage with moral dilemmas would be moral retardation if one did not believe in God; however, from the perspective of a believer God exists and so any action compliant with that reality is logically consistent.

Logical consistency is a poor virtue, indeed. As for prayer, is notoriously unreliable; for the Lafferty brothers, it guided them to kill.

#52858: — 12/08 at 09:34 AM
Men can be raped too, and I hope he applies the same standard to them.

#52863: — 12/08 at 09:42 AM

My 12 years of Roman Catholic schooling says otherwise... Sins are venial (sp?) or mortal.

The King James also says otherwise, what with Jesus saying some variation of "All sins can be forgiven except talking smack about the Holy Spirit" in three different gospels and all. But hey, next to Vox, what does Jesus know?

#52869: Keith Douglas — 12/08 at 09:52 AM
In my ethical system, stating that "rape is wrong" is true by definition of "rape" and "wrong", just like "theft is wrong" and "murder is wrong". (I've been told that this is what makes the ten commandments in the original Hebrew to be unhelpful: they do not state "do not kill", but "do not murder".) This is because "rape" just means "unpermitted sexual contact of another". (It also assumes the axiom that whatever is not to whatever degree forbidden [*] is permitted, I might add.)

The morally interesting situation is determining how and when consent occurs, and there life is messy indeed. (Which is not to say that rape is not a horrendous event.)

([*] There's a way in which my ethical system relies on a hierarachy and a recognition that "is right" or "is good" comes in degrees beyond the usual two, much as my philosophy of logic admits degrees of truth. There is a connection, too, which I'll skip here.

)

#52870: MBains — 12/08 at 09:59 AM
VD says: Christianity knows no hierarchy of sins.

Yikes! No wonder it has failed to naturally explain the universe and has fueled genocidal means of tribal expansion throughout the centuries.

I'm also beginning to see one virtue to religion: as a shackle for psychopaths.

Brilliant PZ!

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Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Vox gets vile, again

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