Hemant Mehta asks a simple question: Why is Religion an Excuse for Criminal Behavior?
The answer, of course, is that it’s not. Except when it is.
The question arises in the context of this story, which is getting a lot of publicity. It’s a too-familiar tale of a religious cult in Baltimore:
But inside, prosecutors say, horrors were unfolding: Answering to a leader called Queen Antoinette, they denied a 16-month-old boy food and water because he did not say “Amen” at mealtimes. After he died, they prayed over his body for days, expecting a resurrection, then packed it into a suitcase with mothballs. They left it in a shed in Philadelphia, where it remained for a year before detectives found it last spring.
Tomorrow, five of the group’s alleged members — including the boy’s mother, Ria Ramkissoon — are scheduled to be tried in Baltimore on murder charges. Sources and Ramkissoon’s mother said Ramkissoon, 22, has agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge on one condition: The charges against her must be dropped if her son, Javon Thompson, is resurrected.
The controversy arises in the murky mix of figuring out Ramkissoon’s state of mind.
Psychiatrists who evaluated Ramkissoon at the request of a judge concluded that she was not criminally insane. Her attorney, Steven Silverman, said the doctors found that her beliefs were indistinguishable from religious beliefs, in part because they were shared by those around her.
“She wasn’t delusional, because she was following a religion,” Silverman said, describing the findings of the doctors’ psychiatric evaluation.
[…] Silverman said he and prosecutors think Ramkissoon was brainwashed and should have been found not criminally responsible; prosecutors declined to comment. Although an inability to think critically can be a sign of brainwashing, experts said, the line between that and some religious beliefs can be difficult to discern.
“At times there can be an overlap between extreme religious conviction and delusion,” said Robert Jay Lifton, a cult expert and psychiatrist who lectures at Harvard Medical School. “It’s a difficult area for psychiatry and the legal system.”
Which then engenders a whole discussion of whether all religious belief is delusional (believing in things unseen and magical, holding conversations with invisible all-powerful creatures that are said to control our lives, etc.), the definition of delusion in the DSM-IV (which then rules out, by definition, religion), and the analogy between the above tragedy and some events in the Bible (e.g., the Sacrifice of Abraham).
The initial question, though, is if the line between “extreme religious conviction,” especially in a cult setting such as this, and brainwashed delusion and inability to critically think, is that thin, then if we allow brainwashing and other “diminished mental capacities” to lessen charges, does “extreme religious conviction” allow something similar?
Historically, in most cases, it’s been a mixed bag. The closest analog here is people whose faith leads them to reject certain medical practices. We tend to let such folks make such decisions for themselves. Fundamentally, it’s not very different of a case than folks making decision about end-of-life care or leaving orders about what sort of life-extending technology should be used on them. The courts have been much more mixed when those decisions have been imposed on others (e.g., children) by believing parents.
Does the popularity and wide spread of a moral value or religious belief make a difference here? On one level, I don’t think it should — my personal religious belief should be treated no more lightly if I hold it alone, vs. if I hold it with my family, a “cult” of 20, or a national denomination of a million.
The problem is, that idea doesn’t scale well. At one point, all values and morality become subjective decisions, held by the group. Is a belief in personal “freedom” and the value of “life” (though within certain bounds and conventions) irrational? Unless argued from purely pragmatic and selfish reasons (e.g., “I value freedom of expression solely because I enjoy it and I can best guarantee it for myself is to ensure that others have it”), it all becomes a consensus of personal values. It makes no difference whether those values are theistic or not, they still boil down to some fundamental axioms and assertions that can no more be proven than inscriptions on stone tablets. Arguably, Ramkissoon is no more delusional than the body politic of the United States or the EU. It’s just that we outnumber her (hence calling hers “extreme religious beliefs” vs. everyday ones), and the rules we have set for society from our shared values (“Thou shalt not let your kid starve to death unless you, as well, are too weak from hunger to prevent it”) prevail.
This is the point, though, where discussions of public morality most often break down. A mother letting her child be starved to death is generally considered unacceptable behavior. Saving the life of the mother vs. an unborn child, during a medical emergency, though, is usually accepted. We can argue the differences between the two cases, but ultimately it comes down to values, explicitly religious or not.
Which then segues neatly over to the public debate over abortion, and its values-laden arguments and counter-arguments. Ultimately, though, it is no more objectively provable that freely available-abortion is “better” than making abortion a criminal offense (or vice-versa). It all depends on how you define “better” and based on what axioms. I protest mightily against fundamentalists trying to impose their beliefs on my life and the lives of my family and friends — but arguing that imposition is wrong gets me back to fuzzy fundamentals myself — personal liberty, ideas of the proper role of religion vs. the secular world, etc. I believe I’m right, and can argue why, but those beliefs are ultimately no more provable, absent nightly Fiery Letters in the Sky, than those of Wildmon or Falwell or Phelps.
So is religion an excuse for criminal behavior? No, not usually. But it’s also important to remember what we deem “criminal” behavior is itself a societal consensus of values (“Doing X is wrong”) and pragmatism (“Lock ’em up so they don’t hurt anyone else, including me”). Letting your baby die because of your religious beliefs is and should be (IMO) criminal. But criminal codes have also been used to persecute and imprison much more innocuous beliefs, explicitly religious or implicit moral determinations (e.g., the Falun Gong in China; homosexual behavior in the US). The criminal code of the country is no more an objective measure of objective morality — what is “right” — than the Levitican code.
I might also point out that there are times and places when we do explicitly let religious beliefs excuse something that otherwise would be criminal — the status of Conscientious Objectors comes to mind, as do religious-based Sanctuary movements. Indeed, that’s a place where we start seeing religion and religious beliefs in the context by which I think the Founders sought to protect them — as a variety (and wellspring) of personal beliefs that our liberty/freedom-driven societal value set seeks to recognize and protect from the will and judgment of the majority. We admire someone who takes a strong, principled stand (that we believe in) against the legal system, and even argue for leniency (or changing the law) on that basis; whether that stand comes from a moral belief based on the teachings of a religious denomination or from personal philosophy derived from reading books and visiting Internet chat rooms makes less difference than that it is a moral stand (that we agree with).
To take another case, we root for Jean Valjean vs. the heartless Javert, even though Valjean admits committing a criminal act based on personal moral values — breaking-and-entering to steal food to feed his family. Further, he breaks his parole, and again the audience roots for him, because we consider his punishment unjust. So, yes, in that case, we think that his personal moral code (to the extent it mirrors our personal moral judgment) excuses him for his criminal activity. We laugh and cheer, too, when the nuns sabotage the police vehicles so that the Van Trapp Family can escape over the mountains into Switzerland — even though, of course, both the nuns and the Van Trapps are engaged in criminal behavior, even if it’s behavior based on their own moral code, religiously-derived or not.
And that, in turn, brings the debate around to where we don’t have societal consensus on what’s right or wrong. Much brouhaha ensued over the past few days about laws passed in Afghanistan reinforcing aspects of sharia law there, including removing a woman’s right not to consent to sex in the context of marriage. Similar brouhaha on reports of gays being executed in Iraq. I consider that repugnant on a variety of levels — but ultimately it comes down to a shouting match about whose moral values are better and more “right” (and “these activities are/aren’t now part of our criminal code, so who says your moral/religious beliefs should be allowed to trump that?” sorts of counter-arguments) which then has to shift to “Okay, so what do/can we do about it?”
I’m not sure where to go with the argument beyond there. For all the philosophizing, Kim Ramkissoon is not Jean Valjean, and I still find her actions abhorrent (Abraham’s, too, but that’s another story). Nor do I think that her being under orders from a religious authority, and believing that she had to obey those orders, gives her a bye in facing criminal charges for it (though I suspect she faces personal, temporal punishment for it, daily, far beyond what any prison could do). My only thought is that this is a fairly bright line case where most people (in our society, at least) agree that her actions were wrong, and the only question is whether her capacity to make decisions was impaired, and, if so, to what extent does that mitigate or change her punishment. The broader question of when we can or should let personal religious beliefs “excuse” criminal behavior is a far stickier one, especially as what is “criminal” varies (for better and worse) in different times and places.
In a modern society we must first defer to the rule of law. If someone’s personal moral values (up to and including religious values) contradict the law that person must decide whether their convictions are strong enough to deal with the consequences of breaking the law.
If a society’s moral center is aligned with a particular religion there’s no doubt that their laws will mirror that religion’s precepts.
That said, there’s a precept to the law, particularly to Federal law, that the law should not limit one group’s rights more than another’s. So, if it’s OK for the religious majority in a country to marry and have children and own property and vote, then the law should not be applied to prevent those outside that majority from having those same rights.
We, as a global community, are slowly determining what rights should be applied to everyone without limit. Those laws which infringe upon those basic rights are the basis for human rights violations.
At the end of the day murder is murder. The shades of grey at either end of the life cycle need to be reviewed very carefully by the law, guided, but not decided, by moral beliefs.
It’s early, so I’m failing to make all my points (apologies).
Agreed. Civil disobedience and taking a strong principled stand against the law (“I can do no other”) doesn’t mean you get off the hook (though that sometimes happens). Indeed, part of the point of an explicit act of civil disobedience is being willing to face the consequences.
Which is one of the arguments made against Prop 8 in California. The issue arises whether the distinction being made is, itself, prejudicial toward just one group or has a value in and of itself. So someone couldn’t say, “Well, my church service includes sacrificing a virgin on the altar at the end, and it’s not fair to outlaw my particular religious practice when you let other people have their own religious services.” You can’t (or shouldn’t) say that gays can’t marry unless you can (a) demonstrate that there is a fundamental and meanginful difference between gays marrying and straights marrying (argument by definition), or (b) demonstrate that there is a particular harm that occurs only if gays marry that doesn’t occur when straights marry. Both arguments are used by anti-gay marriage forces (not well, in my opinion, but …).
And so we have various UN human rights charters, etc. The question becomes at what point there is a global enough commitment to that consensus to actually do something about it.
I’m not sure I can agree fully with any of that. Murder as unlawful killing is clear-cut, but what constitutes unlawful varies over time and place — and that variation is determined by societal morals. Thus, sometimes, abortion is murder, doctor-assisted suicide is murder, execution of criminals is murder, killing an intruder in your house is murder … and sometimes not.
Now, if you mean, the moral beliefs of the accused can guide but not decide the legality of an act — that (guardedly) can make sense.
No worries — I hammered at the above post over about five different sessions last night and this morning, thus its own flavor of incoherence.
Well, since I am looking at this from the perspective of an Immoral Atheist….
The whole thing is a great big slippery slope, one that we as a nation have ignored since our founding. We paper over the whole “Freedom of Religion” thing by whatever means are most convenient….in which we declare something a “Cult” because it does not conform to the established confines of the Judeo/Christian doctrine.
We did our best to destroy the religions of the Natives that we found on the Continent. We did that with the Mormon “Cult” in the 1800’s, but gave a pass to other “Cults” (Seventh Day Adventists, Christian Scientists, etc) because they more or less “conformed” to the established normative rules of what we as a nation considered to be “normal”.
The law is subjective, and “Freedom of Religion” is only free as long as the religion conforms to what the Majority considers to be expectable, once a group falls outside of that window, it is considered to be a cult, and that groups rights are not considered to be as worthy as those of the majority. So, the “Freedom of Religion” is only free as long as your in the majority, or within what the majority can accept as normal.
So, if this country was truly based on the concept of Freedom of Religion, Ria Ramkissoon would be a free woman since her prosecution would be considered to be religious persecution, and this would go for Islamic Female Genital Mutilation (because Male Genital Mutilation is a ok), Catholic Cannibalism, Christian Scientists murdering their Children through Prayer, and the FLDS raping and abusing their children, and so on.
Is it unacceptable behaviour? Immoral? Illegal? In my book yes. Is it prosecutable? No, not if we are a nation that believes in religious freedom, and if you venture to far down that line you will end up at thought crimes.
But, that is how things have been since some human somewhere decided that an angry sky god was tossing lightning bolts at folks to punish people, and thus it will continue. But then again, this is coming from a person that sees what Ria Ramkissoon did, to the person that homeschools their child to believe that the world is only 6k years old, is only a matter of degrees.
So, in the end it will come down to what we as a nation decide is best as a society, if Freedom of Religion becomes to much of a burden on the rights and freedoms of the people of our nation as a whole, it will curtailed. Or, we will decide that the Freedom of Religion trumps all other considerations and self destruct as a society.
I’ll note, btw, that “Catholic Cannibalism” is purely symbolic (well, metaphysic if you so believe, too), and does not involve actual cannibalism. Unless you know something I don’t. 🙂
I don’t think anyone in the above (certainly not me) is advocating that Freedom of Religion trumps everything else. Well, I take it back, some folks say that they do, but, as you note, they are only advocating Freedom of their Religion, not religious freedom for all.
My point was that … well, I had a lot of points, not all of them that coherent. But one was that it’s *all* a matter of balancing religious viewpoints and (I conflate the two) moral codes. Keeping women in burkas vs letting women get married to each other and have abortion “on demand” vs all the compromises in-between and around … it all depends on *which* values and *what* moral code you adhere to. Ditto for “I am responsible for myself alone” vs. “all must adhere to the same code in order to be saved” vs. “I love to exercise power and the more I can exercise it on others, the better for me.”
Now I have some ideas of what I think here is “right” (and what is “right enough”), but I can’t point to anything that is objective proof of what is “right.” I can argue about what makes a society less likely to self-destruct, but I suspect that conversation would not be universally persuasive.
Regardless, when we speak of curtailing “Freedom of Religion,” we are curtailing it (as in the American history examples you provide) for what we consider to be compelling moral and pragmatic (though in the final analysis the two are difficult to distinguish) reasons. *I* think it makes much more sense to keep “cult” members from starving babies to death than forcibly convert aboriginal pagans to Christianity, but short of a hypothetical final arbiter of morality, the two actions derive from the same foundation — doing what one thinks is right.
Does that make any sense?
Let’s take the abortion issue as a single, stand alone point for a moment. (I know, next to impossible, but think with me.)
The vast majority of people would agree that in and of itself that abortion is not a wonderful thing. A minority of people hold it is so morally repugnant that it should never be employed under any circumstance. Medical professionals note, reasonably, that there are a number of times that abortions medically can save the life of the pregnant woman.
There are social justice reasons that can be argued for allowing non-medically required abortion (i.e. rape/incest, etc.). There are many moral reasons for arguing that only medical abortions should be allowed, and more extreme that none should be allowed and that it’s God’s will that the mother and child will or will not survive.
Taking all this we have to determine what the government’s role should be. If there are medically appropriate reasons to allow abortions then the government should ensure that at the very least that all medically needed abortions be legal.
Then government needs to consider issues of social justice. Will the government allow social justice abortions? I’d argue they should, simply from the point of view that the reasons not to are entirely moral, not medical.
Now the MUCH harder question: should government allow entirely voluntary abortions? I’d argue yes. Because putting any restrictions on this procedure at the governmental level means that it’s much more likely that those restrictions will tighten over time until the medically required procedures are no longer legal.
Despite centuries of trying to, it in not government’s job to legislate moral behavior. Rather it is the job of governement to regulate the interactions of society. That means that governement should certainly regulate trade to ensure that rules are applied evenly. They also should regulate situations where one individual attempts to impose their will on another individual without their consent (i.e. theft, murder, etc.).
All that said, I feel that abortions should be freely available to all adults, but that everyone who does not agree with the procedure morally should endevour to shift the social beliefs of people away from abortion to alternatives. I’m even fine with the government ensuring that a consumer is aware of all the alternatives to an abortion as long as the procedure isn’t outlawed or creating such barriers that those who feel a need for the procedure are effectively barred from it.
I should note that I generally feel that the government is too intrusive and needs to back waaaaay off.
I think you illustrate my point, Arty. “Social justice” and “preservation of the woman’s life” and “preservation of the woman’s health” and “preservation of the unborn child’s life” — and even “government is too intrusive / government should intrude in personal decisions minimally” are all a matter of values, both recognition of them, interpretation of them, and relative weighting of them. Depending on the beliefs you bring to the table (religious, philosophical, handed down from authority, or individually reasoned as independently as humans can within societal bounds), the answers you come up with will vary.
So, to a large degree, you end up having to reach a societal consensus, reflected in the law (which itself is a contentious issue where there is not a clear consensus, but which imposes upon minorities to the different levels of religious freedom that BD describes — majority, within what the majority tolerates as normal, beyond the pale). You will, regardless, have people to coming to moral beliefs on this that will lead to criminal activity (having an abortion when illegal; acting out against abortion providers in illegal fashions).