smb@ulysses.UUCP (12/03/83)
I find Larry Bickford's example of an ideal Judaeo-Christian state to be extremely frightening. Many of my objections are political -- but I find it very upsetting that he can derive (for example) a welfare system or an educational system or a judicial system for his interpretation of the Bible. Damnit, that's the whole point -- I don't agree with your religious beliefs, I don't agree with (many of) your moral principles, and I don't want a political system forced on me because some people think it's divinely ordained. Before you try to set up such a system, remember one thing: even discounting atheists and believing non-Christians, there is no consensus on what the Bible means or should mean in the political arena. Contrast, for example, the Pope's pronouncements on the role of government with the picture painted by Larry: Larry seems inclined towards minimal government inter- ference, while the Pope's vision is more that of a Social Democrat. Or contrast Larry's view of the balance between the rights of the victim and the rights of the accused with Jesus' teachings about judgement and mercy. No, I'll take a secular state any day. Such a state can provide far more freedom for everyone, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Moslems, witches, atheists, and everyone else.
bch@unc.UUCP (12/03/83)
>>Byron Howes cast doubts on any divine authority of Paul's writings. >>Why not take it a step further and doubt the authority behind anything >>in the Bible; after all, weren't the words written down by mere men? >>:-( The authority of the Bible is one of the two presuppositions of the >>Christian faith ("G-d is, and He has spoken in the Bible"). If each man >>can judge the authority of a passage, who needs G-d? >>A book has no more authority than its canonizer(s). If the Council of >>Carthage canonized the New Testament, then it has only as much >>authority as the Council (and hardly that of the Word of G-d). To be >>the Word of G-d, with the authority of G-d, the books had to be >>canonical *when they were written.* All man can do is recognize what >>G-d has done. Paul recognized Luke's writings; Peter recognized Paul's; >>in the era just after the apostles, virtually all of the New Testament >>books had been de facto accepted. (The writings of the early church >>fathers prove most helpful here. It is noted that their writings >>include all but 11 verses of the New Testament.) Larry, that is not what I said. I see the Bible is a mixture of divine authority, political dogma and transcription errors. It is also as important as to what was *not* included in the process of canonization as to what was included. In terms of Paul's words, I tend to think that much of what he said which cannot be inferred from his original charge (to spread the name and word of Jesus) is not necessarily divinely inspired. This does not cast doubt upon *all* of his writings, nor upon *all* of the Bible. What was generally recognized in the first century was a much larger body of works than is in The Bible. If you adopt apostolic consensus as your criterion, are you not saying the Bible is necessarily incomplete? Right now, those who believe that the Bible is entirely divinely inspired and that there are no divinely inspired words outside the Bible are accepting the decision of other men, not of G-d. Why are individual judgements about the Bible necessarily mistaken? Has G-d died? Does not the Creative force work through you or I just as much today as it did then? -- Byron Howes UNC - Chapel Hill decvax!duke!mcnc!unc!bch
djhawley@watmath.UUCP (David John Hawley) (12/05/83)
It might be interesting to define "freedom". Freedom to do what ? Freedom is always restricted by physical, emotional, etc limitations, and of course, the effects of our behaviour on others; which may be quite subtle (what we think affects our behaviour, and the climate between people). Freedom to be enslaved by our own weaknesses, say violent-pornography/drugs/junk-food (to name a wide qualitative spectrum) doesn't seem to be real freedom. I am aware I have just opened myself to charges of paternalism. To continue, true freedom to me is the freedom to live up to our full potential and purpose. Christians don't believe this can truly happen outside of an intimate relationship with God. Meanwhile, the secular state should serve to limit evil, and to encourage goodness. Tempered with virtues such as non-judgementalism, and concern for people as people - not machines or "souls-to-save" - that are part of the christian (practical) ideal. We remember that God allows us to disobey, and even refuse Him eternally (goto hell). To sum up, I'm not sure "freedom" as it is normally meant is the highest good society can aspire to. We all agree there must be limits, I just think they could be tighter than they are. Please comment. David Hawley (*** please no flames, I don't believe in state religion either ***)
lab@qubix.UUCP (Larry Bickford) (12/08/83)
Yeah, me again. I hope you all enjoyed the absence of any major articles
by me (one paired posting since I broke my ankle three months ago).
Well, if you didn't, too late now. Let's see what we have where my input
might be profitable:
Creation vs. Evolution (separate article)
Authority of Paul's Writings (and the Bible for that matter)
Life in a Judeo-Christian State (it's been a while)
Byron Howes cast doubts on any divine authority of Paul's writings. Why
not take it a step further and doubt the authority behind anything in
the Bible; after all, weren't the words written down by mere men? :-(
The authority of the Bible is one of the two presuppositions of the
Christian faith ("God is, and He has spoken in the Bible"). If each man
can judge the authority of a passage, who needs God?
A book has no more authority than its canonizer(s). If the Council of
Carthage canonized the New Testament, then it has only as much authority
as the Council (and hardly that of the Word of God). To be the Word of
God, with the authority of God, the books had to be canonical *when they
were written.* All man can do is recognize what God has done. Paul
recognized Luke's writings; Peter recognized Paul's; in the era just
after the apostles, virtually all of the New Testament books had been de
facto accepted. (The writings of the early church fathers prove most
helpful here. It is noted that their writings include all but 11 verses
of the New Testament.)
Pam Troy's article on "Life in a Judeo-Christian" brought more than a
few thoughts to mind. The first is the definition of a Judeo-Christian
state. Two possibilities: 1) like Israel of old, with a sort of semi-
official state "religion" (although there would be problems arising from
disagreements on how God should be worshipped); 2) a state where the
laws generally conform to what has been called the "Judeo-Christian
ethic," with laws regarding sexual behavior, abortion, theft, murder,
and the like.
Before I get to those, some thoughts regarding powers in general. That
which has the power to do you good also has the power to do you evil.
In our desire to ensure the legal rights of everyone and to keep the
innocent from being punished, dangerous criminals are let loose because
a fallible human made a mistake. The guy may be clearly guilty, yet in
our efforts to protect a high and holy law, we sacrifice society and
cause the non-criminal to live behind locked doors and barred windows.
Further, any right you have depends on someone to enforce it. People
scream about fraud (welfare, employee, employer, etc.), yet because of
privacy laws (to avoid Big Brother), background investigations which
would have brought these to light are stifled.
And then there's the question of whether powers should keep secrets, or
whether they should all be public knowledge. The latter is the height of
naivete, for it assumes everybody, everywhere, is totally trustworthy. If
that were the case, who would need governments? Reality speaks otherwise.
Finally there's the matter of real religious freedom as the country
stands now. I hear so much about "you can't legislate morality."
BALONEY! Every law on the books is legislated morality! That's what
legislatures are for - to determine right and wrong, and associate
punishment with the wrong. The question is WHOSE morality. If your
religion practices human sacrifices on the steps of the Lincoln
Memorial, I think you'll definitely find there has been a law passed
regarding your free exercise thereof. (Don't laugh too hard; there was a
convict in a California prison who claimed a religion that required the
sacrifice of a nude young woman.)
Now back to the original questions. If (1), the question is already
answered in the Bible, in the history of the kingdoms of Israel and
Judah. Depending on the particular person in power, life for a devout
follower of the God of Israel could either be wonderful or miserable.
Depends on the one(s) in authority being trustworthy.
Before considering (2), let us consider the opposite of (1), which is
also illustrated in the Bible: essentially, anarchy, or (Judges 21:25)
"In those days, there was no king in Israel: every man did that which
was right in his own eyes." That pretty well summarizes the whole book
of Judges. Yet in the press for personal "freedom"s in this country,
this is what we are headed for. And it only takes one with a mind to
misuse "freedom" to make the rest regret. So we have the same problem as
before - untrustworthiness of people.
(2) re-establishes "one nation under God." It acknowledges that our
"rights" are not ours innately, but are granted to us by the One who
also laid down the guidelines for the law. The emphasis would be on
responsibilities, and the need for each of us to fulfill our particular
one(s). It establishes a morality profitable to the majority of the
well-intentioned. It would change the judicial system from the current
adversary system back into a quest for truth. Certainly, there are more
possibilities for abuse than the current system, yet I think the reward
is worth it: a safe and sane society, peace in the streets, a respect
for those in authority, an active discouragement of wrongdoing; a
resulting benefit is that those in positions of potential abuse would
realize that abuse would be more dangerous to themselves and thus not
worth it (Economics of Crime 101).
Would witches have problems? Probably. Although worship of God could
not be compelled, it would be made evident to all that the basis for
both law and government is God, and that practice which would place
another above the law-giver shows disrespect for the law.
Would public-school children be compelled to pray as their teacher does?
Even as the school day begins with the Pledge of Allegiance, so the
teacher can also ask the class to pause and remember the Source of the
laws, freedoms, and privileges they have.
And with the emphasis on responsibilities, we would see a lot of things
that the government is unnecessarily involved in (but placed there
because we can't trust others to do them) placed back in the hands of
the people - education and welfare among them. It would be to the
advantage of high-tech business to sponsor educators, so that the stream
of bright young minds doesn't dry up. Supply-and-demand would ensure
that we would have the training we need in the fields where it is needed.
I don't have Pam's article in front of me, so I don't remember the rest
of the questions. But I hope this has given insight that the problem is
not cut-and-dried, and that where we are is not a stopping point but a
transition to one. And no points other than the three above come to mind.
Larry Bickford, {ihnp4,ucbvax,decvax}!decwrl!qubix!labtim@unc.UUCP (Tim Maroney) (12/11/83)
Well, Paul Dubuc and Gary Samuelson, I do believe that Larry Bickford has
provided a perfect example of why so many of us get nervous when we hear the
words "Judeo-Christian Country". In his recent article "Catching Up", there
is not pussy-footing around about "equal time for Christians." The theme is
Christian dominance of other beliefs, and Larry makes no bones about it.
In our present society people like Larry and people like Tim and me have
precisely the same rights and restrictions. None of us can be pressured by
the government to abandon our religious convictions unless we practice them
in a way which would injure other citizens. None of us can use public funds
to practice or prosletyze for our faith. Larry could not spend public funds
to set up a nativity scene, and I could not use these same funds to erect a
temple to Pan. All religions are treated equally under the law.
But Larry seems to think this is just awful. He feels that if everyone can
decide for themselves whether or not to follow the dictates of Christianity,
the country is just not safe. People aren't "trustworthy" enough to make
this descision.
I don't really know why I am bothering to reply unless it's because this is
the first time I've ever seen Larry attempt to address specific points in an
opposing article. I will also try to address points in his article, but I
may have to be briefer than I would like to be. (I really should be typing
my thesis.)
I hear so much about "you can't legislate morality." BALONEY!
Every law on the books is legislated morality! That's what
legislatures are for - to determine right and wrong, and
associate punishment with the wrong. The question is WHOSE
morality. If your religion practices human sacrifices on the
steps of the Lincoln Memorial, I think you'll definitely find
there has been a law passed regarding your free exercise
thereof. (Don't laugh too hard; there was a convict in a
California prison who claimed a religion that required the
sacrifice of a nude young woman.)
I am fascinated by your concept of law and morality. In the first place,
laws are not "legislated morality." They are restraints placed on citizens
to avoid the injury of other citizens. (Please explain to me the morality
implicit in the fact that we drive on the right side of the road in this
country rather than the left.) Murder, theft, and fraud are illegal, not
because they are immoral but because a society which permitted these things
could not function. To put it simply, it would be immoral for me to lie
about someone, but it would not be illegal unless the lie injured the person
physically or financially. Gluttony is considered by the Bible to be
immoral, but it is not illegal because the person who indulges in it injures
nobody but himself.
If you were to threaten me with prison for living with Tim, we might
separate. If the government exerted enough pressure, I might also abstain
from sex and alcohol, discard my Tarot cards and renounce Wicca, but my
convictions would not alter one whit. I would still consider responsible
pre-marital sex a good thing, and I would still revere Pan rather than
Christ. Would the fact that I had been browbeaten into living a "Christian"
life make me moral, even by your standards? Of course not! This is what is
meant when people say "You can't legislate morality."
No, I did not laugh at your story about the convict, and I believe you.
There are always people who will twist religious beliefs into an excuse for
injuring others. That is why I am against a religious government. The state
would be too powerful a weapon for such people - and unfortunately, there
are many of them. Last year in Tennessee, two young fundamentalist men
burned down the house of a neighbor because they had found pornographic
magazines in it, and recently, in Spartanburg, a local reverend was
convicted after leading his family in an attack on a young man. They jumped
him in a parking lot and put him in a hospital for a couple of days. Of
course, the preacher claimed that his trial and imprisonment were examples
of "religious persecution."
In describing your proposed Judeo-Christian state you say:
It establishes a morality profitable to the majority of the well
intentioned. It would change the judicial system from the current
adversary system back into a quest for truth. Certainly, there
are more possibilities for abuse than the current system, yet I
think the reward is worth it: a safe and sane society, peace in
the streets, a respect for those in authority, an active
discouragement of wrong-doing:
A safe and sane society, you mean, for Larry Bickford. For the
non-conformist, the non-Judeo-Christian, life could become very dangerous.
You seem appallingly willing to make the world safer for you by making it
more hazardous for others. Larry Bickford, that peaceful, sane, respectful
Christian, would, indeed, sleep soundly in such a society. You and your
family would be safe from hearing any views opposed to the government
approved morality and free from seeing any lifestyle that differed from your
own. Those of us base enough to be irreverent dissenters, however, would
lie awake listening for your gestapo.
Would witches have problems? Probably. Although worship of God
could not be compelled, it would be made evident to all that the
basis for both law and government is God, and that practice which
would place another above the law-giver shows disrespect for the
law.
How, exactly, would it be "made evident" to me that not worshiping the
Judeo-Christian god was an act of lese-majeste? A few cops, perhaps,
stationed outside of our coven-meeting and slapping their billy-clubs
suggestively in their palms? Or will those "problems" you so calmly speak
of do the trick? Tax sanctions, or the loss of my home, my job, my freedom?
You seem to dismiss these things with a casual shrug, but then, you wouldn't
have to worry about them, would you?
Would public-school children be compelled to pray as their teacher
does? Even as the school day begins with the Pledge of
Allegiance, so the teacher can also ask the class to pause and
remember the Source of the laws, freedoms, and privileges they
have.
And if the little dickens don't tow the line and worship, the teacher can
give them a lesson in what you so quaintly call, "respect for authority." If
your ideal society can "make it evident" to adult citizens what god they
should worship, think what could be done with children! I'm sure those
nasty atheists will think twice about pursuing their godless course when
Junior comes home crying every day because teacher whipped him for not
bowing his head. It's amazing how malleable people can be when their
children are in your power.
I wonder what your reaction would be, Larry, if someone were to announce
that witchcraft should be the state religion, that Christians should be
pressured (not compelled, of course) by the government into converting, and
that all children in public schools should be told to revere Pan for their
every blessing. I imagine you would be outraged, and so would I. In fact,
if your rights as a Christian were threatened, I would be on your side.
Therein, I think, lies the difference between us.
Pamela Troy
____________________________________________________________
c/o Tim Maroney, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
duke!unc!tim (USENET), tim.unc@csnet-relay (ARPA)liz@umcp-cs.UUCP (12/14/83)
(Sorry if you're seeing this for a second time, it didn't get far at all the first time.) Like Larry Bickford, I'm tired of hearing "you can't legislate morality," too, and would like to reply to Pam's article. (Pam, you should tell us that it's you and not Tim writing before the end of an article. I assumed the letter was from Tim until you mentioned something about him.) Pam's article was in reply to Larry Bickford. I am fascinated by your concept of law and morality. In the first place, laws are not "legislated morality." They are restraints placed on citizens to avoid the injury of other citizens. What you've just said is your moral basis for laws. You've just stated that something is right if it does not injure another citizen and that something is wrong if it does injure someone else. I think this is the minimum that people tend to agree with these days and our laws tend to reflect that. (Please explain to me the morality implicit in the fact that we drive on the right side of the road in this country rather than the left.) Ok. Some laws don't reflect right and wrong as much as they do a need for order. That doesn't contradict the fact that a lot of laws do reflect on a morality we agree on. Murder, theft, and fraud are illegal, not because they are immoral but because a society which permitted these things could not function. I wouldn't be so sure. Such societies do exist although probably do not function as well as others... To put it simply, it would be immoral for me to lie about someone, but it would not be illegal unless the lie injured the person physically or financially. Gluttony is considered by the Bible to be immoral, but it is not illegal because the person who indulges in it injures nobody but himself. There are not laws against everything some people consider immoral since you have to have a lot of people thinking that something is immoral before you can have a law against it. Also, I suspect that some things with less direct impact on society and which so many people are guilt of would be impractical to have as laws -- the courts are busy enough already... What's the purpose of law? To promote the peace and well being of each member of society and thus of society as a whole; to allow each person to persue happiness as he sees fit. We legislate morality when we make heroin, etc, illegal. Someone can argue that if we made heroin legal that then the drug wouldn't be so expensive and addicts wouldn't have to pay so much and wouldn't have to steal. But, we keep it illegal even though he is hurting himself primarily -- no one else except in his stealing. Why? Because we see it as wrong and because we don't want something to be legal which is so destructive to individuals -- we would have far more addicts if it were legal... By the way, as far as making Christianity a state religion is concerned, I would not be for it even though I am a Christian. It *might* work for a generation *if* whoever ruled respected other people's religions and did not force conversions and *if* laws reflected Christian principles of morality as they are applied to relationships among people, and not our relationship with God (because God gives us free choice whether or not to believe in him; it's wrong for us as people to force others to believe). But, if I'm not convinced that all this would be carried out correctly in the first generation or so, I'm even more unsure that after a couple generations leaders would continue as they should. I'm afraid they would forget to respect people who believe different things while their own beliefs would probably become only a matter of form and not life or Jesus... -Liz Allen -- Univ of Maryland, College Park MD Usenet: ...!seismo!umcp-cs!liz Arpanet: liz%umcp-cs@CSNet-Relay
laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (12/14/83)
Shudder. thats what the whole article make me think of... shudder...
Byron Howes cast doubts on any divine authority of Paul's writings. Why
not take it a step further and doubt the authority behind anything in
the Bible; after all, weren't the words written down by mere men? :-(
The authority of the Bible is one of the two presuppositions of the
Christian faith ("God is, and He has spoken in the Bible"). If each man
can judge the authority of a passage, who needs God?
On the other hand, there are instances in the Bible where
one passage flatly contradicts the other. The Jesus in John goes out
and converts a whole Samaritan village -- the Jesus in Matthew tells
his disciples not to enter a Samaritan village. The Jesus in John seems
to know very well that he is God at all times -- the Jesus in the synoptics
*doesn't*. In John, John the Baptist knows that Jesus is the coming one --
in Matthew he asks while in prison *if* Jesus is the coming one...
And we haven't exhausted the Gospels yet, and already you have to make
some sort of judgement on which is "right".
A book has no more authority than its canonizer(s). If the Council of
Carthage canonized the New Testament, then it has only as much authority
as the Council (and hardly that of the Word of God). To be the Word of
God, with the authority of God, the books had to be canonical *when they
were written.* All man can do is recognize what God has done. Paul
recognized Luke's writings; Peter recognized Paul's; in the era just
after the apostles, virtually all of the New Testament books had been de
facto accepted. (The writings of the early church fathers prove most
helpful here. It is noted that their writings include all but 11 verses
of the New Testament.)
But why do you assume that the Council "got it right"? How come they rejected
the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary Magdelene or any of the dozens
of Gospels that were floating around at the time? Clearly they made a descision.
But they are men, right -- so they could have made a mistake...
Paul was not writing "this is the Word of God as revealed to me"... What he
was doing was writing letters to people of various communities. Suppose
somebody collected all my USENET articles and later said that because I
was right here, here, and here -- plus being a marvellous person -- they
would consider my words on the subject to be inspired. I should be long
dead by then, and so unlikely to be doing anything about it, but you can
bet that I would be displeased! (Not that it is likely to happen). There
are articles which I wish I had never written and articles which I am glad
that I have written even though my beliefs have changed since I wrote them...
How do you know that Paul is not feeling the same way?
Before I get to those, some thoughts regarding powers in general. That
which has the power to do you good also has the power to do you evil.
This is a rather nice sounding general statement, but I am not sure that it
has any truth in it. I think that love has the power to do me good but not
evil, for instance, by definition. Breathing is an activity which does me
good -- and how could it do me evil? In fact, anything which can be defined
as "X which does me good" fits the bill -- you only have to define applications
of this power which could be viewed as doing one evil as either not-applications
of this power or confusion on the part of the observer in knowing where the
evil lies.
In our desire to ensure the legal rights of everyone and to keep the
innocent from being punished, dangerous criminals are let loose because
a fallible human made a mistake. The guy may be clearly guilty, yet in
our efforts to protect a high and holy law, we sacrifice society and
cause the non-criminal to live behind locked doors and barred windows.
This is only good reasoning among those who view the law as high and holy.
There are a lot of people who have no respect for the law at all. I am one
of them -- the idea of respecting a law because it is a law strikes me as
remarkably silly. However, to respect other people is a very good thing indeed.
But then you have heard about my proposed overthrow of the legal system...
The problem I have with this is that you have just defined law as a crude
and clumsy kludge which needs respecting and which will fail in these gross
manners that you mentioned. This kindof rips the floor out from the law
reformers and the law changers...
it also gives you something to fall back upon later. Don't blame me if the
laws are atrocious and if innocent men are in jail and criminals walk the
streets -- this is just the way that laws are....
Further, any right you have depends on someone to enforce it.
No. This is the fatal mistake. Rights do not come from laws -- laws come
from rights. If you get this backwards you are left concluding that we
need a police state in order for anyone to get any rights at all.
What we need is a different attitude towards criminals. They are not the
things you catch to vent your spleen upon because you are so enraged that
your rights have been violated that you demand bloody vengance. They are
instead evidence that your society is broken. A perfect society would have
no criminals. (Or very few. There are always the insane...)
State welfare programs did wonders for eliminating that hardened criminal,
the man who stole a loaf of bread. These days we can look at those men
and think, geee, what an awful society they had which whould imprison a
man for the great crime of hunger. Somehow this does not motivate us to
discover why we have criminals today, though...
Once you have caught a criminal, and ascertained his guilt, what should
yu do with him? Fix his problem. Clearly, some people's problems are
easier to fix than others -- and in the case where the problem is
unfixable at present you will have a serious moral difficulty -- (Do you
execute the mass murderer who cannot be cured? Sentence him to life
imprisonment? Ship him to a colony in space? Let him loose after 20 years?)
But this is nothing like the difficulty you will have if you think that you
are manufacturing rights out of your ability to enforce them!
People
scream about fraud (welfare, employee, employer, etc.), yet because of
privacy laws (to avoid Big Brother), background investigations which
would have brought these to light are stifled.
Maybe we should investigate why it is that people commit fraud and are anxious
about their privacy. Simple answers like "greed" and "paranoia" are not
good enough.
And then there's the question of whether powers should keep secrets, or
whether they should all be public knowledge. The latter is the height of
naivete, for it assumes everybody, everywhere, is totally trustworthy. If
that were the case, who would need governments? Reality speaks otherwise.
But if the governments are as untrustworthy as everyone else, then you have
just passed the buck. Actually, I can't fault you on this though -- it is
preceisely through this train of thought that i came to the conclusion that
*nobody* needs governments. Somehow I do not think that you are going
to get there.
Finally there's the matter of real religious freedom as the country
stands now. I hear so much about "you can't legislate morality."
BALONEY! Every law on the books is legislated morality! That's what
legislatures are for - to determine right and wrong, and associate
punishment with the wrong.
That bit about the punishment is telling. I don't want to punish anyone --
I just don't want to share the streets with murderers and rapists. I would
rather fix the people so that they would not murder or rape -- but if I
cannot do this I will settle on incarceration or imprisonment. But not
TO PUNISH them -- anybody who is so unhinged that they could murder someone
else already is living a life of hell.
Punishment is only useful when it acts as a deterrant. If I got to set a law
which said "rape is now punishable by death" and there were no rapes, then
that would be a highly successful law. If, on the other hand, you get a
rapist whom you have to execute, then you have firm evidence that the
society is failing. Not just *him* (except perhaps in the case of the born
insane) *everybody*. If you have to mete out the punishments then either
you are not responding to the needs of the criminals (long before they
commit the acts that make them criminals) or your law is unreasonable,
or both. Every criminal should bring about a reevaluation of both the
society and the law. Alas, people tend to sit around smugly, rejoicing
that the "rotter got what was coming to him".
Hardly a Christian attitude, one might say?
Before considering (2), let us consider the opposite of (1), which is
also illustrated in the Bible: essentially, anarchy, or (Judges 21:25)
"In those days, there was no king in Israel: every man did that which
was right in his own eyes." That pretty well summarizes the whole book
of Judges. Yet in the press for personal "freedom"s in this country,
this is what we are headed for. And it only takes one with a mind to
misuse "freedom" to make the rest regret. So we have the same problem as
before - untrustworthiness of people.
It sure seemed to me that the book of Judges was about the rules of the
various Judges -- one per tribe, more or less, and th allainces they made
and how they did what their leaders did or did not want. Sounds like an
overview of life in a large area with a lot of countries. This does not
really seem like anarchy. Of course, if you are writing from the point
of view that the ideal condition was a united Israel, you might call it
anarchy -- as Canadian historians often write about the time before
confederation, even though it was anything but anarchy.
(2) re-establishes "one nation under God." It acknowledges that our
"rights" are not ours innately, but are granted to us by the One who
also laid down the guidelines for the law.
Whoops. you just contradicted yourself there. before it was that right came from
our ability to enforce the law, now they come from God. You can't have it both
ways, you know...
The emphasis would be on
responsibilities, and the need for each of us to fulfill our particular
one(s).
So far, so good....
It establishes a morality profitable to the majority of the
well-intentioned.
Nope. you just blew it. sorry, Larry, but setting down a morality which is
good for the majority of the well-intentioned just isn't good enough.
The majority of the well-intentioned aren't the problem -- they are the
trustworthy ones. It is the people that fall through the cracks that are
the problem, and you have not done anything for them yet. Your morality
based on God will have the same problems as the current one -- same girl,
new dress -- with the added disadvantage that it is highly likely to
become "morality is from God, is from the Christian God, is whatever is
said in the Bible, is ...." Why do I hear the sounds of people gathering
kindling and finding a stake? Tell me that I am over-reacting....
It would change the judicial system from the current
adversary system back into a quest for truth.
Now, earlier you described the Bible as Truth... I can see where this one
is headed...
Certainly, there are more
possibilities for abuse than the current system, yet I think the reward
is worth it: a safe and sane society, peace in the streets, a respect
for those in authority, an active discouragement of wrongdoing; a
resulting benefit is that those in positions of potential abuse would
realize that abuse would be more dangerous to themselves and thus not
worth it (Economics of Crime 101).
This looks like what was promised for the legal system we got NOW. Guess what?
It ain't working so good...
Would witches have problems? Probably. Although worship of God could
not be compelled, it would be made evident to all that the basis for
both law and government is God, and that practice which would place
another above the law-giver shows disrespect for the law.
Pam, they're gonna burn us. I'm *not* paranoid -- but here is where the
kindling comes in. Perhaps they are going to use the more modern techniques
of electroshock and brainwashing. I guess that means I won't get to go
down to North Carolina any more -- you are welcome to move up here if you
like. I think that you could claim refugee status from what is being
proposed.
Would public-school children be compelled to pray as their teacher does?
Even as the school day begins with the Pledge of Allegiance, so the
teacher can also ask the class to pause and remember the Source of the
laws, freedoms, and privileges they have.
This stikes me as a very good way to finger out those on the burning list.
I have read histories of Germany in the middle ages. Why do I think that
I have been here before?
And with the emphasis on responsibilities, we would see a lot of things
that the government is unnecessarily involved in (but placed there
because we can't trust others to do them) placed back in the hands of
the people - education and welfare among them. It would be to the
advantage of high-tech business to sponsor educators, so that the stream
of bright young minds doesn't dry up. Supply-and-demand would ensure
that we would have the training we need in the fields where it is needed.
This sounds good. So why have a government at all? Why not put *everything*
back into the hands of the people? Is it *only* to keep your State religion
going? And for your law enforcement? What would it mean if the reason you
needed your government was to pay people to dodo whatever you would do to Pam
and Tim because "the people" would not do it? How would you find out if
that was the case...
Actually, I don't think that there is going to be an American State
established as you described. There is thankfully too much opposition.
But boy it makes me shudder sometimes. What would happen if Falwell ran
for president?
I can tell you one thing -- if he won I would be looking to get a lot
of family and friends out of the USA...
Laura Creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!laura
djhawley@watmath.UUCP (David John Hawley) (12/15/83)
I've been puzzling over the issue of legislated morality vs "freedom"
with respect to what it would be like to be on the "losing side".
Recently another way of looking at this problem has suggested itself.
Assuming we know can classify a controversy into terms of right/wrong,
should we refrain from imposing our morality because we are afraid that
we could wind up under someone else's legislated morality ? Isn't this
moral cowardice ? The downside of legislated morality has already been
well represented, so I won't discuss it.
To change the subject somewhat, a comment on how governments
give laws on a utilitarian basis: doesn't morality "work" ?
If immorality affects the moral climate of
our society, it will surely affect our actions towards each other.
Why shouldn't it be legislated ? It seems that there is a hidden
presupposition behind the arguments to the contrary; namely that
morality is relative, and undecidable. I think the real issue on
legislating morality vs traffic laws (a straw man if I ever saw one)
is that of degree not a difference in kind.
*Loving your neighbour* can be applied to legislation as well,
along with teachings on respect for others, significance of human
decisions and freedoms, etc.
By the way, not only religions sacrifice victims. What about the
sacrifice of the poor to economics, the technologically obsolete
to the imperative of high-tech progress, young people to national
prestige, or the unborn to freedom without responsibility ?
From the flaming fingers of
David Hawleylaura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (12/15/83)
Assuming we know can classify a controversy into terms of right/wong, should we refrain from imposing our morality because we are afraid that we could wind up under someone else's legislated morality ? Isn't this moral cowardice ? The downside of legislated morality has already been well represented, so I won't discuss it. I can't speak for anybody else, but I think that you have missed the whole point. Ideally one should know whether an action is right or wrong -- but in practice it does not work out that way. The set of things that people can agree on as being morally wrong is very small -- murdering people, beating your kids, for example but on a day to day basis moral decisions are rather tough. It is not moral cowardice to allow someone to do something which you think is not what it best for him. The effort required to trust that he should be allowed the right to mess up his own life in his own way is often very great. What I do find cowardly is the infinite capacity which some people have to take freedoms away from others in order to make themselves more secure. I don't like snakes, so let us have a zoning law which will keep my neighbours from having them as pets. I think prostitution is a bad thing, so let's make a law against it. and so it goes... What are you left with? A list of taboos and regulations which give the illusion of security. You aren't secure, after all, since the laws do not prevent crime, but rather give you something to do with the criminals when you catch them. You feed the insecurity of the people by giving them this phony sense of security -- but deep down the people know that they are not secure, and so they agitate for more laws since they believe that they will make them more secure... The worm is trying to swallow his own tail again. The problem is that people are not secure. You can actually fix that problem (for instance, a strong faith in the mercy of God can do this) but not by forcing more laws. Indeed, this makes the situation worse, where the object of the game becomes "do what I can do without getting caught". Thus there are no laws against lying or gluttony or envy or depression, though these are all personal and moral problems which need addressing in certain individuals, while "cracking into systems is not wrong because there is no law against it"... You see what happens? People look to the laws for their morality, and for security, rather than inward. But that is where you are going to find both security and morality... We are thus teaching people not to be moral and to be insecure through our insecure efforts at imposing a morality and security on others. The other underlying assumption is that "if it is moral for me to do X then it is also moral for you to do X, conversely, if it is immoral for me to do X then it is also immoral for you to do X". This is the myth of one absolute justice, which is what our legal system pretends to. The problem is that the immorality is not in the action itself 'as in RAPE IS IMMORAL', but in the person who is so derranged that he would commmit an immoral act. Absolute justice is only a very crude approximation of the real world. Because divorce is legal does not mean that everyone should get a divorce. It may be immoral for certain people to drink alcohol (for instance if they know that it makes them violent and liable to hurt someone) but that does not mean that *everyone* should be prevented from drinking alcohol. If you left this to personal choice, everything would have a better chance of working out -- unless you believe that man is so inherantly sinful and evil that they would not strive to do the right thing as they muddle along through life. If this is your conception, then the argument has to stop right here, because there is nothing I can say to you which will convince you otherwise. By the same token, there is nothing that you can do which will convice me that this is the case. Stalemate. To change the subject somewhat, a comment on how governments give laws on a utilitarian basis: doesn't morality "work" ? If immorality affects the moral climate of our society, it will surely affect our actions towards each other. Why shouldn't it be legislated ? See above. It seems that there is a hidden presupposition behind the arguments to the contrary; namely that morality is relative, and undecidable. This depends on what you mean by relative. It is clearly decidable, since people make moral decisions all the time. You may question whether they made the correct decsion or not, but that is the "what's good for the goose" propostition, which I do not believe. I think the real issue on legislating morality vs traffic laws (a straw man if I ever saw one) is that of degree not a difference in kind. Not a straw man. Why do you have traffic laws? Because it is more convenient to drive if eveyone goes the same way. There is no question of whether the US is right and England is wrong (except for fun in net.misc). In the same way, the set of useful laws are useful because they convey basic information which people are wondering about. Don't kill people. Don't steal from them. It is not as if all humanity is a mass of awful, uncontollable, vice-ridden demons who would go out and rape and murder and pillage unless there were laws. of course, the usefulness is lost when you cannot read the laws because they are in legalese and because they fill a book equal to the size of the Toronto telephone book. Nobody is going to read it. And having laws which keep people from gambling because they make other people feel more secure, or which keep people from owning chickens and keeping snakes in the city or doing a million other things is not a difference in degree, but kind. Useful laws give people information that they would like to have in order to make moral decisions. Bad laws prevent people from making moral decisions because the moral thing for them to do was not the moral thing for the law-maker at the time when the law-maker thought that it would make a useful law. *Loving your neighbour* can be applied to legislation as well, along with teachings on respect for others, significance of human decisions and freedoms, etc. Nope. You cannot force me to love you. This is a popular misconception which ranges from "Thou shalt love your God with your whole heart" to the poor man who keeps trying to do things for his sweetheart to make him love her, through to the advertisers that claim that you will be well loved by typical seductuous female if you buy product X. This is just not feasible. The best you could hope for is to legislate the appearance of love for one's neighbour. But then, this is a continent that thrives on appearances rather than substance. We are not materialistic, alas, we care not for the materials and build shabby products that fall apart and cardboard tasting vegetables and fruits which are WAXED to look delectible. On the other hand, you could come up with a set of guidelines on what most people are like and what is likely to be viewed as disrespectful, with the caveat that all people are not like this. By the way, not only religions sacrifice victims. What about the sacrifice of the poor to economics, the technologically obsolete to the imperative of high-tech progress, young people to national prestige, or the unborn to freedom without responsibility ? These are problems. Alas, I get the feeling that you think we need laws to handle them. We are back to the worm swallowing his tail... Laura Creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura
tim@unc.UUCP (12/18/83)
[ from Pam Troy ] Both Liz Allen and Paul Torek debunk the argument that morality can't be legislated while ignoring the point I was trying to make. I will now try to repeat it as simply as I can. Murder and theft are immoral. A person who contemplates murder or theft is immoral. Murder and theft are also illegal, not because they are immoral but because (one more time!) a society which allowed these things to go unchecked would not function. (Liz Allen says that she knows of societies which allow these things to go on unchecked, but she doesn't give us any details, and I would be very interested in hearing about such societies, if they indeed exist.) There are, no doubt, people in our society who are restrained from committing theft and murder only by the fact that they would be punished if they did so. Do you consider these people moral, simply because they refrain from an immoral act out of fear? I should hope not. It is not in our power to force people to be moral, only to restrain them from injuring others. Liz and Paul completely ignored the question I asked in my original article, a question I wish they would at least try to answer. If I were browbeaten into adopting a "Christian" lifestyle, would that make me moral, even if my convictions about sex and religion remained unaltered? If not, then what is the purpose of attempting to legislate morality? Pamela Troy -- Tim Maroney, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill duke!unc!tim (USENET), tim.unc@csnet-relay (ARPA)
dag@sultan.UUCP (Dan Glasser -- PRO 350 Graphics - ML) (12/19/83)
---- FLAME ON: DON'T CALL IT JUDAO-CHRISTIAN!!!! Christians, in general, don't know the first thing about Judaism and simply assume that Jews are like Christians except for the lack of a belief in Jesus. This is not the case. The philosophy of the two religions is very different. I will not clutter up the net with yet another long tyrade about how the religions differ unless asked by enough people (or Finite Atomata) to do so. FLAME OFF -- Daniel Glasser [ One of those things that goes "BUMP!!! (ouch!)" in the night. ] ...!decvax!sultan!dag Digital Equipment Corp. MLO5-2/U46 146 Main Street Maynard, MA 01754
porges@inmet.UUCP (12/22/83)
#R:sultan:-24700:inmet:11600002:000:1099 inmet!porges Dec 21 20:04:00 1983 >DON'T CALL IT JUDAO-CHRISTIAN!!!! Christians, in general, don't know >the first thing about Judaism and simply assume that Jews are like >Christians except for the lack of a belief in Jesus. This is not the >case. The philosophy of the two religions is very different. I will >not clutter up the net with yet another long tyrade about how the >religions differ unless asked by enough people (or Finite Atomata) >to do so. Daniel Glasser ________________________________________________________________________________ I couldn't agree more. In particular, when John Anderson was running in 1980 as a moderate some people remembered that he had sponsored a Constitutional amendment recognizing Jesus Christ as our savior (sometime in the 1960s). When questioned during the 1980 campaign, he said something about how he had just been "trying to acknowledge America's Judeo-Christian heritage." (And that he had "changed" and/or "grown" since then.) -- Don Porges ...harpo!inmet!porges ...hplabs!sri-unix!cca!ima!inmet!porges ...yale-comix!ima!inmet!porges
amigo2@ihuxq.UUCP (12/28/83)
Greetings, gentlebeings-- As a new subscriber to net.religion, I have a few miscellaneous shots to get off. David Norris says: >> Christianity, whether one accepts it or not, tells us that >> in the end we will all end up eternally blessed or forever >> damned in hell. Now, these are serious consequences. If >> any man thought that his life would not be affected IF SUCH >> A PROPOSITION COULD BE PROVEN, he would have to be a fool. >> Non-Christians would agree with me, I think. This sounds to me like a version of Pascal's wager, that one should have faith because, if God exists, one shall then be saved, whereas if God does not exist, one hasn't really lost anything. (This always reminds me of the then Pope's comment on hearing of the death of Cardinal Richelieu: "If there is a God, the Cardinal will have much to answer for. If there is not a God, then he lived a successful life.) The answer to this is that God knows our motivations, and is not going to be fooled. Anyway, the operative statement here is "IF SUCH A PROPOSITION COULD BE PROVEN" to which the only real comment is "well, it can't". I fully agree with Daniel Glasser's comment that "Christians, in general, don't know the first thing about Judaism." Several years ago, I had an office mate, a fervent evangelical Christian, who had never heard of the Talmud (of course, he had only vaguely heard of Augustine of Hippo, and had never dreamt of actually sitting down and reading the CONFESSIONS or THE CITY OF GOD.) I tried to explain to him what Judaism was all about (in case you are interested, I am a fairly liberal Catholic with a Jewish mother and the equivalent of a masters in theology), and not only was he unaware of what Judaism taught, he was not really interested. Laura, what is Descartes' proof of the existence of God? I am familiar with the Aristotelian proofs that Thomas Aquinas used, but not Descartes. And yes, the O.T. God is certainly not very nice, and some Christian interpretations are almost impossible to stomach, such as the Calvinist doctrine of Double Predestination, which says that God sends people to hell just for the fun of it. Aydin Edguer begs the question "What is truth?" Arguing "that a religion is correct due to its great reliability in prediction and in its records of past history" is not only "not a logically acceptable method" but also leads to the unanswerable question (asked by Laura Creighton) so what? Even if (say) the Bible is as historically reliable as the average history text (and anyone who has had history past the high school level will know what to say about that), what does that prove about the religious truth of biblically based religions? BTW, Aydin, your example of "If the Bible is God's (and I use the term loosely) word then it is true that God created mankind. argue: evolution. answer: you can't because to do so would violate assumption one" is not very good. Evolution may easily be seen as the way that God created mankind. Teilhard de Chardin, for an obvious example, vehemently argued so. Which brings me to Paul Dubuc and creationism. Most of what I had to say to him I said privately (I was the one who recommended SCIENTISTS CONFRONT CREATIONISM, ed. by Laura Godfrey, which I also recommend to anyone else interested in the subject), but I do want to make one comment. The reason that most people who attack creationism "concentrate on the more popular `biblical' creationists like Morris, and Gish from the Institute for Creation Research (ICR)" is because, as he points out, they are the "most visible and influential of the creationists". Winston Churchill, when he attacked fascism in the 1930's and 1940's, did not waste his time on the principal British fascist, Sir Oswald Mosely, but went after the "big fish", Hitler and Mussolini. It was largely the people from the ICR who got through those laws in Arkansas and Louisiana mandating the teaching of creationism in the public schools. (I have written an essay on precisely this subject that I will gladly send to anyone who is interested. It is one part of a larger work that is still in progress.) I do have more to say--I will be addressing Larry West seperately-- but this has gone on long enough. John Hobson AT&T Bell Laboratories Naperville, IL (312) 979-7293 ihnp4!ihuxq!amigo2 P.S. Mr. Moroney, Sir, please send me a copy of your article explaining Thelemism.