Posted on 08/11/2006 7:49:14 PM PDT by Coleus
Hmmm. Clear and logical. Better to rail against it than read it.
"America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance. It is not. It is suffering from tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. Our country is not nearly so much overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded...Tolerance is an attitude of reasoned patience toward evil ... a forbearance that restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment. Tolerance applies only to persons ... never to truth. Tolerance applies to the erring, intolerance to the error ... Architects are as intolerant about sand as foundations for skyscrapers as doctors are intolerant about germs in the laboratory. Tolerance does not apply to truth or principles. About these things we must be intolerant, and for this kind of intolerance, so much needed to rouse us from sentimental gush, I make a plea. Intolerance of this kind is the foundation of all stability.
In the face of this broadmindedness, what the world needs is intolerance." - Bishop Fulton Sheen 1931
Brilliant point about the eagle egg.
The word is not "impose", the word is "persuade". In a democracy you seek to persuade your fellows of the rightness of your view. Citizens have that right, and if they succeed in convincing their fellows, they can enact their view into law, as long as that view does not violate some prior constitutional protection.
The idea that religious sensibilities ought never to affect our view of the world and the issues we face is silly. There is no "ought" about it, our religious and philosophical sensibilities always affect our world view. That our sensibilities differ is the reason we do political battle before imposing any law on ourselves.
That this senator wants impose a change in the law without considering the views of the citizens is not surprising. He shouldn't imagine we should go along with it without pushing back.
Wonderful quote by Bishop Sheen. 1931, and timeless.
No one should have to impose not murdering babies on decent human beings. Of course, we are no longer dealing with such people are we?
The priest is arguing logically. That is appropriate in a science discussion. Sensibilities is to vague for me. but I think this whole push for embryonic stem cell research funding must be a boondoggle or pork, as there is no rational reason to do it at all.
There is a very rational reason that some people are pushing for embryonic stem cell research, even though adult stem cell research has been producing all of the results so far. If people can get the government to authorize embryonic stem cell research, then that helps to promote the idea that an embryo is of no value. It's the abortion crowd that is pushing the killing of embryos.
Every law that is passed imposes a value system. The Libs want to impose their godless worldview which is entirely different than what the Founding Fathers ever envisioned. We have to out-vote them. It's as simple as that. There are only some basic rights in the Bill of Rights that cannot be imposed upon us.
He used my analogy!
From my email sig:
Human Life. Human Ethics
Crack the egg of a bird on the Endangered Species list and you'll find that it doesn't matter that the bird embryo or fetus can't survive outside the egg. You've still broken the Endangered Species Act.
Well, it's ok for them, in their beliefs, to impose Sharia Law on your brother, mother, father, sister, rape and kill them in the name of outlaw, oops I mean allah, that's all ok, right?
That was a great article! Thanks for posting it.
"The unparalleled horror of the Nazi holocaust shows most clearly what happens when perverted science is allowed to overflow moral and ethical banks. If man is simply the measure of all things then justice is whatever a majority of men at any given moment says it is, or whatever a "dictator of principles" may impose by force. Without a standard of justice external to human reason there will be no necessary restraint on what men may legitimately do. The only law will be "that of the tooth and the claw."
"The great moderating influence in Western civilization has been the Judeo-Christian tradition. The idea of an omnipotent God who not only judges but may mete out punishment in the next life for transgressions in this one bolsters man's rational impulse toward civil society and obedience to the positive law. That one might commit crimes in this world and elude punishment by the civil authorities, but still have to face one's Maker in the next, tends to focus one's attention.
"The broader importance of our religious tradition is that it reinforces man's sense of responsibility to his neighbour, of trusteeship towards the next generation, and of respect towards society's institutions and achievements. Religion teaches us that there is something higher than mankind, and therefore a need to restrain oneself in accordance with those higher standards. As Tocqueville described it, the power of religion in a democratic republic means that "the human mind is never left to wander over a boundless field; and whatever may be its pretensions, it is checked from time to time by barriers that it cannot surmount." Certainly a world that lived by the moral guidance of the Ten Commandments would be a better place. And to an extraordinary degree, those dictates of divine law have informed and defined the Anglo-American constitutional and legal tradition. As Edmund Burke put it, "There is but one law for all, namely, that law which governs all law - the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity, the law of nature and of nations."
That's a great quote. I'm always fascinated by how little human nature changes over time, even thousands of years.
I was just about to post this. Excellent article.
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