Posted on 08/29/2006 6:51:14 AM PDT by headsonpikes
I'm more of a political conservative, based entirely on the historical record - I have no trust in Establishments of any kind, however "justified" they may be in their own eyes.
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Exactly. This is the dilemma that man finds himself in.
Atheistic philosophy cannot in and of itself distinguish right from wrong.
And yet, man is a sinner, and by nature will not follow God's natural law.
The wisest course in setting up a system of government is that which the Founders attempted to take, recognizing at the same time the principles that (1) all men are sinners, and therefore extensive checks and balances are needed to be built into the system by which laws originate in order to mitigate this and (2) ultimately the moral validity of all laws rests on God's natural law, and when government becomes too far removed from that (not for light or transient causes), the people retain the right to reform their law-making institutions.
The premise here is that this concept works well only when the people have a respect for God's natural law; if not, one ends up not with the American Revolution, but with the French, or worse.
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Not to nitpick, but the "Golden Rule" pre-dates Judeo-Christianity. You might as well say that our laws are based on the requirements of Zoroastrianism (a predecessor to Judeo-Christian religions eradicated by Islam) or Hinduism.
Another nitpick, is that our laws are based upon English Common Law, whose existence is well-documented in pre-Christian times. Its core philosophies just happen to adequately mesh with later Christian beliefs.
The Bible says that God wrote His law in the hearts of men, and that man's own conscience bears witness against him.
It sounds like you are saying something, but in reality there isn't anything useful there. You say all law is inspired by God, yet also allow that man-made law can fall short of God's will. So what can we conclude about any given law? Nothing. It could either be consistent or inconsistent with God's will.
Your original contention that all civilized law is based upon Judeo-Christian principles is contradicted by your own claim that societies can err. Therefore not all law is based upon true Judeo-Christian principles.
Historically, the percentage of people aquainted with the Judeo-Christian bible, let alone adhering to it, has been but a subset of the entire earthly population. Your escape around this historical divergence is to claim that everyone already knows all the laws, from the ancient Egyptians to the pre-Columbus American Indians, to the far eastern India Indians.
A simpler explanation is that certain "laws" have rather obvious joint benefits and rational creatures will discover and apply the obvious. No need for a lot of religious mumbo jumbo to explain the obvious.
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Nonsense. Any rational creature can discover common societal norms that when enforced bring a joint mutual benefit. You might personally find that too morally hollow for your tastes, but it leads to a set of laws similar to those discovered by the biblical writers.
And what would enhance MY life the most right now would be to choke the living daylights out of everybody that gets in my way.
In the final analysis, to the extent they are inherently good, all of the laws and morality of our civilization are ultimately founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs, in other words, God's natural law.
Really? Any rational creature?
Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, were these not any rational creatures?
Perhaps the only problem with atheistic philosophy is that TRUE atheistic philosophy has not yet been tried?
Your guy sounds like more fun!
More like "My god can beat up your god."
From the outset of the Religious Right having a place at the table of politics, and it's been less than thirty years, there's been a lot of whining from the non-religious who would really like the RR to leave the GOP--or at least stay very, very quiet and never remind the urban libertarians that JoeSixpack is in the room.
The snobs sob, but the Religious Right still expects a share in the pie and also expects to help with the baking. And we're the only real energy the GOP has.
This is just another essay that expresses a feeling--distaste. Not our kind, dearie. Too bad.
You are wrong here. Believe me when I say an Atheist can distinguish right from wrong, often much better than many professed Christians I have known.
LOL...in which language are these case books?
No sweat my friend. Firewall "6" is in place and active.
The good news is that most Judeo-Christians are rational and will not enact laws that have obvious irrational consequences. Which means that the various religions (and the non-religious) can co-exist under a core set of laws that they find mutually beneficial, even though each sect thinks they were inspired for different reasons and causes.
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