LogFAQs > #979626541

Prestoff posted...

Thanks for doing the research for me. Normally for these kinds of stuff I would ask my friends/coworkers about but almost anytime this type of conversation gets brought up, they are almost always very silent about (and for good reason I guess).

Its the less savory parts of religion that many people don't want to openly talk about because it, reasonably, doesn't look that good to those outside, or even in inside, the religion.

Now, obviously lashing and stoning is cruel, inhumane, and heinous, but considering the age in which the main 3 Abrahamic faiths gained their footing, you can reason out/see why it may have become a practice to lash/stone those who were engaging in pre or extra-marital sexual relations.

It's behavior that can destroy small or close-knit communities, which prior to the 1400s really, was the primary way the vast majority of the world's population lived. You could live your entire life within the same 100 sq mile/~260 sq km area, unless you went off on a Crusade or something. So the act being punishable (both secularly and in the eyes of God(s)) is understandable given the time frame and societal structure of the time. Stoning/lashing (publicly) was an easy way for authorities to demonstrate to all who saw or would go and tell others what happens if you do. Even if someone is uneducated, they can see and understand a lashing or stoning.

It also can create problems with spreading STDs. Medical knowledge prior to the 1900s was wildly and woefully minimal and many people would blame any and everything on demons, spirits, etc. So if someone slept with more than just their spouse and they started the drip drip from the tip or had sores all over their genitals and thighs, a generally uneducated person would think, or more likely been told, that said person is possessed by a bad spirit or a demon.

None of this is to say that sentencing people to severe physical deformation or to death for extra-marital affairs is justified. It's not. It's insane and a product of a different time.

However, if we can understand why these practices were a thing historically, we can better explain why it should be left there.