Journal gd2shoe's Journal: The religious Government 1
I posted this in a response, but it follows along the lines of what I'm doing here, so I'll post it.
The fundamental theories of the US are religious ones. The idea that all men are created with equal worth and have certain inalienable rights has no bearing whatsoever in the scientific world. For all observed intents and purposes, evil dictatorship is not significantly different than democracy. It's once you define what your trying to achieve that major differences appear. From the framework we normally call "Freedom" it's a matter of making moral decisions that fit reasonably within everyone's religious values, and leaving alone those decisions that need not be made for the good of society.
Where we get into trouble is where we cannot agree on which framework to use. For instance, let's look at abortion from the most fundamental level. It has been well established in our values that children, once born, have certain inalienable rights (as citizens, though immature). The big question is whether or not unborn children have these rights yet, or not. Scientifically speaking, to the best of our knowledge, no one has these rights. Yet our culture and freedom have been enriched by them. Any decision reached would be out of religious nature, whether Judeo/Christian/Muslim, Eastern, Atheist, or other. The measure of a good moral decision is in the consideration it gives to people with different values.
Gambling has similar issues, though they're not quite as pronounced.
It is a separation of church and state, not values and state. Otherwise we would have been in trouble long ago.
Great one liner - I'm gonna steal it. (Score:2)
Great one liner - I'm gonna steal it.