This position makes no sense to me.

I wanted to leave your quote in one piece before breaking it down into smaller pieces.

I have not seen an argument that relates what the chaplain DID with "religious justification" for "ethics." I don't even know what you're attempting to say in this sentence.

For example, nobody has disputed that a naturalistic philosophy is consistent with "S*** happens." So if you had a secular counselor tell the woman that "S*** happens" is this "merely the natural implication of naturalistic justification for ethics"?

Part of my difficulty with that sentence is that I don't see the link between "God's will" and "justification for ethics." In what sense is his *behavior* "ethically justified" by "religion"?

The debate here is actually uninteresting. It's not particularly controversial once the terms of the discussion are understood. This is related to my comment about "God's will" not being systematically defined for most people.

Again, I see a string of words that I'm not even sure how to parse. I can't even tell what you're meaning to convey.

You're making an argument from a position of ignorance here. The conclusion does not follow from the premises, unless you mean "God's will" to be something other than what is conventionally understood to be "God's will" in a Christian theological context. (This sounds very much like la6ki in this thread.)

This is speculating then attributing when you don't know what caused him to make the comment really and you don't have religious beliefs so you really don't know which belief prompted it or if it was faulty human reasoning.

Just to be clear, I don't think this is a problem with EVERY sort of "religious" belief. In that narrow sense, Aaron is right that this sort of thing can't be used to trash all religion.

Specifically, religious beliefs such as deism-- and perhaps Buddhism-- that do not posit a personal God who intervenes in the world are not subject to this criticism, whatever else you want to say about them.

At the heart of this problem is the insistence of some egotistical humans that whoever created the vastness of the universe MUST care about ME ME ME, because WAH WAH WAH I'M SO IMPORTANT. Let go of THAT belief and we solve this problem-- and people can still believe, if they wish, that some supernatural being created the wonderous universe we live in.

There is no God in Buddhism and when people trash religions, everyone already assumes deism is not included.

Ofcourse I can understand religious beliefs even if I don't hold them. What prompted his statement..understanding or misunderstanding of religion...is uninteresting, it is obviously claimed to be a religious belief by implication - that's all we need.

It is not my conclusion (it is that of some future rapists) and it is not my premise (it is that of the chaplain). Sexual offenders - like everyone else - are extremely fond of justifying their actions. The words of this chaplain must be a great relief to them.

There is certainly no "my argument". I believe in neither god's will, nor that people who don't go to church is being raped as a result of it. This should be painfully obvious.

In other words, this is a total non-sequitur.

So what are you putting forth? Random statements about nothing?

*YOU* find him to be just as bad, and in some aspects worse BECAUSE ...

How are you taking the position that there is no "your argument"?

No problem, I know your reading comprehension is distributed rather conveniently.

I took it for granted we were talking about the part you bolded.

Since you obviously just bolded that part, in order to show me what was wrong with the part you didn't bold, forgive me my horrible misunderstanding of what you were trying to convey.

Next time you bold something, I shall be sure to assume it is the part you are not talking about.

So to be absolutely clear:

You have concluded that the chaplain is just as bad (if not worse) than the rapist because he can stop rape by not using "God's will" in that context. The reason is that if he did not use "God's will" in relation to the context of rape, rapists would not be able to rape because they would not be empowered by God to do so.

Edit: Rape is an ugly thing, but assigning blame randomly like this doesn't help anything, either.

If we assumed this to be true, it would be imply you understood what I wrote...which you claimed not to. Maybe you should try a rhetoric which doesn't suggest paradoxes.

I feel it is a bit unfair that I can be interpreted arbitrarily, while you get to violate the basic principles of nature.

Here's the thing... this does not distinguish "religion" in any way from other philosophies. For example "S*** happens, therefore I can rape women" is just as logical as "It's God's will, therefore I can rape women."

You're not actually accomplishing anything except to point out that logic and reason do not accurately apply in the minds of rapists. What does this have to do with religion? (This is why I don't understand what point you're trying to make. If this is the point you're trying to make, it's trivial and it applies to basically any philosophy that purports to say anything at all about ethics.)

You drew a conclusion he was a bigot.

From one statement you jumped to a conclusion.

Bigot? I have said no such thing.

And no, I didn't jump to a conclusion from one statement. I am well-read on the subjects of rape and its cultural influences. The three biggest obstacles when it comes to rape and investigation of rape are tendencies towards 1. blaming the victim 2. trivializing the crime 3. shaming the victim.

Someone comes to you and report rape, especially if you are in a counselling position: then help them through the tough and mentally exhausting process of reporting it and getting the offender punished...don't try and offer naive explanations as to what the victim could have done differently or should do differently in the future.

Also the whole concept of this thread seems to be "X is more to blame", which is silly. If we take the entire story at face value it is obvious many are to blame, that still doesn't remove from the fact this chaplain is in a position that gives considerable ethical and cultural influence towards the people around him.

So to discuss his actions in isolation are completely legitimate.

Am I allowed to giggle here at "swallowing the camel"?

Please forgive the low-content post.

You have not provided much of an argument that the philosophical notion of "God's will" is a driving force behind rape. It's also clear that the systemic matter of how sexual assault is handled by the military played a significantly larger role in *THIS* rape.

I'm not sure I would choose the words "more to blame" and instead use "significantly larger impact" but the sentiment that you are expressing seems a bit tenuous. If you want to make the argument that the concept of "God's will" is a significant factor (NB: in the mind of the rapist, that concept is a significantly different one compared to that of an educated Christian), support the argument with something other than your claim.

Ah, so now suddenly we must look at a given cutout of this situation and consider nothing else. I like how the rules in this thread has changed pretty much with every post you have written in it.

Frankly, rape is a bit too serious a subject for me to bother debating in this manner. I think RGT has made you a bit lazy; You aren't even debating the fine print in this thread, you are merely making the fine print up as you go along.

As a closing comment I'll just say that the chaplain needs to understand the implications of his religious authority, he obviously didn't and we can only hope he hasn't caused many rapes to go unreported in the past.

Truthfully, I still don't know what you're saying in the original statement or what you mean here. I'm still fishing around for clarity. I'm in a very conjectural mode, and I'm trying to get you to explain your position more carefully so that I can understand what it is you're saying.

It reminds me of conversations in which people have a lot of emotional baggage, when their words carry significantly more weight to them personally than what is actually conveyed in the words themselves. It seems apparent that you have a lot invested in this, but what exactly it is that you're intending to communicate is less clear.

For example, I still don't know when you're talking about "rapist logic" or "chaplain's logic" or something that resembles "actual theology." I'm still not entirely sure what your point is.

I'm not even sure what I'm debating yet. If my inability to address your presentation due to lack of understanding is laziness, then I guess I'm being quite lethargic about it.

I fail to understand:

1) How you have concluded that the chaplain did not report the rape or caused the rape to go unreported (edit: in this case, it obviously went reported -- whether this is the first report or not is an open question). As it was shown throughout the PDF, the reporting of rape via the appropriate channels did not necessarily cause anything to happen. Is this the chaplain's fault?
2) What you mean by "the implications of his religious authority" and how you can tell he "obviously didn't understand it."
3) The connection between your closing comment, "rapist logic", and the concept of "God's will."