The "sky is falling" culture.
By Sandra Lea Wise Posted in Culture — Comments (87) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Something has gone very wrong with our culture. We no longer accept the fact that accidents and tragedies happen, that people die everyday. The reaction to everything now is: How do we fix this? What did the government do wrong? Who can we sue? Who is to blame?
Our culture used to be one that looked to God in times of trouble. Now we look to government. If there is a shooting somewhere, guns must be the problem and they must be banned. If there is a reckless driver, it’s the SUV’s fault and they must be outlawed. If people are fat, it’s the food industry’s fault, and it must be regulated. A bridge collapses and government must raise taxes. A mine caves in and the mining industry must be re-examined. A few people entered into risky mortgages, so the government must step in and bail them out.
Has Government become the modern day "Tower of Babel?" Has man become so powerful that he can control everything, including the climate? One wonders when God will say, enough is enough. One wonders what it will take to bring this nation back to her knees to once again become the nation of "In God We Trust."
Sandra Lea Wise
Why not? I'm willing to blame the liberals. I'm even willing to call a fair share of the Evangelical Christians "liberals." I know they don't call themselves that, but that's because many of them think that their views define 'conservatism,' even as they agitate for a big government that will impose their wills on other people, for their own good.
The part of liberalism that I think causes the problems we're discussing is the elitism. Part of being a congenital liberal is that you think you're a member of an elite cadre of humans who are so smart and so talented that it is your responsibility to bring the stupid peo masses along with you to utopia.
Part of that effort is fixing things for them. Essentially you are providing animal husbandry services for those human beings who aren't as smart as you. They need this, because without your help they will suffer.
Should anything go wrong in their lives, it is your job to fix it.
But the truth is, you're not as smart as you think you are and you often tinker with systems that you don't fully comprehend. You mean well, and the particular people you have helped in the instant might even be grateful. But in fact you've screwed everything up and you don't even know it.
The way you screw things up is that you systematize fixing things. Do some fathers abandon their children? No problem, you'll just set up a system to supplement the incomes of those mothers who have been abandoned. What you don't see coming is that the system will then be used by fathers who otherwise would not abandon their children, and by mothers who are marginally unhappy in their marriages but in the absence of the system would remain married. Twenty years after you started helping, 40% of the nation's children are living apart from their biological fathers... something that's never really been tried in a society that had achieved civilization. The arrangement is common enough among people who live in the bushes, but no group that has achieved electricity and running water got there under such a system. So who knows where that goes.
Old people living in poverty? No problem, you'll just set up a system that supplements the income of those oldsters whose children for one reason or another can't take care of them. Twenty years later, hardly any children expect to take care of their parents in their old age. Instead they grouse about old people in the abstract, calling them names instead of "Mom" and "Dad." There's another thing that no one had seen in a civilized society until you came along to help.
If you're a liberal, your effect on the world is to set up, one by one, vicious circles that are intended to help those at the fringes, but end up corroding and then destroying what used to define the edge of the fringe. In the course of doing that, your systems replace individual responsibility with a sort of gauzy 'group effort' that supposedly helps those in need. What you end up creating is a entire society where no one feels responsible for anything around them, including their own behaviors. And everyone expects an amorphous, gauzy "system" to fix everything that goes wrong.
The problem, of course, is that the people who operate the amorphous, gauzy "system" do not feel any responsibility either. When the system fails to produce the expected results, no one is responsible. To fix that, liberals rush in and set up an amorphous, gauzy "system" to watch over and fix things for the amorphous, gauzy system that doesn't work. The new system promptly fills up with people who feel no responsibility for what happens, because those are the only kind of people we have left. Should anything go wrong, they're sure some amorphous, gauzy system will come to bail them out. Isn't that how things work?
Drink Good Coffee. You can sleep when you're dead.
And no I'm not going to get tired of saying 5 to about every fifth comment of yours :-)
HTML Help Central for Red Staters
Let's nominate the Nash Equilibrium for President.
Yes, they're at fault. My comment was more directed towards the christians "cleaning their own house".
-imwithfred-
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I blame it on the liberals also and the many years that they have had to implement the programs and produce the mentality that you mentioned. Once the populace starts to depend on help from the government, it's hard to undo what has been done.
Is it already too late to go back?
___________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
prepared right, they taste just like chicken!
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Considering where the good doctor's head was, when practicing medicine, is it any wonder that the man has issues?
state?
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson
I LIKE the taste of cat! As for Wolverines, they NEARLY pulled defeat from the jaws of victory -- but managed to win in the end!
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Considering where the good doctor's head was, when practicing medicine, is it any wonder that the man has issues?
My cat will now type. He spells and argues as well as you do.
"Catholics have become an entitlement society."
Pretty clever cat, eh? Watch again.
"Atheists have become an entitlement society"
Holy cow! Smokey is one smart cat. Wait, he wants to type some more.
"Libertarians have become an entitlement society."
I think my cat is as clever as you are.
He's a whole lot brighter than you'll ever be, and you're probably too big for him to bury in his litter box.
“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men."
Excellent snark
...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right...
---Thomas Paine---
responsibility. Europe is much farther along in its slouch to Gomorrah, but we are the arsenal of freedom. I wondered if 911 was a wake up call.
My take on the Tower of Babel story is that God separated the people into nations check on the exponential growth of sin. It maybe that God is trying to wake us up to the threat.
And yes, the arrogance of the whole global warming ruse is contemptible.
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson
Man, we're still playing golf. A week ago with a day in shirt sleeves.
Hudson Bay is way up over normal temperatures, more than the Gulf of Mexico. That is a catastrophe.
Time to take responsibility for our actions. The folks who have real Ph.D. science degrees and real jobs at top schools -- there's no "controversy." That's silly stuff.
BTW: all the new power plants coming on line in China and India are the biggest threat on the table. We need to get dead serious about getting fusion energy working ASAP. Whatever it takes.
You are confusing weather with climate. They aren't quite the same thing though weather is a function of climate.
Play golf in November is not proof of anything but that it's a warm day where you live.
As for responsibility for actions, there are ways to get to the same outcome without having the same reasons for getting there. For example, many of us favor building more nuclear power plant for reasons other than its being a 0 CO2 producer. If it meets your goals and ours it's a win/win even if we have different reasons for doing it.
Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.
One day we're five above average, the next day five below. What does this mean? God's punishing us for ... something, I guess, by never putting us at the correct temperature, and instead leaving us circling around it -- a cluster of data points almost never hitting the average.
Yup. Life sucks. Time to go bomb Beijing and Bombay.
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We are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!
Our space programs was a prodigy we were able to build. We manage to get nearly 3/4 of a century ahead on the technology. We did it by sheer determination and incredible cleverness. The problem is while 10%-15% is of very good use most is still before its time.
Fusion power has been twenty years away since the 40's. We have had Muon Catalyzed fusion, Aneutronic fusion, Electrostatic fusion (This actually works right now btw), Stellarators, Pinch Machines, Laser fusion (Once the leading light), particle beam confinement, Accousticly driven fusion, Cold fusion (actually occurs just not in the pons and fleischman way see earths crust). You know what not one of these machines has produced appreciable amounts of net power. Iter is well on its way to being the greatest boondoggle in history.
So whats the deal ? Well fusion may be a solution, but the government does a real poor job overseeing research programs most of the time. Maybe we can have fusion power now, maybe not ,but what we have been doing sure hasn't worked and that doesn't seem to be changing.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson
Well let's see, when I graduated as an undergrad engineer in 1988 we were all assured that full-scale fusion power systems were "10-15 years" away "at the most".
When I graduated with my doctorate (also in engineering) in 2000, some 12-years later, we were told small-scale fusion demonstration systems are "15-20 years away, maybe."
Now, some 7-years later - it's "25-30 years, at least."
If you're banking on "fusion power" to save the planet, you'd better chart that ticked to ride because it ain't gonna happen.
Bank on it.
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Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
Sell it short!
____
CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
>>>>Hudson Bay is way up over normal temperatures, more than the Gulf of Mexico. That is a catastrophe.
So Hudson Bay is warm this year. Explain how that will cause massive human die-off.
“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men."
Ryan Shay of Central Lake, MI collapsed today during the US Olympic Marathon Trials in NYC. Quite probably, an autopsy will uncover a previously unknown genetic weakness. We lost another promising athlete a few years ago to an anurism.
When the story appeared on the AOL news page, one of the first comments to the article blamed it on GLOBAL WARMING! For GAWDS SAKES the guys were running in tights, arm warmers and mittens, and some IDIOT starts screaming GLOBAL WARMING!
These morons really make me sick.
for helping them win!
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson
How arrogant can you be to assume that man in the last 50 years or so, has changed the climate of a planet that has been around for thousands of years!
___________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
As long as we have people that aren't willing to take responsibility for their own situations there will be people that exploit them.
A nice first step would be to find some way to stop the addicts from being a drag on everyone.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
numbs the intellect. Yes, to a slight degree humans account for a slight part of the slight global warming which is occurring, just as it did around 1000 to around 1350, which was called The Middle Age Warming Period. The bogus quack "scientists" in the IRCC scam tried to disappear the MAWP, but sadly, thousands of measurements exist that indicate IT DID OCCUR. Just as icecaps on the poles of Mars DID MELT.
But what are mere facts in a dynamic sociological narrative bolstered by Cargo Cult Science?
Since WE are OUR own HIGHER POWER, it must be US!
INSIGHTS!
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson
Something, perhaps many things, are wrong with our culture.
We have turned away from religion in its many forms, and this does cause us to turn to government for the support that may once have been provided by community.
We are a rich culture and this has caused many to ask why we still permit poverty to exist when we as a society could eliminate it with charity. Some would use forced government charity others would use voluntary charity but the fact is that the poor will always be with us because government forced charity actually encourages the poor to reduce their incentive to help themselves. Perhaps we as a culture have lost some of the sense of shame to accept charity that used to drive so many of us.
We certainly started down the path to government nanny caretaking when we decided that the government coercion should be used to reduce injury and death by legislating safety measures upon our businesses. I am speaking of mandatory provisions such as seat belt use and no smoking laws. We encouraged this way of planning when we determined that no hospital could refuse care but that citizens could elect to remain without insurance. How simply we put this “safety net” burden on ourselves.
It should be no surprise that our enemies have picked this time to threaten our culture. A return to religion and a return to freedom are two sides of the only real hope I see.
"It should be no surprise that our enemies have picked this time to threaten our culture. A return to religion and a return to freedom are two sides of the only real hope I see."
Yes! It doesn't look like this will happen any time soon.
___________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
When people with too much money, and too much free time, cannot see beyond temporal causalities, they seem more than willing do all they can to convice those who lack their freedoms to give up their own, in the name of good government.
It's easy to sell. It comes conveintly packaged. And you can pick it up at millions of convenient locations, 24 hours a day.
Ignoring a human cause as the only cause would force them to consider the ineffable. This they cannot do. It would require them to act responsibly. Responsibility is not a hallmark of big government so its a perfect match.
That many religious institutions perpetuate the problem.
With the Ten Commandments in court rooms, and our government sponsoring faith based community out reach programs designed to placate people who don't wish to stand up for themselves and in effect abuse the welfare system. Liberals are only one part of a larger problem. That problem is religions intrusive and ever growing presence in our government.
That's why people look toward government, because they have been taught God is in government, and God sanctions our government.
God bless America after all.
courtrooms since before 1776 but the sky is falling culture only developed coincident with attacks from the left on same.
Hmmmmm
you don't really believe what you right?
punch line coming?
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson
is there a snark tag missing? That problem is religions intrusive and ever growing presence in our government.
I am sure it's a joke, but I could be wrong.
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Considering where the good doctor's head was, when practicing medicine, is it any wonder that the man has issues?
... during your brief visit to our planet?
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Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
You apparently do not know much about faith-based community outreach programs, or the welfare system. Perhaps you have not spent much time around poor people.
Most large cities in the U.S. have a "Rescue Mission." I am not using that term generically, I am referring specifically to places that call themselves that. They are sort of loosely allied. They receive no government money, and will not accept any. A Rescue Mission is the last place for someone who does not wish to stand up for himself. If they so much as smell a 'gamer' who abuses those sorts of services, the idiot is out on his ear in five minutes.
Similar facilities run by state agencies are quite different. They are hamstrung by rules and regulations. No one has any discretion. If someone knows how to 'game' the place, they will do so even when everyone knows that is what they are doing. Rules, you know.
I don't think you know what you're talking about. I don't think you'd know a faith-based outreach program from a parking lot.
Drink Good Coffee. You can sleep when you're dead.
That faith-based institutions are usually run or manned by volunteers who have no reason to put up with "gamers," while gov't organizations seek, even advertise for, more "clients" to expand their power and budget.
People look toward government to gain the benefit of other people’s money or to have the force of government applied in their favor. (This includes business subsidies and is something we would be better off without.)
The concept that some religion is pulling the strings of a puppet government is one of the many liberal conspiracy theories that are designed to turn religious Democrats away from organized religion and back to non-secular religions like the Earth Goddess. (Billy Graham is not pulling George’s strings, and Paul McCloskey is wrong that Jews are pulling anyone’s strings.
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Considering where the good doctor's head was, when practicing medicine, is it any wonder that the man has issues?
What is the alternative you are proposing? Are we supposed to throw our hands up and say it is god's will or are we supposed to try to improve humanity?
You seem to indicate the only alternatives are government or god but that is not true at all - when school shooting happen you don't just hear calls for gun bans but you also see introspection at the impact of our pop culture, the problems that arise from inattentive parents, the failings of our mental health and social services - in other words we look at the many cuases and potential avenues of making it better in the future. This is the mentality that has propelled our society for over two hundred years to seek for continued improvement and become the world's leading economy, philosophical center and political light for other nations.
that the government doesn't have any role to play. I'm saying that people now look to government for everything, and blame government for everything. I'm saying that we used to find our strength in God, now He seems to play no role at all in our lives. I'm not blaming the government, I'm blaming the people for expecting everything from the government. They need to take responsibility for their own lives, for their own children, for their own health care, for their own driving, etc., etc.!
I'm not saying the government should turn to God, the people need to turn back to God.
___________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
I think you may be blinding yourself if truly think that the people are blaming the government and turning to it for everything - I know in the circles I walk in people look at many avenues for improvign their lot and solving their problems. You may have become so convinced of the rhetoric and straw men that you actually believe that caricature of this country - no different than the small minority who belive the caricature of the government as savior.
As for religion, well I think we have done quite well in the past few centuries turning to science and our own faculties to take humanity and society to unbeliveable heights and see no reason why we won't be able to continue to do so.
...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right...
---Thomas Paine---
But that's not the point - people are not simply turning to government for answers there are many non-governmental mechanisms society is pursuing for solving all the problems that arise.
"But that's not the point - people are not simply turning to government for answers there are many non-governmental mechanisms society is pursuing for solving all the problems that arise."
That is true in some areas like the rural county in which I currently reside. Here taxes, regulations, and government are the problems, but in the cities that I have lived the idea of non-government solutions, is almost non-existent. Moreover, there are generational issues involved with the role of government. The Gen. Ys appear to be very enamored with government.
P.S. Society is both an abstraction, and a non-actor.
...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right...
---Thomas Paine---
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson
Personally, I emphatically want my government to investigate terrible events in the chance that we can learn from them and improve.
Just what do you think is the appropriate response to, say, a bridge falling down? Should we just pray a while, build more in the same fashion, and then pray all the more that the forces we didn't seek to understand won't cause a repeat of the catastrophe?
That would certainly make for an interesting press conference for a soon-to-be-ex Transportation Secretary. "No, we don't know the cause of the accident. No, there won't be an investigation, it just happened and can't be explained. Actually, we'd be arrogant to even try to explain it, since I assume God made it happen. Maybe the people on the bridge at the time were bad. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go do nothing."
Except that the result always seems to be a new law, a new entitlement or a new tax.
A bridge investigation comes back with "every bridge in the country needs to be checked, spend LOTS more money on bridge building, but don't go looking for the root cause"
How about "The bridge had this problem and that problem, and it wouldn't have happened if the local gov't had spent money on maintenance instead of fancy buildings with their names on them." Wouldn't that be something?
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I'm not voting for Ron Paul because it's not expressly prescribed in the Constitution.
-- Mark Hemingway, The Corner (NRO)
"Personally, I emphatically want my government to investigate terrible events in the chance that we can learn from them and improve."
That really sounds nice, but in practice the only solutions to problems that government employees will offer are more taxes, and more governmen
"Just what do you think is the appropriate response to, say, a bridge falling down? Should we just pray a while, build more in the same fashion, and then pray all the more that the forces we didn't seek to understand won't cause a repeat of the catastrophe?"
No, we should fire the union employs, and patronage types, that poorly built/maintained the bridge, and replace them with private contractors.
...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right...
---Thomas Paine---
Has Government become the modern day "Tower of Babel?" Has man become so powerful that he can control everything, including the climate? One wonders when God will say, enough is enough.
Thanks for the cultural diagnosis, Dr. Quack. I'd rush to the drugstore to stock up on my daily doses of Vitamin God, but I just can't get over the meta-irony of complaining about a "sky is falling" culture and then claiming the sky really is falling because of it. Physician, heal thyself.
If you conservatives are supposed to embody all the manly virtues, why do you whine like hysterical women? (Oh, wait! You are a woman. Right?)
Now, then, get on with your banning and I'll be off. I've got a lot of abortions to perform at the clinic tomorrow (Sundays are always the busiest days!) and I'll need my sleep. After that, I'm off to have freaky pre-marital sex with your daughters and then convert them to Islam. Don't worry, at least the f------ will be consensual.
Toodles!
They got Al Capone for not doing his taxes. You we get for not observing the Sabbath.
Drink Good Coffee. You can sleep when you're dead.
You really should talk to someone about that. (Perhaps a local minister?) It will eat you alive from the inside out if you let it fester.
Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.
Wait until the poor bast*rd wakes up on 1/21/2009 and realizes that his or her problems are no longer the special responsibility of George W Bush.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
You know darn well that George W Bush's reign of terror will not end for at least 3-years into the next President's term - especially if a certain buck-passing Witch finds herself setting on that lofty perch come 1/21/09. Eh?
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Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
We're all at least 20 IQ Points stupider for having read that.
Why don't you do us all a favor and go mentally masterbate on someone else's bandwidth, eh? There are grown-ups here discussing important things - things with which you obviously lack the mental capacity to grasp.
So, it's the kids' table for you. Get going, squirt.
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Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
You need to stock up on something, I'm not sure what. Unfortunately there is no Vitamin God. That comes from within. Also, hate can kill from within.
___________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
...are derived from the moral virtues. You can't have one without the other.
If you cannot define where your moralirty comes form, how do you measure your actions? What is it that tells you that stealing or murder are bad today, and tomorrow? The government? Where do you think they got that idea form? And what is our recourse if they suddenly abandon it?
This leads me to a few simple observations.
First, Relativists should stop wasting our time by pretending to have a position on anything.
Second, We do not require God in our government. But it is in our best interests to promote people into these positions of authority who can not only define their morality, but can exercise it consistantly, because it is measurable. And Law can protect us from any abuse of power as long as it has menaing.
This is why we "whiny" conservatives have such a big problem with the idea of "judicial activism." We recognize that the errosion of our culture--manifested in maleable moral principles--jepordizes the very constitution itself. If people feel free to interpret morality with whimsy, how can our only protection against tyranny continue to sustain our freedom.
When the words no longer have just one meaning, they eventually mean whatever someone wants them to mean, which amounts to no meaning at all.
Without a definable, sustainable morailty, we put out freedom at risk. If you have a simpler set of moral guidlines than the Ten Commandments I'd like to see them.
Beautifully stated. Morality is a pretty simple concept. It takes all kinds of changing of definitions to come up with any alternative.
___________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
Take any one of the ten commandments and I'll show you many alternative definitions that have been the accepted view at one point or another.
Morality is and has always beena very complex concept whether dervied from religion or not and it does a disservice to think otherwise.
murder? stealing? adultory? false witness? Exactly what "alternative definitions" do you live by?
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Considering where the good doctor's head was, when practicing medicine, is it any wonder that the man has issues?
Let's start with murder - I won't run to today's biggest controversy with the term (abortion) but what about the killing of slaves - is that murder or not? Historically, the answer is not static.
Adultery - Originally, adultery consisted of a man sleeping with a married woman whow as not his wife - but not a married man sleeping with an unmarried woman. Times change, so did the accepted definition.
Stealing - Let's looka t property in marriage - can a husband steal from his wife? Today he can, in the past it was not considered theft.
False witness - this one may be harder, I'd have to look at the history of perjury to come up with an obvious change but what has certainly changed is the nature of witness - in ancient israel and in greece you were not placed under oath for testimony in judicial proceedings and perjury could occur outside the context of formal oath and testimony; of ocurse today that is no longer the case. It also has shifted from a civil crime between indiiduals to a criminal offense against the state.
Take any one of the ten commandments and I'll show you many alternative definitions that have been the accepted view at one point or another.
I think you're making her point for her.
Morality is and has always beena very complex concept whether dervied from religion or not and it does a disservice to think otherwise.
Morality is only a complex issue when you have no foundational basis for it. Christians certainly disagree on many things, but on issues essential to the faith there is no foundational disagreement.
-imwithfred-
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"Morality is only a complex issue when you have no foundational basis for it. Christians certainly disagree on many things, but on issues essential to the faith there is no foundational disagreement."
Okay, how about the morality of divorce? The requirements for redemption (by faith alone?), and if we wnat to include the coptics you don't even have agreement on the nature of the trinity itself.
No foundational disagreement?
Obviously you don't know what the foundation is. You're just looking for a place to nitpick. Something about "pearls before swine" comes to mind...
People like you just want an excuse to do whatever you want, whenever you want. You justify it by making morality relative to whatever you're doing at the moment. Or maybe you'll talk about it with others to come up with some temporary "consensus".
No thanks, I'll pass.
-imwithfred-
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What is the foundation then? If that is nitpicking than what is fundamental (I mean if it isn't the means to redemption and whether the trinity is true or not I honestly don't know what it is).
And I don't need an excuse to do whatever I want - I have definitive morals and ethics but I recognize that they are likely to change over time and under diferent circumstance because even when derived fromt he word of god they are nothing but the thought of fallable man.
You can pass if you want - but that doesn't make it any less true. History doesn't bear out the notion that morality is a single revealed truth.
Becasue it is you who are claiming the christian doctrine is unchanging through history and location. The notion that morality is fixed requires one to look at history to demonstrate it.
While I'd LOVE to further this discussion, this is starting to feel too much like a threadjack or even a sitejack. Maybe this discussion would be best going to a religion blog or some other site. I'll wait for a mod to give advice. I simply haven't been at this site long enough to know what's appropriate and what's not. I'm still learning.
This reminds me of one of my favorite scenes in the movie "Hoosiers" (and probably applies to some out-of-control threads here in the past few weeks). The interim coach says to Gene Hackman's character (coach Norman Dale),
There's two kindsa dumb. One is a guy that goes out in the middle of the street and barks at the moon. The second is a guy that does it in my living room. The first one doesn't matter, the second one you're kinda forced to deal with...
-imwithfred-
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Morality is and has always beena very complex concept whether dervied from religion or not and it does a disservice to think otherwise.
No. I don't think so.
Right and wrong i.e. morality, is actually quite simple. Do not hurt others (either in word or deed) or debase yourself so as to make it easier for you or others to do so.
Lying is wrong. You can redefine lying as much as you wish, weight it by degree or whatever else you want, it is still a lie. A horse still has four legs even if you count (redefine) the tail.
So is rape. So is murder. So is adultery. So is theft. Anywhere in the world at any point in time and under whatever definition.
Why religion is considered to be at the foundation of morality is the idea that one is going to be punished for doing wrong - the promise of consequences from a Supreme Being - even if no one else ever finds out here on Earth.
Sure rape is always wrong - but what does that tell you about morality if you don't know what rape is? Morality in platitudes isn't useful in guiding behaivior and if you don't have the same definitions of the terms than you can't claim to have the same morality.
The whole point is that the very meaning of right and wrong does and has varied, even within the same religious tradition, over time and place. To then say it is fixed is to either speak of morality at such a high level to make it meaningless in guiding behaivior or to ignore reality.
"Why religion is considered to be at the foundation of morality is the idea that one is going to be punished for doing wrong - the promise of consequences from a Supreme Being - even if no one else ever finds out here on Earth."
No doubt religion serves as a great means of coercing people to behave - but its not the only one and I am not sure it is even the most effective (especially as science slowly strips away the realm of god; it becomes easier for someone to dismiss your argument that I must behave or else god will punish me when the means of punishment, say flood, is found to ahve arbitrary natural causes).
Sure rape is always wrong - but what does that tell you about morality if you don't know what rape is?
Rape is rape, lapert, that's what I'm saying.
That's why I brought up the "horse's legs" aphorism. You can play with semantics, but the forceful non-consensual sexual taking of another person is rape. You can call it "making love", "dancing", etc. but it is still rape.
PS: Most religions actually do not focus on punishment in this life (like floods) lapert. We're talking about the after life, when the sins you've committed and thought you'd gotten away with come back to bite you in the kiester.
In my religion (Islam) we call it the Day of Resurrection.
Is raping your wife rape? Now I think everyone here would say it is, but that has not always been the case in Christian history (I may be wrong here but if my memory serves Islam has a more nuanced view historically that does not allow a man to force himself on his wife if she is in psycological or physical pain, but outside of that the woman is not permitted to refuse her husband).
That is the problem in the assertion here - it is just not accurate to say that everyone has always used the term murder in the same way. Murder may always been an unlawful killing, but whether a specific events fits the definition of murder varies.
"PS: Most religions actually do not focus on punishment in this life (like floods) lapert. We're talking about the after life, when the sins you've committed and thought you'd gotten away with come back to bite you in the kiester.
In my religion (Islam) we call it the Day of Resurrection."
That is certainly true in most modern religions, my point was more to do with chipping away at the power of god reduces teh efficacy of threat of his rath as coercion agiasnt behaivior (in the same way that kids eventually realize santa spends too much time at the mall to actually know if they are nuaghty or nice).
The founders of modern science began studying the natural world in order to "think God's thoughts after Him". That is what has been done. Even if some event can be fully explained by natural causes, that does not diminish the power of God. Its just weird how often these "naturally caused" events happen exactly when God wants something to occur. Its almost like it was planned that way, or something.
For this reason, it isn't quite true that science itself has caused the decreasing ability of religion to coerce behavior. The diminishing influence of religion has occurred because people are insisting that a purely naturalistic view of science prevents a logical consideration of God and His word (like you seem to be doing) .
"Its just weird how often these "naturally caused" events happen exactly when God wants something to occur."
Not to open a can of worms but, huh? What events are you speaking of?
This is where religion digs itself a hole - attribute something to god and direct causation, science learns that it is explainable without direct causation from god and it raises further doubts to all other powers attributed to god by the same power. S
cience does not prevent a logical consideration of God, but since the late middle ages the two enterprises are distinct and when they have overlapping territory science has consistently done a better job of explaining. This is why many more recent understandings of god downplay or altogether eliminate direct intervention by the divine in the daily life of humanity. I would suggest that religion has not seen diminishing influence rather theistic religion is being supplated by deistic religion slowly over time (monotheism didn't replace polytheism in short order either).
I'm not referring to any specific event. You used an example of a flood earlier that was produced by natural causes instead of being directly attributable to divine interverntion in the physical world. My point was that any time a Christian (or Muslim, etc) points out that such and such a thing happened at a given time and attributes it to God, materialists always attempt to divert the argument by claiming that the event is explainable by natural processes. This in itself is no argument against God or the power or realm of God, but only in the way He might have operated.
Kind of like this: If I am in desperate need of money this week (I'm a student, so this example isn't too far off) and I pray that the Lord will provide some - it doesn't matter whether I get an anonymous envelope in the mail with $100 in it or if I get overtime hours this week, both are still attributable to God. Just because I might not see Him work in a miraculous way, but in a more ordinary way, does not mean that He didn't work. You are demanding to see the one and, therefore, ignoring the other.
You are putting the Bible in the wrong sphere. None of us claims that it is a science textbook or that it attributes everything that happens to a direct intervention of God in the physical world. I believe that it is correct when it refers to science, but it does not attempt to explain science. That wasn't the point. Therefore, being able to attribute some occurrence or event to natural causes under the circumstances, and stretching that to infer a refutation of God Himself or of His powers, is a profound misunderstanding.
"Kind of like this: If I am in desperate need of money this week (I'm a student, so this example isn't too far off) and I pray that the Lord will provide some - it doesn't matter whether I get an anonymous envelope in the mail with $100 in it or if I get overtime hours this week, both are still attributable to God."
And this leads you to the problem of when you pray and you don't get the money (happens more often than not) or when you say all those bad people walking around with riches.
It is much simpler and more realistic for most people to accept that floods happen as a result of natural causes than some punishment for something because it seems to hit good and bad people randomly.
This is why people have turned from theism - you can assert they are wrong, but you are losing the intellectual battle. My guess would be in another century or two people will look back at theistic views of religion with the same curiosity we currently look back at animalistic religions.
Heck, having the government provide me everything would be easier - but i'm more than willing to put up with complicated to have a better life.
The Left won't quit until we have a country we don't recognize...
It's a battle we have to continue to fight...we can't afford to have the Left in total control of the reins of power, unless we want a Marxist government...
And don't go blaming the liberals either. Evangelical Christianity has become an "entitlement" society as much as any other.
-imwithfred-
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