Tennessee Fucks Up

[bilby]

You really need a prison system like that one that doesn't give a damn if the inmates live or die; otherwise a prisoner who tries it will be moved to a padded cell.

The use of such cells, and other restraints to prevent self-injury, was commonplace in the early Australian penal colony days.

This was necessary due to extreme harshness of the conditions, which made suicide quite popular; However that popularity was mitigated (particularly for the Catholic prisoners, of whom there were plenty), by a belief that suicide would mean damnation.

As a result, prisoners at Sarah Island, a remote labour camp on the west coast of Van Deimens Land, found a loophole. Three men would draw straws. The winner was then murdered, on Sunday immediately after confession, by the man who came second. The loser's role was as witness.

As a murder had occurred, the murderer and witness were trsnsferred back to Hobart, the nearest court that could try capital cases. The murderer would be sentenced to hang, on the testimony of the witness, and would be provided with a priest to hear his confession prior to his execution, thereby saving his soul from damnation.

All three men gained by exploiting this loophole; Two achieved the release of death, and the 'loser' at least got to spend several weeks away from Sarah Island, in the rather less harsh conditions at Hobart Gaol.

 

[SLD]

Just curious. How did they get women to go to Australia? There were not as many women criminals as men, right? So they couldn’t deport them. But of course without women, exile was a death sentence.

 

[bilby]

Just curious. How did they get women to go to Australia? There were not as many women criminals as men, right? So they couldn’t deport them. But of course without women, exile was a death sentence.

Early on in the piece, there were quite a number of women who were transported as criminals; Nothing like as many as men, but still a fair number.

The administrators of course also brought their wives along, as did some of the guards.

Later on, once the colony was well established, free settlers of both sexes came, to take advantage of the opportunity presented by cheap (or even free) land, and access to mineral wealth (particularly gold). And the government(s) of the colonies tried to encourage women to emigrate. The Emigration Commission advertised for single women looking for employment, marriage, and an opportunity to escape drudgery in England. The commission even chartered ships for the sole purpose of bringing women to the colonies.

There was a significant gender bias in the population for a long time though.

 

[Bomb#20]

"Religious" means it's a concept people believe in because it's a contagious brain parasite, not because they have a reason to think it's correct.

In this particular context, I disagree with your assessment. Or maybe your framing.

You seem to be assuming that because something is captured by religion, it must therefore be wrong and false. I don't think that the case with all of religion. I grant it as true for whether or not an actual conscious deity exists, but there's a whole lot more to religion that just whether or not god is real.

There's a reason that the core concepts of morality tend to be very similar across all religions - it's because they're largely the result of evolution influencing social behavior. Dogs and cats have an innate sense of property ownership, monkeys have a sense of fairness.
...
It may not always take the exact same form, but I'm inclined to think that all social animals have some innate sense of justice, appropriate behavior, etc. Religion, in most cases, just cofifies that innate sense.

TLDR: God might be a "contagious brain parasite", but a lot of the fundamental concepts of religion are not.

I guess I was unclear. By "religious concept" I was referring only to concepts whose source is a religion, not to just any old concepts with some other basis that some religion subsequently came along and plagiarized. Likewise, democracy is a core concept of the U.S., but I don't think that makes it appropriate to call it an "American concept". Codifying somebody else's concept doesn't make it yours, especially if the reasons people already accepted it before you ever told your followers to never stopped operating. For instance, to my mind, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." is clearly a religious concept, and "Thou shalt not steal." is clearly a nonreligious concept, precisely because it's innate as you point out. Whether a religion that adopts one of these makes it one of its core concepts is immaterial.

 

[Bomb#20]

"Religious" means it's a concept people believe in because it's a contagious brain parasite, not because they have a reason to think it's correct.

In this particular context, I disagree with your assessment. Or maybe your framing.

You seem to be assuming that because something is captured by religion, it must therefore be wrong and false.

I'd say Bomb#20 means the authority behind it is wrong and false. People believe the rules exist and are authorized by an invisible deity and therefore must be obeyed, or Hank will beat your ass (not that obscure I think in these circles)! It isn't relevant if a rule makes sense or not, it is the alleged authority and force of authority that is fake. The comfy black and white the religious may speak of is actually quite gray.

Actually I wasn't offering any judgment about whether it was wrong and false; I was talking about what causes belief. There's nothing to stop an opinion that's held only because of a long cycle of hearing and repeating that all started with theological musings from turning out to be perfectly correct, just by dumb luck. Stuff being made of atoms was originally a Hindu religious concept -- until actual evidence for atoms showed up, believing in them was caused by a contagious brain parasite. Likewise, in principle the invisible deity who Hank will beat your ass for disobeying might really exist, and might even agree with Hank about what you should do, just by dumb luck, even though Hank made it all up and never actually heard a peep from his invisible friend.