patrick.net

Strategist says

I'd call you an Econ 101 dropout.

"Econ 101" Is that the class where you learn the quantity of currency doesn't change anything in the economy at equilibrium except prices?

deepcgi says

There is a difference between the separation of church and state and the separation of morality and law. Without a cultural agreement on the meaning of morality there would be no teeth in judicial action.

Too many confusions in 2 sentences.
- The teaching of morality doesn't require religion in any way.
- To say morality is 'cultural', is sometime called 'cultural relativism'. There is a wider morality on which everyone can agree. Don't kill your neighbor for no reason. That kind of stuff.
- The US law is hardly based on morality. In fact corporate or financial immorality (or amorality) is often seen as good behavior. For the most part, it's just: play by the rules - whatever the rules are.
- Finally, to loop back, a spiritual pursuit by itself has nothing to do with morality. Eastern religions don't try to teach morality and they are right. Mixing morality and religion was a stupid idea from Zoroastrianism that unfortunately got borrowed by Babylonian slaves.

Heraclitusstudent says

Strategist says

I'd call you an Econ 101 dropout.

"Econ 101" Is that the class where you learn the quantity of currency doesn't change anything in the economy at equilibrium except prices?

I think it's more Micro Econ - basics of demand and supply.

There isn't a "wider morality upon which everyone can agree". That is the very point I am making. The Bible WAS this society's treatise on morality. It seems easy to believe that we could all agree that as long as some behaviour doesn't harm others, that it should be allowed. That is a typical amoral liberal pipe dream. People can't even agree on whether or not people should be allowed to eat meat - if not for the burden of public health care costs, then the climate damage from cattle methane! What seems quite simple is clearly not.

We shouldn't kill each other - and yet we do it all the time. Obama did it today, I'm sure. It's not a matter of semantics, it's a question of morality.

"Thou shalt not kill...unless I the Lord God tell you to...or unless the other person is a terrorist, or the other person is insane, or the other person generates too much carbon dioxide, or unless the other person has ebola and won't cover his mouth when he sneezes..."

We have lost our morality in the name of progress.