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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Greg or e who wrote (3096)	11/2/2000 9:56:58 PM
From: average joe	Respond to of 28931

God gave you and everyone else a free will. Some choose wisely some choose poorly but as long as you are true to yourself you won't revolt God. There is more than ten divine mandates in the bible and a whole bunch of good advice. Christ wanted us to be like children. Children are carefree, honest and trusting and therefore closer to God. The love of money is the root of all evil. That is not a pro-socialist statement and it does not mean if you have no air-conditioning you have virtue. Rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. That may mean your life, after all a killer is not worth more than the crime he commits even under Christian law. I saw five kids today picking on another kid, an old pick-up truck skidded to a stop and a cowboy got out and booted the biggest in the ass. That to me was a Christian act. Big Government and Big Religion will never be able to act as effectively and with as much compassion as that. Have the courage of your convictions and never let anybody make you feel their pain. (Unless of course with your God given free will you choose to) Your passion belongs to you and you alone absolutely. Every human life is supposed to be a struggle, the moment it ceases to be a struggle is it's cessation. Nothing can or will render the example of Christ obsolete.

To: Greg or e who wrote (3096)	11/3/2000 10:19:04 AM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 28931

Arthur Leff makes the assumption that either God sets morals or it's every person for themselves. That is not all of the alternatives. The greater power in an atheist society is groups of people. Each person is not free to choose right or wrong with strict independance but must work within the confines what the group finds tolerable. This can lead to vastly different ethics in different groups, For example some practices that we abhore as child sexual abuse may have been considered a normal and essential part of growing up in south-sea islands. It does not lead to anarchy or nihilism. TP

To: Greg or e who wrote (3096)	11/3/2000 12:17:29 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

But where did this mind come from, and why should we trust its philosophical ground rules? From a biblical theistic standpoint, human reason possesses a degree of reliability because God created it in His own image. When human reason denies its basis in creation, it becomes unreason. This is highly circular, but I grant all systems of philosophy presume some precepts and have tenets. It seems strange to me to accept the precepts from some external source of unknown veracity, though. How do I test the veracity of dogma? It seems that dogma is usually full of contradictions and not very current as it applies to my life today. Most often, it is not a particularly coherent set of documents, nor is it tersely and succinctly edited, but rather a collection of documents (some describing the same events differently, some describing different events uniquely). Many times there is no other corroboration of these accounts. My internal systems are MINE and I don't have to question motivation or their human transcriptions. I don't have to worry about intentional deception or hidden agendas. All of these things are necessarily part of documents of human origin, even if we accept that they are divinely inspired (a claim that is tenuous at best for non-adherents). By leaving the philosophy open to question, its truth can be tested. Granted many who have claims of open philosophies don't check them often but this is an implementation problem and not a problem with the philosophy per se. The most important thing, IMO, is that we all respect each other. To the extent that our dogma makes us judgmental or critical of others, we should question these judgements and see if the clear harm we see is shared by the others. Always attempt to find the common ground. That there will be conflict between dogmatic philosophies is probably unavoidable. However, each of us needs to be aware that someone else's dogma could also be held in dominion over us at some later date and that as a matter of public policy, it is best to not assert your dogma when others don't agree, even though you find yourself in a position to do so.