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

To: Dayuhan who wrote (18012)	7/11/2001 8:29:25 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

Civil law, in a democratic society, is created by numerous individuals that compare beliefs, compromise, and work out a solution acceptable to the majority. Religious law is created by a few individuals that claim to be inspired by God. The rest are expected to accept it without question. Nope. Civil law, in our nation, is created by one hundred senators and, what, about 500 representatives. I should know the exact number, but I don't. Actually, it's made by one-half plus one of those plus the president, or two-thirds of those if the President opposes. That's about 400 people at most out of close to 300 million people. Religious law DOES change. Just look at the various branches of Judaism. Look at the Southern Bapist convention, where elected delegates debate and vote on changes in church law, just the way the Congress does on changes in civil law. Look at churches which now allow the ordination of women. Major change in church law. Not by one person, but by elected councils. Look at Vatican II, where huge changes in church law were made by the college of cardinals. Not the pope alone, but the college of cardinals, if I have the exact name right. I don't know of a single religion today which still exists in the form it did 100 years ago, thothough there may be a few. And I don't know of any religion where the group that makes church law is dramatically smaller, relative to the membership, than the Congress is to the population of the nation. Identical. As I said. You don't see a difference between deciding what to believe after reasonably considering the merits and likely outcomes of alternatives and accepting someone else's belief on faith? That, of course, is a totally straw man. You are still refusing to discuss the core principle: that underlying every principle you and I and every person holds is, at core, a belief system which we cannot justify in any way other than "well, this I believe because it works for me." All of us -- you, me, everyone here on SI -- ultimately goes back to some basic principles we accept on faith, or belief, or whatever you call it, but cannot prove, cannot justify logically, that we just accept as the axioms of our belief. For some, this is God. For others, it isn't. But it's the same thing.