Sam Harris

When an old man (or any man) takes a sexual shine to a six year old girl and forces her to marry him when she turns nine.  Do we as a species have any moral objections to this man?  Well, today if a man has sexual relations with a child we are disgusted and in most countries that man would be labelled as a paedophile and be sentenced to a term of imprisonment.  What if this same man lived say, one hundred years ago?  Is our moral outrage diminished in any way?  Has the behaviour of this man become less troublesome to us?  What if this man lived three hundred years ago?  Do we care anymore?  Do we simply come out with ‘Well that was a long time ago and it was the custom of the day!’ or do we simply retort ‘Girls matured a lot quicker in those days!’  Does time water down our moral outrage? Or do you still see this young girl as a child, whether it was one hundred years or two thousand years ago? And that any grown man that took a very young girl as his bride committed child rape!  I’m sure this scenario will have its apologists everywhere.  So here comes the extra moral problem.  What if this man is revered as a holy man, wait not just any holy man but the ultimate holy man by over a billion followers?  What if this man is seen as God’s last prophet?  As in the Prophet Muhammad!  What would be your moral objections be now? Would you still be morally outraged?  Would you be an apologist? Or would you just not think about it morally?  Or would you claim it was not a sexual union but a political union?

I initially thought that this was going to be serious question. Sadly it turned out to be a backhanded attempt to discredit the “holiest” prophet in one of the planet’s most popular fallacies.

If we are going to address the issues raised then;

Yes the sexual pursuit of children is abhorrent and we ought to be outraged. The rejection of paedophilia is visceral.

Islam is, in its entirety, a falsehood.  I find arguing with religious people is like bashing your head against a brick wall; it feels great when you stop. If Muhammad married a nine year old, then so be it. He qualifies by today’s standards as a paedophile irrespective of the motivations underpinning the marriage. Is there any point being morally outraged at the distance of a number of centuries? Probably not.