I suppose I could have used different imagery. I have no animus against any groups’ religious ed. classes. However, as presented, the arguments had the sort of “made up truth” feel that I get from the various Sunday a.m. TV shows and reports from the likes of “Dr. Dinosaur,” rather than genuine religious education classes. I apologize for using a term that has more meanings in a broader context that I tend to think of it.
Do you live in the United States of America? Is that the same USA that I’ve heard of? You know the one: south of Canada, north of Mexico? I think you must live in some other USA than the one I’ve heard about.
So you’d agree they are quite different to some other religions?
How much is two plus two in Timbuktoo? I think it might be four.
Let me explain, without trying to be offensive, Tom, why I consider this nit-picking. You are alleging that atheism was not a crime per se, but that an atheist could be put to death for heresy, since atheism was considered a form of heresy.
If you will go back to the first time I broached this issue in an earlier post, you will see that all I was originally saying was that atheists could have have been legally executed in past centuties and that today, we are free to express ourselves without fear, so that I consider that an improvement.
I was mainly basing myself on a reference to the Marlowe case in a book I read last summer by a respected British historian who said that atheism was a capital offence in Britain at the time. Like me, he did not split hairs to say that a person would actually have been executed for heresy, of which atheism was a form.
Does that really change the validity of my original assertion that in past ages, atheists like myself could have been executed by the justice system for the “crime” of atheism, for goodness’ sake?
To give an example that I am **very familiar ** with, (since I have studied law in Canada with a specialty in criminal law), most persons will tell you that homosexual acts were a crime in Canada until 1969, when then-Justice Minister Pierre Trudeau passed a law legalizing homosexual sex between consenting adults. When Pierre Trudeau died, dozens of newspaper articles and news reports described his accomplishment of 1969 in more or less those terms.
But if you want to split hairs as you are doing with my comment that atheism was a capital crime, you could in fact say that the above assertion is incorrect. :eek:
Homosexuality was never actually mentioned in Canada’s pre-1969 criminal code. Persons prosecuted for homosexual acts were prosecuted under a section that criminalized “gross indecency and bestiality”. Legal precedent already held that homosexual acts entered under the category of “gross indecency” just as atheism entered under the category of heresy. But it would actually have been incorrect 
to say that homsexual acts were a crime punishable by imprisonment in Canada prior to 1969. It was gross indecency that was so punishable. And there was no definition of gross indecency in the Code.
Secondly, it is not even correct to say that Pierre Trudeau’s bill “legalized” or even “decriminalized” homosexual acts. :eek: As I recall, the bill did not even mention homosexuality, and it did not even repeal the section on “gross indecency and bestiality”. That section was still in the code when I studied law in the early 1970s.
Trudeau’s bill simply added a section to the criminal code that said that the section on “gross indecency” could not be applied to two persons over 21 years of age (the age is now lower) both of whom consent to an act performed in private. Now, a lot has changed in the Criminal Code since the Trudeau amendments of 1969, so I may not be able to produce the exact text of the original bill, but I am pretty damned sure that it was essentially set out that way.
But to my knowledge, nobody has ever been called on the carpet, corrected or challenged in Canada for writging that homosexual acts used to be criminal and punishable by imprisonment under the criminal code, and that Pierre Trudeau legalized homosexual acts between adults in 1969. I have even heard lawyers state it that way and not be corrected.
This is why a frankly find a lot of the demands by you and Oakminister to be vexatious and unecessary nit-picking. I am not asking you to believe everything I say without proof.
But I do find your tactic of nit-picking details and then, when I explain the obvious, claiming that I am shifting my position, to be tedious, and this is why I have taken to largely ignoring this kind of thing. If you and Oakminister want to triumphantly crow that I have “lost” the debate in the thread because I refuse to get bogged down in such trifling details, go right ahead.
Go back and read the actual threads. I noted the very first time that you brought this up that a person might, indeed, be punished under a charge of heresy. You are the one who came back and tried to make it an “atheism” thing. Now you want to accuse me of nitpicking because after you tried to reassert your original claim I have asked for evidence.
You have not actually “taken to largely ignoring this kind of thing.” You continue to drop your claims into conversations without actually supporting your claims. Railing against the general intolerance of religious folks will not draw my attention as long as you do not spin the claim to make “your group” look to be especially set aside for condemnation with no evidence that that is true.
I am not crowing about any debate “wins,” I am asking that in historical areas you post facts instead of mythology.
Are you really reading what I post, Tom?
What I have patiently explained is that any reasonable person would accept the assertion that “homsexual acts used to be criminal acts for which one could be imprisoned in Canada before 1969” as being accurate. The fact that homosexual acts were not specifically listed as a crime, and that people were prosecuted for “gross indecency” (one catergory of which could be homosexual acts) would, quite rightly, be considered a ridiculous nit-pick that does not in any way change the fundamental accuracy of the original statement.
The level of detail required to make a statement acceptably accurate obviously depends on the context in which that statement is being made.
If I had said: “Most states in Europe had a specific statute making it illegal to be an atheist and providing that any atheist would be put to death”, then I could fully understand why you would ask me to back this up.
All I was saying in my original post that started you on this tangent was that a person like me could legally have been executed (at least in England at the time of Marlowe) if they were found to be atheists, wheras today I have no such fear.
The fact that this was because atheism was included under heresy, and that heresy could be punishable by death is noting but a legal detail in terms of the point I was making.
When precisely did I “spin the claim to make “(my) group” look to be especially set aside for condemnation”? I did not at any point deny that other persons espousing theistic opinions that differed from the accepted orthodoxy could also be put to death. The only point I was making is that atheists could be, and now they cannot, at least in modertn democratic countries. I did not deal with the fact that other religious dissenters could be put to death under the same laws. So what?
If I am discussing the former criminalization of homosexual acts in Canada before 1969, do I have to mention that the “gross indecency” category could have been used also to prosecute a husband and wife having consensual oral sex?
If I simply made the statement that “homosexual acts were a criminal act that could lead to imprisonment in Canada 40 years ago” would you, Tom, accuse me of “spin(ning) the claim to make “(my) group” look to be especially set aside for condemnation”?
Tom, this idea that I attempted to make my group (atheists, presumably) look to be especially set aside for condemnation is an element in your rebuttal that I had not really dealt with. And when we really look at it, I think it is the nub of the matter.
To my mind, my saying atheism was a capital offence rather than saying that atheism was considered a form of heresy which, along with other heresies, was a capital offence, is an irrelevant detail. I was not talking about other heresies, I was talking about how atheists could be punished a few centuries ago.
Here is what I propose. If I really did say something like “Atheists were subject to the death penalty and subject to severe treatment not imposed on other religious dissenters” anywhere in my posts, then I am obviously wrong, and I obviously did not mean to say that, because I do not believe that. So in that context, my comment that atheism was a capital offence would indeed be wrong and I would retract it.
But if you cannot find a posting in which I specifically claim that the law was harder on atheists than on any other religious dissenters, then sorry, the statement that atheism ws a capital crime is in my opinion perfectl valid.
Sorry to be pushy, Tom, but I must leave on vacation tonight. So if you can see your way clear to answer me in the next couple of hours I will appreciate it. Otherwise, I will be sunning my atheist ass in Florida until Feb. 17. I mention this just in case anyone (I am not directing this to you, Tom) wants to assume that Valteron has slunk away in abject defeat after being crushed and “tied into rhetorical knots” by the irresistable might of their impeccable logic. :dubious:
I think we know who I mean.
If it was an irrelevanr detail, then why did you single me out for address when you made the claim in this thread when I had already pointed to the “heresy option” in the other thread?
I don’t think I have “won” anything, but I will admit that it gets a bit monotonous to be singled out for address by a poster who is trying to restate my position as if I was wrong and then claiming that I am nitpicking when I try to clarify the accuracxy of either position.
I could not remember in which thread I had posted the comment about atheism being a capital offence in days of yore, which you subsequrntly challenged.
But my point remains valid, and you did not address it, Tom. If I did indeed allege that atheism was punished specially and more severly than any other form of religious dissent, then I would be QUITE WRONG is saying that, because even I do not believe that to be so. IF I HAVE SAID THAT, then my saying that atheism was a capital crime instead of saying that atheism was a form of heresy and like other heresies was a capital crime would indeed be a misleading claim.
IF I DID NOT SAY THAT, then my saying atheism was a capital crime was essentially correct, and I have nothing to apologize for.
I am still waiting for you to show me where I said that atheism was punished more severely than other forms of religious dissent. All you have to do is show me that and you will get my apology for a misleading claim. But I haqve to leave on vacation tonight so you will have to wait intil Feb. 17 or 18.
I do not want or need an apology.
I want you to stop dragging up stuff that has already been set to rest, asserting it in a changed form, then whining when I hold you to account for posting correct information. (For example, since I have never claimed that you said “that atheism was punished more severely than other forms of religious dissent,” I am really not interested in addressing that particular strawman.)
In the current “capital punishment for atheism” dust-up, you initially said
Now any straightforward reading of that statement would seem to indicate that the crime was actually atheism.
I replied in that thread that the crime was most likely heresy, asked if you had a citation for “atheism” being a crime, and figured the matter was ended. While I indicated that the prevalent condemnation for heresy was for differences in Christian belief, I did not claim that an atheist could not have been condemned for heresy.
Then, you interrupted this thread with a reference to the earlier thread, providing a link to Wikipedia that did nothing to provide the citation I had sought regarding anti-atheist laws.
I replied, noting that the Wikipedia article did not support you claim. Again, I figured the matter was ended.
You then came back, again, with the reference to Marlowe–pointing specifically to his indictment for heresy, the point I originally made.
Since then, you have posted several more times making odd claims about my behavior when all that I have done is respond to your (frequently faulty) historical claims and your distortions of what I have said. You could have chosen to respond in the original thread with a claim that you figured heresy was as bad as atheism if it left the accused dead–a point with which I would not have disagreed. Instead, you have followed me around to a separate thread distorting what I had posted and changing what you had posted, while accusing me of inappropriate behavior. You are making more of this than you need to.
Have fun in Florida, Valteron! Commit heresies galore and don’t think about the Dope! Do use sun screen!