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Politics : To be a Liberal,you have to believe that..... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (1344)	9/8/1999 11:06:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6418

>I can't think of one instance when a secular code of virtue has been applied and its worked.< How about the UCMJ? It's as close as you are gonna get to a secular code of virtue, because the honest secular codes (not the religion-surrogates like Leninism) don't arrogate to take on the Meaning of Life. Virtue can be defined in religiously unrestrictive terms ... but it lacks the built-in cradle-to-grave marketing that distinguishes a religion. So it tends to find few customers ... but we like to think we're a quality crowd. :-)

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (1344)	9/8/1999 11:31:00 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6418

I can't think of one instance when a secular code of virtue has been applied and its worked. Marxism has been an abysmal failure. Try looking at the USA. The basic rules of human social conduct antedate all known religions, and exist in much the same form in animist groups as they do in our society. Sanctions against murder, theft, violence (within the social unit, of course) exist because this behaviour is demonstrably disadvantageous to the group. Utilitarian rules that developed in the earliest human societies were later adopted by religions and shrouded in a cloak of mythology. I am sure that cave-mothers told their kids that if they smacked their siblings the bogeyman would come and get them. This had a purely utilitarian purpose: no mother wants the kids squalling while she roasts the evening mammoth steak. Centuries later the myth changed a little, and instead of threatening us with bogeymen they started threatening us with hellfire and damnation. I see no difference at all.