toldailytopic: People say: You can't legislate morality. Is that true?
- Thread starter Nathon Detroit
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Of course morality can be legislated. All you need is a powerful dictator who knows good from evil.
"I desire what is good. Therefore, everyone who does not agree with me is a traitor." King George III
Simple enough.
Well put and I agree completely, the rest is subjective, at best.
Only problem with that statement is finding said dictator, as I'm sure history bears out that no such individual has yet to exist.
certainly they are! They are based on the fact that it is immoral to infringe on a man's rights to life, liberty, and property.
Only "Immoral" if you define it as harming the society in which we live, if you attempt to define it as "Immoral" from a religious standpoint you may have some problems therein. Especially if one reads the Old Testament when taking someone's life, liberty, and property were often the norm, not the exception.
Quite true. That is why, as usual, Simone gets it right:
"To set up as a standard of public morality, a notion which can neither be defined nor conceived, is to open the door to every kind of tyranny." Simone Weil
The OP was made to make the same argument and point I am making. Anything that is not currently illegal is irrelevant to the point. So why do you insist on bringing it up when neither I, nor Knight did?
Of course, you are correct, you are, I suspect, ALWAYS correct... :deadhorse:
You know LightHouse, I just don't see in the above quote, anything at all that agrees with YOUR interpretation... But then again, I can't make smiley faces on the internet, so what do I know, right?
Newman
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I knew someone would go there, but I didn't want to bring it up because I thought I might be at risk of looking like I'm using circular logic, which I'm not. And neither is Delmar. I mean that in a good way, by the way. Delmar's cool. :up: Lighthouse isn't. :down:
Yes, I agree that it is immoral to infringe on a man's rights to life, liberty, and property. I would still argue that the idea of universal human rights take precedence over individuals' morality, for a few reasons:
1. The chicken/egg thing. Rights existed before morality. I had I right to my life even before I knew what "rights" means.
2. We would run into the problem of whose morality to enforce. Why mine? Why yours? Why Lighthouse's?
3. There is an inherent contradiction in enforcing any morality. If the law for some reason sides with my version of morality, would I have the right to put a gun to your head for violating my morality? Why should you have to follow my morality if you have one of your own? Wouldn't you have the same right to put a gun to my head for putting a gun to your head for violating my lawful morality?
Exactly! IF morality were that easy to define, as some would believe, we would have a common law for the entire world, instead of having different nations with different laws. Some are secular nations, while others base their laws strictly on the interpretation of their religious codes. Again, well put, and without treating anyone like an idiot... reps to you.
I assumed that taking "life, liberty, and property " in this context is shorthand for taking "life, liberty, and property without due process" which is not excused in the OT either.
Newman
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Translation: "I'm always right no matter what. I don't even know why you doofuses try to argue with me. I don't even need to come up with any substantive content in debating the points because you should already be agreeing with me and I win anyways. I'm right because I'm right. Your wrong because you don't agree with me."
Translation for our illiterate friends: ":rotfl:"
Really, because when I read the OT, god sent his "people" to slaughter, pillage, rape, and destroy other tribes/peoples pretty much at random, and I don't think he gave them due process.
I've been here for nearly seven years. I've gotten to know Knight pretty well. I've seen him discuss this very issue time and again. I know what point he was trying to make.
I don't see any mention of homosexuality. Do you?
OK, from now on when Knight posts something for discussion, we'll all wait for you to come along and interpret it for us.. that'll save a LOT of typing.. thanks... :kiss:
Besides, why post something for discussion, if you don't want to discuss it? That kind of defeats the idea of having an open discussion if we are all to just follow whatever the person who opens the discussion means by opening the discussion. Makes sense to me... NOT..
Was that last statement an attempt to tell me something about yourself??? Just curious.... for the record, Papa don't swing that way..
Newman
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:jawdrop: And your still this incompetent and incontinent? (no typo here)
Well LA-DEE-FREAKIN'-DA! :bow:
Sorry, I'm out of cookies.
I also don't see any mention of murder, rape, kidnapping, or anything else you have mentioned. I also don't see any part of the OP allowing you or me to comment on this thread, yet here we are.
Really, after "nearly seven years", I would have expected that you would finally understand the concept of a rational debate. People comment, respond, object, agree, add, change, and discuss the OP as long as they stay on the general topic. The way I see it, I and others are trying to talk about the different aspects of law and morality, while you are flinging the same dung that you always do.
No, not at random, and not without just cause. God does not need the testimony of witnesses to decide what punishment is just.
lain:Who said we did not want to discuss it?
And no one ever said you should just follow what he meant. The issue is the implication and/or outright accusation that he meant something he did not.
:squint:
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