continued...

Paragraph four: “Of course, this begs the question of character itself. How do we know what character is without an objective reference? If human beings are left to our own devices and limited to our own wisdom, we will invent whatever model of 'good character' seems right at the time. Without God there are no moral absolutes. Without moral absolutes, there is no authentic knowledge of right and wrong.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, in Beyond Good and Evil, suggested that the Christian religion was such a boon to American slaveholders (by acting as a sop for slaves’ woes) that had it not existed they might well have invented it. Plato, in the Republic, advocates the promulgation of certain superstitions in order to justify the rulers’ monopoly of power. Many societies throughout history (ancient Rome, feudal Japan) have held their leaders to be divine or related to the gods, thus providing automatic credibility to their reigns. This paragraph says we need a god to bestow the power to define ‘morality’ and ‘character.’

Paragraph five: “According to the new American secular orthodoxy, no reference to God or faith--no matter how vague or distant--is allowable in public conversation, much less in governmental policy making. The end result is a total collapse of moral conversation. All that is left is a burlesque of moral nonsense with endless debates going nowhere in particular, except away from Christianity.”
This is way over the top. Again, I’m sure there are people out there who think this way, but I have not observed any retreat from the public dialogue by the religious sector. ‘Burlesque of moral nonsense?’ Wow. ‘Endless debates?’ I suppose if god could just tell somebody what he wanted us to do, we wouldn’t have to debate anything ever again. But it would have to be someone we all trusted, right?

- posted by Dactyl @ 9:36 AM