The Role of Religion In Causing Rape

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Permalink Reply by Dave Rogers on December 10, 2009 at 11:20am

Beyond the guilt trip caused by religion, I think the historic role it plays in reinforcing woman's subservience to man only adds to the problem. You're right about religion's "pernicious web".

I might dig around to see if I can find any data on atheist rapists vs. religious rapists or rape statistics in more secular countries vs. religious countries. My guess is after reading the overall crime statistics of atheists vs. theists, that your premise is correct. Although "cease" might be an unobtainable goal. There will always be some jerks who won't take "no" for an answer.

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Permalink Reply by Richard Goscicki on December 10, 2009 at 8:58pm

I'll tell you the truth, Verne and Davis, I've always had the presentiment that humans will someday attain some transhumanist, metaphysical existence. It's the quintessence of humanism. I’m a former bio teacher and I have strong belief in the power of the Prime Directive.

The thought is: Once humans stop reproducing like bacteria on a Petri dish, we’ll stop being animals.

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Permalink Reply by Richard Goscicki on December 12, 2009 at 12:16pm

Glen, thanks for you interesting comment.

It comes down to powerlessness and the inability for such an individual to find a way to process and come to terms with their lack of power over their lives

Most of the members agree with the above; I certainly do. That brings up the question though: If the above is true, then legal prostitution should NOT diminish rape because rape is personal problem and not sexual. I think it would diminish rape to some degree. Sometimes the problem is sexual, sometimes the problem is personal.
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Once humans stop reproducing like bacteria on a Petri dish, we’ll stop being animals

About reproducing in the Petri dish, I think this is a valid analogy. Even if there are competing colonies in one closed biosphere, the species that reproduces the fastest eventually wins the territory. If it keeps reproducing at a reckless geometric progression, the fittest species will consume all the agar the population crashes.

Humans are reproducing geometrically, no doubt about it. Human population was 1.5 billion a century ago in 1909, now 6.8—more than a quadrupling in a hundred years. At the current rate population will hit close to 30 billion in 2100 AD.

My theses is: if humans can break out of realm of the PD, we’ll be the first species to do so, and it’ll be a metaphysical breaking of the laws of biology. At the moment humans are no more than peculiar apes infested by meme complexes.

Here’s a good one I just thought of. If the Duggars’ 19 kids and grandkids emulate their parents and have nearly the same number of offspring, BillyBob (or whatever his name is) and his woman will have around 6000 great grandchildren.

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Permalink Reply by Richard Goscicki on December 13, 2009 at 9:52am

They are the same. Arithmetic --- geometric

linear --- exponential.

The powers that be don't even talk about the problem. Some even think that if population growth stops then we'll all be in trouble because business needs growth to survive.

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Permalink Reply by Rusty Gunn. on December 12, 2009 at 12:01pm

Yes, let's always keep in mind that crime is committed by a criminal, and that person is responsible for his behavior, not "society". There are a thousand and one justifications thrown up to make criminal behavior appear less pernicious, by attempting to downplay the responsibility of the criminal, and they are all BS.

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Permalink Reply by Richard Goscicki on December 13, 2009 at 10:49am

Good post. A lot of the abuses you mentioned have bothered me a long time. What the heck difference does it make what a lady is wearing vis a vis rape. I'd like to see some criminal used that argument at my nudist camp.

The Biblical thought infiltrates every aspect of our lives sometimes without our even knowing it. Why should I have to take off Sunday? Fuck, that's the Lord's day, I want to work Sundays because of it. Society is forcing me to honor their religion.

Mankind is naturally serially monogamous, so what with these adultery laws? In an illicit affaire de coeur, who gets hurt? Adultery adds a pinch of spice to life and I feel, like the French, that it's nobody's business but the people involved, and last of all nosy clerics.

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Permalink Reply by Richard Goscicki on December 13, 2009 at 10:50am

I disagree, Rusty. If a poor man steals some bread to feed his family, does the responsibility lie with the individual or society?

Look at prison population figures, over two million in this country, while the rich possess such large percentage of the money.

Jacqueline wrote a book on this, Classism for Dimwits. The main thesis is that many don't have an equal chance to succeed; some have no chance at all.

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Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on December 10, 2009 at 12:30pm

[He shakes his head and whistles tunelessly.] Phenomenal ... just plain phenomenal. I always had a sense that there was something at the core not just of the Genesis "Garden of Eden" story but of how fundamentalists ran with it, but I could never quite codify it.

Game, set, match, and tournament, Jacqui ... beautifully done.

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Permalink Reply by The Nerd on December 10, 2009 at 2:11pm

You hit the nail on the head. The Bible starts off with two evil premises within the first few pages:

1. Man is the "default human", and females are the "other", formed from man.

WRONG. All people start out physiologically female within the womb, and then males' sex differences emerge due to hormonal changes caused by the XY chromosome pair. This lie that women come out of man certainly did nothing to challenge the "females as male property" concept that the Bible so heartily endorses.

2. Woman committed the first sin, then seduced the man into joining in before he could control himself.

WRONG, for the simple fact that "original sin" is bullshit. This is the reason (as Jacqueline said above) that women are seen as dirtier than men by these Abraham religions. It's also the reason that, until the Victorian Era flipped sexual these conventions upside down, that women were thought to be the "lustier" sex throughout Western history. Because of this lie, men have felt justified to try to control female sexual expression, lest we destroy society with it.

So, combining the "women as property" and "women as seducers" lies, what do you get? A sense of male entitlement to dominate female sexuality in any way they can get away with - wile being fully endorsed by the patriarchal religion.

To answer Richard's original discussion question, I don't think Abrahamic religion directly causes rape, but it certainly provides a culture that insulates rapists from being held responsible for their actions, which is nearly the same thing.

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Permalink Reply by Howard S. Dunn on December 10, 2009 at 2:29pm

What came first - the woman or the egg...

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Permalink Reply by Howard S. Dunn on December 10, 2009 at 2:31pm

In other news - the man usaully does cum first! (also, a matter of some biological truth - but no pertinence, whatsoever, to this discussion.)

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Permalink Reply by Richard Goscicki on December 10, 2009 at 9:46pm

Nerd, I didn't mean that religion directly causes rape, I meant suppression and subversion of natural healthy physiological needs is a crime against humanity. St. Augustine did a lot of harm to our species. Carl Sagan blames him for bringing on the Dark Ages. He’s the one that coined the term “original sin,” and wrote that human curiosity is a tool of the devil and must be censured.

Good point about: All people start out physiologically female within the womb, and then males' sex differences emerge due to hormonal changes caused by the XY chromosome pair.

Absolutely true, in fact, if an XX embryo is injected with testosterone the clitoris grows into a penis and vaginal lips a scrotum (both are non-striated muscular fibers).

The founding fathers of religion saw only what was before their eyes and had little inkling of how close the sexes are biologically. Two skeletons are indistinguishable except for the pelvis.

In Mirror Reversal, I write “we’re all passengers on the good ship Earth travelling through space at 70,000 miles per hour with its precious cargo of life.”

I wish political and religious leaders had some idea of all the incredible improbabilities that had to happen for humans to become what we are. Humans wouldn’t be raping and dropping bombs on one another, methinks.

So I disagree with the comments that rape will always be a part of humanity. We’re in what Stephan Jay Gould calls an evolutionary plateau, (it’s only 10,000 years since the Agricultural Revolution and only 2,500,000 years since H. erectus marched out of Africa

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