The story is bad enough, but what I really want you all to see are the readers' comments. You'll know what I'm referring to.

The comments are displayed with the most recent first, so you might need to go a page or two.

News article

I think you meant to post a link, but forgot.

EDIT: There it is.

Yeah, it's better now. Ahem.

Ok, so the CBS moderators got to it. The offending comment read:

"There is no such thing as rape. In the first place, God made woman subordinate to man, so she should give him whatever he wants anyways. Besides a woman doesn't have to get raped if she doesnt want to. All she has to do is keep moving it so he cant put it in the hole."

I saw that, but I'm also looking onto the next page about all these people insinuating that somali muslims are "a different kind of people." I'm not sure if that's a religious issue or a cultural one (though in America they're still not all that different, compared to Europe) but that's also pretty worrying.

The Caged Virgin, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
State-enforced rape of female convicts in Iran
Australian cleric blames women for rape, supported by British cleric; 75% of Pakistani female inmates are behind bars for being raped

Cultural or religious?

So...your point is?

That contrary to what some apologists would have us believe, religion can be a bad thing. That irrationality is dangerous. And dare I say, that the people defending religion for religion's sake - the people who think it's wrong to condemn and ridicule beliefs like that because, being religious, they are somehow special - are accomplices to this kind of thinking, and thus this kind of behaviour. In a very weak, abstract moral sense, religious "moderate" apologists who fail to condemn fundamentalists and nutjobs in general are, in fact, guilty for the more horrific things done in the name of, or justified by, religion.

(Can I read Xavius' mind, or am I just putting words into his mouth? YOU DECIDE!)

Okay, so that doesn't include me then. I am religious, but i do condemn the acts of fundamentalists. I am LDS, but i condemn the acts of the FLDS church(the polygamists, left LDS church when polygamy was put to an end) church.

Keep in mind that a lot of these people are minorities compared to the vast majority of sane people, blah, blah, blah. Hardline nutters and people with all the knowledge of your average horse.

And that australian cleric made that particular announcement as "Uncovered women are like peices of meat, inviting hungry dogs", etc, and was given a token show of support from muslim leadership, then told to gtfo at the end of his "term". A lot of the stuff in that article he didn't actually say - the media had a recording of that session, and went berserk over it after they got it, showing it to us every night for two odd weeks.

And you both make good points. Not all religious people take their religion so seriously that they harm themselves, their neighbors, or their society, and the degree to which their religion is likely to be by and large harmless is basically proportional to how acculturated they are to Western or Oriental society. I'm also not quite as anti-religion as Verithrax is. I acknowledge that religious institutions fill a role in people's lives that have no secular replacement. Your standard-issue Catholic or non-evangelical Protestant church is a social gathering, a source of art and ritual, and a way for people to organize for civic projects on a smaller, personal scale. All of these are great things that deserve to be protected and preserved. I'd love for there to be a secular replacement for this, and believe me, it's on my list of things to do while trying to dismantle the Catholic Church, but there isn't.

We also can't whitewash the influence of religion. That would be equally unjust. You have a Shi'ite woman in London killed by her own family for courting a Sunni man--a rather un-European thing to do in a very European city. You have riots and murders over a cartoon in Denmark. Christian influence in the US is directly responsible for the continuation of the death penalty, our excessive drug laws that put more people in prison for non-violent offenses than Western Europe (which has a larger population) for all reasons combined, the prohibition of sexual activity between gays and lesbians in Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas, the prohibition or severe limitation of biology and cosmology taught in many public schools and almost all private schools, and the overall low quality of homeschooling. Christian influence in Africa contributes to the HIV epidemic. Hindu influence in India contributes to endemic poverty. Historically speaking, being Jewish seems to be a pretty reliable way to get yourself murdered or oppressed.

Even more baffling is that the religious institutions give token support to those things in line with the orthodoxy of their faith that they know are damaging. Yrael's example is a big one. "Oh, yeah, he's right. Not wearing a veil is asking to be raped. What he said." That's not cool. At all. That's not justifiable. Acceptance of rape among US residents, immigrants or not, isn't justifiable. I really don't care if your culture says it's ok. It isn't. But sure enough, sprinkled in the readers' reaction to that story is tacit acceptance from the peanut gallery. That's also wrong. That's living your life with blinders, and the source of it is clear enough.

Actually, in this case, it was mostly poltical. There have been other cases where they've immediately been reprimanded (Perhaps a reformist Islam is on the horizon? Why should the Jews have all the fun?), but the Aus gov. has been going nuts and trying to muzzle and control muslims. They were calling for his resignation, or firing, and this was to tell the government to keep their nose out. There was another recent one where they were talking about looking to exercise more control over religious organisations of "questionable character" to prevent "undesirable activities and urgings". Which, given that the only others out here are really Christians, Jews, and I suppose scientologists that have any real following, or have enormous churches, anyway, means "muslims" since they don't given a damn about the rest. One right wing loon was even talking about registering "them moslems" before he was told to stfu. I mean, really. Bloody QLDers. That means you, Elryn. It doesn't mean they support it, even as hardliners - I don't think you can really get that far unless you ARE a hard liner, but plenty of them can maintain an objective viewpoint, and a reasonable one - but they do need to mantain the speration of church and state.

Incidently, if you get a chance, take a look at the original version of the current terrorist ads. One is carefully neutral, the primetime one, but the early morning one features the phrase, "I know a person who has downloaded documents from websites in the middle east, and I am worried". Delightful.

What exactly is wrong with polygamy so long as all parties involves are happy? I mean, I can understand if people are being forced into it, but freely chosen polygamy doesn't seem like something all that bad. Especially when swinging is a pretty much accepted social subculture in the world. Iii just don't see the issue with what a modern polygamous marriage could be.

Absolutely nothing wrong with polygamy when it's a free choice, but in most closed religious communities (I'm not talking about the FLDS church, which I'm not particularly familiar with) marriage is not a choice, polygamous or not, as far as women (And sometimes even men) are concerned.

The main problem with them that i have is their blatant abuse and violations of the law.

and I bet you don't break a single law?

Don't you like fast cars? I bet you drive them fast too. Fast being over the law-enforced speed limit, I'm sure.

Kind of hypocritical, doncha think?

The Columbine shootings were perpetrated by atheists who were strongly anti-religious. At what point can we say that atheism is evil? Come on, take off your blinders, people!

Or, we can all just realize this argument is so fallacious that it's hard for me to believe someone isn't logging in under Xavius' account and making it.

However, you could argue that religion created them. Our Judeo-Christian Culture bred the people who tortured them. They were considered freaks due to the standards set by that religious culture. So, really, it all comes back on religion.

Sure. You could argue that any influence created any social effect you want. France's persecution of the Hugenots caused frustrations which caused their Protestant descendants to develop a persecution complex causing them to lash out at the secularists they could influence, which caused the persecution of the Columbine shooters, which they rebelled against, and killed a bunch of people.

How long before we can call France evil?

Don't even get me started on the Vikings. Somewhere in the depths of time, a burning thatched roof is responsible for someone's dad not hugging them enough, which is why they emptied out a Taco Bell with a shotgun.

People kill because their parents didn't buy them the car they wanted. People kill because of Marilyn Manson. People kill because they want your shoes. People kill because of Dungeons and Dragons. People kill because of Hitler. People kill because of Nietzsche. People kill because of Jesus. People kill because of deconstructionalism. People kill because of race. People kill because of Joseph Smith. And people even kill because of Buddha.

Unstable people will be affected by anything that sets them off and gives them a supportive framework that they, personally, can use to justify their hatred. The argument that, the more a person believes Christianity, the more likely they are to support rape, is ridiculous.

Religion is a crutch for those who want to make excuses for their own bigotry and for those who want to make excuses for the baseness of human nature.

Religion is not to blame but those utilize it pro and con to spread indignity and inhumanity are.