Polycarp,

"Uncritical faith in obviously dangerous ideas leads good men to do evil" ?

If all religious people were critical of their faiths, as you are stating that some are, instead of just giving lip-service to that word, they would find the premise upon which that faith is founded, to be nonexistent. Therefore, there would be no religions.

Faith is not a stand alone abstraction; it is formulated in the minds of adherents by accepting a book, the words of someone or a tradition as being true…on faith.

Critical analysis can only be effective on natural systems.

David

Webby,

My, my, you do have it in for ‘we’ pagans. Heavens!

Four of the Ten Commandments (I think because I do not read them that often) have to do with making sure you don’t piss of your god. The others are just rules that most societies have accepted in the name of cooperation and empathy.

As for absolutes, you only mention a few. Maybe name a few more for me. The absolutes you do mention are ‘do not kill’, ‘do not steal’ and ‘do not lust after your neighbour’s wife’ (You forgot about your neighbour’s ass or even her husband etc)

Am I to expect you would not go to a war if your country was in peril and kill the enemy or maybe even kill someone who is attacking you if you had no other choice? And if you were hungry and broke, you would you not steal food to survive. And what are your views on the death penalty, say for crimes of ‘terrorism’.

And shortly after the Ten Commandments, didn’t Yahweh stop the Sun and the Moon so the Israelites could slaughter the Amorites to posses their land.

Oh, I see the absolutes are not really absolutes; they have provisos in the sub print.

Not lusting after your neighbours wife and can I add again, her husband, in the right circumstances, is impossible for humans to do. A bit of lusting after is not that bad a thing, to which any normally hormoned person will testify. :))

David

poly-boaz, i ask again:

1) why is your desire to re-criminalize homosexuality different in principle from a muslim's desire to impose koran-based law?

2) what do you regard as the appropriate criminal penalty for homosexuality? why not levitical-style punishments? how do you choose to ignore clear biblical direction?

3) would you seek to criminalize other biblically proscribed behaviour? should it be a crime to eat shellfish? why not?

Yes, welcome back to the thread, Porky.

You never did respond to those questions asking what's the difference between your desire to make homosexual acts illegal for religious reasons. and the identical prohibition of homosexual acts under Sharia law.

How about it - what's the difference?

Good to see that you have been reading the Catechism David.
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/ccc_toc2.htm
Close enough; the first three of out ten; the others on how we relate to our brothers and sisters as members of the human race.

They are absolutes. We are called to work towards perfection , although we all fail in varying degrees.
To kill in self defence and in war is not murder. Killing isn't always murder. Now to kill any person for no reason that is moral eg killing for fun, revenge, hate- is murder. To kill to defend one's country and in self defence or if one is a police officer doing his/her duty is killing but is not murder.
You also wrote 'terrorism' in quotations. You err. It is terrorism without the quotation marks as it is real and it is a crime that needs to be punished.
To sin is not human. Christ says we must be perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect. This is the perfection of compassion which helps us to fulfill the ten commandments.

William of Young,

No, the fourth is about the Sabbath. That is about not upsetting dear old god who is very sensitive about human habits on that day. So I was correct in my guess.

May I remind you that the injunction is not about murder, you have added that, it is about not killing.

It is ‘terrorism’ to those with the physical capacity to wreak mayhem with modern weapons but to those without such an advantage, it is not.

So is the penalty death for them. Do you think the death penalty is required? It would be nice if I didn’t have to drag these answers out of you.

“To sin is not human. Christ says we must be perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect. This is the perfection of compassion which helps us to fulfill the ten commandments.”

Sorry, but this is meaningless religious gobbledygook. Could you explain in language we can all understand?

I think you should try landing on this planet if you wish to converse with the locals. Speaking from an orbit away from reality makes for very difficult conversation.

David