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Nick
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Well, here's my attitude:
I don't believe in a malevolent force that makes people do bad things, I believe that people have darker tendencies in their own minds. Of course, my mom once tried to explain this really awful metaphor to me, about how my brain is a house and the devil is throwing bricks through the window, and I think that it means that my view of temptation is functionally the same as the average Christian's. You're sometimes tempted to do things that are wrong, and if you're a good person you won't.
But here's where we part ways. My view of what is "wrong" does not coincide perfectly with most Christians'. Where Christian morality is based on a complicated patchwork of biblical sayings, advice from pastors, traditional influences, and mass sentiment, I prefer to use a very clear and simple measurement to discriminate right from wrong. If I'm hurting someone else, or limiting their ability to be the person they want to be, then what I am doing is wrong.
This is actually almost identical to the core behavioral philosophy expressed by Jesus Christ himself, which I feel has been seriously corrupted by later influences. "Love thy neighbor." If you love other people, you don't want to hurt them or control them. For the most part, this dovetails nicely with Christian ideals. However, we run into trouble when someone decides that being Christian means forcing others to be just like them. That position rather neatly contracticts both my rule and, if you think about it, Christ's. After all, if you have to change someone to be like you before you can love them, the only person you love is yourself.
However, this goes both ways. It's the right of every human being to decide for themselves whether they think something is right or wrong. I'm fimly against marginalizing Christianity through censorship like prayer bans, and I'm certainly against forcing them to abandon their chosen code of morality. They can think and say whatever they want, and it is their right to try to logically persuade others to accept their views.
What I'm against is the idea that we should legislate a given set of morals. Law exists to create and maintain a stable society, not to codify one group's beliefs. Secular law should only follow religious law where the transgression is a logical threat to a peaceful civilization, like murder. Furthermore, our laws in particular are founded on the idea that different groups should be able to coexist if all are free to live as they please.
I know this is a bit long, but I'm simply trying to establish that differences of opinion need not be irreconcilable. The point is that even though I haven't accepted the currently prevalent Christian opinion on all matters, our beliefs don't have to conflict at all.
Nick @ 3:38 PM |