Posted on 04/05/2016 7:51:13 AM PDT by Kaslin
If there is no God, everything is permitted.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
The fallacy in this piece is that morality requires religion.
Both of you. [drumroll] [cymbal]
Some food for thought from Dennis Prager.
I guess what he’s saying is, will we still have any semblance of conservative values/family values in our culture, if we abandon relgion?
Will conservative policies such as certain tax cuts, downsizing government, empowering parents with school choice, among others, succeed, if the people involved do not live their lives within a faith tradition?
I don’t have answers, but this article is food for thought.
Prov 9:10
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
I’m not the most religious person by any stretch of the imagination. But I do know the consequences of abandoning our Judeo-Christian heritage. Something will move in to fill the void, and it won’t be the Secular Humanists.
Good ol’ 60’s liberal Dennis Prager.
His idea of “leading conservative writers, columnists and thinkers” is the likes of George Will, Charles Krauthammer and publications like National Review, City Journal, Commentary Magazine and the Wall Street Journal.
Which is not a surprise, because neoconservatives are liberals at heart, and Mondale’s 1984 speechwriter Charles Krauthammer is a kindred spirit.
Can I ask you to recommend a better set of modern “leading conservative writers, columnists and thinkers”?
As a corollary, one way to "cure" someone from being involved in a particular mass movement is to substitute another one, which is what Prager is suggesting as a cure for Leftism. But Hoffer also points out there is danger in simply substituting one mass movement for another. It's like fighting a fire by throwing on a different kind of gasoline.
There is another way: Eliminate the feelings of frustration that drive people to mass movements. Philosophers, economists and others have been trying to solve this puzzle for millenia. There are two kinds of solutions: 1) Empowering individuals by establishing the right conditions (e.g, liberty and capitalism) and 2) helping people improve their own minds so that their response to their conditions does not create unwarranted frustration (e.g., philosphy and unorganized religion).
The conservative pundits that Prager is curiously criticizing are persuing this other way, which could be called Enlightenment—in both the classical European and Eastern senses.
“The fallacy in this piece is that morality requires religion.”
God, not religion.
Leftism is a religion.
You are right, and the author is right. Individually, faith is certainly a personal matter, but even secular people (especially conservatives) must recognize that without religion, the state is God.
Morality does not require belief in God.
So you are anti-God?
Then what is “Morality” based on?
“Be Excellent to Each Other”, like in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure?
I am anti-mass movements created in His name.
“Morality does not require belief in God.”
Untenable.
This is mainstream establishment dogma. But it makes no sense, is oxymoronic and self-negating.
The Nazis had their own “Morality Code.”
“I am anti-mass movements created in His name.”
What does that mean?
If there is no God, everything is permitted.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Yep. You get it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.