[ POLL ] Morality Laws.

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I'm not the type of person to report someone to mods, fwiw. I honestly don't understand your whole pine cone metaphor/analogy whatever you want to call it. I repeat myself that gay marriage is a good example, because it specifically indicates a case where increased involvement of church and state is being encouraged by conservatives, while they misinterpret the first amendment to justify Christianity (and act as if this is the only relevant religious belief system, even going so far as to push for legislation that is inherently Christian in its intention). You can't emphasize the first amendment while not realizing its connection to the separation of church and state without seeming hypocritical and contradictory. If conservatives can at least be honest that they're pushing for increased church and state involvement, and that they're repurposing the first amendment for their cause, then we'll have transparency. Right now they're obscuring the fact that they are not as much for religious freedom as they are for a Christian church-state.

Aghogday, that’s a horrible, hateful, and offensive accusation. I resent that. Please don’t do that again.

It’s not covert anything. It’s about a logical pattern or progression. If picking up pine cones had an objective basis for demonization (metaphorically speaking), whether through direct revelation from a God or by observing nature, changing times and attitudes don’t make something less destructive. My intention is not to suggest that homosexuality, skin color, or sorcery/witchcraft are inherently destructive. I’m raising the question of whether something could be destructive and become forgotten over time. Christianity in the past has unquestioningly enforced rules through blind obedience to authority rather than consider the legitimacy of the rule being enforced. The rationale for racial slavery, for instance, is grounded in the ancient custom of institutionalized slavery without regard for Biblical prohibitions against it. In other words, it was in the Bible, therefore it MUST have been ok.

The opposite pattern of thought exists: Because of the age of Reason, ancient religious texts are invalid. They are religious by nature and thus CANNOT be based on reason. Incest is prohibited by the Bible/religion. Therefore, the incest taboo is antiquated and thus should be explored as a valid means of expressions of romantic love. If I choose to commit incest, it is nobody’s business what I do in my bedroom.

Can you spot the obvious fallacy in the previous paragraph? You can neither blindly assume that there is no good reason for the Bible to criminalize something, pine cones or not, nor can you blindly assume that just because the Bible says something that it can’t possibly be true.

It's an Ignorant And Harmful Ideology, as Practiced by Christian Religions,
Overall, to Suggest Homosexuality is Not a Natural and Healthy Part of Nature;
No Matter How it is referenced now; Just giving you an opportunity to Learn
more about the Science of it in the Video; And Whether or not Your Metaphor
Was Intentional Or Not; it perfectly describes the Ignorance in Christianity as

i provided Personal evidence for too;
And Is Clearly in the Historical Record of Christianity, presently too.
Christianity's Dark Age of Ignorance in Not accepting Homosexuality
is one of the Main Downfalls of why now what is left of Mostly Only Gray Haired

folks in the Pews...

Younger Generations
Are Greater Educated and no
Longer Accept the Ignorance.

Ignore as You Choose;

but i refuse to ignore the Ignorance my Friend.

And No it's not like you are the only one who believes
this way; about 31 Percent, the Same Core 'Trump Voter' Percentage of the Population Still Does
not Support Gay Marriage for the Biggest Current Heart Burn other than Abortion For Christianity.

It's Very Specific to the Topic At Hand; And Of course it was bound to come up if a so-called Christian
other than Fnord Entered the Discussion; i personally, see the Value of Organized Religion; that's another
Reason i never miss a Catholic Church Service Every Weekend, Covid-19 Allowing, since 2013; but you see

i BeLiEVE iN
The All Inclusive
Human All Natural
Altruistic Love that
Doesn't Get all Butt Hurt
about Which Flesh and Blood
Parts touch either other in Sacred and Holy Natural Love...

After all; Let's Not Worry About 'The Flesh; So Much with Smiles..

It’s not that I think you would report me. The problem is that for me to oppose your point, I’d face the prospect of opposing gay marriage, which would offend a so-called protected class, which on WP is a reportable offense. My pine cone analogy is a generic reference to any religious edict criminalizing anything without any call to reason. Aghog has accused me of making a covert reference to homosexuality, while in reality it follows a pattern that could represent literally ANYTHING. A less offensive example might be, say, male circumcision or head coverings for women.

The argument for head coverings for women is problematic because headdresses as status symbols are seldom a common practice, not to mention the call for head coverings specifically referenced corporate worship. Requiring head coverings today is rather pointless despite there being good reasons for women to cover their heads in church. The problem is those reasons do not exist at this point in time. But if elaborate hair styles and jewelry came back into fashion, a return to head coverings would be wise.

I’m sure you mean well, but baiting someone is ALSO against WP rules. You may not realize that’s what it is, as I’ve never known you to have poor intentions. However, I’m respectfully asking you to please drop it.

NO; i'm just calling it the way i see it;

And true, enough said; You gave Your defense; i will accept it..

The problem with your example is not that it isn’t worthy of discussion. It is worthy. It’s just that for me to argue against you, I would have to take an opposing position to homosexuality—that is, specifically, that it is condemned in the Bible. There’s no getting around that. You only win the argument because it’s against WP rules to say anything opposing homosexuality.

I can’t contribute further because I’m not allowed to. Which is a shame. I enjoy these kinds of topics!

This is part of my argument, though. Without referencing the bible (or other religious books), you're stuck in arguing against homosexuality, without running into issues. The bible should not be used as reference material for political laws, because it is elitist and discriminatory to do so -- the same way it would be to use any religious text as the framework for legislation. Think about all the different interpretations of the bible, and different denominations of Christianity. I think you'll find that even among Christians, those who are truly opposed to homosexuality in the USA, are in the minority. This is like I said before, because the bible is really open to interpretation as well, and this is what freedom of religion is about. You're okay to feel it's wrong, and may very well have your reasons for doing so, as this is part of your freedom of religion and belief, but this doesn't mean you get to decide for others what they should believe, and this goes also for the government, which largely seeks to protect us from religious indoctrination at the political level. There are some overlaps about what's moral, what's legal, and what's religion, but they have to be overlaps, they can't just be in the religion sphere. Because as we can see, religions can be highly immoral...dogma needs to be checked at the door when it comes to governing people, because we don't all have the same religion.

Editted out.

Suppose the religion itself were based in objective reality. If a certain activity or behavior, no matter what it was, be it racism, slavery, or picking up pine cones, was known to be disruptive to the natural order, it’s not a simple matter of whether it offends God or not. It doesn’t matter if it just affects the individual or the whole of society. Destructive actions are destructive and ultimately do affect society as a whole.

Religion often relates consequences to a sort of I told you so message from God. Of course punishment comes from God, but does so in various forms, not the least of which are natural consequences for negative actions. All morality comes from the natural world and is authored by its Creator. It is impossible to make a good law that God isn’t responsible for. That means that all laws are divine and therefore religious. There’s no such thing as a secular law unless it is directly opposed to divine law. That means that a law that can ONLY be conceived through human reason, NOT divine reason, is valid. Do not murder is already a divine law, thus the secular law must be to do the opposite, to murder.

The divine command not to murder, though, is objectively moral because it has immediate, tangible consequences if it is ignored. To commit murder is to forfeit your own life since you must then forever live as a fugitive in fear of retribution. The most logical course of action is not to follow a purely secular law, but rather a divine one, because the divine law preserves life while the secular law destroys it. You cannot have a secular law that says do not murder without borrowing from divine law.

All good laws that bring about positive results are ALREADY religious laws. It would make the most sense to base laws on divine law directly since there is no need to resort to guesswork and debate as to what they are.

What becomes obscured is that ancient written laws, some of which might have been divine law, were objective and even self-evident. The interpretation of divine laws were, indeed, unquestionably used to satisfy greed and to assert undeserved power over others. The point of separating church and state is not to escape divine law, but rather to avoid the abuse of interpretation for authorities to use divine laws in ways they were never intended. This creates the illusion that divine law was purely subjective, never objective, and hence never sufficient for law and order.

However, if such laws were ever revealed to be objectively moral, there should be no objection to embracing divine law as proper law for governing society. The problem then is that you might have a group of people who, say, really, REALLY enjoy picking up pine cones and refuse to understand how something so mundane might actually be destructive to society. It doesn’t matter how often you demonstrate the destructive nature of cone collecting, they will insist on gathering cones and even come up with novel, if misguided, excuses as to why it’s nobody’s business and that they should be allowed to continue. For that there are two possible outcomes: severe penalties up to and including the death penalty; the complete and total collapse of society for not eliminating the practice. It’s not about homosexuality, but about any behavior in which it might be asserted that it was outlawed purely on religious grounds. Is the behavior problematic in objective reality? Should something be done about it? As long as Do Not Murder both appears in the Bible and remains objectively true, it stands to reason that Christian laws are already laws we follow. If Christian laws are already state and federal laws, we live in a theocracy whether you like it or not.

One last thing: I DO understand how this might be seen as a covert attack on a protected class. The intent is universal application to any moral issue. The KJV commandment “Thou shalt not kill” is often interpreted to mean no killing EVER, but ignores situations when killing is necessary: plants and animals for food, wartime enemies, self defense in an attack on one’s own life, or collateral damage caused when someone acts to preserve his own life in a difficult or impossible situation. It’s unreasonable to expect anyone to lay his life down for any cause, but do not kill would serve to prevent someone from defending himself if he was believed to pose a political threat. Elsewhere God commands the Israelites to get rid of any Canaanites remaining in the promised land. If this command is removed from context, then one might argue the Bible favors genocide. Therefore it is incorrect to say do not kill, but more accurate to say do not murder. And the fate of the Canaanites is not strictly speaking genocide as we understand it, but rather the justice they deserved because of their own horrific actions. DNA evidence shows Canaanite tribes spread out and continued to survive long after Old Testament events.

And just like killing is a consequence of war, not all killing is unjustified. Thou shalt not kill should have read do not murder.

Finally, these laws are best understood literally where possible and objectively. The Bible places a high value on all life. The avoidance of loss of life is always preferred. As Ayn Rand said, “Morality ends where a gun begins.” When violence occurs in divine law, ask how that can happen in harmony with instructions that say the opposite. You will often find after objective inquiry apparent contradictions are actually appropriate given the specifics of circumstances.

Well, Considering that Most of the Moral Laws
in Christianity Are Developed Way Before
the Life of Jesus, in Other Religions;
Perhaps, We Can/Will Credit
Buddha for that too, For All
Good We Do Per State Now;
But Of Course Now Yes, Many
Christian Religious Sects Still
Profess, if there is No Miracle
of Physical Resurrection, there
Is No Merit in Christianity; and
Ever Since then, Folks Who Have
Have Followed The Religion, tend
to More Closely Follow Other
Conspiracies Theories,
Other than God
Sacrificed His
Only Son
As God
Sacrificed God
And Died For Humankind;
Perhaps there is a bit of Buyer's
Remorse now; Considering that Top
Officials from the White House's Excuse
Hand-in-Hand with Religious Authorities
too for Virtually No Masks or Social Distancing
At the Republican Convention Was/Is, "EveryBody Is Going to
Catch This Thing Eventually." With Zero Levels of Empathy for
the 184,000 or so Dead that's Hard enough to Keep track of each
Day for Corpses Piling Up; Yeah; no Different Really than the Dictator's
Views of Corpses
Piling Up
Last Century
too; So Far Away
From The Golden
Rule that Life Smells
Like a Morgue; indeed Sick,
the Whole Lot of Fifth Avenue Death...
Still Waiting For the Priest at my Church
to Fully Act in Good Faith of Truth in Light
in Actions of Matthew Chapter 5, Verses, 3 Thru 11;
Considering that Protective Masks are Not Required
In Mass Under His Rule to Save Lives of Other Innocent
Lives, Potentially; Big Fail, Already in Key Laws As Established for Love
in A Book
That
Talks
but
Neither
Does the
Walk or the
Dance of Love Genuine
And True to Give and
Share Free Doing Least
Harm; that of course
includes Avoiding
A Mortal Sin
For Real
in Killing
Human Fields,
Failing to Wear a Mask;
Even Worse, Telling Everyone;
It you Feel 'the Need' to Wear one
Go Ahead; But Here you do what ya
Wanna Do as Freedom is More Important than
Grand
Ma And
Grand Pa's
Life and Yes,
Potentially 'Yours' too..

I'm just wondering every day how much longer it will be until people just like me in the US lose our religious freedom.

Consequences from God and man are different. The consequences from God are "hell" (or other abstract notions like damnation in a spiritual, non-physical sense). God speaks to the supernatural and superstitious. Morality speaks to what is good for people, what is right, because it is rational and humane...and of course laws speak to what is punishable legally by the state. Religion and morality can value the same things (at times), but often for somewhat different reasons. Regardless, even if the reasons are similar, religion again relates to the supernatural. Laws are not about the supernatural, they are about the physical world and the societies we live in, etc. The court doesn't sentence you to 50 years to be spent in hell (the metaphysical place you will go after you die), they sentence you to time in prison, a physical place, and they put you there now. Allowing gay marriage is an example of a law on the basis of morality (freedom, equality, etc). Disallowing it would be on the basis of religion (because the bible says it's bad). Intolerance towards homosexuality reflects intolerance during biblical times, which have little relevance now. People are a lot wiser and more understanding now.

Don't confuse divinity, spirituality, religion, etc., with ethics, morality, philosophy, etc. Politics should have more in common with science than religion. Why? Because the *reasons* given by religion to do something, are often based on something not rooted in objective reality (something related to God, who is made up), whereas morality is based on concrete and practical reasoning, that can be verified. Like, you shouldn't kill people because they're human, they have feelings, they are like you, etc etc., instead of you shouldn't kill people because God values all people (except homosexuals), and God is all powerful...God being a supernatural being.

Another good example is the creationism myth. This shouldn't be taught in schools as fact, because it doesn't stand up to logical scrutiny. And we don't want kids to learn to follow along with myths as if they were to be taken as fact.

"Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."

The kingdom of God is heaven. So basically, you don't get to go to heaven. That's what the bible says about homosexuality. For those of us who don't believe in the bible etc...we could hardly care less about heaven, because we don't even think it exists, nor believe any of the above...we just see it for what it is -- unfairly judging gay people who have done nothing wrong...which was a reflection of the intolerance characteristic of that time. They presumably crafted a religion out of those views, as well.

Anyway, there's no reason to go on about it anymore. I gather we're both wasting our time on each other.

Your question isn't very clear. Secular laws are often based on religious laws. That's why fornication, adultery, sodomy, and divorce are illegal in some countries. For believers, an important question is who decides which activities are immoral. God or man? I think most religious people would prefer God's law over the laws of men but that wouldn't mean every immoral act should be a crime. For example, if a religion says it's immoral to deny the existence of God but also says it's immoral to punish people for not believing then it would be immoral to have a law prohibiting atheism.





One thing I know for sure is that no one wants laws based on a different religion than the one they follow.

I think in most countries, those types of religious laws only applied to people following the predominate religion. For example, during the Middle Ages there were religious laws that only applied to Christians. In some countries today, there are religious laws that only apply to Muslims such as the prohibition against drinking alcohol and eating pork which isn't illegal for Christians living in those countries.





The problem with that view is that people don't agree. Human reason is influenced by ideology even among people who don't follow a religion. For example, some atheists think murder should be illegal (which I think is reasonable) while other atheists think women should be allowed to kill their children if they're less than 9 months old because they follow an ideology that says women have a right to kill their children until they reach a certain age (and they don't even agree on what that age should be). That means you're imposing the will of some people against the will of others based on their opinions and opinions change over time.

OT, but could you please cut it out with the huge nested quotes?