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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Greg or e who wrote (10700)	4/7/2001 3:39:23 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Then they turn around, and in the next breath, attempt to make themselves somehow exempt from the very same standards, they fully expect, even demand, of others. Greg, I went back and read it again and I did not see this message anywhere. the message I got was that they don't want a set of rules handed to them by some authority figure but rather to shop for a set of rules that works in real life. That's not the same as expecting a higher standard from others than one does from oneself. Is it any wonder that having rejected any and all authority, save self, in the area of ultimate morality, that Americans are left with only this? "Our respondents are guided by subjective feelings more than they are by appeals to rational, intellectual and objective conceptions of right and wrong." I don't think Americans are left with only a subjective basis of morals. It's just that most aren't "rational, intellectual, and objective" in anything. You can see that clearly on these boards. It's no surprise that the moral systems they invent for themselves would be subjective and emotional. Sad, but no surprise. Why Wolfe is optimistic that moral freedom, divorced from responsibility to an ultimate moral standard, will fair any better, is a worthy question to ponder. I did not get the impression that the author was advocating moral freedom, merely reporting the trend, or that he thought it would fare any better than political and economic freedom. It probably won't. His point that political and economic freedom have come up short is a good one, but no one seems to want to curb those. We still argue for democracy and capitalism knowing full well that they haven't completely delivered on their promise. If moral freedom comes up short, that doesn't mean we will scrap it. <<But it suggests that in America, religious institutions will not break under the weight of moral freedom but bend, as many of them have bent already, to accommodate themselves to the freedom of moral choice to which Americans have increasingly grown accustomed.>> You and I have had this discussion before. People are consumers of religion just like any other service. They will gravitate to churches that meet their needs as opposed to those who offer the "truth." It's inevitable. Karen