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From: andree@uokvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: A Belated Reply to Paul Dubuc [from - (nf)
Message-ID: <3284@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 30-Oct-83 00:15:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.3284
Posted: Sun Oct 30 00:15:11 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 21-Oct-83 04:55:44 EDT
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#R:unc:-599000:uokvax:8300005:000:1982
uokvax!andree    Oct 14 19:22:00 1983

Second topic in my replies to Pauls letter: My morals vs. His morals.

In the first part of his letter, Paul seemed to be arguing that the US
(if not the world) should be run by the rules laid down in the bible.

First question: Which version/translation? Mind you, I'm not questioning
the divine nature of the bible, I'd just like to know which of the
(conflicting) versions I should use as a reference.

For a more basic point, I don't think it would make any difference
anyway. Witness both the rising tide of crime in a supposedly Christian
country, and the number of Christians who are heaven-bound (144,000
comes to mind...). What appears to be happening is that everybody is
doing as they wish, without referencing any authority higher than their
own skull.

Add to this that even {\b Societies} can't agree on what is and isn't
moral. Most of the major taboos of western civilization are (or were),
in one society or another, perfectly proper behavior. Likewise, many of
the things we consider quite reasonable are (or were), in some
societies, immoral acts.

However, Paul states that his morals (`God's Morals') are better than
mine (assuming they are different), as his come from a superior source.
Furthermore, he seems to think that lack of an absolute moral standard
will lead to `might makes right' flavor of society. I've got news for
you, Paul: the reason that most of the world has a moral standard that
is vaguely Christian is that anything that didn't conform to Christian
morals was `uncivilized,' so western society civilized them, whether
they liked it or not. Since we were bettered armed than most of the
rest of the world, we usually succeeded in this process. But in light of
what I've said in the last couple of paragraphs, this isn't surprising.
This is why most of the world has a set of morals that are vaguely
Christian: if they didn't conform to Christian morals, they were
`uncivilized,' so we civilized them, whether they liked it or not.

	<mike