How pretentious would one be, if one were to suggest that man is morally superior to the God of Abraham; for words, do in fact, have consequences, and moral probity and turpitude are viscerally distinguishable. As an apologist Atheist, a frequent asked question of me is, from whence do I derive my moral guidance, if obviously, the bible is not available as a reference: I am quick to correct and reassure the religiously dogmatic oriented inquisitor that I frequent the passages of scripture; but, my interpretations of the sacred text are done through the enlightened eyes of reason not blind faith. So, when one reads the God inspired text, or the word of God, pending one's doctrinal inclinations, what is one to glean from prose that condone torture through venues of eternal damnation in a conflagrant residence; stoning for being human, 'to error is to be human'; the Noah drowning, water-boarding extreme; and, crucifying your only son, what the hell---oh yea, that has already been addressed....for the ecclesiastical predispose, we have some moral direction from the inerrant bible word from you know who, who seems to be sending mix messages on empathy and compassion: torture is OK?
...with sulphur where the Creature and False Prophet are, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever Revelation 20: 10
Stoning for: Adultery, Deut 22: 23-24; women who are not a virgin on her wedding night, Deut 22:13-21; disobeying parents, Deut 21: 18-21; breaking the Sabbath, Numbers 15:32-56
The Flood, Noah's Ark, millions of innocent children "water-board" to death, Genesis 7-9
Crucifixion of Jesus, God the Father had his only son crucified John 3: 16
Then, there was the sowing of the seed of moral probity three hundred years before the year of our Lord, Jesus, the son of God, who according to the Council of Nicaea where the Emperor Constantine presided over the consensus to agree that they are one in the same, where a Greek physician, Hippocrates, inculcated: "above all do no harm".
From whom should we solicit rectitude, a mere mortal or a supernatural double speak Deity: Not a difficult question and I suggest to keep it real and go with your gut. Is torture wrong regardless of caveats of ticking time bombs scenarios? Yes, let me make myself abundantly clear: Torture is unequivocally morally repobatory; and, under no circumstances should it be given a nod of approbation. Interesting to me is, the conscious conflicted Christians, well, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt about being conflicted, church going white evangelicals, (62%) indicated in a new poll of a Pew Research that torture often is justifiable: After reading the above selected scriptures inspired by the God of Leviticus, who would of thought...My second audacious question is, what in the world are the Christians alleging when they profess that we are obliged to the holy scriptures for our moral and ethical standards? Were they skim-reading? Are they reading the same text that I am? Granted, some of the parables of Jesus, not all, as Thomas Jefferson's edited King James version implied, are unequivocally imbued in rectitude; however, the first covenant, the Old Testament, is, what it is: the tyrannical edicts of a pissed-off, vindictive, vengeful, hoary apparition, who capriciously smites. Apparently, as Nietzsche exclaimed, there has been only one Christian and he died on the cross....
What catalyzed the conscious raising of empathy to challenge torture as a culturally accepted punitive measure against laws scoffers? One putative claim was offered in Lynn Hunt's (a Eugen Weber Professor of Modern European History at UCLA) book, Inventing Human Rights, where in the Chapter 2 "Bone Of Their Bone" Abolishing Torture she suggest the case of The Calas Affair, where purportedly the son of Sr Calas committed suicide by self inflicted hanging, and the family concerned and frightened of France's sectarian laden laws fabricated a murder to preclude the legal system from implementing its current laws against suicide of their son: " A person guilty of suicide could not be buried in consecrated ground, and if buried, exhumed , dragged through town, then hung by the feet and thrown in the garbage dump"....the crazy bastards even tortured the dead! The investigation of the alleged murder implicated the father as the suspect and later convicted. The non sequitur judicial system of the 1700s were obliged to employ the 'preliminary questioning' to evoke a contrition of possible accomplices by water boarding (yes it existed then) and breaking of all the long bones: humerus, femur, tibia and fibula on the "wheel". In spite of this brutal 'preliminary questioning, Calas insisted on his innocence; he did not murder his son. Calas' unyielding conviction of his innocence, regardless to the bone crushing, water dosing drowning torture engendered the public empathy and cacophonous outcry to banish the extraction of confessions of guilt before sentencing and contrition of accomplices. History suggest that the head turning, winch evoking, sound of bones being crushed by torture was of a decibel intensity that it's waves momentum transcended the political-legal medium of all of Europe, where philosophers and barrister weighed in with their renunciation of this lurid, horrific assault to human rights. Why this particular case and time in history when chroniclers of human events have assiduously scripted man's long gauntlet of ghoulish, baleful behavior of brutality toward his fellow species; one can only speculate and scratch the cranium casing encapsulating the organ that distinguishes us from other species, and currently, inexplicably bleeds the 'mind', which afford us with the capacity to discern morality and ethics.
Once Enlightenment writers, Voltaire and Rousseau; and legal reformers, Beccaria, began to question torture and cruel punishment, an almost complete turnabout in attitude took place over a couple of decades by abolishing its practice: 1754 in Prussia, 1772 Sweden, Austria and Bohemia 1776. In 1780 France, eliminated the use of torture to extract confessions of guilt before sentencing and in 1788, it abolished the use of torture just prior to execution to produce the names of accomplices. Inventing Human Rights A History, Lynn Hunt
"We should not forget that even criminals [including terrorist] possess souls and bodies composed of the same materials as those of our friends and relations. They are bone of their bone. " Benjamin Rush 1787
Rushing history to the twentieth century, we, the United States of America were of the collective that signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, which clearly stipulates in Article 5. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. We are a country of integrity and laws, and compliance is not dictated by convenience. Waterboarding was/is illegal:
Following World War II American prosecutors convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding Allied prisoners of war. The soldiers were tried as part of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, also known as the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. During the Vietnam War, a U.S. soldier who participated in the waterboarding of a North Vietnamese prisoner of war was court-martialed in 1968. As recently as 1983, a Texas sheriff was sentenced to ten years in prison for waterboarding suspects in an attempt to coerce confessions.
In 1994 the United States ratified the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT). When this international treaty was ratified, its provisions became U.S. law. The convention defined torture as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person.”
Also in 1946 the U.S. Congress adopted the Torture Statute, which provides criminal liability for a U.S. national who tortures a person outside of the United States. A foreign national apprehended in the United States for torturing someone outside of the United States could also face criminal liability under the Torture Statute.
The U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996 provides life imprisonment or the death penalty for a U.S. national or any member of the U.S. armed forces who is convicted of torturing someone to death. Anyone charged with a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, which forbids torture, could also be tried in the United States under the War Crimes Act
So you see, the written law is clear; yet, the Bushies fomented an interpretation of the above law of such an exaggerated, torturous (pun intended) spin it can only be explained in medical terminology of pathology of delusion, and arguably, drug induced, and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law as indicated by the above historical recounting of these egregious violations of human rights.
THE DRUMS OF WAR
JACKSON BROWNE
Who gives the orders, orders to torture
Who gets to no bid contract the future
Who lies, then bombs, then calls it an error
Who makes a fortune from fighting terror
Who is the enemy trying to crush us
Who is the enemy of truth and justice
Who is the enemy of peace and freedom? ....
Beseeching moral guidance from an external agent: corporal or spiritual, is unnecessary because the answer is within you--- if it feels wrong, guess what, it is ... which segues me to another gut wrong of mixing religion and science: President Obama has nominated Francis Collins as the next director of the National Institutes of Health.........something about the fox watching the chicken coop comes to mind...
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