XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.books.cs-lewis   
   From: dthierbach@usenet.arcornews.de   
      
   Steve Hayes  wrote:   
   > On Thu, 12 Aug 2010 19:33:39 -0400, John W Kennedy    
   >>On 2010-08-12 05:44:36 -0400, Dirk Thierbach said:   
   >>> John W Kennedy  wrote:   
   >>>> On 2010-08-11 20:07:25 -0400, Steve Morrison said:   
   >>>>> John W Kennedy wrote:   
      
   >>>>>> "If... we really thought that there were people going about who had   
   >>>>>> sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him   
   >>>>>> in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbours or drive   
   >>>>>> them mad or bring bad weather -- surely we would all agree that if   
   >>>>>> anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did?"   
   >>>>>> -- C. S. Lewis   
      
   >>>>> I've always thought Lewis was missing the point in this passage. Even   
   >>>>> if such wrongdoers did exist, we'd still consider it wrong to e.g.   
   >>>>> convict any defendant on the basis of evidence obtained by torture,   
   >>>>> or to use torture in the first place. There's a reason why we use   
   >>>>> the phrase "witch hunt" to condemn unfair proceedings even when we   
   >>>>> actually believe in the existence of the object of the persecution,   
   >>>>> say, communists or child molesters.   
      
   >>>> But Lewis is not talking about either hunting or trying witches; he's   
   >>>> talking about whether witchcraft, assuming it existed, should be   
   >>>> regarded as a capital offence, no more.   
      
   Well, he said "using their powers to kill their neighbours", not   
   "having powers that possibly could kill their neighbours".   
      
   And I thought it obvious that just posessing supernatural powers is   
   of course no offence, and especially no capital offence.   
      
   It's *killing someone else* which is a capital offence.   
      
   And if you mix the two, then you should also mix any other means   
   to kill someone. So it should be a capital offence to posses a knife,   
   a gun, etc. And that's of course absurd.   
      
   It's the action itself which is the crime, not the potential to do it.   
      
   >>> But there's this tiny little technicality of actually deciding   
   >>> if someone has this kind of supernatural powers.   
      
   >> Which is not the issue at hand.   
      
   Which is exactly the issue at hand. Someone dies, there's this woman   
   I don't like, so I say "she's a witch, she killed him. Well, of course   
   I cannot prove that she killed him, she was using supernatural powers,   
   so she should die, too".   
      
   >>> Killing people certainly deserves a penalty. No matter what the means.   
   >>> However, if it's impossible to prove that someone actually committed   
   >>> murder, then the act of imposing a penalty nevertheless is open to abuse.   
   >>>   
   >>> And *that* is the main point (and the reason why "which hunt"   
   >>> is a synonym for "unfair prejucided proceedings"). Independent of   
   >>> whether torture is used or not.   
      
   > I think we need to observe the distinction between witch hunts and which   
   > hunts.   
      
   Sorry, I was typing quickly late at night, and my fingers took over.   
   But it looks like you were able to understand what I wanted to say.   
   Weren't you?   
      
   >>> So, yes, Lewis misses the point. Completely.   
      
   >> No he doesn't. You're moving the target.   
      
   Then let me rephrase: If Lewis is saying that just possessing supernatural   
   powers is a capital offence, he is plainly wrong. If he is saying that   
   killing people by supernatural powers is a capital offence, then he is   
   right, but not because of the supernatural powers, but because of the   
   killing. If he tries to use this argument to justify the killing of   
   witches, then he is confusing unrelated things for sake of an argument,   
   which is a logical fallacy.   
      
   > The historian Ronald Hutton, in his book "Pagan religions of the ancient   
   > British Isles", seems to be making a similar point to Lewis when he wrote:   
      
   > "The pagan Romans, like most ancient peoples and modern tribal   
   > societies, prescribed the death penalty for those who killed or who   
   > harmed property by witchcraft: in a system which believes in magic   
   > and has capital punishment for normal murder and arson, there is no   
   > other logical situation."   
      
   And not so long ago Hitler prescribed death penalty for Jews because he   
   believed them being a "inferior race" would justify this. Guilt by   
   accusation.   
      
   I sometimes wonder when humanity is going to grow up.   
      
   - Dirk   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)