[MD] Christian Ethics and U.S. Law

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting Arlo Bensinger <ajb102 at psu.edu>:

> [Platt]
> Where are homosexuality and not keeping the sabbath crimes?
> 
> [Arlo]
> You've used "Christian ethics" as support for why homosexual marriage 
> should be illegal. Wouldn't the same stance call for making doing 
> business on Sunday illegal? Why not?
> 
> [Platt]
> But your constant attack on Christian ethics flies in the face of 
> religious tolerance, something the Founding Fathers tried to build into law.
> 
> [Arlo]
> When I have attacked Christian ethics? This is about legislating one 
> particular ethical system. What the "founders" did was create a legal 
> system based on Reason, not on God. You have yet to prove how our 
> legal system derives from the Bible, other than saying the "founders" 
> said "God" once and a while. This begets the question, can't you 
> believe in God and create laws based on reason? In other words, just 
> because some of them claimed to be "Christian" does not mean the 
> basis for the legal system they developed derives from Biblical law. 
> Indeed, it doesn't. "Religious tolerance" itself is a humanist stance 
> built on reason. What "God" do you know of that preached respect and 
> tolerance for other's people's foreign "gods"? "Christian ethics" is 
> quite clear, "Have no other God before me". Hardly "religious tolerance".
> 
> [Platt]
> Just shows how frustrating it can be to try to legislate morality, 
> and how easy it is for those who rail against religion to exhibit hypocrisy.
> 
> [Arlo]
> Kindly point out where I have "railed against religion"?
> 
> [Arlo previously]
> No, I'm saying if _you_ want to legislate "Christian ethics", this is 
> what it would entail. You can't pick small pieces, ignore the rest, 
> and then claim you support law "based on Christian ethics".
> 
> [Platt]
> I don't know why not. Take the best and leave the rest. We do it all the time.
> 
> [Arlo]
> A good philosophy, but not one based in "Christian ethics". Where did 
> God, for example, say "take the best and leave the rest"?
> 
> [Platt]
> I don't support the Christian Coalition any more than I support the 
> PC Nazis. Both are cut from the same cloth -- intolerant.
> 
> [Arlo]
> Fair enough.
> 
> [Arlo offered Pirsig's statement]
> "And yet, although Jefferson called this doctrine of social equality 
> "self-evident," it is not at all self-evident. Scientific evidence 
> and the social evidence of history indicate the opposite is 
> self-evident. There is no "self-evidence" in European history that 
> all men are created equal. There's no nation in Europe that doesn't 
> trace its history to a time when it was "self-evident" that all men 
> are created unequal. Jean Jacques Rousseau, who is sometimes given 
> credit for this doctrine, certainly didn't get it from the history of 
> Europe or Asia or Africa. He got it from the impact of the New World 
> upon Europe and from contemplation of one particular kind of 
> individual who lived in the New World, the person he called the 
> "Noble Savage." (LILA)
> 
> [Platt]
> I'm no Biblical scholar, but didn't Jesus imply if not actually say 
> that we're all God's children and so equal?
> 
> [Arlo]
> Jesus told people to do Good works, regardless of the "faith" or 
> social position of the recipient. But still left God's Grace only for 
> those who converted.
> 
> [Platt]
> You assign to the Founding Fathers the same seriousness as football 
> players? Arlo, I'm nonplussed.
> 
> [Arlo]
> I don't deify people. The founders were people. They got some things 
> right, and some things wrong. Some things very right, and some things 
> very wrong.
> 
> [Platt]
> What I don't understand is you want to take the Bible literally yet 
> lecture that we shouldn't take words metaphorically. Perhaps you can 
> clear up my confusion.
> 
> [Arlo]
> This is not my position, Platt, it appears to be yours. What I have 
> said is that if you want to claim legislation based on "Christian 
> ethics", and you literalize parts of that into law, it seems odd that 
> you'd ignore the rest, especially the most important parts. All I've 
> suggested is to go one way or the other. If you want "Christian 
> ethics" to be your basis for government, you can't pick and choose. 
> Otherwise you're not basing your government on "Christian ethics" but 
> on selected parts to control others. Now, you can take the whole 
> thing as metaphor, but then you can't legislate bits and pieces as 
> literal truth.
> 
> Now, you can say you've abstracted FROM Christian ethics, those 
> ethical stances that you feel best order society. But then you are 
> right back to law based on reason, with God tossed in here and there 
> for authority. In other words, your bits and pieces do not derive 
> from the mandate of the Christian God (who would be appalled that you 
> are taking bits and pieces) but from your reason. God is just 
> paper-authority. Something we can do without.
> 
> [Platt]
> A slave owns nothing except what is granted to her by her master. Is 
> this your idea of an ideal society?
> 
> [Arlo]
> Without property ownership, there is no "master" as no one own 
> property. You are talking about "controlled ownership", not an 
> abolition of property ownership altogether.
> 
> Like I said, ownership entails a mutual agreement to limit my freedom 
> in order to give you exclusive freedom. When you buy a lake, the rest 
> of us are very much "less free". The more property gets fenced off, 
> the less freedom we all have. And all this is in exchange for a small 
> bit of "exclusive freedom".
> 
> [Platt]
> American Indians enslaved (owned) their captives. And traded what 
> they owned for rifles and other white man goods.
> 
> [Arlo]
> Perhaps we should start a new thread, "Property and Freedom"?
> 
> [Platt]
> And where are the Indians today?
> 
> [Arlo]
> Exterminated in large part and forced to live in otherwise unwanted land.
> 
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