Lan Barnes wrote:
On Tue, March 27, 2007 2:54 pm, Christian Seberino wrote:
If you were consistent that would mean if someone believed in and
carried
out rape, slavery and child abuse you would say...."Well personally I
don't believe in that but who am I to impose my views on others?". Is
that what you would say?
Chris
See, this is the thing that deeply religious people fail to understand.
That there is a rational basis for morality, ethics, and law. It doesn't
have to come from divine direction.
Your brush is a tad too broad. I'm deeply "religious". And yet I
understand perfectly that nearly all people know certain fundamental
rules for "morality, ethics, and law". But what you may not realize and
may refuse to admit is that God built into us that fundamental concept,
namely, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.". But even
that is too restrictive for most. Most don't want laws that mandate
such behavior except to protect against interpersonal violence. We all
want laws against rape, but we don't want laws against adultery. We
want to be able to have the freedom to nail our friend's mate, even
though we tend to want to kill our own unfaithful mate or our friend who
nailed her, or both. Some are "civilized" enough not to do it to a friend.
The Bible seems to suggest that any time we condemn someone for doing
something unpleasant to us, we rack up judgement from God against
ourselves if we do the same to anyone else. Most people who read this
automatically start thinking of other people who are guilty of it, not
themselves. But when the day comes that each individual stands before
God, with God demanding an answer of them, He's not going to tolerate "I
wasn't nearly as bad as so-and-so.". There is only *one* person He will
be willing to compare him with. When it comes to being graded, most of
us would prefer to be graded on the curve. But Jesus aced the test.
Even if God *would* have graded on a curve, because of Jesus, there *is*
no curve. And Jesus is the only one God will compare us with.
Do you want people to lie to you? Do you lie?
Do you want people to cheat on you? Have you ever cheated?
Do you want people to be mean to you? Have you mistreated anyone?
Do you want people to steal from you? Have you ever stolen?
Rape, slavery and child abuse are all inherently violence by one person
against another. This is not a matter of personal "belief." It is readily
apparent.
Fundamental even.
The purpose of law in my opinion is to protect people from each other, not
to make them better people or to please god. If someone does something
really nasty in the privacy of his own home and nobody gets hurt -- all
consenting adults and all that -- then I don't give a rat's patootie what
it was. Nobody's hurt, nobody's business.
I remember having a conversation with a sincere evangelical christian once
who couldn't understand (once he found out I was an athiestic agnostic,
secular humanist, whatever) what kept me from committing the most heinous
acts. I found this simultaneously amusing and insulting.
It shouldn't be insulting. The Bible says that the heart of man is
desparately wicked. And it is true. But he overlooked that mankind
also has a sense of decency ("do unto others...") built in by God,
called a conscience.
The purpose of law, indeed, is primarily to protect us from one
another. Jesus said that the greatest law commands us to love God with
all our heart and that the second greatest commands us to love our
neighbor as we love ourselves. He basically claimed that obedience to
these two laws would negate the need for any other law.
But later I began to wonder about him. Was his belief in god really the
only thing keeping him from committing violent rape after rape?
No, his conscience would stop him, just like you, unless he has beaten
his conscience down.
And me? Well, I'm still waiting for a clean needle exchange program so I
can take up heroin.
LOL!
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