Hate crimes do not occur in a vacuum
Nick Little has a blistering post on hell and the slaughter in Orlando. Like me, he takes the idea of hell seriously as an evil harmful concept.
…like many people, what moved me away from religion (including a brief sojourn in Universalism) was the concept of hell as understood by the general believer, not by the academic or apologist. Hell was, I was taught, an unspeakably bad place. A place of torture, torment, and pain that would last for all eternity. And so I became unable to hold the existence of such a place, where people were actually sent, as consistent with the idea of a loving God.
Exactly. It’s not.
But it’s a mainstream belief – which is another compelling reason for taking it seriously. The belief has consequences.
The preachers who shouted from the pulpit that these 49 people, whose sole crime was going out to a club to have a good time, were deviants, were sodomites, were perverts, and would be tortured for all eternity by a loving God for no reason other than who they chose as sexual partners, cannot now cry crocodile tears and pretend to mourn their violent deaths. While the ministers and imams who rail weekly against homosexuality did not pull the trigger on the AR-15 – that was done willingly by Omar Mateen, whose individual responsibility shall not be understated – they loaded the magazines he used.
Preaching a deserved eternity of torture against a group of people dehumanizes that group. If God, or Allah, the perfect, unflawed, ever-loving Father, himself is willing to torture a group for all time, how worthless must that group be? How valueless is their life, their happiness? When firebrand religious ministers and radicalized Imams spout attacks on abortion providers as baby murders, accuse homosexuals of targeting children for abuse, or blame Jews for killing Jesus or murdering Islamic children, they lay the foundations for the next murder like that of Dr. Tiller, the next Pulse Nightclub Massacre, or the next Kristallnacht.
When you dehumanize a group by damning them to never ending pain and torture, you legitimize attacks on them.
And that includes attacks on their rights and civil liberties.
It isn’t enough to condemn the murders in Orlando (though some religious groups are, sickeningly enough, refusing to do even that and are celebrating it). As long as homosexuality is seen as a sin worthy of eternal torture, the LGBT community will be seen as less than human by religious extremists across the spectrum. It is the job of faith (and non-faith) leaders to consider the true impact of their rhetoric, to stop dehumanizing others. Hate crimes such as this do not occur in a vacuum. So forgive me for doubting the sincerity of your prayers and condolences when next Friday, or next Sunday, you will go back to decrying the sodomites and seeking to deny LGBT people basic civil rights.
Saudi Arabia had the gall to claim it condemns the Orlando slaughter:
Saudi Ambassador to the United StatesAbdullah Al-Saud issued the following statement on Sunday:
“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia condemns in the strongest terms the attack on innocent people in Orlando, Florida, and sends its deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims and to the people of the United States. We stand with the American people at this tragic time. We pray for the recovery and the healing of all those injured in the attack, and we will continue our work withthe United States and our partners in the international community for an end to these senseless acts of violence and terror.”
That is a tasteless joke.
The problem is, they don’t really see these people as innocent. They are guilty of what is believed by many religionists to be one of the most heinous crimes around. So forgive me if I can’t accept the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s “strong condemnation”.
So what exactly wrong with dehumanizing the kind of assholes that do this?
@ ^
Is that a serious question?
(The answer is that it’s special pleading.)
Yes, actually. Despite terrible people being exemplary of human behaviour (because humans are in fact simultaneously amazing and terrible) there’s zero reason not to use whatever means necessary to hurt them in retaliation for their terrible behaviour. If dehumanization works, it works…
@Sanguine Knight
Like Silentbob, I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at. They *are* human. Recognizing that they are human helps us to understand them. Understanding them helps us understand their asshole behavior. We can use this understanding to try to stop such asshole behavior. Is that what you were asking about? Or have I put a lot more energy into thinking about your question than you did?
@Gordon:
Suffice it to say that the nym is meaningful.
Saudi Arabia is being tricky with the word “innocent”. They mean “innocent” in the sense that the Orlando victims were not found legally guilty for anything. It’s perfectly OK (from the Saudi point of view) for the state to kill people who have been found guilty of homosexual acts in the manner they believe is prescribed by god.
These atrocities are always used as opportunities to proselytize.
Islam means peace.
We’re about to see a wave of open mosque events inviting the unbelievers to come and discover Islam. They stand on the backs of these corpses and shill for converts.
Carrot-stick, carrot-stick, carrot-stick.
Saudi Arabia always decries attacks on innocents; they just never define what “innocent” means.
Emily at #7 is exactly correct. The key word “innocent” means they do not condemn the attack on the guilty but only those who are innocent. The religious right uses this particular dog whistle a lot. So much, in fact, that it sounds more like a smoke alarm going off.
Claiming that these men are not real men because they commit atrocities is a dismissal of reality. Dehumanization or othering people is a way to absolve oneself of responsibility for participating in a society. I am sure that some here with a great deal more education than I can explain this in better terms than I.
We are human, whether we like it or not. so are they. To deny the humanity of others is to call your own into question.
Bertrand Russell talks about belief in Hell as being a serious defect in Christ’s teachings. When I first read Russell (aged thirteen and three-quarters) I didn’t really find this as convincing as his other points, but – ‘pon a few decades’ reflection – he’s spot on. (He usually is, old Bertie.) (Not sure how to embed link: http://www.users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html).
Gordon, check this site out for HTML advice. When I have the time/inclination to embed I have to look this up. Every. Single. Time. Pathetic.
So, your link becomes this
Saudi Arabia should put its money where its mouth is. If they claim that executing gay people is heinous, then they should stop executing gay people. Full stop. Stop criminalizing gay people, stop ostracizing gay people, stop saying that gay people are wrong, sinful, abominable, etc. Just stop.
I’ve seen exactly one well-known Christian sect that actively teaches a different interpretation of Hell–the Jehovah’s Witnesses basically say that if you’re not a JW, then the atheists are right. After you die, you just cease to be, no eternal torture.
Which had me almost inclined to be a bit more kindly disposed towards them, until I learned that they also practice shunning of apostates, which is often an attempt to enact a lesser hell on Earth for those who choose not to stay with the faith (since they will often be cut off from their friends, family and support-network, possibly including their own children–as an atheist, that’s literally one of the worst things I can imagine as a ‘divine’ punishment).