Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site cbscc.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!cbsck!cbscc!pmd
From: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul M. Dubuc)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.religion
Subject: Re: Schools and Churches (really 'support' for areligious moral codes)
Message-ID: <5951@cbscc.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 22-Sep-85 14:48:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbscc.5951
Posted: Sun Sep 22 14:48:56 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 23-Sep-85 00:48:16 EDT
References: <623@hou2g.UUCP> <5884@cbscc.UUCP> <1154@mhuxt.UUCP> <5906@cbscc.UUCP> <10425@ucbvax.ARPA> <5935@cbscc.UUCP> <1164@mhuxt.UUCP>
Reply-To: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul M. Dubuc)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories <SCCS>, Columbus
Lines: 41
Xref: watmath net.politics:11126 net.religion:7739

In article <1164@mhuxt.UUCP> js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag) writes:
>> If government acts purely in its own interests an tramples over
>> all the rights (lives and property) the people supposedly have, who is going
>> to call in the police.  What do you point to in order to say to that 
>> government that people really do have these rights and that they ought to
>> be respected.  What do you appeal to when the government says, "Well that's
>> just your belief"?
>> -- 
>> Paul Dubuc 	cbscc!pmd
>
>      Well it *is* my belief (that government sponsored repression is wrong),
>and a damned strongly held one too.  And it's also the belief of almost 
>everyone else.  And that's what I'd tell that nasty government, Paul.
>      And if they say 'But that's an areligious moral code, which is completely
>unsupported.  Why should we follow it?'
>      I'll say: 'Just wait till my friend Paul gets here.  He's got a lot of
>the same morals as mine written up in this big book he's always carrying 
>around.  And since they're written up in a book, and since the book says it
>was divinely inspired, you can't argue with anything written there.  Which
>makes *his* moral code completely supported.  So you'd better stop all
>of that repressing right now.'
>
>:-)

Very funny.  But suppose it isn't the belief of almost everyone else?  Suppose
almost everyone else goes along with the government line?  Seriously, Jeff,
is something wrong or right depending on how strongly held your belief is
or the fact that it is a majority belief?  Did you think slavery was
morally right for the Antibellum South?

>     I guess that the bottom line is: Paul's belief that his moral code
>is supported while areligious moral codes are not is simply a matter of
>his faith.  To an observer without Paul's faith, it is apparent that both
>types of moral codes are founded on what is qualitatively the same stuff: -
>human custom, experience, expediency, etc.

... and faith.  Not the same faith as mine, maybe, but faith none the less.
What makes custom, experience, expediency, etc. authoritive?
-- 

Paul Dubuc 	cbscc!pmd


Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com