Thread: Freedom of choice and the Law

Originally Posted by Effigy

So, Religious/Non-religious, straight/gay - Just dont make any of 'em Compulsory

That's a pretty good summary.

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

The one thing I'd like to point out in Firestart and FUD's points is the overpopulated world though. This is CRAP. Ilja...you live in Canada and think it's overpopulated? c'mon..... Same goes for the US. Now I agree that there are parts of the world that are overpopulated. Just not the world as a whole.

Alex, you are missing several main issues, so I'll try to educate you.
1) 90% of Canadian population is packed into the southern 10% of the area because the rest of the country is not easily inhibitable due to the climate. Even Toronto's winters go down to -40
2) The real issue isn't how many people can be packed into an area of land but how the land can sustain them. In any case there's enough of us that any significant population booms will further mess up the eco-system or cause major political unrest, including a very strong possibility of a WW3. If people started reproducing the way most priests and imams would like them to, there'd no question of "if" but there would be one of "when" this would happen.

The bottom line is that I am NOT attacking Christianity or any other faith per se. I'm an Orthodox Christian, but moderate, not a right-winger. However, I don't see why allowing gays to get married by the government or believing in evolution or using contraception would endanger my faith.

I haven't read all the posts to this thread, nor have I even read a single post in its entirety, but I add a rant anyway:

Freedom: seems to me if you're not free to make a mistake or do something stupid, then you're not really free, are you? But human behaviour can be, and often is, abhorrent...and laws seems to be needed to curb behaviour and effectively limit choices. Looks like we are, after all..."Human . . . all too human."

God's existence: to paraphrase Anselm, . . . only the fool had said in his heart, There is no God.
It seems to me that the theory of evolution opines as to how species come to be from something, but it does not explain how there is something at all in the first place, rather than nothing. Science cannot explain it, from what standpoint can you devise an experiment? Even Logic can only go so far, and Reason itself, which also embraces contradiction, eventually gives way to faith.
Big Bang, as cosmology is a joke. Think about it, what about before Big Bang? There was Nothing? How can something ever come from Nothing?
The Scholastics used to say "Ex Nihil, nihil fit", and before them Parmenides...

Science, without intuition, is empty formalism.. dull, eh?

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

Dear Joe,

I thought you'd be less inclined to feel stepped on your toes. You seem to take the whole thing quite personal.

I really don't because it doesn't affect me. I have no interest in homosexuality, but living in Holland you'll understand my resentment at seeing them mistreated. If you believe in libertarianism you have to let people do their own thing when it harms no one else, and you can't prejudice them because of who they are. Especially, the government can't do it. If you've seen some of my other posts you'll know that I'm a maniac when it comes to the Constitution, and that is what irritates me the most. I don't like what's happening to it, and this is all part of it.

The thing about this is that anyone should have the freedom to believe what they want. Whether it's evolution or creationism is not important. Enough arguments have been found by people smarter than us all to support either idea. And not just "faith" ideas either.

Nobody believes this more than me, but I part company when it starts imposing on society. You can't say that creationism is not faith based. In some parts of our country religious activists have prevented evolution from being taught or have insisted that creationism should be taught at the same time time as an laternate theory. That sounds good only if you don't think about it.

Evolution is widely, close to exclusively, accepted by the scientific community. The issue of creationism was tried in the Scopes trial in the 30s and is not an issue, so it's been disguised as 'intelligent design." If I lived in a community where my children were forbidden to be taught evolution or were taught that creationism is an alternate scientific theory I would be incensed. Isn't this like book burnning and isn't their education being hurt because of a RELIGIOUS principal? Calling creationism science is promoting religion. If you want to teach it as philosophy or religion from an academic point of view, that's fine, but you can't teach it as science. When these children come to national or international universities they have a huge blank.

So if you want to believe in creationism, fine. Do it at home and in your private schools. But when it comes to public schools, don't use your religion to ban scientific study by others. If you don't like it send your children to a religious school, but don't impose your religious beliefs on the community and shortchange education. There is a lot more evidence for evolution than many other scientific theories that are taught. And don't confuse scientific study by teaching a religious belief as science. That promotes religion and it may violate someones Constitutional right to be free from religion. In a Constitutional sense you need to consider atheism a religion.

Please do not call me "dumb" because I choose to believe in someone higher than me. Believe me I've heard ALL the arguments and have found none that causes a problem with my faith.

I haven't called anyone dumb because of religious belief. It's another Constitutional right that I hold dear. I do consider students ignorant who come to college with no knowledge of evolution and can only explain the world in terms of creationism. They have been done a great disservice, and I consider that a disservice to all of us. I don't think in Holland anyone's religious belief is carried that far. How can you believe in libertarianism and at the same time allow individual's religious beliefs to hinder education. Isn't that a serious enough harm?

I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I'm ecpressing my opinions and concerns, and I think the Internet is the perfect place for it. If anything, we benefit from the open-mindedness of some of our foreign colleagues. We used to have a lot more of that here, and it seems to have been dilluted under pressure from faith based, instead of reality based, elements of our society. Remember our strict creed is that state and church must be separate. When religious principles are allowed to control government, even if it's a principle shared by every religion, our Constitution has been corrupted.

Even Logic can only go so far, and Reason itself, which also embraces contradiction, eventually gives way to faith.

No, it gives way to admitting to the certainty that you don't know (yet). As a result of that for some it may give birth to some faith for others it will not.

Science isn't about fun, it's about satisfying curiosity, understanding the world and where you come from and where you're going towards, hence furthering yourself as a scentient being. It's exactly what any deity anyone might believe in would want for his/her creations. Wouldn't you want your own children to grow up, become smarter and advance in the world?

Big Bang, as cosmology is a joke. Think about it, what about before Big Bang? There was Nothing? How can something ever come from Nothing?

If a fly lands in your soup and it can't grasp the concept of the bowl does that mean the bowl doesn't exist? Same thing for concepts such as the big bang. Maybe one day the insight will come to the fly but until then it can only guess or make up assumptions in an attempt to give meaning to different things.

The world doesn't stop at mine or your comprehension, it passed us by millions of years ago and we're just trying to catch up.

Originally Posted by FiReSTaRT

However, I don't see why allowing gays to get married by the government or believing in evolution or using contraception would endanger my faith.

It wouldn't unless you were: (1) trying to impose it on others; or (2) Lacked the confidence in your faith to permit other points of view to be heard.

Originally Posted by Stigmata

Freedom: seems to me if you're not free to make a mistake or do something stupid, then you're not really free, are you? But human behaviour can be, and often is, abhorrent...and laws seems to be needed to curb behaviour and effectively limit choices. Looks like we are, after all..."Human . . . all too human."

So, governing so as to impose your religious or moral beliefs on others shouldn't happen, unless there's a real danger, should it? And if others are free to do things that are abhorrent to your beliefs, they aren't interfering with your right to believe or practice your religion, are they? It's not a bad principle: government cannot prevent you from practicing your religion and it cannot promote religion (freedom from religion). I wonder where that comes from.

Originally Posted by Stigmata

Freedom: seems to me if you're not free to make a mistake or do something stupid, then you're not really free, are you? But human behaviour can be, and often is, abhorrent...and laws seems to be needed to curb behaviour and effectively limit choices.

Take my recent experience with jury duty:
This guy was free to rob a store and threaten the clerk's life. Nobody made him do it -- he made the choice to do it. He wasn't even smart enough to bring a weapon with him, but used a pair of scissors laying on the counter. He was entitled to legal representation, for free, since he can't afford a lawyer.

As a jury, we felt obligated to lock this 3-time felon (two of which were violent crimes) up for 50 years. He's eligible for parole at age 66 if he behaves.

This loser had the freedom to make the poor choices in life he's made. You can do something stupid, just know there will be an outcome. Choices and actions have consequences.

I came back from the hospital to take a shower and skimmed over all this. I probably missed out on a great deal of it but here's a few key points.

1) the united states government was founded on religious principles.
2) It is most certainly the job of ANY government to impose morality upon the citizens of that government. Otherwise criminals could rape, kill, steal and destroy without restriction. The increasingly futile trick is to impose morals that are both best for the society it governs while being acceptable to as many of the citizens of that society as possible.
3) I have never said I'm not prejudice at all. I am scientifically prejudice. I made that point more than once in my first post but didn't distill it to that small of a sentence. My only request was that anyone taking me to task be sure to fully read and fully understand my post. I'd have to say of all the dissenters, Firestart is the closest to having done that .

4) This topic will never be fully agreed upon by everyone and while I enjoy and encourage full debate on this I would again caution everyone against throwing or even insinuating insults. We're all adults here and should always treat each other with respect. Just look at my example. I still tolerate the ignorance of everyone who doesn't agree with me even though they don't yet realize I'm infallibly right .

Human Beings are not flies. Should the vast majority allow their ideals to be usurped by a very miniscule, but semantically gifted minority?

Just curious as to what everyones idea of progress is.

1) yeah well, that's only a small part of the world, welcome to the opinion of the rest of it
2) No, it's a .gov's job to protect its citizens, not to moralize, that's why a rapist gets punished and one who talks back to his parents or wilfully ignores his siblings for years for instance does not. Rape harms, ignoring people does not(on a physical level), the first thing certainly is morally wrong, the second one can be. If a .gov's job was to moralize then you'd end up with no religion because the .gov would be your faith. (kind of like the USSR aspired)
3) prejudice stems from pride, pride is a sin.