There's a good starting place before you dismiss one of the founding principles of law as "fucking retarded"
this relates to what i said how?
A person's actual intent is important. Should the guy actually believe what he's doing and actually be trying to kill them in a batshit crazy manner, he needs mental help at the least because he may very well become dissatisfied with the results and go for a more direct route.
Can I be arrested for medical crimes if I tell a toddler I stole his nose?
That would require an act other than just saying you did. In this situation, the person claims to actually have done an act other than that he said he did.
There's a good starting place before you dismiss one of the founding principles of law as "fucking retarded"
although i know what you are trying to say, i think you missed something big:
building a bomb to explode and kill people =/= summoning a demon to make people commit suicide
i dont really know what "making people commit suicide" means, but im pretty sure that someone committing suicide because they were "scared of a demon" is not going to be treated like a murder.
edit: in fact, i would be willing to wager that most people, including the jury, would consider the death "a suicide" (and consider the person who killed himself as mentally unstable as the person who summoned the demon).
There's a good starting place before you dismiss one of the founding principles of law as "fucking retarded"
this relates to what i said how?
A person's actual intent is important. Should the guy actually believe what he's doing and actually be trying to kill them in a batshit crazy manner, he needs mental help at the least because he may very well become dissatisfied with the results and go for a more direct route.
i agree that he needs mental help
i disagree that he is guilty of attempted murder
waving your arms to summoning cthulu is not the same thing as fashioning a bomb that doesn't go off
MikeMan on
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Burden of ProofYou three boys picked a beautiful hill to die on.Registered Userregular
edited October 2009
I can see both sides of the argument here. The intention is important because eventually the cthulu guy is going to realize that his summoning isn't working and will just go out and buy a gun to kill you with.
I can see both sides of the argument here. The intention is important because eventually the cthulu guy is going to realize that his summoning isn't working and will just go out and buy a gun to kill you with.
well, we can get him when he buys the gun and brings it to church.
that's the price we have pay for not criminalizing thoughts.
There's a good starting place before you dismiss one of the founding principles of law as "fucking retarded"
although i know what you are trying to say, i think you missed something big:
building a bomb to explode and kill people =/= summoning a demon to make people commit suicide
i dont really know what "making people commit suicide" means, but im pretty sure that someone committing suicide because they were "scared of a demon" is not going to be treated like unknowingly building a bomb with fake c-4.
He had the same core intent - the deaths of the church goers. It's easy to dismiss the summoning ritual as meaningless, but he had intent and acted, the two requirements for a crime to have occurred.
I can see both sides of the argument here. The intention is important because eventually the cthulu guy is going to realize that his summoning isn't working and will just go out and buy a gun to kill you with.
well, we can get him when he buys the gun and brings it to church.
that's the price we have pay for not criminalizing thoughts.
We do, however, criminalize intentions. And while I'd agree with Mikeman that it doesn't necessarily require attempted murder, if the guy's serious I'd have no problem with him being forcibly entered into an institution.
There's a good starting place before you dismiss one of the founding principles of law as "fucking retarded"
although i know what you are trying to say, i think you missed something big:
building a bomb to explode and kill people =/= summoning a demon to make people commit suicide
i dont really know what "making people commit suicide" means, but im pretty sure that someone committing suicide because they were "scared of a demon" is not going to be treated like unknowingly building a bomb with fake c-4.
He had the same core intent - the deaths of the church goers. It's easy to dismiss the summoning ritual as meaningless, but he had intent and acted, the two requirements for a crime to have occurred.
you're equating a man playing dungeons and dragons in a church to someone building a faulty bomb.
There's a good starting place before you dismiss one of the founding principles of law as "fucking retarded"
although i know what you are trying to say, i think you missed something big:
building a bomb to explode and kill people =/= summoning a demon to make people commit suicide
i dont really know what "making people commit suicide" means, but im pretty sure that someone committing suicide because they were "scared of a demon" is not going to be treated like a murder.
edit: in fact, i would be willing to wager that most people, including the jury, would consider the death "a suicide" (by a person who is as mentally unstable as the person who summoned the demon).
A "factual" impossibility occurs when, at the time of the attempt, the facts make the intended crime impossible to commit although the defendant is unaware of this when the attempt is made.[3] In People v. Lee Kong, 95 Cal. 666, 30 P. 800 (1892), the defendant was found guilty for attempted murder for shooting at a hole in the roof, believing his victim to be there, and indeed, where his victim had been only moments before but was not at the time of the shooting.[3] Another case involving the defense of factual impossibility is Commonwealth v. Johnson, 167 A. 344, 348 (Pa. 1933) in which a wife intended to put arsenic in her husband's coffee but by mistake added the customary sugar instead. Later she felt repentant and confessed her acts to the police. She was arrested, tried, and convicted of attempted murder.[3] In United States v. Thomas, 13 U.S.C.M.A. 278 (1962) the court held that men who believed they were raping a drunken, unconscious woman were guilty of attempted rape, even though the woman was actually dead at the time sexual intercourse took place.[1][4]
This case contributes to the body of case law involving impossibility. In this case the crime was impossible to commit, unbeknown to the defendants. The crime of attempt consists of a specific intent to commit an offense and in addition some action that is more than just preparation. The fact the crime was not possible to commit does not constitute a defense.[1]
I don't see why there should be an exception just because the method of attempt is retarded.
However, "legal" and "factual" mistakes are not mutually exclusive. A borderline case is that of a person who shot a stuffed deer, thinking it was alive as was the case in State v. Guffey, (1953) in which a person was originally convicted for attempting to kill a protected animal out of season. In a debatable reversal, an appellate judge threw out the conviction on the basis that it is no crime to shoot a stuffed deer out of season.[1][3]
This is an interesting case - this person is clearly mentally disturbed, and wishes death on the church goers. But I see we're all caught up in the oh ho ho god and demons! aspect of it. I guess we should turn this fellow loose and see how far he is willing to go with his deadly intentions! Maybe if he blows up a church, we can get a real laugh because, well, they were a bunch of misguided Christians anyways and the world is better off without them! Ha ha ha!
If you punish him for harassment, you also have to punish every preacher who threatened their congregations with hellfire for harassment.
Which is to say, it's not an interesting case. You just have a double standard.
This is an interesting case - this person is clearly mentally disturbed, and wishes death on the church goers. But I see we're all caught up in the oh ho ho god and demons! aspect of it. I guess we should turn this fellow loose and see how far he is willing to go with his deadly intentions! Maybe if he blows up a church, we can get a real laugh because, well, they were a bunch of misguided Christians anyways and the world is better off without them! Ha ha ha!
If you punish him for harassment, you also have to punish every preacher who threatened their congregations with hellfire for harassment.
Which is to say, it's not an interesting case. You just have a double standard.
Very relevant picture
Come on.
The soul is not protected under the law.
Robman on
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Burden of ProofYou three boys picked a beautiful hill to die on.Registered Userregular
Couscous, so far as I know a case similar to this has not been to trial. The examples you posted were not remotely similar to these. We are talking about a man believing he can, through incantation, summon a fictional being. He cannot summon said being. Said being doesn't exist. Not only is the crime impossible to commit, the crime doesn't even make sense within the boundaries of this physical universe.
If you punish him for harassment, you also have to punish every preacher who threatened their congregations with hellfire for harassment.
Brimstone preachers aren't actively trying to make a person go to hell. They just say they are going to hell.
Anytime you pray to God to "reward the righteous and punish the sinners"—or simply pray to God to do God's will—you are actively trying to make people go to hell.
Why is asking a god to kill and then infinitely torture billions of people—including people in your audience if they don't obey you—legally acceptable, but conjuring a demon to kill a few people not legally acceptable?
There's a good starting place before you dismiss one of the founding principles of law as "fucking retarded"
although i know what you are trying to say, i think you missed something big:
building a bomb to explode and kill people =/= summoning a demon to make people commit suicide
i dont really know what "making people commit suicide" means, but im pretty sure that someone committing suicide because they were "scared of a demon" is not going to be treated like unknowingly building a bomb with fake c-4.
He had the same core intent - the deaths of the church goers. It's easy to dismiss the summoning ritual as meaningless, but he had intent and acted, the two requirements for a crime to have occurred.
im not disagreeing with you that technically, summoning a demon could be considered actus reas. im just saying that it won't be because policemen, prosecutors and juries aren't that stupid. and even if they were, im confident that a judge would throw out the verdict were it ever to get that far.
I can see both sides of the argument here. The intention is important because eventually the cthulu guy is going to realize that his summoning isn't working and will just go out and buy a gun to kill you with.
well, we can get him when he buys the gun and brings it to church.
that's the price we have pay for not criminalizing thoughts.
We do, however, criminalize intentions. And while I'd agree with Mikeman that it doesn't necessarily require attempted murder, if the guy's serious I'd have no problem with him being forcibly entered into an institution.
actually, we don't really criminalize intentions either. we criminalize actions. no intention alone, without action, can ever be criminalized. would the "summoning" satisfy the actus reas requirement? maybe in stupid world. but im confident that we don't live in stupid world.
Couscous, so far as I know a case similar to this has not been to trial. The examples you posted were not remotely similar to these. We are talking about a man believing he can, through incantation, summon a fictional being. He cannot summon said being. Said being doesn't exist. Not only is the crime impossible to commit, the crime doesn't even make sense within the boundaries of this physical universe.
But it doesn't remove the intent. If reality operated like he believed, they would be driven to suicide. I don't see why a person being a dumb shit should excuse a person's attempt.
I can see both sides of the argument here. The intention is important because eventually the cthulu guy is going to realize that his summoning isn't working and will just go out and buy a gun to kill you with.
well, we can get him when he buys the gun and brings it to church.
that's the price we have pay for not criminalizing thoughts.
We do, however, criminalize intentions. And while I'd agree with Mikeman that it doesn't necessarily require attempted murder, if the guy's serious I'd have no problem with him being forcibly entered into an institution.
actually, we don't really criminalize intentions either. we criminalize actions. no intention alone, without action, can ever be criminalized. would the "summoning" satisfy the actus reas requirement? maybe in stupid world. but im confident that we don't live in stupid world.
If you punish him for harassment, you also have to punish every preacher who threatened their congregations with hellfire for harassment.
Brimstone preachers aren't actively trying to make a person go to hell. They just say they are going to hell.
Anytime you pray to God to "reward the righteous and punish the sinners"—or simply pray to God to do God's will—you are actively trying to make people go to hell.
Why is asking a god to kill and then infinitely torture billions of people—including people in your audience if they don't obey you—legally acceptable, but conjuring a demon to kill a few people not legally acceptable?
Those preachers aren't asking god to kill people. Most of them intend punishment to happen after death.
One involves an active attempt to make those people die with a spiritual being acting for that person and the other doesn't with the spiritual being doing what it want to do without regard for puny mortals.
Couscous, so far as I know a case similar to this has not been to trial. The examples you posted were not remotely similar to these. We are talking about a man believing he can, through incantation, summon a fictional being. He cannot summon said being. Said being doesn't exist. Not only is the crime impossible to commit, the crime doesn't even make sense within the boundaries of this physical universe.
But it doesn't remove the intent. If reality operated like he believed, they would be driven to suicide. I don't see why a person being a dumb shit should excuse a person's attempt.
If reality operated like many Christians believed, God would appear any time now and kill the majority of the world's population and then torture them forever.
Many Christians actively pray for God to do this. Many Christians ritualize such prayers and then talk about how they prayed to God to come down and smite the sinners thus fulfilling his prophecy.
Couscous, so far as I know a case similar to this has not been to trial. The examples you posted were not remotely similar to these. We are talking about a man believing he can, through incantation, summon a fictional being. He cannot summon said being. Said being doesn't exist. Not only is the crime impossible to commit, the crime doesn't even make sense within the boundaries of this physical universe.
But it doesn't remove the intent. If reality operated like he believed, they would be driven to suicide. I don't see why a person being a dumb shit should excuse a person's attempt.
Nothing actually happened. We don't throw a person in jail for thinking that obama should die. we don't throw them in jail for summoning a demon to kill obama, because demons don't exist and summoning one does nothing. It's not an intent. It's a thought. You don't criminalize intentions alone.
I can see both sides of the argument here. The intention is important because eventually the cthulu guy is going to realize that his summoning isn't working and will just go out and buy a gun to kill you with.
well, we can get him when he buys the gun and brings it to church.
that's the price we have pay for not criminalizing thoughts.
We do, however, criminalize intentions. And while I'd agree with Mikeman that it doesn't necessarily require attempted murder, if the guy's serious I'd have no problem with him being forcibly entered into an institution.
actually, we don't really criminalize intentions either. we criminalize actions. no intention alone, without action, can ever be criminalized. would the "summoning" satisfy the actus reas requirement? maybe in stupid world. but im confident that we don't live in stupid world.
This person, of his own free will
Prepared a demon summoning ritual
Observed the church until he found a quiet period to enter it
Entered the church when empty to perform his ritual uninterrupted
Performed the ritual
Left and bragged about how he had summoned a demon that would drive the church goers to suicide
The fact that his ritual is rooted in silliness is notwithstanding: he carefully planned out and executed a plot with murderous intent.
Many Christians actively pray for God to do this. Many Christians ritualize such prayers and then talk about how they prayed to God to come down and smite the sinners thus fulfilling his prophecy.
Throw them in jail? Or in a mental institution?
I wouldn't mind that at all if they actually thought praying would cause it to happen.
This case contributes to the body of case law involving impossibility. In this case the crime was impossible to commit, unbeknown to the defendants. The crime of attempt consists of a specific intent to commit an offense and in addition some action that is more than just preparation. The fact the crime was not possible to commit does not constitute a defense.[1]
I don't see why there should be an exception just because the method of attempt is retarded.
im surprised you guys are still arguing this.
i plan on murdering someone. the way i plan to do it is by buying him candy and letting him eat it until he gets diabetes. then one day, he might die of it if he forgets to take his injections.
I can see both sides of the argument here. The intention is important because eventually the cthulu guy is going to realize that his summoning isn't working and will just go out and buy a gun to kill you with.
well, we can get him when he buys the gun and brings it to church.
that's the price we have pay for not criminalizing thoughts.
We do, however, criminalize intentions. And while I'd agree with Mikeman that it doesn't necessarily require attempted murder, if the guy's serious I'd have no problem with him being forcibly entered into an institution.
actually, we don't really criminalize intentions either. we criminalize actions. no intention alone, without action, can ever be criminalized. would the "summoning" satisfy the actus reas requirement? maybe in stupid world. but im confident that we don't live in stupid world.
A man in Dallas was arrested in an FBI sting when he took what he thought to be a car full of bombs into a parking garage and tried to detonate them. Of course, since the car was provided by the FBI there were no bombs in the car, his only action was dialing a phone number.
By your reasoning he should be let go since there's no way he could kill someone only by dialing a phone, no matter what he thought/wanted to happen.
Or, we could be sane, and realize that someone being crazy and murderous doesn't make them less murderous.
If you punish him for harassment, you also have to punish every preacher who threatened their congregations with hellfire for harassment.
Brimstone preachers aren't actively trying to make a person go to hell. They just say they are going to hell.
Anytime you pray to God to "reward the righteous and punish the sinners"—or simply pray to God to do God's will—you are actively trying to make people go to hell.
Why is asking a god to kill and then infinitely torture billions of people—including people in your audience if they don't obey you—legally acceptable, but conjuring a demon to kill a few people not legally acceptable?
Those preachers aren't asking god to kill people. Most of them intend punishment to happen after death.
One involves an active attempt to make those people die with a spiritual being acting for that person and the other doesn't with the spiritual being doing what it want to do without regard for puny mortals.
As you should be beginning to realize, this is why the government doesn't get involved, legally, in the intricacies of theology. As far as the law is concerned, God is not responsible for Lincoln's murder, John Wilkes Booth is, even though some Christian sects believe that when people get murdered they're being punished for their sins.
Similarly, this man isn't guilty of attempted murder because for fuck's sake he played dungeons and dragons, he didn't actually do anything.
Most of them intend punishment to happen after death.
Not in Revelation.
And just to be clear, I'm not talking about C-and-E Christians. I'm talking about the large community of evangelicals who, for example, politically support Israel solely because they think it will hasten the End Times.
One involves an active attempt to make those people die with a spiritual being acting for that person and the other doesn't with the spiritual being doing what it want to do without regard for puny mortals.
So are you saying that the legal difference is the fact that the demon-summoner did so of his own volition?
Would he be less culpable if he believed that Cthulu or Space Emperor Zargon or whoever was going to come down and kill all Christians anyway, and his ritual would just maybe speed it up a bit—like how Christians pray for God to make the end times happen quick?
This case contributes to the body of case law involving impossibility. In this case the crime was impossible to commit, unbeknown to the defendants. The crime of attempt consists of a specific intent to commit an offense and in addition some action that is more than just preparation. The fact the crime was not possible to commit does not constitute a defense.[1]
I don't see why there should be an exception just because the method of attempt is retarded.
im surprised you guys are still arguing this.
i plan on murdering someone. the way i plan to do it is by buying him candy and letting him eat it until he gets diabetes. then one day, he might die of it if he forgets to take his injections.
attempted murder?
stop being silly guys.
The crime of attempt consists of a specific intent to commit an offense and in addition some action that is more than just preparation. The fact the crime was not possible to commit does not constitute a defense
I can see both sides of the argument here. The intention is important because eventually the cthulu guy is going to realize that his summoning isn't working and will just go out and buy a gun to kill you with.
well, we can get him when he buys the gun and brings it to church.
that's the price we have pay for not criminalizing thoughts.
We do, however, criminalize intentions. And while I'd agree with Mikeman that it doesn't necessarily require attempted murder, if the guy's serious I'd have no problem with him being forcibly entered into an institution.
actually, we don't really criminalize intentions either. we criminalize actions. no intention alone, without action, can ever be criminalized. would the "summoning" satisfy the actus reas requirement? maybe in stupid world. but im confident that we don't live in stupid world.
A man in Dallas was arrested in an FBI sting when he took what he thought to be a car full of bombs into a parking garage and tried to detonate them. Of course, since the car was provided by the FBI there were no bombs in the car, his only action was dialing a phone number.
By your reasoning he should be let go since there's no way he could kill someone only by dialing a phone, no matter what he thought/wanted to happen.
Or, we could be sane, and realize that someone being crazy and murderous doesn't make them less murderous.
That's completely different. A truck full of bombs has a very high likelihood of killing people. A demon not only doesn't, it doesn't exist.
That's completely different. A truck full of bombs has a very high likelihood of killing people. A demon not only doesn't, it doesn't exist.
But there wasn't a car full of bombs. Clearly the man should be let go since his actions so far aren't hurting anyone. Don't want to go around arresting anyone for intent now do we?
And Qingu, it could be argued very well that prayer is restricted to preparation. If this fellow had prayed to the demons, there wouldn't be an issue. The reason many of us are interested in seeing him locked up and evaluated are that he constructed a complex plot and executed it - and that plot included troubling parallels with planting a bomb.
This case contributes to the body of case law involving impossibility. In this case the crime was impossible to commit, unbeknown to the defendants. The crime of attempt consists of a specific intent to commit an offense and in addition some action that is more than just preparation. The fact the crime was not possible to commit does not constitute a defense.[1]
I don't see why there should be an exception just because the method of attempt is retarded.
im surprised you guys are still arguing this.
i plan on murdering someone. the way i plan to do it is by buying him candy and letting him eat it until he gets diabetes. then one day, he might die of it if he forgets to take his injections.
attempted murder?
stop being silly guys.
The crime of attempt consists of a specific intent to commit an offense and in addition some action that is more than just preparation. The fact the crime was not possible to commit does not constitute a defense
In this case the crime was not only not possible to commit, it was not possible at all. I argue that that constitutes a defense, but since a case like this has not been heard, we have no precedent to argue upon. The examples couscous gave involved things like guns, which exist, and plots to kill people that were foiled for whatever reason, but all took place within the boundaries of the goddamned physical universe.
This case contributes to the body of case law involving impossibility. In this case the crime was impossible to commit, unbeknown to the defendants. The crime of attempt consists of a specific intent to commit an offense and in addition some action that is more than just preparation. The fact the crime was not possible to commit does not constitute a defense.[1]
I don't see why there should be an exception just because the method of attempt is retarded.
im surprised you guys are still arguing this.
i plan on murdering someone. the way i plan to do it is by buying him candy and letting him eat it until he gets diabetes. then one day, he might die of it if he forgets to take his injections.
attempted murder?
stop being silly guys.
The crime of attempt consists of a specific intent to commit an offense and in addition some action that is more than just preparation. The fact the crime was not possible to commit does not constitute a defense
So Rob, do you think any Christian who prays to God to kill or torture people (including gays, pro-choice people, atheists, etc) should be guilty of a crime of attempt?
Please spell out the difference here. Couscous has said they should be arrested if they think praying will actually work. I don't agree, but at least that's consistent with his position.
That's completely different. A truck full of bombs has a very high likelihood of killing people. A demon not only doesn't, it doesn't exist.
But there wasn't a car full of bombs. Clearly the man should be let go since his actions so far aren't hurting anyone. Don't want to go around arresting anyone for intent now do we?
If there were a car full of bombs, people would have been hurt, because in the real world, bombs blow the fuck up and hurt people.
"If there were a demon" doesn't even make sense as a sentence. There are no demons. The man is crazy, not criminally so.
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this relates to what i said how?
A person's actual intent is important. Should the guy actually believe what he's doing and actually be trying to kill them in a batshit crazy manner, he needs mental help at the least because he may very well become dissatisfied with the results and go for a more direct route.
Oh shit, Dane Cook is in the house!
That would require an act other than just saying you did. In this situation, the person claims to actually have done an act other than that he said he did.
although i know what you are trying to say, i think you missed something big:
building a bomb to explode and kill people =/= summoning a demon to make people commit suicide
i dont really know what "making people commit suicide" means, but im pretty sure that someone committing suicide because they were "scared of a demon" is not going to be treated like a murder.
edit: in fact, i would be willing to wager that most people, including the jury, would consider the death "a suicide" (and consider the person who killed himself as mentally unstable as the person who summoned the demon).
i disagree that he is guilty of attempted murder
waving your arms to summoning cthulu is not the same thing as fashioning a bomb that doesn't go off
well, we can get him when he buys the gun and brings it to church.
that's the price we have pay for not criminalizing thoughts.
He had the same core intent - the deaths of the church goers. It's easy to dismiss the summoning ritual as meaningless, but he had intent and acted, the two requirements for a crime to have occurred.
We do, however, criminalize intentions. And while I'd agree with Mikeman that it doesn't necessarily require attempted murder, if the guy's serious I'd have no problem with him being forcibly entered into an institution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Thomas I don't see why there should be an exception just because the method of attempt is retarded.
That is just hilarious.
Which is to say, it's not an interesting case. You just have a double standard.
Very relevant picture
Come on.
The soul is not protected under the law.
Why is asking a god to kill and then infinitely torture billions of people—including people in your audience if they don't obey you—legally acceptable, but conjuring a demon to kill a few people not legally acceptable?
im not disagreeing with you that technically, summoning a demon could be considered actus reas. im just saying that it won't be because policemen, prosecutors and juries aren't that stupid. and even if they were, im confident that a judge would throw out the verdict were it ever to get that far.
actually, we don't really criminalize intentions either. we criminalize actions. no intention alone, without action, can ever be criminalized. would the "summoning" satisfy the actus reas requirement? maybe in stupid world. but im confident that we don't live in stupid world.
Those preachers aren't asking god to kill people. Most of them intend punishment to happen after death.
One involves an active attempt to make those people die with a spiritual being acting for that person and the other doesn't with the spiritual being doing what it want to do without regard for puny mortals.
Many Christians actively pray for God to do this. Many Christians ritualize such prayers and then talk about how they prayed to God to come down and smite the sinners thus fulfilling his prophecy.
Throw them in jail? Or in a mental institution?
This person, of his own free will
The fact that his ritual is rooted in silliness is notwithstanding: he carefully planned out and executed a plot with murderous intent.
im surprised you guys are still arguing this.
i plan on murdering someone. the way i plan to do it is by buying him candy and letting him eat it until he gets diabetes. then one day, he might die of it if he forgets to take his injections.
attempted murder?
stop being silly guys.
A man in Dallas was arrested in an FBI sting when he took what he thought to be a car full of bombs into a parking garage and tried to detonate them. Of course, since the car was provided by the FBI there were no bombs in the car, his only action was dialing a phone number.
By your reasoning he should be let go since there's no way he could kill someone only by dialing a phone, no matter what he thought/wanted to happen.
Or, we could be sane, and realize that someone being crazy and murderous doesn't make them less murderous.
Similarly, this man isn't guilty of attempted murder because for fuck's sake he played dungeons and dragons, he didn't actually do anything.
God's plan is to kill lots of people.
Not in Revelation.
And just to be clear, I'm not talking about C-and-E Christians. I'm talking about the large community of evangelicals who, for example, politically support Israel solely because they think it will hasten the End Times.
So are you saying that the legal difference is the fact that the demon-summoner did so of his own volition?
Would he be less culpable if he believed that Cthulu or Space Emperor Zargon or whoever was going to come down and kill all Christians anyway, and his ritual would just maybe speed it up a bit—like how Christians pray for God to make the end times happen quick?
But there wasn't a car full of bombs. Clearly the man should be let go since his actions so far aren't hurting anyone. Don't want to go around arresting anyone for intent now do we?
Please spell out the difference here. Couscous has said they should be arrested if they think praying will actually work. I don't agree, but at least that's consistent with his position.
"If there were a demon" doesn't even make sense as a sentence. There are no demons. The man is crazy, not criminally so.
i dont mean to be dismissive or rude but i have no idea how any reasonable person could consider that attempted anything.