I don't recall any scripture telling Christians to go fight the government to stop sinning.

Churches exist in Europe where all that pretty much exists. What's so horrible that the churches can't force people not to sin in their eyes through the power of the state?

Guadaloop474 said:

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The problem here is that the separation of church and state, left to its own designs, the state will freely choose abortion, homosexual marriage, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, and assisted suicide. All very great sins in the eyes of the church. This will set up a collision course between church and state where the church will either go along to get along or will stand up for its beliefs.

I choose the latter...

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Then we, the church, should present an alternative that looks so much like Christ that the world can't help but be drawn to Him. It's how the church spread through periods of immense persecution. That alternative is distorted when we try to use the world's means to force it.

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Line of attack? I'm not attacking anything other than the idea of working within the framework a governmental system which is loosely based on the concept of rights which are considered inviolable while rejecting the premise of why those rights are inviolable. It's like saying you believe in relativity but you don't believe in c = constant. The only thing I'm "arguing" for is that its an untenable position, there's cognitive dissonance there.

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Not in the least. You don't have to hold that it's objectively inviolable to believe that a government should never violate those rights. You don't have to agree that "persistence. Living. Surviving. " is a inviolable standard logically speaking to believe it the best practical one.

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I've never said anything at all about morality from a religious standpoint being objective. Humans aren't objective. But, we can play at objectivity by accepting that some things are above human opinion (the concept of Rule of Law, for example). I think we agree here.

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Sure. But I'm doing the exact same thing with rights. We as a society collectively agree that these things should't be violated by a government independent of the opinions of the majority. There is not one iota of cognitive dissonance in understanding that this is fundamentally subjective. Even so, it gives us a foundation which we can objectively hold other laws to.

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I don't agree that I've posited an argument for objective morality -- I'm arguing against an arbitrary subjective morality masquerading as objective morality, which is exactly what the concept of inalienable rights is.

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Like I said, it's an argument against subjective morality (and by exclusion an argument for objective morality). I don't see how you can argue against an arbitrary subjective morality when that's all we have. God or no. Where is your objective morality? You've not changed anything with an appeal to god. We've not lost anything without it.

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Practically speaking, I'm not sure I'm comfortable leveraging my understanding of right and wrong in judgment of previous (or current) societies. I'm also not sure I'm comfortable with accepting the concepts of right and wrong as subjective, and then broadly applying them. It seems irrational. Now, it make sense for people who agree on whatever assumed frame of reference...let's call it a moral coordinate system...to map out behavioral decisions together. But only as far as they agree on the map; the instant they disagree, the ability to define in a different space becomes useless without some type of moral transfer function, which only translates between the two subjective value judgments - it doesn't arbitrate.

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Right and wrong and your understanding of it is based on previous societies whether you like it or not. It's simply a fact of life. And the only thing irrational would be to reject standards of morality due to a discomfort over this fact. I agree we need a common coordinate system as a society, and I think rights fulfill that role independent of theistic belief.

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I already offered my standard for right and wrong for societies - persistence. Living. Surviving. Anything else seems useless.

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Quality of life?

Texaggie7nine said:

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Churches exist in Europe where all that pretty much exists. What's so horrible that the churches can't force people not to sin in their eyes through the power of the state?

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The idea that far-left-wing sexual revolutionaries are a "neutral", non-dogmatic, libertarian movement who rejects "the power of the state" died when states started fining people for not serving same-sex "weddings" or for referring to people by the biologically-correct pronouns.

F 'em. The Muslims got this one right.

commando2004 said:

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Texaggie7nine said:

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Churches exist in Europe where all that pretty much exists. What's so horrible that the churches can't force people not to sin in their eyes through the power of the state?

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The idea that far-left-wing sexual revolutionaries are a "neutral", non-dogmatic, libertarian movement who rejects "the power of the state" died when states started fining people for not serving same-sex "weddings" or for referring to people by the biologically-correct pronouns.

F 'em. The Muslims got this one right.

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Muslims got what right exactly?

If liberals can invoke the devil's values in their policymaking, then Christians should surely be able to invoke God's values in theirs.

Primarily in the right to life...

AstroAg17 said:

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Survival is also "useless". There's not a "point" to anything from an atheist perspective, including the propagation of life.

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Yes, obviously. But I'm not talking about a telelogical point in this case. I'm talking about an empirical way to judge the best way for humans to govern themselves. I can't think of any other "prime" value than survival.

Obviously if you are an atheist your best bet is to maximize the good in your life however you see fit. But this sort of includes survival. Hard to have quality of life when you're dead.

I'm ok a hierarchy of imperatives cascading from survival. I just don't think that in a system that is structured from the survival of the species things like individual rights to life or property would be considered optimal.

I think yours is a good way of looking at it and one that is free of cognitive dissonance. However, there's a degree of nuance in how you're structuring your thoughts that I think most people lack. The interesting part about it is that your system only holds internally. You have no logical ability, I think, to object to another society's subjective interpretation of good and bad.

Arguing against something is very far from arguing for it's opposite. I'm not arguing for a subjective morality, I'm suggesting that there is an available objective morality - survival. You can frame all of these things in terms of fitness for survival. I actually think as a species that is social by necessity it would be a little bit foolish to suggest that our propensity to develop moral codes and societal structures is anything but a survival mechanism. What we see in bees is not different.. their social structure is a moral code.

People don't suggest that capitalism is a superior economic system to socialism because of a religion tenet. They say its better because it's more effective at the ends they are identifying as optimal things to maximize. Social morality organizes groups of people - to what end? Survival. Life, liberty, and property are only beneficial if they support that end, in a very binary sense.

Once you get a basis for reference down - a binary means test for suitability; that is, does this aid the survival of the unit in question (family, tribe, city, nation, species)? any action can be judged against alternative options. And those can be weighted in how much of an advantage they bring to survival. Tie breakers go to subjective things like quality of life.

This is an objective system. But it is not particularly comfortable for most Americans to think about.