On 3/27/2007 5:26 AM, Andrew Lentvorski wrote:
Christian Seberino wrote:
On many things I think Christianity *does* accept compromise,
flexibility,
admission of errors and tolerance.
It depends on your flavor of Christianity. The problem we are currently
having is that 50+% of Christians do not accept compromise on
functional, secular concerns like evolution and science.
The problem is who gets to decide that your flavor of Christianity is
acceptable and that some other is not?
If you give the government that power, then it can persecute. Thus, the
only way out is to prevent the government from touching religious
concerns at all.
I agree with what you are saying. Part of the problem is that what is a
personal choice to some is a strong moral edict to others, a right/wrong
issue.
Most people in our society probably think murder, rape, robbery, etc.,
are morally wrong. A lot think those who commit such acts should be
sought out and punished. It becomes a problem when the same is applied
for acts where a smaller percentage of the population thinks it's
morally wrong.
And this is a problem with little solution. If someone strongly feels
something is morally wrong and should be punished and the other sees it
as optional, what are you going to do. The two cannot live side by side,
whatever way you adjudicate the issue someone's opinion is going to get
slighted.
It becomes much worse when people think they should actively seek out
and change/punish people who have differing viewpoints.
I think the only even plausible answer is for the two populations to
live far enough apart that they don't interact very much. But history
has shown time and again that doesn't work either, one side would always
be living in fear of invasion by the U.S.
One could say that the majority should decide what the laws should be
and how they should be applied. That works only if one side is
substantially in the minority; but their ways have still been judged
wrong by the others. It doesn't work at all if the two sides have
roughly equal representation.
Karl
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