VERSION|0.5.1|SUBJECT|Rev Canon Dr Alan Billings, an Anglican priest in Sheffield  |CONTENT|[b]Rating[/b] 5 out of 5 (Extraordinarily platitudinous)

[url=http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap130114.html][img=images/2013/01/pic130114.jpg popup=false float=right][/url]The [url=http://www.channel4.com/news/india-rape-victim-should-be-named-father]rape and murder[/url] of the young student in India has shocked the world. What you may find more surprising is that this sort of terrible crime has been committed before, and not just in India.

If you want to hear about rapes then the place to look is in the Big Book of Magic Stuff. You'll find all sorts of misogyny, rape, gang rape, murder and dismemberment in there. Let me give you just one example, where David's son [url=http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Samuel+13:14-15&version=NIV]Amon rapes his sister Tatar[/url]. I know, shocking, isn't it, incest as well as rape?

There are a few details of that story that aren't so important and that I think I'll just miss out. Like the bit where she [url=http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Samuel+13:13&version=NIV]offers to marry him[/url] so that she can be raped with honour. Or, after she's been raped, where she begs the rapist not to [url=http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Samuel+13:16&version=NIV]discard her[/url], which is contrary to the law on rape. 

Amon clearly had no honour as he refused to marry her as required by [url=http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+22:28-29&version=NIV]Deutoronomy[/url] and [url=http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+22:16-17&version=NIV]Exodus[/url]. Some people think this means the Big Book of Magic Stuff condones rape. Not a bit of it! It just means that if a rapist goes around using a father's property without consent, he has to make good the drop in her monetary value. It's all explained [url=http://www.gotquestions.org/Deuteronomy-22-28-29-marry-rapist.html]clearly here[/url].

It's not clear whether the particularly invisible bit of the Invisible Magic Friend had to pay Mary's father 50 shekels after "blessing" here, but it doesn't seem to have affected Jesus, as he grew up and told some really very good stories. There weren't that many rape scenes in his stories but they were pretty good nonetheless.

Yes, it's thanks to the Big Book of Magic Stuff that Christianity has the [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20415689]enlightened view towards women[/url] that it has today. If you really want to learn how women ought to be treated, there's no better person to turn to than an ardent, Christian feminist like myself.

This is the word of the Lord.

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