On Monday, June 10, 2013 02:28:54 PM Daniel C. wrote: > On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 2:13 PM, keith smith <[email protected]> wrote: > Incidentally, this discussion (about whether laws / the government > should be involved in marriage) recalls an earlier statement in this > conversation: Scott Hayes said that it would only be right if laws are > being broken. But laws, like scriptures, are not a source of moral > authority. In other words, something doesn't become right or wrong > simply because it has been codified in law, just as the presence of a > statement in the Bible doesn't create a moral right or wrong. Each of > us has heard of laws, or legal rulings, or passages of scripture that > we find morally disagreeable. >
I keep seeing this statement come up. So it begs the question, where do our morals come from? I spent over an hour in the park the other day with a man and a woman who completely believe that killing another person, justified or not, is completely reasonable and should not be considered wrong. The woman even said, while she would be heart broken if her own mother was murdered, she would welcome it, only because she wants to experience life and all of its emotions. Obviously, she has no morals. She only believes we should all love eachother. I completely agree that laws cannot dictate morals. I firmly believe that we should in no way *ever* legislate morality. Look at prohibition. It didn't teach anyone why alcohol is bad or what it can do to someone, rather the government didn't know how to make money off of it, so they made it illegal. Much like our drugs today. Making drugs illegal doesn't make them right or wrong. However, the bible teaches that we should not allow outside things to remove our ability to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit, and in many cases it makes a very strong case that alcohol is bad. Laws created that simply state something is punishable does not teach why something is punishable or why it should be punishable? God said thou shalt not kill. The government says pre-meditated murder is punishable. -- fine, but why is it punishable? Because if I kill another person, the government will not get its taxes from that person? So killing is wrong because taxes are lost? Where do morals come from if not from a basic foundation in the sanctity of life and a creator/giver of life? Science certainly does not teach that! Nathan /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
