Whom would you rather vote for?

[Zerith]

Hitetlen:

Ah, I just cannot resist! Of course, you are absolutely right. (I realized my mistake too late, when it was impossible to fix it). Obviously I was “infected” by the culture around me. Here is a wonderful joke about it:

A kid from the Deep South starts his college years in one of the Northern universities. On the first day of the semester, he walkes around on the campus, and meets one of the professors. He asks: “Whar is the laabrary at?” The proferssor answers: “Young man, you are in college now, and here we speak proper English; where one does not end the sentence with a preposition!”. The kid just looks, and finally says: “Ok, so whar is the laabrary at, *****hole?”

Rofl, unfortunately, the jokes with obscene language are usually the funniest :\ Oh well. Unfortunately, also, I find it hard to use proper English around… Anyone. They are either confused, or think I’m some rich, snobby, stuck up person. Can’t win with society, can you?

 

[Hitetlen]

Angainor:

I’m not quite sure what distinction you make between those two.

What I mean is I would not vote for someone who doesn’t recognize that

That is a very nice saying indeed. Of course you know that the Founding Fathers were mostly deists, who did not believe in a personal God. Of course there were quite a few of them who did believe in a personal deity. The word Creator does not necessarily mean any god or the Christian God.

As for the distinction: an “objective truth” is like a mathematical truth. The “true” statements of natural sciences are always subject to criticism, evaluation and quite frequently discarded if found to be incorrect.

An “absolute” truth would be something that describes something that is true regardless of space and time, of any conditions. To assert that a sentence “A” is absolute truth would reqiure omniscience, and no human can claim that, so it is best left alone.

 

[Hitetlen]

Zerith:

Rofl, unfortunately, the jokes with obscene language are usually the funniest :\ Oh well. Unfortunately, also, I find it hard to use proper English around… Anyone. They are either confused, or think I’m some rich, snobby, stuck up person. Can’t win with society, can you?

Sometimes you cannot, but it is worth to try. Since English is not my mother tongue, I am always grateful if someone points out an error I happen to make.

However, let me ask you: what is obscene about a part of our body, what has been masked out by the editor? (Not that it would be impossible to guess ) I always find that strange. And also very funny, after all, the people who decided that a word is “dirty” and use the editor to mask it out, have to use the “offensive” word themselves. Is this not hypocrisy? Others cannot use it, but they, themselves can.

 

[Angainor]

Hitetlen:

That is a very nice saying indeed. Of course you know that the Founding Fathers were mostly deists, who did not believe in a personal God. Of course there were quite a few of them who did believe in a personal deity. The word Creator does not necessarily mean any god or the Christian God.

I would [post=1165304]vote for a deist[/post]. IMO, a person does not need to believe in the Christian God to be a good statesman, but he does have to recognize higher law.

 

[Hitetlen]

Angainor:

I would [post=1165304]vote for a deist[/post]. IMO, a person does not need to believe in the Christian God to be a good statesman, but he does have to recognize higher law.

Interesting. Let me make it more poignant: if one of the candidates would be an atheist who is adamant to preserve your right to worship as you wish, never wishes to interfere with your private life, while the other one is a Muslim (not that I have anything against Muslims, that is just an example!) who wishes to convert you to Islam (through new laws perhaps), would you still prefer the one who “recognizes higher law”?

 

[Angainor]

Hitetlen:

Interesting. Let me make it more poignant: if one of the candidates would be an atheist who is adamant to preserve your right to worship as you wish,…

If you introduced to me an atheist who recognized that I have in my personal possession an innate right to worship as I wish, I would be confused. Actually I wouldn’t believe it.

Hitetlen:

…never wishes to interfere with your private life, while the other one is a Muslim (not that I have anything against Muslims, that is just an example!) who wishes to convert you to Islam (through new laws perhaps), would you still prefer the one who “recognizes higher law”?

The atheist candidate is ruled out from the get-go, his opponent very soon after. I would vote “third party”, or write myself in.

 

[Hitetlen]

Angainor:

If you introduced to me an atheist who recognized that I have in my personal possession an innate right to worship as I wish, I would be confused. Actually I wouldn’t believe it.

Why not? I would defend your right to believe and to worship whomever your want to. What is so unbelievable about this? Now if your meaning of “as I wish” is something different, maybe if you would wish to have the right to kill everyone who happens to disagree, then the situation would be very different. That I would not condone, naturally.

 

[Angainor]

Hitetlen:

That I would not condone, naturally.

Naturally. If I didn’t know better I would say you are invoking natural law.

Would you go so far as to say, “self-evidently”?

 

[Hitetlen]

Angainor:

Naturally. If I didn’t know better I would say you are invoking natural law.

Would you go so far as to say, “”?

Let me put it into my frame of reference: I would endorse any human activity which does not hurt others, and worshipping is definitely one of those. Does it make sense?

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

I would vote for the candidate who could be expected to best uphold Catholic teaching as to the role and proper conduct of civil government. The accident of one’s baptism does not necessarily make him a fit candidate for office. In fact, “Catholic” politicians who support abortion, euthanasia, homosexual “marriage” and other items are, in addition to not being theologically Catholic, either pathetically unintelligent (unfit for office) or unashamedly deceitful (also unfit). In many modern races, this entails a decision as to whether one should vote for the least of all available evils or simply not vote.

(I tend to think one should attempt to mitigate the evil wrought upon society by voting for the lesser of the two evils, even if it would normally be an unacceptable candidate. While I know it is permissible to vote for evil in order to avoid greater evil - as stated in Cdl. Ratzinger’s letter - I don’t think there is any teaching that one *must *vote in such a situation.)

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

Hitetlen:

Let me put it into my frame of reference: I would endorse any human activity which does not hurt others, and worshipping is definitely one of those. Does it make sense?

The problem with that is that Catholics do not reduce harm to merely physical harm. A government that conducts homosexual “marriages”, for instance, harms society by lying about the true nature of marriage, allows a moral evil, and sets the stage for children to be harmed by being raised in such an environment. Moral harm is something that most “secular” political philosophies don’t take into account.

 

[Angainor]

Hitetlen:

Let me put it into my frame of reference: I would endorse any human activity which does not hurt others, and worshipping is definitely one of those. Does it make sense?

It does make sense. “You would endorse any human activity which…”

You don’t believe I possess unalienable rights, but there are certain ways you judge (for whatever reason) it is better not to restrict my behavior.

It is admirable that you would not restrict my worship, but my decision goes beyond that. Your recognition or nonrecognition of my innate rights is an indicator of how you would govern as a whole. You sound like a good person, and I would not object to you being my neighbor, but I simply wouldn’t choose you to represent me in government.

 

[Angainor]

Della:

I agree with you. If a candidate has the wisdom to make good decisions based in natural law (defense of the weak, might for right, justice modified by mercy)

What do you mean by those three things, why do you think they are part of natural law, and (most importantly) why do you think government should be concerned with them? (I am thinking to myself: What’s wrong with Life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness?)

1. defense of the weak, 2) might for right, 3) justice modified by mercy

 

[Hitetlen]

Angainor:

It does make sense. “You would endorse any human activity which…”

You don’t believe I possess unalienable rights, but there are certain ways you judge (for whatever reason) it is better not to restrict my behavior.

It is admirable that you would not restrict my worship, but my decision goes beyond that. Your recognition or nonrecognition of my innate rights is an indicator of how you would govern as a whole. You sound like a good person, and I would not object to you being my neighbor, but I simply wouldn’t choose you to represent me in government.

And I would NEVER run for any kind of public office! I know that power corrupts, and I would never wish to expose myself to the possibility Indeed, when I had power over others (having been a university professor you automatically have power over the students) I simply hated that. When I had to participate in an oral exam, I always pressed the poor buggers as long as I had to, just to be able to let them pass and not flunk them.

 

[Hitetlen]

Andreas Hofer:

The problem with that is that Catholics do not reduce harm to merely physical harm. A government that conducts homosexual “marriages”, for instance, harms society by lying about the true nature of marriage, allows a moral evil, and sets the stage for children to be harmed by being raised in such an environment. Moral harm is something that most “secular” political philosophies don’t take into account.

The problem with this is that you elevate your personal conviction (which I respect!) to the level of general principles. There can be no question whether murdering or robbing someone is harmful or not. Homosexual marriage is a very different issue. Maybe you consider it harmful, but others do not.

One of my favorite bumper stickers: “Against Abortion? Then don’t have one!”

The basic problem is this: the evidence for God’s existence is not acceptable unless one already believes. It cannot convince others, who do not believe. Furthermore, the corollaries of such belief are very much subject to interpretation. There is no common ground that every Christian would accept. And even if there were such a common gound, it is based upon faith, not facts, wishful thinking, not knowledge.

I would never wish to force my world-view (and its corollaries) upon you. I would like to see the same courtesy extended to me. But, alas, it will never happen. I don’t see examples of religious people subscibing to the concept of “live and let live”.

 

[Angainor]

Hitetlen:

And I would NEVER run for any kind of public office! I know that power corrupts, and I would never wish to expose myself to the possibility Indeed, when I had power over others (having been a university professor you automatically have power over the students) I simply hated that. When I had to participate in an oral exam, I always pressed the poor buggers as long as I had to, just to be able to let them pass and not flunk them.

Strange… you are beginning to convince me that you are more qualified to govern than any politician that I have ever come across…

It is too bad. Won’t you reconsider natural law?

 

[Angainor]

Hitetlen:

The basic problem is this: the evidence for God’s existence is not acceptable unless one already believes. It cannot convince others, who do not believe.

“Evidence”? Perhaps you are right, but I submit that the worldview including a creator-god fits nicely within reality (much better than the worldview of an accidental universe).
Hitelen:

I would never wish to force my world-view (and its corollaries) upon you. I would like to see the same courtesy extended to me. But, alas, it will never happen. I don’t see examples of religious people subscibing to the concept of “live and let live”.

Don’t see examples? Perhaps not perfect examples, but I suspect you have a greater chance to enjoy “live and let live” with Judeo-Christian values than with any other values in existance.

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

Hitetlen:

The problem with this is that you elevate your personal conviction (which I respect!) to the level of general principles. There can be no question whether murdering or robbing someone is harmful or not. Homosexual marriage is a very different issue. Maybe you consider it harmful, but others do not.

There actually can be a question of whether murdering or robbing someone is harmful. Just because these are not generally debated does not mean you will not be able to find someone who subscribes to a philosophy in which, for varying reasons, these crimes do no harm to their “victims.” In conflict areas such as this, American democracy says, “You lose.”

One of the greatest politicial fictions at work in our country is that politicians do not act and legislate in keeping with their personal convictions, consciences, morality, etc. Another fiction is that the government cannot legitimately legislate on moral issues, which it has a long precedent of doing (sin taxes, decency laws, age restrictions for certain content, among other things).

The notion that we cannot force anyone to adopt or act according to propositions he rejects is valuable, but has limits. Some people will be able, in good conscience, to do evil things which our laws say one simply may not do. Our political system, in addition for allowing our society to set standards for itself, has demarcated certain boundaries according to a somewhat enumerated collection of “inalienable rights.” This means that, no matter what a certain individual may think, his behavior will be constrained by these restrictions of rights. A right, however, can only be inalienable so long as it flows from some absolute truth.

Without absolute truth of any kind, all inalienable human rights devolve into “civil rights” created and rescinded at the will of the state according to its mechanisms for doing so. Modern American discourse often confuses human and civil rights (at least if media coverage of world events is any indication), I propose because it has lost sight of the connection to absolute reality that grounds the idea of human rights. Since America has given up the idea that there can be moral absolutes, it has given up its understanding of the distinction between the two types of right.

 

[Hitetlen]

Angainor:

Strange… you are beginning to convince me that you are more qualified to govern than any politician that I have ever come across…

Very kind of you to say so. Actually my idea of a good leader would involve someone who is dragged kicking and screaming into the White House, where he would do a wonderful job to get time off for good behavior. In my eyes anyone who would like to be in the position of power should be immediately disqualified because he would crave that power. But this is just a pipe-dream, has no chance of coming into exiestence.

Angainor:

It is too bad. Won’t you reconsider natural law?

If you mean natural law, which is independent of any and all circumstances, I cannot accept that concept. One can always come up with a scenario (maybe very artifical) where something that is generally considered immoral becomes a necessity. I would not necessarily call it “moral”, of course.

Just a quick example: if a family is stranded on an island, and they face starvation, I endorse their action to “steal” a boat to escape. The owner’s property rights do not trump the need of survival, even though I am a strong supporter of property rights.

That being said, I consider the concept of the golden rule as the best foundation for a society. Let people pursue their own path to happiness, as long as they respect others’ way to do the same. I respect other peoples’ “rights” to pursue their agenda, and I hope to be treated the same way.

 

[Hitetlen]

“Evidence”? Perhaps you are right, but I submit that the worldview including a creator-god fits nicely within reality (much better than the worldview of an accidental universe).

That is very much debatable, if for nothing else, for the concept of Occam’s razor. The Universe is not “random” at all, but one should not confuse “order” with “design”. That is a common misconception. Order does not require an “orderer”, but design does require a “designer”.

Just one small example: walking on the beach you see three twigs of identical length forming an equilateral triangle. One may surmise that those twigs were placed there by someone, designing a triangle, but random movements of the water and wind could have achieved the same result. Do you see my point? You observe order, but that does not nessarily mean design. In order to posit the necessity of a designer, it must be proven, that no natural process could have achieved the observed result. And that would require omnisicence, which we all lack.

Angainor:

Don’t see examples? Perhaps not perfect examples, but I suspect you have a greater chance to enjoy “live and let live” with Judeo-Christian values than with any other values in existance.

Sorry for the very sloppy way of putting it. Of course there are innumerable, excellent examples of tolerant and permissive religious people. Probably most of them are like that. The trouble as I see is, that pretty much all religions advocate the spreading of the word, and many people consider it an acceptable way to spread it by force. And that is where the problems start. I cannot accept the use of force for any reason except self-defense.