I disagree with you, Frank, the most embarassing moment for Dan Barker was when he was asked if there was an exception to rape since he said there are no actions that are absolutely wrong because there are always exceptions.
My dear reader here is correct. I believe that Barker's answer was very disturbing because he said that in a certain context rape is okay!
Dan Barker was asked this question (part 2 - 54:54),
"You stated that there are no actions that are absolutely wrong (such as lying, etc.), that there is always an exception. When then is rape considered okay? What is the exception to this action?"
The funny thing is Barker didn't answer the question right away. He had to make sure that the Bible justified rape first. Typical. As if that would make his answer better. But that showed how insecure and uncomfortable he was about the question.
Also, it took Barker one minute and thirty-one seconds to finally get to the point and answer the original question. Says Barker (56:25),
Here's a hypothetical. And I just said it's hypothetical. You know how some species like cats like to play with mice before they kill them. I mean they have this weird thing about exaggerating the harm before they eat their meal. Suppose there was some advanced, powerful species outside of our solar system that came to earth and it was like that. And it was torturing people. And raping women. We thought how horrible, this is really bad. And suppose this culture for the fun of it said, "We're gonna kill the whole species. We're gonna kill all of you. We're gonna show how powerful we are." We think, "Boy, what an amoral group" right? We'd be afraid of them. But what if they said to you, "Before we're gonna kill everybody off, we just wanna have more fun here, if you will rape a woman, then we will let the rest of the species go, okay? We'll just leave. If you'll just do that one thing, and let us watch, because we're sickos, right? Then we'll save the rest of the planet." Now, I know that's not likely to happen but hypothetically something like that could happen. Nature is weird, right? In that weird case, which you and I would never see in our life time, you can make an argument - although it wouldn't be pleasant, and you wouldn't like it, and you would feel really bad about yourself, you would consider that to be the moral choice.
Then shortly after that Barker goes back to the "Bible justifying rape" routine. I mean, he just had to add that part again, right?
But, yeah, Barker was really uncomforable there. Kudos to the person who asked the question. And kudos to the reader who brought up the idea. You should also know that the questioner was in turn asked by Barker if he was put in that situation would he rape the women to free the human race? Thank God the questioner said no.
But this is where the "survival of the fittest" mentality gets you. For the sake of the human race you are justified in doing anything - even rape. Someone should ask Barker then if there is an exception to saving the human race if there are exceptions to all moral actions.
I don't know about you guys but if an alien race came up to me and said, "If you molest and torture fifty children we'll let the human race live." My answer would be, "Hell no!" Where as Barker would have to say, "Okay."
