Legislating morality

I want to clarify that my vote of "yes" is in relation to the constitution. Someone wearing their seat belt or only drinking 16 oz soda does not make them a moral person, or immoral for that matter.

 

Yes laws can be put in an objective model like ours but morals are subjective even on what justifies or can be considered murder. Some people consider capital punishment murder sanctioned by the state and consider it immoral others say it's justice and is moral. The law can only be based on an objective model on societies subjective opinions. We have rights as citizens not people if you renounce your citizenship you would lose a lot of rights and depending what country you went as a citizen as you might lose rights but inherently as people we have none that are natural.

 

Why you selfish person you. What about your loved ones? If you don't wear your seat belt you are just inviting death at your door and risking hurting those you love. In addition, you could wind up in the hospital for life as the taxpayers are forced into paying for your vegetative state for years to come.

It all depends on who you ask as to what is moral I suppose, except for that basics such as murder and theft. That is why laws should be made with great care and should be as few as possible to maintain some kind of order. In other words, limited government is the best approach. Instead, we have a secular state throwing law after law at us with such religious ferver that I fear being stoned for not recycling some day because I'm destroying mother earth.

 

Is harming oneself or inviting harm immoral? You seem to indicate it is not. I guess you would then legalize suicide and euthenasia.

Either way, there are those out there who would argue otherwise. In fact, last time I checked suicide is illegal in some places. So in such places, why are such risky activities like smoking legal? After all, smoking does nothing but kill you.

 

As I said, killing is not always looked upon as murder. For example, if you break into my house and I blow your head off with a gun, it becomes more of a self defense issue.

 

Morality is, in essence, a guide to human action. If human survival or safety isn't the standard, then there is no point. Morality is 100% useless as a guide to anything if the purpose isn't to aid man's life.

 

Legislate morality is what dictatorships and theocracies do. Your "morality" can differ from the mine. You cannot legislate anything that goes against the freedom of each individual and that freedom does not remove freedom of others.

For example, the freedom to enslave someone else, that is not tolerable because you are removing the freedom of one individual and any other freedom that removes freedom from other. But for example you never can legislate against say whatever you want, practice sex with any adult that you want... That is restriction of freedom.

 

I think you will find that with each law/regulation passed we have less and less freedom. However, in your mind it appears we have either abject slavery or complete freedom and nothing in between.

As for regulations, I think the passed something like 80,000 last year, which is a record.

Do yourself a favor and go see Atlas Shrugged.

 

Morality means being able to tell right from wrong. In order to do that, you have to have SOME set of AGREED UPON morals and values.

That there in red...How do you know it is immoral to remove the freedom from another? What if someone else's relative morality has no problem with that?

 

Define morality? Normative or theological morality? Because normatively speaking all laws are moral.

 

Normative meaning that we think we can reason why something is moral. Compare that to Adam and Eve not knowing what was really all that bad about the forbidden fruit.

 

A good comparison is driving down a 2-lane road and seeing another driver coming the other way. Each driver has a basic instinct for self preservation and therefore avoids crossing each other's path. We can say that BOTH drivers made the moral decision to avoid each other. Adam and Eve surely would have had these instincts. Perhaps the forbidden fruit is the knowledge to surmount or blunt these instincts...Just a thought.

 

Being a person of faith, it tells me that human intellect is finite and that God's intellect is infinite. Therefore, at some point what God does or says will not make a lick of sense to us, we then have a choice. Do we do what seems right to us or do what seems right to him?

 

If one believes in God and that all things flow from Him, then one accepts that instinctual behavior is pre-programmed by Him so that we might not constantly endanger ourselves and create our own extinction as a species. Most animals have this instinct as well. We have the ability to blunt or build on these instincts which I will call free will.

With free will comes individual responsibility for one's own actions. The Ten Commandments, for example, outline a way of acting that, at its most fundamental, is a blueprint for a prospering humanity and THAT promotes our survival which is the most basic moral tenet.

 

The Bible addresses a very important truth. That truth is that our "instinct", as you put it, is askew. There is something amiss for which evolution has no cure.

 

What is the source of the "moral component" which you refer to?

 

I suppose it would depend on who you ask. Those that believe in God would probably say it is God, however, those that do not believe in God would probably be inclined to say that there is no source. However, everything has a source, does it not?

 

I just don't see that your perception or my perception of morality would mean so much. People's moral values don't always align; but it is true that laws tend to control people in certain effective and practical ways.

The morality we ascribe to or see in a particular "law", doesn't necessarily mean that law originates from or is based upon some moral value.

 

Christ once said that the "Law" was based soley upon love. That means loving your neighbor as yourself and loving your God above all else. For you see, you will not rob or murder your neighbor if you love him, and if God rules you then you will always live by this code. Jesus then have us the Golden Rule, which we all share in common and are answerable for.


However, his opponents tried to take the law that was based upon love as a weapon against him. They did this by trying to say such things as he was breaking the Sabbath by healing on that day. At this point, it would seem that values do not align, however, I would argue that what is askew is that Chirst had the love of God and the others did not. For you see, Christ was honoring the spirit of the law and not the letter of the law by healing on the Sabbath. One party was only interested in their own personal power and influence by destroying the power and influence of their rival and the other was only worried about helping those in need.

Having said that, those that sought to use the law as a weapon against Christ had to lie about their motive. For you see, they claimed to be trying to defend God's law due to their love of God rather than their hatred for Christ. This was necessary because the Golden Rule had been carved upon their hearts as well as the hearts of the people they were trying to win over. However,what was really going on was that they tried to condemn a man for saving another.

 

Again, since all do not possess or hold to your or my moral values and beliefs... it would make sense the not all laws would necessarily stem from some particular moral standard.

I'm a Christian myself... but I'm certain we would disagree on many things where actual laws are concerned.

 

You would probably also agree with many moral tenets of others as well; for instance, most folks agree that murder is immoral do you concur with this?

 

That it was my fear of the topic of morality. That you should try to "impose" your own moral values, of some religion, for that I mentioned the theocracy. My moral values can be really different from yours, and more when I am atheist, and I should not be affected by the values of your religion.

And RPA1 my affirmation about not removing freedoms to others was not a moral thing, if not a limit in freedom. Because enslave someone is restrict freedom of someone else and you don't have right to do so. We cannot remove freedoms to others.

 

I would agree, which is why I think creating laws/regulations should be done with great trepidation and humility. However, with government creating some 80,000 regulations a year and God only knows how many laws per year I think it safe to say that the government does not give a (*)(*)(*)(*) about pushing their morality on me.

Limited government means having a limited number of laws/regulations to maintain a civil society.

 

Having said that, should the government then push Obamacare when over half the population does not agree with it or is all right to do so long as you don't mention the "God" word?

 

MMM, during most part of history of America most of the poblation have asked for the public option, even indirectly. Obamacare is a crap, and I would not be so sure that over half of the population does not agree with it.