Religious Nuts Kill Own Daughter—Is Their Sentence Appropriate?

No, i started with no premise at all, i simply challenged Brown's premise that religion is an evolutionary product. It appears that you just jumped in to argue, without having followed the course of the argument which had lead to the point at which you arrived, and that seems often to be your modus operandi. He has failed to sustain the contention, so he loses.

What does or does not interest you is a matter of indifference to me.

Sounds like a premise to me. It's also the dreaded ipse-dixit.

But don't let me interrupt your name-calling and defensiveness.

Sure, Bubba, whatever you say. Have a nice day . . .

15 pages after topic was started I probably , definately have another opinion about the original posters topic.

Having not seen the defendants demeanor in court or behind closed court doors, I do not know if the defendants were tryly regretfull of their actions or had no guiltty feeling at all about their actions resulting in their 11 yo daughter's death.

Their intent ...I am assuming....was probably not malice or aforethought murder. Mercy has a place in the courts but I have seen it very rarely...just in a few cases.

Then why do we appoint judges and put people on trial and mete out sentences?

I thought that was all about distinguishing between what is essentially considered to be right and wrong and to encourage right and discourage wrong.



Well then, you can't say that the parents in this case have found an irrelevant truth - or that it's wrong. And if they're not wrong - why are they being punished?

I myself, am not in agreement that one's truth is only relevant to that person and they are permitted to act accordingly.
But I also don't have any problem admitting that whether one believes in a religion - any religion at all - or not - our society and culture and thus our view of justice has been indelibly influenced by what most people would consider to be a 'religious' or Christian or 'deluded superstitious' (if it makes you feel better to call it that) ethos.

You can't have it both ways.

Once again, I'm returned to my pet theory.... that we only respect the beliefs of others that are compatible with or at least do not directly conflict with our own.

That seems to be true for most people - yes.
I guess that's why only a very few and hopefully very carefully chosen people are paid to sit in judgment of others.
And I say carefully chosen because hopefully these people have shown that they're able to suspend their own beliefs and biases in an effort to make the law and justice impartial and universal instead of personally palatable.
The rest of us- who as you said - are usually only able to see our own narrow view- are told to mind our own business-especially when we don't have all the facts.

Well, juries are supposed to represent the common person.

From the data that comes out of reports of jury deliberations, suspension of one's own beliefs is not a common feature of these.

That's probably why they're not paid to do it for a living (as a judge is) and their services are only accessed in groups (of twelve in the US and UK- fifteen in Scotland, and I don't know what it is in Australia) which takes into account that no single person is totally without bias.
Majority decisions (at least 10 jurors in agreement) are sometimes acceptable in the UK, while unanimous verdicts are the rule in the US.


David - if you're reading this- how does one come to be heard by a judge instead of a jury? Is this a choice the defendant makes?
This article only speaks of the sentencing, so I'm assuming there was a jury, but I know that sometimes a case can be heard and decided by a judge without a jury and I was wondering how that comes about.

Religion Is NOT true Christianity. But, you have to understand why religion fails. Religion fails because it is NOT true to itself. It is like a house devided against itself. It falls. It is a sect of people who have chosen to fall away or seperate from the one idea that was formed out of an original.

This story is a good example of a religion (sect) of people who are to willing to believe in one leader and what that leader teaches.