Is hate good? Should we allow the censorship of hate speech?

[Michael Hardner]

14 minutes ago, turningrite said:

I think there's a broad range of topics where free speech has increasingly been under attack. When raising concerns on topics like diversity, gender equality and immigration, among others, the politically correct tendency is to shut critics down, even if nothing that's said is particularly incorrect or even controversial in its own right.

And off-campus politics is every bit as vitriolic.  People are at each others throats and there is pernicious disunity.  If you want to make it about campus politics, then fine.  If you want to talk about the US I would talk about gerrymandering.  If you want to talk about Canada, I would talk about fake populists who hire their own media teams maybe.  Anyway...  No I didn't read all of MacDonald's article but I skimmed it.  M103 is old news which is evidenced by the fact that you can in fact criticize Islam, still.

17 minutes ago, turningrite said:

The issue is not whether one can back up what they're saying but whether there is a requirement in online fora that commenters must do so in order to express an opinion. If one disagrees with a comment, one is free to provide a countervailing opinion and back it up with arguments and/or facts if one so chooses.

Uh, no.  The Rules and Guidelines settle your issue.  If you state a purported fact, you can be challenged on it and you shouldn't cry censorship.  

 

19 minutes ago, turningrite said:

Rather, it's a matter of promoting respectful and productive general discourse.

There is no question of the rules here, nor of how this forum has successfully fomented discussion.  Furthermore, we have Canadian law that demarcates hate speech as not being protected and it works fine for us.  Most of what I read about 'censorship' is just noise but not all of it.  

If you want to have liberal-minded Canadians be more tolerant and open to ideas, then you can lead by example and I am sure they will join you.

[Scott Mayers]

1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

1 hour ago, turningrite said:

I think there's a broad range of topics where free speech has increasingly been under attack. When raising concerns on topics like diversity, gender equality and immigration, among others, the politically correct tendency is to shut critics down, even if nothing that's said is particularly incorrect or even controversial in its own right.

And off-campus politics is every bit as vitriolic.  People are at each others throats and there is pernicious disunity.  If you want to make it about campus politics, then fine.  If you want to talk about the US I would talk about gerrymandering.  If you want to talk about Canada, I would talk about fake populists who hire their own media teams maybe.  Anyway...  No I didn't read all of MacDonald's article but I skimmed it.  M103 is old news which is evidenced by the fact that you can in fact criticize Islam, still.

Michael, you DO know that 'our' own CBC has blocked commenting to special issues deemed 'hate' by a hidden protected panel of 'moderation' that the public has no capacity to question, right?

The CBC used to have commenting upon many topics of which we were allowed to speak but had a moderation team BY the site owners. If you commented on something with good logic but was counter to the opinions of the protected moderators or CBC intents [we can't tell who or why], you could be censored in many clever ways to CREATE a false public reflection. 

Example: The EXTREME posts WERE often allowed through this process which raises the question if this was intentional given they seem very able to moderate in-depth commenting by wiser commenting. By clever moderation you can make a case FOR whatever you intend others to interpret about WHO comments more or less often, for instance. As such, if you want to find a means to close off commenting altogether for some hidden political intent, you can put forward those posts which make it look like more extreme people are more prevalent than is in fact.

Also, (and I've experienced this), you might get a post through but then be denied to respond to another who responds but makes it appear as though you have been silenced by content respondents when it was actually due to moderators preventing you to re-respond and counter it. 

For private sites, I've made an excellent argument on another site (Philosophy Now magazine forum) that challenged even the right of private sites to be privileged to censor IF they also have the freedom to USE that content as their own. I used an argument about malls: that the business of the malls, though 'privately owned' are in the business dependent upon those very people privileged access. As such, you can't expect absolute powers to 'censor' the freedoms of people within it without the very privilege of the external environment ALLOWING such entities to exist. If I can USE material 'freely' of others in ways that I can also "delete" it, for instance, this power suggests the entity can be used to violate others rights even externally. 

A good example of this is if a government has the power to use someone's comments on a forum against them (like terrorism, say). If the site has the capacity to freely delete material or edit it, they may ALSO reasonably have the power to selectively create or edit other people's content to frame a person using the site for some external violation. That is, you'd have to question whether those coming into the site have rights regardless of whether the site is or is not technically 'private'. Can a mall owner, for instance, have the power to abuse civil laws against visitors simply because it is 'privately owned'? Those 'ownerships' also have to be considered factors of privilege granted BY the very public they need for existing as they do. 

1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

2 hours ago, turningrite said:

The issue is not whether one can back up what they're saying but whether there is a requirement in online fora that commenters must do so in order to express an opinion. If one disagrees with a comment, one is free to provide a countervailing opinion and back it up with arguments and/or facts if one so chooses.

Uh, no.  The Rules and Guidelines settle your issue.  If you state a purported fact, you can be challenged on it and you shouldn't cry censorship.  

 

See last comment for anticipated relevant points about ownership of a public forum, etc. But I add too that when the ubiquity of 'ownership' powers exist online with absolute protections one-way in their guidelines, whether by large entities like Google or Facebook, or not, the right of the individual to 'negotiate' by clicking an agreement is moot for there lacking ANY power of the population to speak 'freely' regardless. Given the CBC and most of our government forums are redirected through private channels now also means we have lost power even in places where it appears as our own rights to be heard openly. 

The present attack on trust of anything Internet is as much a means to excuse those in power to censor and reduce the successful capacity of those who DO have value in their words to be heard. Being challenged of a view is fine. But I've also seen this tactic get simply used to excuse hiding real value of some. But how can anyone 'prove' this very challenge when the power of censorship is sufficient to hide the evidence of such claims as well? 

[Michael Hardner]

12 hours ago, Scott Mayers said:

1) Michael, you DO know that 'our' own CBC has blocked commenting to special issues deemed 'hate' by a hidden protected panel of 'moderation' that the public has no capacity to question, right?

2) A good example of this is if a government has the power to use someone's comments on a forum against them (like terrorism, say). If the site has the capacity to freely delete material or edit it, they may ALSO reasonably have the power to selectively create or edit other people's content to frame a person using the site for some external violation. That is, you'd have to question whether those coming into the site have rights regardless of whether the site is or is not technically 'private'. Can a mall owner, for instance, have the power to abuse civil laws against visitors simply because it is 'privately owned'? Those 'ownerships' also have to be considered factors of privilege granted BY the very public they need for existing as they do. 

1) Yes.  It's too bad.  They gave it a shot but there were too many trolls to manage, as I understand.

2) Good question, but no.  Private domain owners are allowed to restrict behaviour within their domains.  The alternative would means the mall owner would need to allow protests inside their mall which seems too restrictive on the mall owner.

[turningrite]

21 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

M103 is old news which is evidenced by the fact that you can in fact criticize Islam, still.

Uh, no.  The Rules and Guidelines settle your issue.  If you state a purported fact, you can be challenged on it and you shouldn't cry censorship.  

There is no question of the rules here, nor of how this forum has successfully fomented discussion.  Furthermore, we have Canadian law that demarcates hate speech as not being protected and it works fine for us.  Most of what I read about 'censorship' is just noise but not all of it.  

If you want to have liberal-minded Canadians be more tolerant and open to ideas, then you can lead by example and I am sure they will join you.

 

I suspect you don't fully understand the Rules and Guidelines stipulations you appear to insist be applied to others. On the requirement for evidential support, for instance, the R&G stipulation is that "If you are stating a fact, be prepared to back it up with some official sources." Instead, you hold that an initial failure to provide evidential references in its own right substantiates your dismissal of a post. But clearly that's not consistent with the R&G stipulation. Further, and quite reasonably, there is no R&G requirement to furnish evidence in relation to expressing opinions, which many on thus forum often state.

In one of your posts on another topic ('Has society left men behind'), you accused me of just saying things based on things I've heard rather than on the basis of evidence. After you provided apparently non-contextual evidence on that topic to support your dismissal (a graph for which you only later copied a link after I pointed out the problem), and I furnished links to official Canadian and U.S. sources to substantiate my positions(s), fully in accordance with R&G stipulations, you responded by criticizing my post on rather tangential stylistic grounds. And in this string (about censorship) you say I've "pointed a flashlight at shadows in the corner," which I interpret as casting aspersions on my intent and/or motivations. I don't know whether you've ever studied logic and rhetoric, but I believe that such tactics generally fall into the category of 'ad hominem' criticism, which doesn't appear to meet R&G standards. I'm sure you too can lead by example by trying to be more constructive, consistent and respectful in your responses.

As for your rather haughtily dismissive statement that "most of what I've read about 'censorship' being just noise but not all of it," this is merely your opinion, right? Maybe you don't read a lot, but concerns about freedom of speech and censorship have been widely disseminated and discussed over the past couple years. The M-103 controversy is merely one of the topics that's arisen as part of a much broader debate about the state of free speech in this country. I guess I read a lot, or at least more than most. Perhaps that's not a virtue in an environment where many would rather we simply accept the dictates of acceptable thought and speech as rendered by our self-appointed betters.

Edited June 19, 2018 by turningrite

[Michael Hardner]

2 minutes ago, turningrite said:

 

1) I suspect you don't fully understand the Rules and Guidelines stipulations you appear to insist be applied to others. On the requirement for evidential support, for instance, the R&G stipulation is that "If you are stating a fact, be prepared to back it up with some official sources." Instead, you hold that an initial failure to provide evidential references in its own right substantiates your dismissal of a post.

2) you responded by criticizing my post on rather tangential stylistic grounds. And in this string (about censorship) you say I've "pointed a flashlight at shadows in the corner," which I interpret as casting aspersions on my intent and/or motivations. 

3)  The M-103 controversy is merely one of the topics that's arisen as part of a much broader debate about the state of free speech in this country.

4) I guess I read a lot, or at least more than most. Perhaps that's not a virtue in an environment where many would rather we simply accept the dictates of acceptable thought and speech as rendered by our self-appointed betters.

1) No, I just don't expect pushback when I ask for a cite.  Well, I do but I shouldn't.

2) No.  You were complaining about 'single parent families' as a problem.  When I showed you a graph that showed a decline to 2009, you provided a cite that said single parent and stepfamilies were increasing - which is different.  I pointed that out already so this is just noise.

3) Yes, and it was hysterical nonsense.  The idea that the government would make it illegal to criticize a religion is hyperbole and the fact that that didn't come to pass actually backs up the idea that freedom of speech is not under threat.

4) 'Reading a lot' could be a good thing, but it depends on what you read.  It's up to you to recognize your betters and learn from them.  Here's a hint: most of what you read on the internet, including this forum, is hysterical chicken little bullshit.  Just my opinion though.

[turningrite]

8 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

1) No, I just don't expect pushback when I ask for a cite.  Well, I do but I shouldn't.

2) No.  You were complaining about 'single parent families' as a problem.  When I showed you a graph that showed a decline to 2009, you provided a cite that said single parent and stepfamilies were increasing - which is different.  I pointed that out already so this is just noise.

3) Yes, and it was hysterical nonsense.  The idea that the government would make it illegal to criticize a religion is hyperbole and the fact that that didn't come to pass actually backs up the idea that freedom of speech is not under threat.

4) 'Reading a lot' could be a good thing, but it depends on what you read.  It's up to you to recognize your betters and learn from them.  Here's a hint: most of what you read on the internet, including this forum, is hysterical chicken little bullshit.  Just my opinion though.

I could respond to your points, but it's not worth doing so because you don't actually engage in rational debate. You appear to prefer to sit back and lob ad hominem critiques and haughty insults. I believe you've lost your arguments with me and you don't want to admit it. Oh well, move on....

[Scott Mayers]

14 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

On 6/18/2018 at 5:05 PM, Scott Mayers said:

1) Michael, you DO know that 'our' own CBC has blocked commenting to special issues deemed 'hate' by a hidden protected panel of 'moderation' that the public has no capacity to question, right?

2) A good example of this is if a government has the power to use someone's comments on a forum against them (like terrorism, say). If the site has the capacity to freely delete material or edit it, they may ALSO reasonably have the power to selectively create or edit other people's content to frame a person using the site for some external violation. That is, you'd have to question whether those coming into the site have rights regardless of whether the site is or is not technically 'private'. Can a mall owner, for instance, have the power to abuse civil laws against visitors simply because it is 'privately owned'? Those 'ownerships' also have to be considered factors of privilege granted BY the very public they need for existing as they do. 

1) Yes.  It's too bad.  They gave it a shot but there were too many trolls to manage, as I understand.

2) Good question, but no.  Private domain owners are allowed to restrict behaviour within their domains.  The alternative would means the mall owner would need to allow protests inside their mall which seems too restrictive on the mall owner.

(1) So you agree but yet MUST be believing something about those censors by faith alone. What makes you think these people are superior to those 'trollers'?

I don't notice a problem of others who were 'freely' behaving poorly [by speaking]. But IF there were such a damning majority of 'trolling', this would have to only represent something about the majority in general. You have to respect them rather than snub them which is often their reason tor acting out. (They feel hopeless?)But my concern is that WE have no means to determine the truth one way or another without some BLIND FAITH in the same moderators....we don't know, for instance, if they are merely SOCK-PUPPETS of the very CBC opting to stage some apparent problem to be able censor with absolution. You can't presume the trust of those controllers without insulting those of us....especially when the opposite is disrespected about our own motives. If the MAJORITY are 'complaining' the MINORITY of the CBC staff or its friendly unaccountable private moderators, are themselves acting as the likely 'trolls' accusing those complaining as the 'trolls' if we trust they represent the majority also.

(2) It was also 'legitimate' to kill 6 million Jews in Germany under Hitler. The law is only meaningful if they are a product of everyone. Just because it happens to be legal for businesses to act, it doesn't mean they should not be challenged for being wrong....unless you don't think we need a legislative body altogether after the first laws were written down in the past.

Edited June 20, 2018 by Scott Mayers
spelling/grammar

[Altai]

On 6/18/2018 at 4:49 PM, turningrite said:

By your logic, then, shouldn't religion and religious speech be banned? Almost nothing about religion can be demonstrated to be true and yet religion in many aspects foments discord between people. The basic premise of all monotheistic religions, the existence of a God, is definitionally beyond proof. John Lennon's song 'Imagine" posits a paradise in which there is no religion. Did he get it right?

Yes, if it poses a threat for public life, it should be proven in the court to be applied. The same thing goes for any other believes including atheism. Its your idea as an atheist that nothing could be demonstrated to be true about religions. Atheist people rejects to recognize many facts when it does not fit with their interests. I had a topic before about it in this forum, you can see the atheist behavior there. So such a case filed in a court would probably end up with the banning of atheism. 

[Altai]

On 6/18/2018 at 7:45 PM, French Patriot said:

Been there and done that in real life. I fought the law and the law won, but they cheated.

That same law I fought has now been repealed.

I can tell you from experience that it is you who should do as you bid me.

I have the scars. Do you?

Regards

DL 

Probably most of the people who lose a case thinks that they were right, just the law cheated them. There are many murderers, thieves, terrorists thinks that they were right. Anyone has an excuse for their actions. 

[Michael Hardner]

8 hours ago, turningrite said:

I could respond to your points, but it's not worth doing so because you don't actually engage in rational debate. You appear to prefer to sit back and lob ad hominem critiques and haughty insults. I believe you've lost your arguments with me and you don't want to admit it. Oh well, move on....

Fair enough.  I thank you for reminding me that cites aren't necessary for opinions, or for 'the sky is blue' type facts and I will try to be less pedantic with you.  On the other side, I will state that I never received a supporting cite for the assertion that single-parent families are a problem, so I'll assume that we're good there.

[turningrite]

3 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Fair enough.  I thank you for reminding me that cites aren't necessary for opinions, or for 'the sky is blue' type facts and I will try to be less pedantic with you.  On the other side, I will state that I never received a supporting cite for the assertion that single-parent families are a problem, so I'll assume that we're good there.

"I never received a supporting cite for the assertion that single-parent families are a problem." Um, yes, I did provide a citation for this in the form of a federal study that indicates higher rates of incidence for certain negative behaviors, and particularly drug use, for children who grow up single parent-led households.

[turningrite]

3 hours ago, Altai said:

Yes, if it poses a threat for public life, it should be proven in the court to be applied. The same thing goes for any other believes including atheism. Its your idea as an atheist that nothing could be demonstrated to be true about religions. Atheist people rejects to recognize many facts when it does not fit with their interests. I had a topic before about it in this forum, you can see the atheist behavior there. So such a case filed in a court would probably end up with the banning of atheism. 

Well, we wouldn't likely talk about atheism if we didn't talk about religion, would we? Logically speaking, religion begets atheism. Religion is essentially superstition, particularly where the major monotheistic religions are concerned. If you study the origins of religion you understand that it largely developed out of folk superstitions. It eventually became institutionalized and monopolized, mainly in an effort to exert social and economic control over populations, which of course rendered it dangerous. In some parts of the world, however, religion exists mainly in the form of spiritualism, as is the case in some Eastern religions and among many Indigenous peoples. Perhaps the most enlightened religious perspective is one that isn't, in the Western context, a true religion at all, Confucianism, which is grounded in humanistic and rationalistic philosophy. The world could survive and thrive without organized religion. The real concern is whether it can survive with it?

[Michael Hardner]

44 minutes ago, turningrite said:

"I never received a supporting cite for the assertion that single-parent families are a problem." Um, yes, I did provide a citation for this in the form of a federal study that indicates higher rates of incidence for certain negative behaviors, and particularly drug use, for children who grow up single parent-led households.

Sorry, I was so unclear.  I mean that there isn't a clear increase in incidence of these families.

[Altai]

24 minutes ago, turningrite said:

Well, we wouldn't likely talk about atheism if we didn't talk about religion, would we? Logically speaking, religion begets atheism. Religion is essentially superstition, particularly where the major monotheistic religions are concerned. If you study the origins of religion you understand that it largely developed out of folk superstitions. It eventually became institutionalized and monopolized, mainly in an effort to exert social and economic control over populations, which of course rendered it dangerous. In some parts of the world, however, religion exists mainly in the form of spiritualism, as is the case in some Eastern religions and among many Indigenous peoples. Perhaps the most enlightened religious perspective is one that isn't, in the Western context, a true religion at all, Confucianism, which is grounded in humanistic and rationalistic philosophy. The world could survive and thrive without organized religion. The real concern is whether it can survive with it?

You should tell these things in a court. 

[turningrite]

2 hours ago, Altai said:

You should tell these things in a court. 

Well, in the West we are free to do so, at least for the time being. In much of the rest of the world, not so much. Unfortunately.

Edited June 20, 2018 by turningrite

[Altai]

46 minutes ago, turningrite said:

Well, in the West we are free to do so, at least for the time being. In much of the rest of the world, not so much. Unfortunately.

Its a bad thing promoted like something good, unlimited freedom of speech. Anything has a limit. Especially when it start to be harmful. I think this was the subject of the topic. 

[Scott Mayers]

Just now, Altai said:

Its a bad thing promoted like something good, unlimited freedom of speech. Anything has a limit. Especially when it start to be harmful. I think this was the subject of the topic. 

Free speech does not mean "free action" granted to the content of what people speak. It DOES get abused by the opportunists all the time. I fear more a government who has BOTH the power of "free action" and "free speech" at the expense of denying it to the people. What one communicates, even if wrong, has to be allowed. This does not mean that the one speaking is not liable for behaviors that are NOT communicating ideas but APPEARING as this. THIS is when those speaking should be charged and have their day in court. 

However, even that gets abused by the political powers making a charge of someone 'inciting' violence of those speaking when this was not the case. 

You  can't get around it. Notice that YOU have 'free speech' here and at times seem to 'incite' emotionally laden opinions to suggest others act in harmful ways. Even this is permitted and is based on learning about HOW you behave for being listened to in varying contexts. You also LACK the accountability by being 'anonymous' which also may be interpreted in the public sphere as problematic. No one can pinpoint you if you DO speak in ways that is harmful. That is, you aren't able to be taken to court should you speak poorly. 

Should you also be held accountable to your own 'free speech' here if someone takes insult?

[turningrite]

9 hours ago, Altai said:

Its a bad thing promoted like something good, unlimited freedom of speech. Anything has a limit. Especially when it start to be harmful. I think this was the subject of the topic. 

Actual hate speech IS illegal throughout most of the West, as I understand it. The problem is that there have been ongoing arguments to expand the definition of the term "hate speech" to create an environment where only speech deemed to be "acceptable" is to be permitted. So far, we retain the ability to examine and criticize the bases and role of religion in the West. Were we to lose this, Western values in their own right would be seriously jeopardized. The philosophical foundations of the modern West rest in the Reformation and the Enlightenment, which both promoted ideas of intellectual freedom and rational critique where religion was/is concerned. The Reformation provided the framework within which the institutional framework of Christianity could be challenged. This was a massive advancement in promoting freedom. Later, as the German philosopher Nietzsche's maxim "God is dead" encapsulated, the Enlightenment fostered the development of a framework of intellectual rationalism that questioned the validity of belief in the existence of a God and thus challenged the actual legitimacy of organized religion.

The process to minimize religion's role and thus create the world's most open and objectively tolerant societies progressed with the ascendancy of rationalism. I think many outside of the West don't realize the extent to which religion's role has been diminished. In Canada, the explicitly non-religious now constitute about a third of the population and if nominal (i.e. non-religious, lapsed or "cultural") Roman Catholics are included the proportion of the population that is non-religious jumps to more than 50 percent. Secularism is the only system that accommodates the greatest spectrum of religious beliefs and attitudes, from devoutly religious  views on one extreme to atheism on the other. Most people fit somewhere between the two. Secularism requires that religion be largely absent from the public sphere and instead be a matter of individual conscience and private practice. It is the basis for real freedom and harmony in diverse and pluralistic societies. 

Edited June 21, 2018 by turningrite

[Altai]

I said I wont read long posts.

[turningrite]

5 hours ago, Altai said:

I said I wont read long posts.

Okay, then. Let me be brief. The right to criticize and reject religion IS intrinsically and fundamentally a Western value. It is not "hate speech" and efforts to extend the meaning and breadth of hate speech laws or to impose more informal restrictions on free speech to try to prevent the criticism of religious institutions and/or beliefs are essentially assaults on democracy and freedom. Is that brief enough for you?

Edited June 21, 2018 by turningrite

[Altai]

2 hours ago, turningrite said:

Okay, then. Let me be brief. The right to criticize and reject religion IS intrinsically and fundamentally a Western value. It is not "hate speech" and efforts to extend the meaning and breadth of hate speech laws or to impose more informal restrictions on free speech to try to prevent the criticism of religious institutions and/or beliefs are essentially assaults on democracy and freedom. Is that brief enough for you?

Any speech is hate speech when it starts to pose danger for others. You must prove your claims in legal manners or you must not be allowed to speak. You cant disturb others just because of you dont like somethings. Iraq was invaded based on "unlimited freedom of speech". Britain claimed unreal things and they invaded Iraq together US. After long years and millions of deaths, Britain simply said that the claims were false.

Edited June 21, 2018 by Altai

[Goddess]

12 minutes ago, Altai said:

Any speech is hate speech when it starts to pose danger for others.

What is the "danger" in exposing false, harmful and hypocritical religious beliefs?

[turningrite]

50 minutes ago, Altai said:

Any speech is hate speech when it starts to pose danger for others. You must prove your claims in legal manners or you must not be allowed to speak. You cant disturb others just because of you dont like somethings. Iraq was invaded based on "unlimited freedom of speech". Britain claimed unreal things and they invaded Iraq together US. After long years and millions of deaths, Britain simply said that the claims were false.

Obviously, you don't understand the West. In the West, the state (i.e. government) must prove the illegality of any action or speech that's held to be harmful. The burden of proof placed on the state where hate crime or hate speech is concerned is quite onerous, as must be the case in any system based on free speech.

Our system is not grounded in the notion that people can or must be forbidden from saying certain things without proving them to be correct. (If it were so, as I pointed out to you in an earlier post, religious speech would by definition have to be banned.) Perhaps it's the case where you live and if so you probably wouldn't like living in the West.

[Altai]

14 hours ago, turningrite said:

Obviously, you don't understand the West. In the West, the state (i.e. government) must prove the illegality of any action or speech that's held to be harmful. The burden of proof placed on the state where hate crime or hate speech is concerned is quite onerous, as must be the case in any system based on free speech.

Our system is not grounded in the notion that people can or must be forbidden from saying certain things without proving them to be correct. (If it were so, as I pointed out to you in an earlier post, religious speech would by definition have to be banned.) Perhaps it's the case where you live and if so you probably wouldn't like living in the West.

..................................................
 

Edited June 22, 2018 by Altai

[dialamah]

4 hours ago, Goddess said:

What is the "danger" in exposing false, harmful and hypocritical religious beliefs?

Aren't you still on her 'ignore' list?   Even if you are not, I doubt she could come up with a coherent reason anyway, just as any religious fanatic cannot.   I give her a break because I was a bit of a religious fanatic at her age, but I outgrew it - and at least she is here being exposed to different viewpoints (sort of, haha) and maybe after a few years perculation, those ideas will bear fruit.

I think the 'harm' is that the leaders of these countries will lose power.  As long as they can convince their citizenry that the laws are backed by God, there is less effort involved in keeping them in line.  I don't suppose it's any coincidence that the more highly educated/higher income-earners in these countries are the most likely to flout religiously-based laws without reprisal.  Its as if they are all in on their little joke on the "ignorant masses".