BHS
Gabriella,
The ‘planes thing was pointing out that you can justify anything when you reference your faith. The equality legislation point argued that you shouldn’t be exempt from it if you also benefit from tax breaks funded by everyone.
And I repeat my response - you can justify anything when you reference your belief so you are discriminating against religious belief. It is just your over-simplified assertion that criminal acts in the name of political or moral beliefs are based on reasoning whereas criminal acts in the name of religious beliefs are not based on reasoning - you have not demonstrated this assertion to be true.
Of course it is. Both though legitimise faith by privileging it over just guessing about stuff. A suicide bomber for example could say, “but clearly you think faith is better than guessing too because you allow it special privileges in your society” could he not? It’s the slippery slope point.
That's a fallacy. If people are accorded special privileges it is because there is a legal process for examining the particular situation and presumably some benefits or reasons are identified by the State justifying those privileges and so the privilege is not a criminal act. This is a completely different situation from someone breaking the law.
I think I have. When the defence used by the CofE for special treatment is the same defence used by the suicide bomber – ie, “faith – how should we argue against one but not the other?
See above - the argument is examined by a legal process and if it is deemed justified the CofE gets its special treatment. This process is open to scrutiny and can be altered by the tax payers through a democratic process. This is not equivalent to the situation with the suicide bomber who breaks the law for a political or religious or moral cause.
Yes it does. The rightness or wrongness of a position in one sphere doesn’t change because you might be able to find examples of the same rationale used elsewhere.
No it doesn't. The criteria is whether the action is outside the law, not whether the action is based on a belief - religious or moral or political.
Since there are opposing views on just how much reason vs emotion is employed in arriving at moral or political beliefs, it is just your assertion that actions to further a political or moral issue are reasoned or evidence-based and actions to further a religious issue are not reasoned or evidenced. Therefore focusing your criticism on religious belief seems biased. If an application is made to open a mosque or a social organisation on the same site - the arguments in support of both will be based on reasoning - such as a cost-benefit analysis, assessment of need, demographics etc. When terrorist acts are committed the justifications given by the criminal are a lot more reasoned than "it's my faith" or "it's my political belief". Your over-simplification of this does not make a convincing argument.
Nope. Religious faith is religious faith – that’s the beginning and end of the conversation. It’s epistemically no better than guessing. Moral and political judgments on the other hand tend at least to have reason and evidence to support them – moral philosophy and economics as examples.
Except that is not an accurate description of the conversation. Your over-simplification does not work in the real world. You stated that your issue was with special privileges or criminal actions based on beliefs and you have asserted that actions in the name of a religious faith do not involve reasoning but criminal actions based on moral or political beliefs do involve reasoning or "tend to" involve reasoning.
Your assertion about the motivation for criminal acts is just guessing if you can't present evidence - such as a link to a statement from a suicide bomber where he only cites his faith to justify his action as opposed to reasoning that the act was justified based on moral arguments or a political or moral grievance.
That’s not to say that either provide certainty (indeed it’s a strength that they don’t claim too – another difference from religious faith by the way – because that way they’re amenable to change), but they’re qualitatively different in that respect from the finger in the air certainties of faith.
Again an oversimplification, given religious beliefs and practices are also amenable to change and have changed.
No, because one of those defences could be evidence. “On the basis of the evidence available to me at the time, I had no choice but to act as I did” would be taken into account by a court of law. “But that was my faith belief” on the other hand would not.
For the former to work as a defence, the court would have to share the moral belief that violence is justified in certain situations.
No it doesn’t. My belief in the fact of Mars is qualitatively different from someone else’s belief that there are little green men living there.
Belief in the fact? What does that mean? Either something is a fact or it isn't - your beliefs about facts are not relevant to this discussion. And Mars is irrelevant to the issue of crimes being committed based on religious, moral or political beliefs.
No, but some use their faith beliefs to validate the atrocities they commit. The 9/11 hijackers for example were pious men. That’s the point.
They were also political men with morals. So what's the point? Your issue was whether beliefs can be successfully used as a defence to a crime. Their religious, political or moral beliefs were not successfully used as a defence.
When they do that those types of defences can be weighed and taken into account or not. Public interest for example is sometimes a successful defence for breaking privacy laws. By contrast, “but that’s my faith” is evidentially white noise.
Who has successfully argued "that's my faith" as a defence to an act of terrorism? You are arguing against something that hasn't happened.
We’re going round in circles here – there was no “wrong” in their minds if you also want the premise that they “knew only good”.
Yes we are going around in circles and for the story to work they would have to know what "wrong" meant regardless of your guess / psychological assessment of them, so I'll go with the premise of the story that A&E knew what wrong meant. As I said we can agree to disagree or keep going round in circles.
Well, neither of us knows for sure as it hasn’t been tested. Entrapment rules vary country-by-country too, and indeed state-by-state in the US. In general though most courts would ask:
1. Did the official create an opportunity that would not otherwise have existed? (yes)
2. Did the official seek out the accused to tell them about the opportunity he’d created? (yes)
3. Did the accused have a predisposition to criminal activity? (no)
4. Did the official give any reason for not disobeying him other than, “because I say so”? (no)
5. Could the accused reasonably have understood that what they did would be criminal or even objectively wrong rather than just disobeying someone who claimed to be authoritative? (no)
Looks like a slam dunk case of entrapment to me.
It doesn't to me. Where are you getting this list of tests from for entrapment, especially nos. 4 and 5? I have not seen that in any legal definition of entrapment. And creating an opportunity to commit a wrong act is not entrapment unless you have some case law to link to that supports your version of entrapment.
Couple of problems there. First, when they ask why, do you reply “because I say so” or do you give them reasons? If it’s the latter, the analogy fails.
Second, you’ve introduced the notion of punishment – ie, a consequence for wrongdoing. Again, that disqualifies the analogy. In the myth, the deal is that “God” says, “Look, I’m a talking snake acting on behalf of God. No really. I am I tell you. Only you just have to take my word for that. Anyways…let me draw your attention to this tree I’ve set up specially for you not to pay any attention too. And I’d rather you didn’t pay any attention to it because, well, I say so. Bye then.”
My answer was not an analogy to the A&E story - you asked me a question and I answered it.
By the way, my kids don't always give a toss about my reasons - I sometimes save my breath because I know that sometimes it finally boils down to "because I say so". And I don't always tell them that I am going to punish them and then give them a choice. Sometimes I tell them to do something, they don't, I punish them - no advance warning given.
BY the way, not sure if your version of the story is the Christian version, but in the Muslim version A&E are told by God not to approach the tree because they would be one of the wrongdoers. We already know that I think they knew what wrong meant. And no snake in the Muslim version encouraging A&E to commit a wrong act. Instead it's Satan telling them that "...Your Lord did not forbid you this tree save that you should become Angels or become of the immortals.” (Quran 7:20).
That’s right, you can’t. The tests for entrapment are different from and much tougher than that – see above.
The point rather is whether it “works” for the legal definition(s), which it does – see above.
No it doesn't - see above.
