God sent free thought to save us from the consequences of the fifty-seven varieties of
religious belief being applied in the political arena.
Uh, E, I thought you were atheist, not agnostic. If atheist, God didn't do a blooming things, since she doesn't exist. Is there a certain conflict between your intellect and your beliefs?
That was maybe a bit unfair, but I think you invited it.
But as to your point: I understand you to say that if a majority of the people want to impose through law a value on others, if that value is "simply extracted from a "revealed" religious code," then the law is illegitimate.
The corollary is that if the value is extracted from a"what are called "moral" injunctions and prohibitions," it is legitimate to impose that value.
But that means you are not giving equal rights to believers (used here to mean persons who believe in some God and religious principles, but I don't want to keep typing that) and atheists. You allow atheists to impose their values on believers, but not believers to impose their values on atheists.
Presumably you get your set of moral injunctions and prohibitions from somewhere. You believe in something, and there is some source for that belief (even if it is only internal, or conscience, or whatever, but usually it is guided or supported by some oral or written statements of somebody).
What you want to do is give full legitimacy to your beliefs and the source(s) they arise from, but deny full legitimacy to a believer's beliefs and the source(s) they arise from.
I reject your right to enforce that distinction. I am willing to grant your beliefs and sources an equal right to influence public policy and law as a believers. But not a greater right.
Just because you are an atheist doesn't automatically mean that you have more right to make laws than I, as a believer, do. |
