NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/alt/rushlim/9836

Text File | 1992-11-17 | 2.6 KB | 55 lines

Newsgroups: alt.rush-limbaugh
Path: sparky!uunet!wupost!cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!darwin.sura.net!news.Vanderbilt.Edu!athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu!rickertj
From: [e-mail] (John Rickert)
Subject: Re: Religious Right
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: John Rickert
Nntp-Posting-Host: athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu
Organization: Vanderbilt University Mathematics Department
References: <[e-mail]>
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 02:30:04 GMT
Lines: 42

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>In <[e-mail]>, John Rickert writes:
>
>>   Oh, I get it now.  It took me long enough.  But I think I finally
>>caught on.  Religious = religious right.  A public reference to religion
>>is right-wing extremism.  Now I see...
>
>Not quite.  The difference comes when the distinction between religion as
>a *personal decision* and religion as a *government mandate* isn't made.
>I'm fairly religious, and I freely share my *personal* beliefs.  One can be
>a fundamentalist and not be part of the "religious Right."  How?  By accepting
>that their religion, no matter how devoutly they practice it, is a *personal*
>lifestyle choice involving them, their family, their church, and their God.
>It is *not* an issue for the government.  It is only those people who propose
>PUBLIC POLICY based on religion-based morality who are in the wrong.
>
>Tim Irvin

   Please re-examine your last statement again carefully.  The position
that morality should be left out of laws is itself a moral position!  The
question is not whether law will reflect a morality, but rather what kind
of morality it will reflect.

   Additionally, very few laws try to legislate beliefs.  Most laws that
impinge most directly on morality proscribe or punish _actions_.  Thus,
one is free to believe that murder is perfectly OK and that some people
may even deserve it;  one is not free, however, to commit it.  There is
a big difference between "morality" as a system of beliefs and "morality"
as reflected in actions, and public policy may rightly deal with the
latter.

   Here's something else to chew on.  In Washington's Farewell Address,
he said to the effect -- this may not be quite an exact quote -- "Let
it be asked where is the respect for property, for reputation, for _life_
if religion desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation
in the courts of justice?"


John Rickert                    Nec vitia nostra nec
[e-mail]        remedia pati possumus.
                            -- Livy