2010
The Huffington Post reported this week that “the American Family Association, a religious right group, is urging that Tillikum (Tilly), the killer whale that killed a trainer at SeaWorld Orlando, be put down, preferably by stoning. Citing Tilly’s history of violent altercations, the group is slamming SeaWorld for not listening to Scripture in how to deal with the animal.”
Apparently, the Bible should be referred to in cases such as this:
Says the ancient civil code of Israel, “When an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner shall not be liable.” (Exodus 21:28)
“However, the group is going further and laying the blame for the trainer’s death directly at the feet of Chuck Thompson, the curator in charge of animal behavior, because, according to Scripture,”
But, the Scripture soberly warns, if one of your animals kills a second time because you didn’t kill it after it claimed its first human victim, this time you die right along with your animal. To use the example from Exodus, if your ox kills a second time, “the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.” (Exodus 21:29)
I submit to the AFA that it is now 2010, not 610 B.C.E. when the Yahwists were busy stoning everybody who disagreed with them. Can we at least pretend that 3,000 years have gone by?
I hereby name the American Family Association nithings. Let them stand shamed and condemned before all for their vile and reprehensible behavior.
If any of the officials of the AFA trim the hair around their temples or eat shellfish, they’re committeing an abomination. Do any of them work on Saturday? Oooh! That’s a stoning offence (Exodus 35:2).
I assume that they also advocate stoning disobedient children (Deuteronomy 21:18-21).
How did that song go–”Everybody must get stoned?”
And to you, my friend (for so I think of you), health and long life.
I’ve asked often about stoning children and wives but you know, I read about a Christian group that does advocate that as well. While I admire their desire to obey the Law completely, I would say to them that Jesus himself said that he came to teach ONLY to the lost children of Israel and told his disciples not to teach among the Gentiles who were, for any good Jew (as Jesus was), dogs and swine. Keep it in the family and best relocate to a country that permits it because here, whether you like it or not (and the Founding Fathers wanted it this way) the Constitution supersedes the Decalogue.
Thank you, Makarios, and likewise. By the way, they’ve moved my surgery out to the 11th due to some scheduling conflict so I have a couple more days to write this week, something I won’t complain about.
Oh, and you’ll appreciate this I know: the insurance company okayed my stay in the hospital as a medical necessity (ya think???) but they say only 4 days (the surgeon says 5-7 minimum.
I asked the doctors about that and they said the insurance companies don’t have medical people on their staff and this, she thought, was just their way of maintaining some control. Great, so some actuary or accountant thinks I can be up and running faster than the expert. In the end, she said there usually is no problem and the insurance company extends your stay per doctor’s request but still – madness – and no need of healthcare reform!!
I always enjoy your Nithings of the Week…..once again you have chosen wisely and carefully when there is so much to pick from in the world!
I wish you all the best or the 11th, my friend (because that, I consider you are). Perhaps when you have recovered some, you will honour the surgeons and medical staff in a blog and; of course, to let us all know how it went!
In Frith,
Stu
Hey Hrafnkell, rarely do I have any criticism for you, but I think you are taking this a bit out of context. You are doing what most liberal critics of the Right do: honing in on the Biblical quotes and discarding everything else. I read the article which you linked and am pretty sure that the author’s intended point was to have the animal put down and the establishment (or man, as it were) punished …. not necessarily to have them stoned. If you noticed, the author stated, “If I were the family of Dawn Brancheau, I’d sue the pants off SeaWorld for allowing this killer whale to kill again after they were well aware of its violent history.” He does not say that they should be stoned.
Along this line, I would like to draw attention to the author’s update section in regards to the notion of stoning Tilly and the curator. Please take a look.
Personally, I am of the opinion that the whale should be at least removed from performance if not put down altogether. We regularly euthanize dogs, cats, mountain lions and other animals that harm or slay humans and I think this instance calls for no exception.
I am also of the opinion that, while Christians and their declarations can be an amusing lot, there are other important issues that more rightly deserve the raising of something as severe as a nithing.
Some food for thought. ~
Hey…..wait a minute…..!
No ones mentioned another option……what if…..
….Tilly had killed the trainer in an act of vengence due to possible mis-treatment and being pissed at having to be cooped up in a small pond of water when her natural, instinctive desire was to be back in the wild, vast oceans with her mates?!
What if Tilly had been totally pissed with her name? I mean, who the Hel calls a KILLER whale ‘Tilly’?!
No one ever mentions that creatures have their own spirit within (or so WE believe) and act in accordance to their will and/or environment…..just like we do…
I’m sure you can see the humour in which the above is written…toungue-in-cheek and all that…but it’s still an option that no one will ever consider. Well, not many people anyways.
Stu, thank you. And yes, I will certainly honor the surgical staff when the procedure is finished and I will let you all know as soon as I am able that I am still among you. The nithings will have to wait until then.
Ærinndís, you may be right (I don’t claim to be infallible, after all and I’ve been wrong before, gods know!) but I have to stand by my interpretation in this case.
I read several articles on the same subject before posting my nithing piece (usual procedure to make certain there isn’t a deceptive slant to the first piece that got my notice) and I got the same sense from all of them.
After reading your objections, I re-read the pieces and I think it’s quite clear that the intent of the AFA pronouncement is that the whale be put down – preferably by stoning – and according to scripture. Now yes, we may have misunderstood what was intended, and I realize now (as you point out) that the man who made this pronouncement is now saying he said nothing of the sort and that his words were taken out of context.
I would like to say in my own defense that first of all, I am not the only person who heard what I heard. It is possible we were all wrong, yes (I am mindful of Anatole France’s words on that score), but the AFA quoted scripture which called not only for the stoning of the creature doing the goring but the person responsible – the curator in this case. If the author simply wanted to say the whale should be euthanized and the park sued, there was no reason to quote the Law of Moses.
Either way, I think, my point stands. The Law of Moses is irrelevant. It is not the law of the land. Even his second post is headed by “Bible ignored.” Yes, and guess what AFA, we can do that, because we are not governed as a society by the Law of Moses, a law code meant for a small group of people some three thousand years ago. From my perspective, the AFA would be nithings simply for suggesting that the Law of Moses applied.
For me, other than honoring my own gods, I see nothing more important than the attacks upon our puralistic, diverse and tolerant society by Christian dominionism, represented by the AFA and others. That’s going to get a “nithing” from me every time. Have you read the blog’s in question’s other posts? I’d nithing this guy for any one of them: “Homosexual agenda or the Constitution: take your pick because you can’t have both”?
Yeah, nithing. Nithing big time. For this and for many other things.
Nithings seconded! Emphatically so!
As Stu said, there are so many nithings to choose from, and people have different ideas about what qualifies as nithing behavior; in the end, some will agree with me and some won’t. For me, this was a clear cut case, whether they argued for a literal stoning or not – because biblical law does not apply in the United States – Yet! (and over my dead body)