From: Nick Arnett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Correlation does not imply causality.
Furthermore, it appears that one could substitute "wealth" for "God and" the "study" would make just as much sense. --- I don't think the average american is that much wealthier than the average Canadian, British, German, or Japanese. So you are saying that in fact it could be the other way. That Murderers and the like lead to religious fervor and zealotry? That decadence in the form High STD Rates, etc. leads people to dog? I'm sure that mythical Jeebus would aprove. --- On 9/27/05, The Fool <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > < http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1798944,00.html> > > Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side' > By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent > ------- Morality is not the basis of the governance of the state. Machiaveli noted that. Those who attempt to govern the state for moral ends, find themselves committing immoral acts and rarely achieve moral ends. The basis of government is the monopoly of organized violence and the supremacy of force. This is inherently immoral or amoral at the best. The virtues of the state are the virtues of ethics and not of morality. We seek to have an ethical state and not a moral one. This is supremely difficult for most men to grasp, for morality is sentimental and parochial and ethics is dispassionate and relative. People always ask that the state should be moral. But then the question arises, whose morality? And it turns out that there are many different moralities and they all end up squabbling over whose shall dominate. And then madmen and scoundrels promise each side that theirs shall triumph in order to gain power and distribute favor and use the state for their own gain. The definition of the ethical state is that it should treat all equally unfairly, high or low, rich or poor, regardless of color or gender, living or dead. Because it is impossible to make everyone happy all the time, but it is possible to treat everyone unfairly all the time. That is the function of the state, which is to create unhappiness, and it succeeds when it gives everyone an equal measure. Morality therefore is far removed from any such discussion. --Oldman BopNews _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
