Spellcheck wrote:
so we should respect other customs like honour killings and female genital mutiliation because the people who condone them are just culturally different?
it's easy to turn a blind eye to these problems by taking the view that we should accept other cultures that are different to ours, but some basic level of human rights needs to be objectively defined
Anyone knows what the UN's Declaration of Human Rights say about capital punishment? It's pretty good on moral matters that must be followed by the whole world. It must have considered many things, like values, religions, etc of different countries.
To put a dogma on certain things will be controversial. For example, issues on abortion. Some countries which are religious are against abortion, while others are pro-abortion, or 'pro-choice'. If the Catholic Church makes it a dogma throughout the earth, what would people say? People have different beliefs, different values, etc. They'll say, "who is the church to say this, yadda yadda".
Of course, some things are 'dogma'. But even these things start to change. Think Terry Schiavo's case - that's killing right? But is the killing justified? Well, it's up to you.
Would the killing of these 9 be justified, if it happens? To many of you, no, to many others, yes! It's subjective. We, who have very limited knowledge and experience, don't have the right to create a dogmatic law. I'm not saying that we should leave them as they are, but through diplomatic ways, like Not-to-Bright mentioned, such as teaching them, and not enforcing them to these countries, we can gradually make the world better. If you enforce your values on them, what would the people there think? They'd be insulted, obviously.
