Girl from Qatif Rape Victim
A girl from Qatif was gang raped and the Saudi's blamed her by initially sentencing her to 90 lashes. Is this not barbaric? At least they aren't going to kill her, and they're reviewing her case because of the moral outrage of Westerners. This is exactly what Ayaan Hirsi Ali said in her book Infidel. The girl is blamed if she is raped because men cannot help themselves. Ahhh, poor, poor men. They can't help themselves. Bullshit! Absolute bullshit. At least the men were sent to prison also. According to many Muslims, women should guard their pussies and it's their fault if raped. I am so outraged by this I am beside myself, and this moral outrage is applicable to the Christian faith. Here is the story...Known only as the "Girl from Qatif," the victim said she was a newlywed who was meeting a high school friend in his car to retrieve a picture of herself from him when the attack occurred in the eastern city of Qatif in 2006.
Again, I have nothing but disgust for the religion of Islam for this.
While she was in the car, two men got into the vehicle and drove them to a secluded area where others waited, and then she was raped.
The ministry's account Saturday alleged that the woman and her lover met in his car for a tryst "in a dark place where they stayed for a while."
The girl was initially sentenced to prison and 90 lashes for being alone with a man not related to her. An appeals court then doubled the lashes to 200.
But there are similar texts in the Old Testament that sanction rape and "honor" killings. A female captive in war was forced to be an Israelite man’s wife (Deuteronomy 21:10-14). That's rape! If a virgin who was pledged to be married was raped, she was to be stoned along with her rapist (Deuteronomy 22:23-24), while if a virgin who was not pledged to be married was raped, she was supposed to marry her rapist (Deuteronomy 22:28-29).
This is all barbaric. At least there are signs that Islam is changing, since they are not going to kill her. How long before they become more civilized like Christians have become in free democracies, I cannot say. But they have similar sacred texts, and Islam is at least more consistent in applying them.
I know. I know. The easy way out is for Christians to deny they are living under the Old Covenant. But big fucking deal (I told you I was outraged)! Why would any good intelligent God ever santion something like this in the first place? I could never worship such a God, and I could never gerrymander around the Biblical texts that have caused such pain. I would at least have to be HONEST with those texts. God sanctioned rape and honor killings against women who did nothing wrong! That God cannot all of a sudden change his moral stripes and say he's perfectly good and loving in Jesus. He's barbaric to the core.
25 comments:
Her crime was in being alone with a man not related to her.
No wonder they are backward. Women cannot be in the workforce then, with men. By contrast, women have been the ones creating the most jobs in America for the last two decades.
Of course, something like, say, ripping apart an unborn baby in the womb or burning them to death with various poisons is pretty barbaric too.
Do you get equally upset over that?
John its long been recognized that the way you are reading the Old Testament is completely without any context. If a woman was raped it was good that a man had to marry her in that period, it was a punishment on the man and a boon on the woman, historically speaking, because the man had to take care of her and provide for her, never mind pay the daughters father and so on. Equally so its been recognized that the part about killing the wife was never enforced socially because it made no sense; the person who would bring up a charge would simply want his money back from the father. This is all me presupposing that God demanded these things, which I dont at all, namely because the same Old Testament scholarship has concluded that the Old Testament was editted and revised for the Jewish people based on certain interpretations and certain events. Now at this point I think it is fair to bring up the questions as to why God allowed such standards of morality to continue but if God genuinely wishes us to discover for ourselves to a great extent moral truths hes justified, I think, in allowing the ancient isrealities to have a lower standrd of morality then we do today. Of course you are quite right to be disgusted by this whole Islamic issue, but to compare that to the way the old testament law was enforced and read, and then to take the second leap and say that God himself demanded it, is building castles in the skies.
John,
I agree its awful. I am curious on what rational basis you condemn this as an atheist though?
His basis is that he doesn't like it.
He is not equally outraged by abortion, because that does not cause him to be outraged.
It reminds me of the Russell/Copleston debate where Russell admitted that he his moral judgments had as much value as what color he liked.
GB, if this is your justification for what the Bible says then you really are a stupid blind sicko (I said I was outraged, remember?). And if you don't believe the Old Testament then why do you bother responding at all? Why not just chime in and tell those to whom I'm writing for why you don't?
I don't have the patience today to deal with your absolutely ignorant arguments about why it should be considered good that a woman who was raped was forced to marry her rapist, especially when commands such as these formed the culture for which it might be a good thing for her in the first place. Maybe someone else will.
Are there any intelligent evangelicals out there who want to deal head on with this problem rather than offer red herrings and ask questions I've answered so many times I can't believe the same persons are asking them?
John W. Loftus,
I agree. I am outraged, too. I am sickened by this story. I think we all are.
But my hope is that I will get around to answering your very profound, important and difficult philosophical and religious question. So count me in as a person willing to tackle this Biblical issue head-on. I just can't do it right now. As you know, I am a wee-bit overextended.
But only a bit!
Outrage is good.
Bill Gnade
I too am outraged. It is indeed barbaric.
One thing is for certain. The rebellion continues. Mankind stands steadfast in his depravity and points an accusatory finger heavenward asking the Creator "why have you not stopped me from making a monster of myself?"
Free moral agency is a handleless sword.
GB, if this is your justification for what the Bible says then you really are a stupid blind sicko (I said I was outraged, remember?).
Its good to know John that when a 40+ year old man gets outraged he just starts throwing childish insults that add nothing at all to the discussion.
And if you don't believe the Old Testament then why do you bother responding at all? Why not just chime in and tell those to whom I'm writing for why you don't?
I gave two options. First of all there is the option that some level of this really was from God, or justified from God through Moses. The second was that God had nothing to do with this particular law and it was editted with a certain purpose in mind by the rabbis. Both are possibilities but I havent a clue which one is correct
I don't have the patience today to deal with your absolutely ignorant arguments about why it should be considered good that a woman who was raped was forced to marry her rapist, especially when commands such as these formed the culture for which it might be a good thing for her in the first place. Maybe someone else will.
John in the society we are talking about this was, whether you like it or not, a good. Marriage was not like it is today, it was based more on survival and protection then on love. At this time virginity was treasured for all sorts of secular AND religious reasons. The woman would want this to happen so the man was forced to protect and provide for her, of course that would be a rare issue as marriage occured at an early age and before then girls were well-guarded by over-protective fathers (fathers were given a dowry). It is quite obvious John that much of the ancient law in the Torah is based around its Ancient Near-Eastern context, it would be foolish for God to give the ancient Israelites 21st century moral codes in that time. However, you have argued in various situations that God should have given them the steam-engine, modern medical knowledge etc. Now I wont deal with how that would be absurd, but for the Israelities to work within a context that would be extremely (it was already quite abit) different from their neighbors would pose serious problems. I havent a clue what you base morality on, I imagine you take a societal basis as opposed to a utilitarian one. If that is true then I havent a clue why youd be opposed to this, the practice was explicitely for society to run properly. My primary argument is that if God wishes human beings to discover for themselves moral truths rather then dictate those truths to them 100% the prior may be considered better then the later. Of course I highly doubt youl even consider these as arguments John, after all its much easier to just label a person disagreeing with you stupid and then completely avoid or strawman what was said.
GB said...it would be foolish for God to give the ancient Israelites 21st century moral codes in that time.
I know I said I didn't have the patience for this today, but here goes, and it boils down to whether you think God is the creator/moral lawgiver, Is he? Yes or no? Answer the question.
Now it's one thing for us to disobey God, which Chris wants to say happened. But based on the evangelical view that these are God's commands, God sanctioned rape. And like slavery I am outraged that Christians still maintain God is good even though he commanded people to do what Christians themselves think is a crime and a sin. When you read about a rapist what do YOU want done with him? What if he raped YOUR daughter? You would be correct to say that in ancient barbaric cultures the parents were dishonored if their daughter was raped, just like in today's Muslim culture. Ali tells us it would be better if the woman raped was also killed!
But even if this is true it makes your God a utilitarian who bases his commands on the circumstances which dictates whether or not rape is justified. Given the present Muslim culture, if you were God, would you command that the woman raped should marry the rapist, or would you simply tell them that a woman has not dishonored her parents if she was raped? You choose. What is good here?
You also presume God was gradually teaching his people what they should do, and in the meantime a lot of raping was going on. If God is the creator/lawgiver then he could've started out by telling men the truth about rape from the very beginning, and saved many women from being raped. Instead he sanctioned it, which would set men back a few centuries before they figured it out that they were wrong. It would at least be kinder of God NOT TO SAY ANYTHING!
Tell me this, you say it would be foolish of God to forbid rape and the marrying of the rapist, eh? Foolish? What about whether or not it was moral and righteous? Was it good that God commanded rape? Yes or no? You'd be better off sticking to the idea that the Old Testament isn't God's word, which is my view.
One last shot. Presumably you are not as good as God. Would YOU have told men to rape women? Would you have told women who were raped to marry their rapists? Wouldn't you have had the decency to tell ancient people that it is not the woman's fault if she was raped? If God had done that there would be no shame on the woman who was raped in the first place.
You can't believe what you're saying. You are obviously not a woman who lived in those days who was raped and desperately needed a word from God telling men it was not her fault. Did God care for these women? No! then God doesn not care for all of his creatures and he isn't good, much less perfectly good who cannot let even a hint of sin into his presence. A God so perfectly good like that would be appalled at commanding rape in the first place and would say and do what YOU would do to correct such evils, rather than the reverse.
Enough, idiot. This IS a matter of blind ignorance on your part. Wake up and think about it for just one moment. You know you cannot justify the words of this God of yours. You know it. There can be no justification for a good God to command rape...none. This God is the product of the minds of ancient barbaric superstitious MEN!
Ok. First of all, my view essentially is that God has the right to not completely reveal in its entirety all of morality in one partiucular situation. For the Jews, where they lived and at the time they lived, to practice morality as we know it today would be quite impossible for a whole host of economic and societal reasons (unless God completely interferred immensely, which for reasons we wont get into I think would not be good.)
That God actually says rape is ok is simply not true, unless im mistaken I cant think of any verse which suggests rape is at all moral. The closest might be numbers 31, but even that is not talking about rape and is actually a completely different situatiom. The man was of course punished by being forced to give the father an exorbitant amount of money and marry the women, again marriage was about providing protection and building society primarily, love was a secondary feature in a very unstable society. Rape was clearly in and of itself a bad thing though from the outset, or it wouldnt be considered an immoral act in any other legal situation. There is a big difference between commanding rape and making it so that a rapist is forced to marry the woman he raped (again, and you seem to completely ignore this, the woman would have wanted this and that is clear throughout the entire Near-Eastern world)
Now the one point you bring up that really the rest of your good points hedge on is why God didnt radically disrupt the morality (to a great extent though he did in many other ways). By this im assuming you mean making it so that the Israelities completely disregarded common ANE ethical beliefs such as the things we are talking about. Well as ive said, God may indeed believe that it is better for us to discover to an extent moral truths for ourselves and thus God would be justified in not supporting but allowing the Israelites to do their own thing to a degree (and as ive said before Jesus makes it clear on the issue of divorce that this was done.
Now first off this is pre-supposing, like I said, that this is straight from God. God clearly allowed the Jews some freedom in their legal-process and so there is certainly the possibility that this was simply a law, as i said, made by the rabbis. To then make the giant leap and say the entire old testament has nothing to do with God is to look at it completely black and white, probly owing to your own admitted former fundamentalism John.
Ultimately John I think youve at least proved that you really are a disrespectful and less than amicable person. You view biblical documents with no context, no sense of history and with the same ardent fundamentalism you developed at an early age, just without the belief. While it is certainly good that marriage developed to be a committment of love, at the time we are discussing it was not, it was about survival and protection as I have said. Now I myself readily admit that I lean towards the position that while God did indeed interfere with the Israelites he allowed them to some extent to have freedom with what was moral. For example, he may have allowed them to know that certain base things were wrong and then allowed them to interpret what that meant and chose the punishment that their society deemed fit. However one must point out that the laws we have discussed were interpreted by rabbi's who would have other laws besides the Old Testament alone, and certainly would have shown flexibility. Your whole comment about God being the product of superstition is of course unwarranted as at best all this does is prove biblical inerrancy is not true. My belief in God has nothing at all to do with biblical inerrancy so I consider this to ultimately be an issue with far more grey than black and white.
Oh... at the very beginning I would replace the word "economic" with something more akin to "material needs"
Defend the defenseless all you want to, GB. You end up with a utilitarian God who lets the circumstances determine what he commands, rather than speak about the circumstances themselves. He's either immoral, lacking in power, or unintelligent.
You are blind. Wow. And to think I'm asking you to open your eyes. You can't do it, and even if you could, you still couldn't see. That's how bad it is. Just like I cannot ask a deaf man to listen to me, I cannot ask a blind man to see. I'm done.
How a God who doesnt want to completely set every law for persons is utilitarian I have no clue. Ultimately though John you say im blind, I say you're blind. I suppose that is the way things are. It doesnt get us very far, but perhaps the very nature of this debate forces us to see things radically differently based on what (we think) we know.
Gordonblood stated:
“That God actually says rape is ok is simply not true, unless im mistaken I cant think of any verse which suggests rape is at all moral. The closest might be numbers 31, but even that is not talking about rape and is actually a completely different situatiom.”
If we define rape in a larger context here, then the land of Midian was raped by Israel by order of Moses… the mouth piece of Yahweh.
If we view it in the sexual sense, just what do you think happened to those young virgin girls in verse 18 who had just seen their brothers, sisters (non virgins) and mothers slaughtered in verse 17 as they arrived as sexual slaves in the tents of the Israelites? We detest pedophiles today were Yahweh got a revengeful kick out of it!
Really, gordonblood, this is such an embarrassing text that the author of the Anchor Bible volume on Numbers just quickly skirts it…and him a Jew.
Sadder still is that the evangelical Jesus of love NEVER ONCE (IN ALL HIS TEACHINGS IN THE GOSPELS) EVER CONDEMS A SIGNEL BRARBRIC ACTION BY ISRAEL IN THE HEBREW BIBLE! This indeed a sad commentary for the background of the God revealed in John 3:16!
And remember, though Muhammad never quotes either the O.T. or the N.T. directly in the Qur’an, while the Church was advancing agape love, 600 years later to the east the Prophet Muhammad seized upon the Arabic O.T. and its barbaric legal codes.
So far no one has shown up that well in this discussion, because everyone (except Gordon, who is only responding to John's comments -- I disagree with him strongly, but will debate this with him at some other time) is using this horrible, ugly event as something to hang his own agenda on.
Andrew, Tsheej and Chris are particularly obnoxious in their way of doing so, but John, you too are doing the same thing.
The difference between the OT laws and this case is that these laws are of ancient origin and -- at least by the Jews -- have not been enforced for well over two thousand years. (The genius of the Pharisees was that, to quote Morton Scott Enslin, "Again, it should be pointed out that much of the discussion that seems to us casuistry and hair-splitting was to facilitate the keeping of the law by making it next to impossible to commit what we might call "the deadly sins." Terrible penalties were imposed, but the legislation was so hedged about that in many cases the crime was almost impossible; in others, the conviction." (Christian Beginnings p. 117))
This, on the other hand, is a case that is happening today. These laws are being enforced. Yes, by Wahabist interpretations of Sharia law, women may not be in the workforce, may not mingle with marriageable men.
But more importantly, because of the Sharia laws requiring the testimony of four witnesses to prove rape, it is frequently impossible or dangerous for a woman to make a charge of rape.
There have been cases where, merely by making the charge and being unable to prove that what occurred was in fact rape, she has been prosecuted for adultery or fornication, she has admitted the sex act took place.
In other instances -- particularly in Pakistan -- a woman who has charged rape has been disowned by her family and divorced by her husband -- even been the victim of an 'honor killing.'
So we SHOULD be outraged, but let's not blunt the force of our outrage by seeking inappropriate targets. We should, in fact, protest the existence of such a system, of countries that support such a system, and any government we are subjects of that support regimes that accept and enforce such barbarity.
We should, in fact, protest the existence of such a system, of countries that support such a system, and any government we are subjects of that support regimes that accept and enforce such barbarity.
I agree but ain't nothing going to change unless we are prepared to pay $10/gallon for gas.
Actually, we get a small proportion of our oil from the Middle East, despite the myth. I believe much is domestic, and more comes from Venezuela, Canada, and the like. I could see a general raise in prices, but it might even be worth it.
Just to make my position clear here, at the end of the day I do take the view that many of these laws are not God-given. I have read enough on Old Testament scholarship to know the Old Testament was composed over a long period of time, was editted based on those times and interpreted differently during those times. What you find for example in Deut 22 could simply be ways to interpret how to deal with what God commanded on adultery and so on in a broader context. As for Numbers I havent read enough about that to be competent so I wont say much, but I know that most scholars recognize that these girls would become wives, not sex-slaves. (sex-slavery not very common in that period)
Prup said...but John, you too are doing the same thing.
Sometimes there is no other way to express one's disgust with something that they are outraged about. Being polite in the face of such barbarisms just doesn't cut it.
And Harry, you're correct: "the Prophet Muhammad seized upon the Arabic O.T. and its barbaric legal codes." His moral code came from the same background and probably from the same texts we have in the OT purportedly from the Christian loving God. What we're seeing in Muslim countries today is at least partially, if not fully, the result of the OT. It's just that Islam has not had an Enlightenment, so Muslims take the words at face value.
prup, your analysis of the oil situation is short-sighted. While we do not get as large a portion of our oil from the ME, the world market does. If the ME were to cut back on production as an economic weapon, oil from Canada, Venezuala, etc. would all become much more expensive due to the decreased global supply. It doesn't matter so much where the oil comes from, if it is cut off the prices will still increase the same.
Gordonblood, you fail in that you are holding God blameless for the context of OT Israel--is he omnipotent and omniscient or not?
Did He make the OT law or did He not? Could He have made the OT law as civilized as He wished, or could He not? The context that you say makes forced marriage of a rape victim a moral good was also caused by God, so he can be held equally liable regardless of context.
You want to claim that the barbaric OT laws were inserted by rabbis, fine...Thomas Jefferson claimed that all references to the divinity and miracles associated with Jesus were inserted by early Christians into the true narrative. What makes one part of the Bible violable and the others not? To dismiss a large and very important section of the Bible is self-defeating, as you ahve just admitted that you follow a book that has been thoroughly corrupted at its root by human design.
Finally, the engaged woman of Deuteronomy 22:22-24 was not spared; she was stoned, on the assumption that she should have cried out (and damn the consequences if she did), and that she must not have done so (nevermind the fact that she may have cried and no one heard her). This treatment is significantly worse than other ancient societies (say, the ancient Celts), and no better than other ME societies (say, the Code of Hammurabi). Where is the civilizing influence of God?
Shygetz for the point of brevity il only deal with the woman spared bit. Its very clear both from tradition and reading the scripture that it is referring essentially to adultery. I dont dismiss the Old Testament out of hand, I recognize however that massive amounts of editting occured amongst the rabbis. That is not the case with the New Testament however, we know that from very early on Christians were proclaiming the ressurection of Jesus. Obviously that is far to simple a response to a complicated issue but in the narrow sense that is how I look at those issues.
Ok, so this proves this statement...
"Humans?, the stupidest, and smartest,animals on the planet, all at the same time"
We make war, and figure out creative ways to hurt each other?
ahhhhh.... were so advanced.....
if god really loves all the humans that he created then why would he tell them rape was not actually that bad of a crime when they are going to burning in hell for it? doesn't sound like a very loving god to me...
Hey GUys...U are wrong about the Girl of Qatif,
Do u know that the rapists were given a tight sentence?? they will be in prison for the rest of their life...OK
And the sentence for the gilr is for this reason below....
The offense for which she was punished is known under Sharia law as Khilwa.
Khilwa is defined as a woman being alone in private with a man who is not a member of her immediate family.
The man, with whom she was with in the car before she was sexually assaulted, was also sentenced to the same number of lashes.
You know why this girl was sentenced?? you dont know? so please do not spread stories my dear .....
She was jsut alone with a guy and she was newly wedded girl....! according to sharia law its prohabited.
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