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

To: The Philosopher who wrote (18020)	7/11/2001 9:15:36 PM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

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. Catholicism leaps to mind, for starters. There's one Pope and well over 260M claimed adherents... treble that number? Oh, sorry, the Vatican takes advice from the council of cardinals... appointed by the Pope. JPII has appointed around 2/3 of the current cardinals, who get to, er, 'elect' the next Pope. Much scope for question there. Just ask any US RC who wants to divorce. Meanwhile, Papal Infallibility continues. Think about it... the Catholic Church has just decided that maybe the Earth does revolve around the Sun, after all, so Galileo wasn't a blasphemous heretic. Hmmm. Hasidic Jews show few signs of change, either. How many Moonies can change the decisions of 'Rev' Sun Yung Moon? Religious law is created by a few individuals that claim to be inspired by God. Religious law DOES change. And, once again, you wilfully misinterpret. The faith of the Christian church was not changed by the Council of Nicaea (for example), only the interpretation... the Bible stayed as law, as Holy Writ. Those who disagreed with the interpretation were excommunicated as heretics - a sin punishable by rather unpleasant death. And again, the same bizarre relativism... All of us 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. OK, let's take a generic religious 'you'. I 'believe' that stars are accumulations of gaseous hydrogen, with various other fusion by-products, within which the strong nuclear force counteracts gravitational collapse. You 'believe' that stars are little lights on the sphere of heaven representing God's love for us all. Or maybe undescended angels. I 'believe' that pregnancy comes about after sex, where a sperm penetrates the membrane of an unfertilised ovum and mitochondrial DNA is exchanged. (with occasional mutations, and if there's no impregnation it's an XX chromosome). You 'believe' that God's holy will makes a virgin give birth. I 'believe' that death occurs when the heart stops beating, circulation stops and neural activity ceases. You 'believe' that, er, something else still keeps on living afterwards... whatever you mean by a 'soul', anyhow... and that this has an 'afterlife' in 'heaven'. Whatever that is. But no one alive can tell. I 'believe' that the fossil record we can dig up from the rocks around us shows different species from different pre-historical epochs. You 'believe' that... well, I don't even try and guess what in this case. Faith vs. Science? Can you see a difference yet?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (18020)	7/11/2001 10:30:08 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 82486

That's about 400 people at most out of close to 300 million people. The 400 are accountable to the 300 million. The 300 million can, and frequently do, throw them out of their jobs. That makes a difference. Religious law DOES change. It changes because it was not made by God. It was made by people who use the God-figure to preempt any attempt at making them accountable. But no matter how much they change the laws, they always pretend that their own version is "the truth". You don't think accountability, and the ability to change law at the request of those who are governed, rather than at the whim of those who govern, are differences? All of us -- you, me, everyone here on SI -- ultimately goes back to some basic principles we accept on faith Our attribution of these beliefs makes a key difference. Some of us believe that our personal beliefs are individual variations on flexible, dynamic themes developed by thousands of generations of humans, in an evolutionary process in which compromise and change are key elements. Some of us believe that our beliefs are absolute truths, revealed to somebody, somewhere by a supreme being. I hope you see a difference there. Two statements: 1. We are responsible for developing the codes of conduct and the means of enforcing those codes that best suit our purposes. We must balance the pleasure of the majority with the protection of the minority. 2. The religious intermediaries should decide for us, and we should do whatever they say. After all, God talks to them and not to us, so we must be worms, fit only to grovel and obey. Do you see no difference?