Chuch/State unity

[CanadianPatriot]

I believe the problem with many countries today, including our own, is that we have strayed from strict moral beliefs. There is no longer a clear line seperating ´´right´´ from ´´wrong´´.

Do you really believe people were more moral in the past? Or that moral questions were easier in the past?

No, I do not believe people we necessarily ´´moral´´ in the past, however the guidelines were clearer (or at least they seemed to be) Many things that were considered ´´wrong´´ even just 50 years ago have now entered a grey area (i.e. gay marriage rights) When will the ´´greying effect´´ end? Will we ever have a strict policy of right and wrong or will we continue to smudge that line even further as certain groups become more vocal? Will whats ´´right´´ be determined by what the loudest crowd says? Its a frustrating topic.

[Black Dog]

Black Dog, that's an argument for no decisions by politicians. There is no basis for decisions which every citizen accepts and follows. If the fact that not every citizen follows its basis means a decision should not be made, close down parliament.

Unless you are prepared to argue that some citizens are second class, their views cannot be considered???

Noooo...it means basing laws on a religious text that not every citizen believes in is anathema to the democratic process. Not every citizen supports every decision made by the government, nor should they. However, the ide ao basing the law of the land on what I consider to be a fairy tale is very scary. Rather, the government should draw on the rich traditions of secular humanist thought, the same school that gave us this thing called "democracy" in the first place.

[CanadianPatriot]

However, the idea of basing the law of the land on what I consider to be a fairy tale is very scary. Rather, the government should draw on the rich traditions of secular humanist thought, the same school that gave us this thing called "democracy" in the first place.

BlackDog, with so many people with a wide variety of beliefs, how would the government ever come to a sound decision? Is there not a need for a common unifying source from which to base decisions on? Sure, ´´secular humanist thought´´ may have given us democracy, but it also gave the world Fascism and Communism. Ideas born from secular humanist thought have also cursed the world. It is in many ways a very unreliable source.

[Black Dog]

BlackDog, with so many people with a wide variety of beliefs, how would the government ever come to a sound decision? Is there not a need for a common unifying source from which to base decisions on? Sure, ´´secular humanist thought´´ may have given us democracy, but it also gave the world Fascism and Communism. Ideas born from secular humanist thought have also cursed the world. It is in many ways a very unreliable source

Religion has given us teh Taliban and the Spanish Inquisition. We could do this all day. The point is, the government of a secular, pluralist society should reflect that nature by drawing from a variety of sources and not a single one, especially a religious-based one.

[idealisttotheend]

If I can get my two cents in here........

Sure, ´´secular humanist thought´´ may have given us democracy, but it also gave the world Fascism and Communism.

Humanistic thought has given us the choice of totalitarian governments and we have made that choice in the past. Nowadays we mostly reject totalitarian governments to our credit. Without a history of these governments to study (or live through unfortunately) we would be unable to appreciate the value of a democracy. Furthermore it is unlikely we would be able to recognize a totalitarian government or differentiate it from a free one. If democracy came with a "Thou shalt" in front of it we could not appreciate the true value of it or realize why it must be defended.

This is actually in the best Christian tradition. In the Christian tradition, Jesus came to earth mostly to give men free will and he rejected the sword of Caesar (the third temptation, I believe) to unite the world under his rule. Free will is imperative to New Testament teachings, that will must only be tempered by certain values such as charity and humility etc. That means making choices and mistakes. It applies equally well to raising children.

It is in many ways a very unreliable source.

Humanity is notoriously unreliable when making decisions or interpreting the decisions of others. This cannot be escaped from. It leads to our greatest failures but also our greatest successes.

[DAC]

Noooo...it means basing laws on a religious text that not every citizen believes in is anathema to the democratic process. Not every citizen supports every decision made by the government, nor should they. However, the ide ao basing the law of the land on what I consider to be a fairy tale is very scary. Rather, the government should draw on the rich traditions of secular humanist thought, the same school that gave us this thing called "democracy" in the first place.

Black Dog, a very basic test of the value of a comparative argument is to substitute the terms. I’ve done that for you below. If I accepted your premise, which tries to make second class citizens of those with whom you disagree by forbidding their beliefs a place in the political process, I would say & seek to apply the following. You would find it very unfair, I think.

Basing laws on secular humanist thought that not every citizen believes in is anathema to the democratic process. Not every citizen supports every decision made by the government, nor should they. However, the idea of basing the law of the land on what I consider to be a fairy tale (the so-called rich traditions of secular humanist thought) is very scary.

Our democratic process works by giving all views freedom to put forward their ideas, based on their religious views or ideology or philosophy (whichever you want to call it). The majority rules. We have a constitution which can be changed only by a super-majority. Its primary purpose is to limit what the majority may do, thereby protecting minorities to some degree. But as soon as you say certain philosophies are excluded, democracy is gone.

[DAC]

I think Hinduism is more tolerant than the Spanish Inquisition was. But I guess you'd disagree somehow. (Have you read 'The Name of the Rose'?)

I have not read 'The Name of the Rose'. What’s it about?

It is not so much that I disagree with your comparison as I think it is skewed. A fair comparison would be the Hindu mobs attacking Muslims and Christian with the Inquisition, or Hinduism in general with Christianity in general. In the former, I don’t know which is worse, but both are rotten. In the later, I have no hesitation in saying that, despite its frequent failures, Christianity is more tolerant.

In both Russian and Germany the church drifted badly from the Bible (as much of it has here more recently), and so was rejected.

What, in God's name, gives you the right to say whether someone is a "good" Christian or a "bad" Christian? Are you the Pope?

Well, I hope I’m not the pope. (Will someone please check my vestments in case it has sneaked up on me? )

If you look more carefully, you’ll see that I deliberately avoided the subjective judgment of good or bad Christians. Instead I focussed on the objective reality that the churches in Russian and Germany had drifted away from the Bible. That lead to dead and dying churches, which had little to offer people. It was in that moral vacuum that Communism and Nazism took hold. Though these countries had the name of Christian, there was little actual Christianity to be seen.

On abortion, if the State tries to forbid it, the State will create even greater havoc, more death and more immorality as people seek ways around the interdiction.

If you want to discuss abortion, I think we should do it in another thread. However, the idea that prohibiting abortion will cause more death is totally contrary to every fact. More than 100,000 unborn children are killed in Canada every year. Against that it is interesting that some of the claims for deaths through back alley abortions before it became legal came to more than the total number of women of child-bearing age who died for all causes in those periods. In short, as at least one of those who made them has admitted, they were fabricated. As I said, we can debate the issue, but if you want that, let's do it in a dedicated thread.

[DAC]

the government should draw on the rich traditions of secular humanist thought, the same school that gave us this thing called "democracy" in the first place.

Why does everybody blindly accept this amazing claim?

If we're talking about the Greek democracies in the time before Christ, they were certainly not based on secular humanism! The people in that time would almost universally have laughed at the secular humanist viewpoint.

If we're talking about the development of our present democratic societies, it's still an outrageous claim.

My history books talk about the conflict between the nobles and the king, leading to Magna Carta in 1216. That was a simple power struggle. Over the next 400 years a parliament was gradually established, whose only real power by the early 1600s was the right to initiate tax bills. Certainly there was no secular humanist influence in that.

The conflict between king and parliament came to a head with the Stuart kings in England in the 1600s. It led to war, and the parliamentary party, with the Scots who joined them, was religious to the core. The fundamental issue, in fact was religious freedom against kings who sought to impose Roman Catholicism or something very like it. That conflict led to a parliament which met regularly, not just at the call of the king. The Franchise was gradually extended.

The next major step was in the USA, with the revolutionary war. Read the Declaration of Independence and you see clearly a Christian based document. Even those few founding fathers who, like Franklin, were more theistic than Christian, thought in essentially Christian terms.

Secular humanism is a recent development in human history. The humanists are good at taking credit for the free society we enjoy, but they weren't even there when that free society was being established.

Oh, there is one place where secular humanism pushed forward a democratic model - in France in the late 1700s. But the French Revolution led to anarchy and tyranny, not democracy.