Thursday, September 26, 2019

Never had it so good


Spare a thought for this poor bugger. He lived somewhere between 1300 and 1430 AD in what is now Italy (Milan), and apparently died by being "broken on the wheel". In medieval times people who had been judged to have committed some types of crime or perhaps just looked different were sometimes conveniently accused of "spreading plague" (or similar) and the punishment was to have both arms and legs broken in order to be "threaded" through the spokes of a cart wheel. Once there they could be beaten, stabbed and generally pummeled until dead (ideally not too quickly) From the nature of injuries to his upper spine it seems as though this poor chap also suffered a botched beheading. 

This is what mob rule, tribalism, ignorance and fear looks like, the odds of dying a violent death back then was staggering, certainly in the multiple 100's per 100,000 of population whereas today it's less than one. Despite many conservative observers today is the safest time there has ever been to be living, violent death (even including the world wars) has been steadily decreasing for hundreds of years. No doubt there are many factors involved in this general increase in ethical behaviour, what is certain is that it's nothing to do with religion, enforced religiosity has steadily decreased over this same period with the rise of secular systems of Government. So, anyone who tries to convince you that we need religion to be moral needs to explain this apparent negative correlation with actual violence; a tough call.

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