Morals.

[CraigD]

since liberals generally do not believe in God, they want to rid the world of this idea of Christian morality so that ''if it feels good,do it".

This statement would be better supported if one could show that significantly fewer people self-identifying as “liberal” self-identified as “Christian”. According to my brief research, such a connection is not supported by survey data – regardless of ideology (liberal vs. conservative), about 75% of surveyed US adults self-identify as Christian.

 

Questor, can you direct us to any data to support the claim that liberals generally do not believe in God, or want to rid the world of Christian morality?

[TheBigDog]

This statement would be better supported if one could show that significantly fewer people self-identifying as “liberal” self-identified as “Christian”. According to my brief research, such a connection is not supported by survey data – regardless of ideology (liberal vs. conservative), about 75% of surveyed US adults self-identify as Christian.

 

Questor, can you direct us to any data to support the claim that liberals generally do not believe in God, or want to rid the world of Christian morality?

I don't want to speak for questor, who does a fine job of that for himself. But I can offer an answer to this question.

 

In current day politics, there is a persistent and nearly unanimous voice from leaders who label themselves as liberal about a "Christian Right" conspiracy to force their morality on those with more "modern" or "progressive" views. While the whole population of liberals may have a similar distribution of Christians as the whole population of conservatives, those who speak for the liberal movement have a definite anti-Christian agenda. That leads to the perception that liberals are generally progressing toward atheism, and conservatives are struggling to maintain a religious status quo. The conservative side can never make progress, all they can do is slowly lose the argument one concession at a time.

 

Bill

[Pyrotex]

I don't want to speak for questor, who does a fine job of that for himself. But I can offer an answer to this question.... those who speak for the liberal movement have a definite anti-Christian agenda. That leads to the perception that liberals are generally progressing toward atheism...

As a person who grew up in a conservative Christian church, and am now religiously "liberal", I would like to offer a different view.

I and my friends who are also liberal have no particular desire to hurt or undermine conservative religion. I am certainly not anti-Christian, and neither are they. Not in the sense of anti Christian morals or anti Christian religious practice.

 

What we ARE against is the perceived agenda of the extreme conservative Christians to reshape the American landscape in their own image. They want laws to reflect their theology, and WE are opposed to that. WE do not want the suppression of women, gays or racial minorities. WE do question authority, which means anyone claiming authority from God is in our minds, only a tiny step from imposing tyranny upon all of us.

 

But as far as ordinary Christians are concerned, we're fine with them. And with Moslems, Jews, B'Hai, Pagans, and Zoroastrians. I practice Christian morals (actually, they're common to many religions) and would favor that everyone did. But I'm not going to force them to.

[TheBigDog]

As a person who grew up in a conservative Christian church, and am now religiously "liberal", I would like to offer a different view.

I and my friends who are also liberal have no particular desire to hurt or undermine conservative religion. I am certainly not anti-Christian, and neither are they. Not in the sense of anti Christian morals or anti Christian religious practice.

 

What we ARE against is the perceived agenda of the extreme conservative Christians to reshape the American landscape in their own image. They want laws to reflect their theology, and WE are opposed to that. WE do not want the suppression of women, gays or racial minorities. WE do question authority, which means anyone claiming authority from God is in our minds, only a tiny step from imposing tyranny upon all of us.

 

But as far as ordinary Christians are concerned, we're fine with them. And with Moslems, Jews, B'Hai, Pagans, and Zoroastrians. I practice Christian morals (actually, they're common to many religions) and would favor that everyone did. But I'm not going to force them to.

If you pay attention you will find that the right is trying to maintain a status quo - they are resisting change. Please show me a single instance of suppression of women, gays or racial minorities that has been proposed by the "Christian Right" morality. Can you name the leaders of these conservative Christians so I can read about their agenda? If laws are based upon morality, what morality would you prefer they be based upon? Are all Christian morals automatically ruled out?

 

Bill

[CraigD]

Can you name the leaders of these conservative Christians so I can read about their agenda?

Rousas John Rushdoony, or the various other leaders cited in the wikipedia article “Christian Reconstructionism” or ”Dominionism”.

 

These leaders do – argue that the governments of the US and other nations should be reconstructed as theocracies according to the Old Testament of the Holy Bible, including the more extreme old testament admonitions direct capitol punishment for many behaviors that are currently, in most nations, not deemed criminal.

 

One can agree, or disagree with these positions, but, to deny such ideas and leaders exist is dangerously inaccurate.

 

There has been essentially no period in history where churches of various religions and denominations have contained factions espousing extreme intolerance of behavior and beliefs (or lack of beliefs) of which they disapproved. These movements have sometimes achieved influence within churches and governments, often at the cost of significant human suffering, but have usually not retained it long. Churches, government, and human society in general tend to be self correcting of extreme positions. I personally expect – and hope - that such people represent an extreme faction within the many Christian churches and governments, and are unlikely to prevail in promoting their agendas over those of more moderate religious and civil leaders.

[Southtown]

What we ARE against is the perceived agenda of the extreme conservative Christians to reshape the American landscape in their own image. They want laws to reflect their theology, and WE are opposed to that. WE do not want the suppression of women, gays or racial minorities. WE do question authority, which means anyone claiming authority from God is in our minds, only a tiny step from imposing tyranny upon all of us.

That's what the ballot box is for. Each can utilize it as they will.

 

I personally expect – and hope - that such people represent an extreme faction within the many Christian churches and governments, and are unlikely to prevail in promoting their agendas over those of more moderate religious and civil leaders.

This is why majority rule is the 'great equalizer' -- to keep the sun from orbiting the earth, so-to-speak.

[TheFaithfulStone]

That's what the ballot box is for. Each can utilize it as they will.

This is why majority rule is the 'great equalizer' -- to keep the sun from orbiting the earth, so-to-speak.

 

I call shenanigans. This is a common argument put forth by so-called "conservatives" and the main reason why I maintain that they are not conservative at all.

 

We do not have "majority rule" in the United States (thank god) we have "majority decides" which is differnent. The majority does not get to make the rules of the game, the Constitution does that. You don't get to decide that only Christians should vote, or that the ten commandments should go in every classroom, because we already agreed, some time ago, that that the Government shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. Unless you can get basically everybody to agree that yeah, that was a bad idea, you don't rule, you decide, according TO the rules, what we do.

 

This is the same damn argument that pisses me off so much with the Senate Filibuster debate and the "Unitary Dictat^H^H^H^H^H^H Executive Theory." NO. You do not get to change the rules of the game. You get to decide what move you make.

 

Think of politics and government as a game of chess. The rules are established beforehand. Everyone agrees to follow the rules. The voting is just to decide which piece gets moved. The voters can't decide to move the knight across the board in a diagonal line!

 

Otherwise, it's a game of Mao. It doesn't matter if 51% of the people in the US think Christianity should be the official religion, or if 99.99% of people think it should be the official religion, THE RULES ARE MADE. I mean, if you could actually GET 99.99% of the people to agree to repeal the First Amendment, then you might be able to change the rules of the game, but then every one knows what they're getting into don't they?

 

If majority "ruled" in the US, we wouldn't have gay or womens rights, we wouldn't have civil rights for minorties, we wouldn't have ANY Native Americans left, we would have long since nuked someone, we wouldn't have a scientific education system, we'd have a religious one (like Afghanistan or Iran) hell we wouldn't even have a COUNTRY. The Revolution probably didn't have 51% of the country willing to go to war over it, just some influential landed gentry, and as far as some folks are concerned the sun obviously DOES orbit the Earth.

 

So, not the majority does not rule. And letting them do so is a BAD IDEA.

 

TFS

[ldsoftwaresteve]

questor:

there is no proof that people are fundamentally good.

Well, I disagree. Goodness is simply a character trait that allows us, as humans, to survive. We're quite successful so far, therefore we are good. The lunacy comes when we attempt to set 'moral' ideals outside the context of survival skills. I contend that we create evil where there is none.

Consider a tribe or group of humans around 70,000 years ago. I'm going to assume that moral behavior isn't something we've picked up since the advent of religion. I'm going to assume it's a property of rational human behavior.

In other words, before we had church, we had goodness.

Let's say that a man in the tribe identified a way to hunt that virtually assured success. Let's further say that the reason was the invention of the bow and arrow. In the eyes of the rest of the tribe, this man would've been considered good. Better than that, he'd probably be considered a God.

webenton:

The government does have the right to regulate commerce.

No it does not. We've granted the government the privilege of regulating commerce. Only people have 'rights'. Government doesn't exist by itself and has characteristics only because we invented it. Rights are identifications of fundamental truths. They are not granted, bestowed, provided, given, or taken away. They are fundamental requirements for our survival based upon our understanding of what it means to be human. They are identifications. And, oh by the way, I defy you to point to a successful implementation of the government regulating the economy. But that should go into a different thread. On the other hand, I can point at failure after failure ad nauseum. Yet still we persist in believing that it is a rational function of government. It creates corruption and graft but .... I must stop before my ears explode.

I'll tell you the root of evil. It's teaching your children not to think. It's ripping their brains out and telling them to go out and survive without the skills to do so. It's believing that dressing up and going to church every week is how you become 'good'. It's not understanding that the epitomy of morality is in the eyes of a child when they contemplate a bee on a flower.

[questor]

this may be a subject for another thread, but a lot of self proclaimed liberals

are members of the ''Religion Lite'' school. they like to say they are religious., but they warp the religion so they can pretty much follow their own rules. they don't want to judge others,so ''others'' frequently engage in unlawful and immoral behavior. why not? no one calls them to account.

this seems to be an attempt to walk both side of the issue. am i mistaken in thinking this attitude now pervades our country?

i do not think a theocracy would be a proper type of government, but i do think we must realize where our laws and morals came from.the original laws and rules for societal cooperation were formed and honed by centuries of people finding

what behavior was needed in order to live in peace with one another. when these rules are broken there is war on a large scale, or an individual scale.

the reason we will always have war and strife is simple-- we don't think alike! and we all have personal goals which sometimes impinge on others.

our different neural wiring dictates this will always be true.

[Pyrotex]

I call shenanigans. This is a common argument put forth by so-called "conservatives" and the main reason why I maintain that they are not conservative at all. We do not have "majority rule" in the United States (thank god) we have "majority decides" which is different. The majority does not get to make the rules of the game, the Constitution does that. ...

Well said. Bravo. B)

[Pyrotex]

questor:Well, I disagree. Goodness is simply a character trait that allows us, as humans, to survive. ...I'll tell you the root of evil. It's teaching your children not to think. It's ripping their brains out and telling them to go out and survive without the skills to do so. It's believing that dressing up and going to church every week is how you become 'good'...

Also well said. Kudos. B)

"There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking" Alfred Korzybski, Polish-American philosopher, and founder of General Semantics

This principle can be extended. One can divide our mental lives into non-overlapping "magesteria", like Religion and Science, and in each magesteria, either believe everything or doubt everything.

 

The end result is still the same.

[Pyrotex]

...a lot of self proclaimed liberals ...like to say they are religious, but they warp the religion so they can pretty much follow their own rules. they don't want to judge others, so ''others'' frequently engage in unlawful and immoral behavior. why not? no one calls them to account.

this seems to be an attempt to walk both side of the issue. am i mistaken in thinking this attitude now pervades our country?...

IMHO, yes, you are mistaken.

How can you "warp" religion when there is no "unwarped" standard against which to compare? There is no "THE religion" to serve as a standard. Each denomination (of any religion) is defined so they can pretty much follow their own rules. Unlawful and immoral are overlapping but DISTINCT concepts.

 

I am liberal and not religious. I am spiritual. I am a devout Unitarian and believe in religious freedom, which ALSO means freedom "from" religion. May I send you some Unitarian tracts and pamphlets? I can arrange a personal visit at your home or office. Conversion typically takes under an hour and is relatively painless.

[questor]

if people are inherently ''good'', how do you explain WWI or WWII ? or Ghengis Khan, or Stalin, or Saddam ?

[Pyrotex]

if people are inherently ''good'', how do you explain WWI or WWII ? or Ghengis Khan, or Stalin, or Saddam ?

Sony has a huge factory that makes flat panel displays. Several percent of every manufacturing run test out to be defective and are (typically) trashed. However, it can be truthfully stated that their products are inherently "good".

 

The same thing is true of humans, except that we do NOT dispose of the defectives.

 

Now, THERE is a moral issue for you.

[ldsoftwaresteve]

Questor:

if people are inherently ''good'', how do you explain WWI or WWII ? or Ghengis Khan, or Stalin, or Saddam ?

I like pyrotex' response to this.

All tyranies are based upon lies and deception. If you want to deceive the populace and make insanity possible, get them to believe something which disarms them, something which takes their skepticism away, something which stops them from being critical, something that purports to have all the answers to all the tough questions, something like, uh, religion. Get them to believe in a guru. Now the table is set. Deliver the meal. Bring on the next Dictator, tyrant, or sociopath.

Lambs to the slaughter. I don't think the image of 'the flock' was chosen accidentally. The 'aristocracy' probably toasted that selection with a few bottles of wine.

[Pyrotex]

...Lambs to the slaughter. I don't think the image of 'the flock' was chosen accidentally. The 'aristocracy' probably toasted that selection with a few bottles of wine.

Excellent point. Religious scripture (well, at least one of them) consider us to be 'lambs'? A 'flock'? Personally, I find that demeaning. I am not a helpless, mindless, purpose-less creature that requires a 'shepherd' to protect me from the big bad wolf. More often than not, as history so clearly shows, the 'shepherd' IS the big bad wolf.

 

The 'aristocracy' toasted that selection with a few bottles of wine and a huge silver platter holding lamb-kebobs! B)

[questor]

I guess from these posts that morals are just whatever you feel like doing, or maybe morals are just for the stupid. some think religion is just like a sandwich, eat what you like, throw the rest away. some rail against the lies of government, yet they want to grow illegal drugs. illegal in the government's eyes--OK for them. some don't want the death penalty for murderers, but have no problem with abortion. some say:

''Sony has a huge factory that makes flat panel displays. Several percent of every manufacturing run test out to be defective and are (typically) trashed. However, it can be truthfully stated that their products are inherently "good".

 

The same thing is true of humans, except that we do NOT dispose of the defectives.

 

Now, THERE is a moral issue for you.''

 

during the time it took to type this statement, probably more than a thousand human fetuses were slaughtered. if this is not '' disposing

of the defectives'', what is it?

the reason for most laws is to prevent one person from harming another.

marijuana has been shown to impair brain function, the law is to prevent people high on the drug from harming someone else. if you wish to harm yourself, that is OK

 

other drugs---the same reasoning

 

prostitution--since hookers usually serve a varied clientele and spread syphilis, aids, etc., it makes sense to me to prevent the problem

 

murder--do i have to explain this one, or actually any of them to one who thinks and empathizes?

 

pacifism--be peaceful and do not fight, but if the fight comes to you, pray that other people will sacrifice their comfort or life to protect you.

 

can you spell con-tra-dic-tory? it's good to live in a country which allows

free flow of froth.