Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: lindborg@cs.washington.edu (Jeff Lindborg) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Imposing Christian morality on nonbelievers Message-ID: Date: 5 Mar 91 03:43:43 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: University of Washington Computer Science Lines: 86 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article sc1u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Stephen Chan) writes: > 1) The law should reflect the will of the people > 2) Some of the people are Christians > therefore > 3) Christians should have a right to try to influence the law Fine... no agument there. Lets see how you twist what I did say into what you wanted me to say: > You say: > 1) The law should reflect principles of innocence and guilt > 2) Christians have ideas of innocence and guilt based on religion Not necessarily! There are a wide diversity of opinion among many question of morality (abortion for isntance). Futher, an earlier post of mine pointed out that according to the bible slavery would be ok. I think you'd have a hard time finding a Christian would would base still find slavery acceptable. > 3) Our government mandates a seperation of Church and State > 4) Allowing Christians to influence the law is equivalent to > having a theocracy. Again, this isn't even close to what I said. I said that when Christians try and influence the passing of laws that are based *solely* of religious ideas of morality that have little or no practial basis for being made into law, the lawmakers should reject their bid. They are working for the state, not for the religious views of their consituents (even if the majority of their voters are Christian). If Christians (or any other cross section of society) wants to try and lobby something into law... fine. If these proposed laws are based on the practical good they will have on society, fine and good. If they are based on nothing but religious conviction, they should be dumped. Was it clear that time? > 5) A theocracy is a a violation of the "seperation of Church >and State". > THEREFORE > 6) Therefore Christians should have no influence over the law >and just let the atheists and agnostics decide what is right and wrong >in society. An entirely erroneous conclusion made with a poor understanding of what I had to say. [a number of concusions made on the above assumptions deleted ] > The legal system should reflect the consciences of its >citizens, and it is in no way compromised if the citizens have >Christian mores, and the law reflects this. Then you would have no problem if the majority of the people were Islamic and laws were passed concerning women having to remain covered when outside their home? Or laws about death penalty being invoked for crimes such as fornication and theft? These are morals based on the dominant religion, after all! And our laws should reflect the views of the majority, right? Wrong! Where would our civil rights movment be if the "majority" were allowed to dictate everything? Think this one through for a minute... > Are any mainstream Christian groups trying to replace the >Pledge of Allegiance with the Nicene Creed? Well, the Arizona state republican party has declared the United States to be a "Christian Nation" (as opposed to a secular one, I assume). Possibly not "mainstream", but its a start. > No one is trying to legislate faith. People are trying to >bring the law in line with their concepts of morality. The law is not there for you to dictate to the rest of us what you consider moral or not. I know this is difficult for you to swallow but not all of us agree with you... > A law based on Christian morality is not an endorsement of >faith in God - it is an endorsement of government's accountability to >its citizenship - some of which happen to be Christian. Actualy, most of them are. Which is why its dangerous to assume that because you are in the majority you can dictate the behavior of the rest because they are in the minority. Think about the civil rights movement and the Islamic analogy for a bit... Jeff Lindborg