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From: js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.religion
Subject: Re: Schools and Churches (really 'support' for areligious moral codes)
Message-ID: <1164@mhuxt.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Sep-85 10:05:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: mhuxt.1164
Posted: Fri Sep 20 10:05:12 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Sep-85 05:40:17 EDT
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Xref: watmath net.politics:11094 net.religion:7711

> If government acts purely in its own interests an tramples over
> all the rights (lives and property) the people supposedly have, who is going
> to call in the police.  What do you point to in order to say to that 
> government that people really do have these rights and that they ought to
> be respected.  What do you appeal to when the government says, "Well that's
> just your belief"?
> -- 
> Paul Dubuc 	cbscc!pmd

      Well it *is* my belief (that government sponsored repression is wrong),
and a damned strongly held one too.  And it's also the belief of almost 
everyone else.  And that's what I'd tell that nasty government, Paul.
      And if they say 'But that's an areligious moral code, which is completely
unsupported.  Why should we follow it?'
      I'll say: 'Just wait till my friend Paul gets here.  He's got a lot of
the same morals as mine written up in this big book he's always carrying 
around.  And since they're written up in a book, and since the book says it
was divinely inspired, you can't argue with anything written there.  Which
makes *his* moral code completely supported.  So you'd better stop all
of that repressing right now.'

:-)

     I guess that the bottom line is: Paul's belief that his moral code
is supported while areligious moral codes are not is simply a matter of
his faith.  To an observer without Paul's faith, it is apparent that both
types of moral codes are founded on what is qualitatively the same stuff: -
human custom, experience, expediency, etc.
-- 
Jeff Sonntag
ihnp4!mhuxt!js2j
    "Roads?  Where we're going, we won't need any roads!"