Hi Toni,

Although I'm not a Christian, or perhaps because I'm not one, I don't know about the appalling crime statistics for practising Christians. Do you mean priests, etc. exercising their power over young children, or Christians generally, in everyday life ? Do you have any actual figures ?

I'm not sure what that might have to do with this thread, about the right to rape women on one's private land. Or on Allah's land, with respect to Muslims.

Despite any assertions to the contrary, I'm not joined at the hip with Jayb. What he says, he says and I listen. I don't speak for him, nor him for me.

As it happens, I don't support the expulsion of any group of Australians.

As a pantheist, your views may be closer to those of Runner than mine.

And I don't wear panties, except on Friday nights. Come to think of it, I'd better put some trousers on, in case somebody knocks on the door: thanks.

Cheers,

Joe

Yutsie: Muslims are not exempt: you can't eat the cake and have it too.

They, don't think so.

TL: Phantom Christians.

I took Joes Phantom Christians to mean Non-practising. I maybe wrong.

TL: I point out that sentiments like those expressed by Jayb are backwards, not to mention morally objectionable?

I take that as your personal opinion. Well I can't force you to accept my opinion & I wouldn't try, but you're wrong.

TL: may I remind you that you were responding to a post calling for the exile of an entire group of people from Australia because they don't believe in the right God? "

No, It's not got anything to do with a "Right God" It has to do with the "Right Dogma." Things like, Insisting on only Sharia Law, killing people if they won't convert, marrying babies, insisting it's OK to rape women who dare show their faces in public, then get rid of the evidence by killing the rape victim.

Would I exile this group from Australia. Yes I would.

I take it, you wouldn't, & I'm backward & wrong?

Dear Joe,

No natural owners, only natural robbers?

What, below or above the earth, gives a group of people, calling themselves "the state" any right to impose themselves on their neighbours who live peacefully on their[XXXXX]God's land?

Being an atheist, I'm pretty sure you won't claim that to be God's decree, but then there are those who worship guns, thus believing that the land was divinely granted to them by their own god.

YUyutsu,

"What, below or above the earth, gives a group of people, calling themselves "the state" any right to impose themselves on their neighbours who live peacefully on their[XXXXX]God's land?"

The will of the people. The vote. The people, choosing their candidates (and copping the candidates who they didn't vote for if they get more votes) and the summation of that vote, i.e. the parliament.

What gives you the right to think that you can have absolute control over land you may have purchased the rights to from somebody else who had also purchased the rights to use the land, and ultimately from somebody purchasing those rights from the state ?

Joe

Dear Joe,

Since I discard the third possibility, that you are an evil cruel and heartless brute, the two remaining options are that either you haven't read what I wrote or you haven't understood it and thought it through.

The world existed before there were states.
People lived on this earth before they formed states.
Animals still live on this earth without forming states.

Morality and decency, right and wrong existed long before states were formed, but for some strange reason you seem to believe that certain groups of people are exempt from morality and decency and that it's OK for them to do the wrong thing by others, only because they call themselves "states".

Do you believe in natural justice at all, or is justice a feature of the state?

Let's begin with the simple question (from http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/cat/Default2.aspx): "A small girl is playing on a swing in a local playground when an adult comes along and pushes her off into the dirt for no other reason than that he'd had a bad day at work and wanted to take it out on somebody who couldn't fight back. Are his actions morally wrong?"

If you say that it depends on "The will of the people", then what if those people democratically elected Hitler and the small girl happened to be Jewish?

Now suppose a family lived happily on their farm for 50 generations, suppose they keep to themselves and speak their own language which you do not understand. Then one day you come and present them with documents and summons in English (they don't understand what you want, so they wipe their noses with it), then further documents claiming they haven't been registered and paying their taxes, which they still do not understand, then you come with a bulldozer and destroy their homes, trees and gardens, throwing their elderly and babies in the paddock.

Would you be justified in doing so because you acted on behalf of a state and "the will of its people"?

Even if your group of people really fancied building a road through there?

(continued...)

(...continued)

At olden times there were prophets who were not afraid to admonish even kings for their cruelty (see 1 Kings 21:17-19). If they had democracies at the time, then surely they wouldn't hesitate to admonish the elected representatives in the same manner.

"The will of the people" would imply that some people have a right to impose their will over others, simply because they happen to be a majority of a selected group. You could say, "I declare that myself-Loudmouth, Yuyutsu and Ttbn are a kindred-packagement, therefore we must conduct elections among us so the majority will decide which god we must all worship". What nonsense - I never agreed to associate myself with this kindred-packagement, yet you strangely seem to believe that if your group is large enough, has military might and you call it a "state" rather than "kindred-packagement", then it is somehow OK to include non-consenting people in its membership. It reminds me that some Islamists are doing just that in Syria and Iraq.

All that play of democracy, candidates, votes, etc. is meaningful only within a given group. If you haven't agreed to belong to that group then it has nothing to do with you.

While natural ownership may not always be that obvious and easy to determine as in the case of the above 50-generation family, it still exists.

I agree that this formal internal-procedure of purchasing/registering land, as commonly practised within states by their members, cannot by itself determine natural ownership. The determination of whose land it really is, was indeed obscured and complicated through centuries of land-grabbing by states. Yet no land ever belonged to a state to begin with and unless some land-owner(s) actually and willingly (without a gun pointed at them) surrendered their land to a state (perhaps upon willingly becoming its member, not that I've heard of such cases), the land in question does not belong to that state. It might be difficult by now, after all this mess caused by forcing people to use the state's procedures, to determine whose it is, but it's certainly not the state's!