The Atheist - Agnostic - Non religious thread

Dean: It's almost as if you expect me to carefully consider every word I write.

Meanwhile, Egypt's Islamic Brotherhood government is currently pondering the merits of a law that makes it legal for a man to have sex with his dead wife's corpse as long as it is within six hours of her death. This law will apparently pass and is drawn from a fatwa from a Moroccan cleric named Zamzami Abdeldari who believes the koran endorses necrophilia. If only I were making it up...

Textbook wrote: Meanwhile, Egypt's Islamic Brotherhood government is currently pondering the merits of a law that makes it legal for a man to have sex with his dead wife's corpse as long as it is within six hours of her death. This law will apparently pass and is drawn from a fatwa from a Moroccan cleric named Zamzami Abdeldari who believes the koran endorses necrophilia. If only I were making it up...     (To he credit, Zamzami also said necrophilia is a disgusting act and shouldn't be performed- he was not recommending it, merely saying that it is approved by the koran and is therefore halal and should be legal.)   The Islamic Brotherhood is also about to lower the age of consent to marriage for a woman to 14.   They are also considering repealing the law that allows women to ask for divorce for reasons of abuse, and a proposal that would make female circumcision compulsory.   Gosh aren't these free, democratic, theistic governments a wonderful thing. I hope America gets one soon.

The one about a man being able to have sex with his dead wife's corpse and lowering the age of consent.

The former because I don't really see why not.

In regards to lowering the age of consent, I don't think there should be one at all. The idea of an arbitrary age based cutoff determining when a person can make a decision is absurd. If we're going to have one, I think something less than 18 makes sense.

Why is it best to throw it as far up as possible? The logical conclusion to that is absurd.

I think it's meaningless to speak of a 14 yr old and 18yr old emotionally and intelligently. It depends so much on the individual. On average, of course the 14 yr old posses less of the mental faculties to make wise decisions. However, that's not the question at hand. I think a 14yr old can make relatively important decisions on average at that age.

I don't know. It's supposed to apparently according to some people.

RoyFairbank wrote: So much for protecting children if Libertarians are in charge. 30 year old men will drop everything and start negotiating relationships based on little pony lunchboxes and candy.

I think the point being made was that the biological arithmetic of say '30' or '14' does not by itself constitute adult/childhood or form any reliable proof of an individual's ability to make mature decisions. Protecting those that are demonstrably vulnerable might be a better aim.


Edited by ExittheLemming - April 29 2012 at 11:08

ExittheLemming wrote: RoyFairbank wrote: So much for protecting children if Libertarians are in charge. 30 year old men will drop everything and start negotiating relationships based on little pony lunchboxes and candy. I think the point being made was that the biological arithmetic of say '30' or '14' does not by itself constitute adult/childhood or form any reliable proof of an individual's ability to make mature decisions. Protecting those that are demonstrably vulnerable might be a better aim.

So the vast majority of 14 year woulds would benefit from relationships with 30 year old men?

Yeah, Lets keep the law clear on the subject in case we alienate a possible segment of the 14 year old population with transplanted 40 year old brains and bizarre instantaneous biological development.

I think this trying to batter down common sense and well established utilitarianism with petty, imaginary and spurious individualistic exceptions is disgusting and incredibly pedantic.

I may be on the internet and you guys may be on the internet and that may lessen the reality and seriousness of this issue in the immediate sense, but in the real world people really do try to attack social equality and fairness on the basis of crude and imaginary individualism. They start from the same petty grounds that seem so funny here. When you put their attacks together you get a truly chilling vision of the world where society has been stripped of its humanity and been completely atomized and split into an endless cycle of predation. Its an underlying and perennially up-and-coming ideology today that we have to deal with in our real lives, in politics and in our economic relationships. It is beyond dangerous, and it is nauseating. The worst part is hardly anyone is aware of it, so deeply imbedded in our culture it has become... the thread on Seacrest touches on that a little.

Roy, I want you to make the case for the law to me. Assume we have no law for any such thing, and explain to me both why there should be a law and why the law should establish the age of 18 as opposed to other ages. Try to avoid sensationalism. I'll actually invest myself in this discussion if you do that.

If we just dissolved the institution of marriage it would solve this whole problem.