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sister_maynard said:There are. It's not outright promotion, though it is a clear acknowldegement that slavery wouldn't be utterly wrong for the Israelites as long as they treated the slaves relatively well and got them from other countries. I don't think that the code of slave-owning conduct never outright says that slavery is good and beneficial. Rather, it provides guidelines for what to do if you must have slaves. Not condemning something outright isn't the same thing as promoting it.
You are assuming that all moral codes come from religion. Some moral codes have just simply evolved over the millenia as people observe what works for society and what doesn't.
Behaviors that inherently harm other people are obviously immoral. Why do you need a book to tell you that?
If I am alive, I know what that is like and that it allows me to do things and enjoy things. When I see a dead person, I see that he can't do those things any more. If he is dead because of natural causes, that is sad. If he is dead because someone took life away from him, that is wrong.
Everyone assumes that atheists are immoral because we don't get our moral codes out of a religious book. Behaviors that always harm people are bad. Why is that complicated?
Atheists and religious people agree that these behaviors are bad, though we disagree on the source of the moral code.
The other category of moral codes are those that don't harm another person.
These include booze and almost anything related to sex. Except adultery, which is a form of cheating and hurts another person.
You claim that other people are harmed by them, but the harm is often greatly exaggerated.
People often speak out against porn in general, but when you look at some of the arguments they make, it turns out they are really talking about kiddy porn, which is a radically different thing practiced by a few people living deep underground. Arguments related to kiddy porn have nothing to do with regular porn, and the two are not used by the same people.
People make claims that women have been forced into porn, but for every Linda Lovelace or Traci Lords that claims that, there is a Ginger Lynn or a Jewell D'Nyle who proclaims she loves being a porn star, and that no one made her do anything. My personal opinion is that Linda and Traci were overcome with guilt later and manufactured someone else to put the blame on. Linda is known to have been born again since her porn days. Hence the sudden guilt.
Alcoholism and drunk driving are always used as an argument against booze, despite the many people who drink booze without problems.
Teen preganancy and STDs are used to decry unmarried sex, despite the millions of adults and teens who have sex with no problems because they protect themselves.
The behaviors we are disputing can sometimes hurt people, expecially in combination with other bad behaviors (such as not using protection).
The behaviors we do agree on always hurt people.
Killing someone, cheating someone, lying to someone, defrauding someone, assaulting someone is always harmful.
Unmarried sex, booze, porn, etc., can sometimes be harmful, depending on circumstances. But more often than not, it isn't harmful.
This is the difference between the laws we support and the ones we feel you force on us.
Its promotion in the sense that slavery is given moral approval and by the fact that opposing slavery (at least by the slaves themselves) is shown to be morally wrong.gengwall said:OK, I'm on your side in this thread but "promotes" is a little strong. "Acknowledges the reality" is a little closer IMO.
faster_jackrabbit said:I see that people are still getting confused. Read the bottom part of the OP, where you see "edit: ".
We are not talking about moral issues that everyone agrees with, but the ones not everyone does.
faster_jackrabbit said:If you perform actions to prevent someone from sinning, such as passing laws, are you interfering with their free will?
faster_jackrabbit said:Something interesting was brought up in another thread, and I thought it was important enough to discuss separately.
Many christians support legislation, both at the national level and at the state and local level, that prohibits behavior they consider immoral or sinful or whatever.
This includes porn, unmarried sex (it is illegal in many jurisdictions, just not enforced), gay sex, gay marriage, booze, topless bars, and so on.
The way I understand the "free will" gag, sin was created and man was given free will to either sin or not sin. Isn't that the whole point, for him to choose whether to sin or not?
If you prevent someone from sinning by passing a law, are you not removing that person's free will to commit that sin? Or at least impairing it?
Some people, such as the dominionists, want to set up an actual theocracy. Wouldn't that remove free will entirely?
Would not god be angry that you are interfering with his plans for mankind?
Absolutely! I am not proposing anything. I am simply pointing out the illogical nature of the free will argument and questioning why christians feel the need to control the behaviors of others unless god specifically said to do so.radorth said:I might agree to some extent, but virtually all of the sins Paul listed do harm to other people including fornication. Fornication is satisfying lust outside of marriage and creates all kinds of jealousy, emotional damage- probably more to vulnerable women and even murder.
I have to pay a lot of taxes to take care of unwanted children myself, but the harm to the children born of fornication is unfathomable. Does it do any good to legislate againts it? Probably not, but then we don't enforce such laws, do we?
So please, your argument is merely an academic curiosity more than a helpful solution to anything. Right?
What difference does it make what the ramifications of sin are? We are talking about whether free will to sin is being restricted or not. And whether it should be or not, according to your own doctrine.Thankfully the kids in my church don't fornicate, so they aren't adding to my tax bill or creating severely damaged unwanted children, which you prefer to ignore.
faster_jackrabbit said:Many christians support legislation, both at the national level and at the state and local level, that prohibits behavior they consider immoral or sinful or whatever.
faster_jackrabbit said:The way I understand the "free will" gag, sin was created and man was given free will to either sin or not sin. Isn't that the whole point, for him to choose whether to sin or not?
faster_jackrabbit said:If you prevent someone from sinning by passing a law, are you not removing that person's free will to commit that sin? Or at least impairing it?
faster_jackrabbit said:Some people, such as the dominionists, want to set up an actual theocracy. Wouldn't that remove free will entirely?
faster_jackrabbit said:Would not god be angry that you are interfering with his plans for mankind?
True.fillerbunny said:Along those lines, you could also argue the same thing (in terms of christianity) about the bible itself being an impediment to free will.
They way I see it, there are three groups of people:That said, it's hard to say how many crimes (if any) are prevented by the passing of a law, because there's really no way to definitively determine whether or not crimes that have never occurred would have been committed if not for the law.
I'm just going by the explanation I got when I asked why god hates sin, yet created it anyway and then gets upset when people sin and sends them to hell. I have been told repeatedly that sin is a discrete thing. My question was: wouldn't it be simpler to just refrain from creating sin in the first place? The answer I got was free will.Code-Monkey said:It may seem a minor distinction, and it's probably already been said but I haven't read all 6 pages of posts... At least as far back as St Augustine and likely farther back, theologians have had the idea that sin isn't a substance itself in the same way that love is... rather sin is just the absence of love and God's nature is perfectly loving. Love cannot be forced (we generally call that rape). So love must be freely given if it is going to be given at all. So the free will is a necessary attribute of a creature who is going to be capable of loving. So saying the point of the free will gag is so that we can sin or not sin I think mistakenly puts the emphasis on the wrong subject. It seems more appropriate to say that the point of the free will gag is so that we can choose to love or to not love.
faster_jackrabbit said:What I mean by "moral issues everyone agrees with" is that everyone agrees that those moral codes are valid. ... By "agrees with", I didn't mean "agrees to follow", just "agrees that they are valid".
KCDAD said:Ok, with this stipulation, name one moral code everyone agrees is valid? I don't think you can find one of those either.
Are you serious? What do you mean by "everyone"? An "extremely high percentage of the adults in the united states, not including insane people and psychopaths" is what I would say.KCDAD said:Ok, with this stipulation, name one moral code everyone agrees is valid? I don't think you can find one of those either.
faster_jackrabbit said:I'm just going by the explanation I got when I asked why god hates sin, yet created it anyway and then gets upset when people sin and sends them to hell. I have been told repeatedly that sin is a discrete thing. My question was: wouldn't it be simpler to just refrain from creating sin in the first place? The answer I got was free will.
faster_jackrabbit said:The big problem with these arguments is that people say completely different things. There doesn't appear to be a universal doctrine.
faster_jackrabbit said:There are a few points most agree with, but the rest is total chaos, which of course is why there are so many sects.
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