Here's an interesting and scary quote.

(CNSNews.com) - During his speech at a National Press Club luncheon, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), questioned the point of lawmakers reading the health care bill.

“I love these members, they get up and say, ‘Read the bill,’” said Conyers.

“What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?”

Question for Conyers, What's the point of passing a bill to which you have no idea of what it says? Could it be that you desire to further damge or destory our liberty?

It's truly outrageous, but few in Congress care and why should they? Americans keep sending the same lunkheads back time and again, even after they refuse to take action on legislation introduced that would require the reading of bills before Congress votes.

Stephanie wrote:It's truly outrageous, but few in Congress care and why should they? Americans keep sending the same lunkheads back time and again, even after they refuse to take action on legislation introduced that would require the reading of bills before Congress votes.

We seem to forget everything runs a course. That course can be altered, but that requires a moral and religious people with commitment and conviction of charactor.

If we don't soon learn from history we too will repeat it. Tyranny, leads to faith, faith leads to liberty, Liberty to abundance, Abundance to apathy, Apathy to dependance, and dependance to tyranny. Then the cycle repeats itself. We are between apathy and dependance

I think you got it, Willy, I think you got it right.

I disagree with the notion that the path to liberty is through religion. Frequently religion leads to tyranny and this includes Christianity. There is a whole lot of religion in Iran but not very much liberty.

There was a tremendous amount of religion in Massachussets Bay Colony, but Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson were forced to flee and I have no doubt the two dozen victims of the Salem Witch Trials and their families felt a whole lot of liberty.

Now my reply to Willy was in response to this statement of his.

Then the cycle repeats itself. We are between apathy and dependance

I certainly agree with that, Sam.

Stephanie wrote:I disagree with the notion that the path to liberty is through religion. Frequently religion leads to tyranny and this includes Christianity. There is a whole lot of religion in Iran but not very much liberty.

There was a tremendous amount of religion in Massachussets Bay Colony, but Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson were forced to flee and I have no doubt the two dozen victims of the Salem Witch Trials and their families felt a whole lot of liberty.

John Adams stated that the US Constitution was suited only for a moral and religious peole, it was unsuited for any other. The reason is only a people who understand and embrace a moral absolute can live free.

Do you just assume only people who participate in an organized religion you don't find offensive can be moral? Did Adams?

Adams was a great man, but just like Jefferson and Franklin were, and just like Stephanie and Sam and Cato are, Adams was imperfect.

The reason is only a people who understand and embrace a moral absolute can live free.

Who's moral absolute?

Yours? Mine? Or someone else's?

Who thinks up those questions you ask, ..... your neighbor's pet dog?

ziggy wrote:

The reason is only a people who understand and embrace a moral absolute can live free.

Who's moral absolute?

Yours? Mine? Or someone else's?

Tell me Ziggy do you believe moral absolutes exist?

Stephanie wrote:Do you just assume only people who participate in an organized religion you don't find offensive can be moral? Did Adams?

Adams was a great man, but just like Jefferson and Franklin were, and just like Stephanie and Sam and Cato are, Adams was imperfect.

What Adams was saying is that responsibility exists between people. A responsibility that the founders saw existed beyond the law. If you look at the US Constitution, there are few limits on people. People are expected to behave in a manner toward each other that law isn't necessary. Every law that dictates behavior of one toward another takes from freedom.

Adam's is a truth that recognizes that only a people who have respect for the rights of another are capable of being governed by the US Consitution, since it places few limits on the actions of the people. Adams further recognizes that moral absolutes come from a higher power than man himself.

Now we can argue this all day, but you know as well as I that only as Adams stated only a good and religious people, a people who have a set of moral absolutes can co exsist without the intrusion of law to guide the behavior of people.

Cato wrote:Now we can argue this all day, but you know as well as I that only as Adams stated only a good and religious people, a people who have a set of moral absolutes can co exsist without the intrusion of law to guide the behavior of people.

Now Willy, you should know as well as anyone should that the part in your above statement that I added a "strike-through" to ...... absolutely, positively does not belong in that statement.

Of course, ya gotta remember, having a set of moral absolutes ..... is the same as having "unwritten Laws" that one was nurtured to have at a very young age.

One is not born having any "moral absolutes" ..... other than those that are specific to one's self, that is if that is what you want to call their inherited traits.

.

Moral absolutes don't always come from religion, Cato. I'm not disputing Adams wrote those words. I'm disputing what he wrote.

SamCogar wrote:

Cato wrote:Now we can argue this all day, but you know as well as I that only as Adams stated only a good and religious people, a people who have a set of moral absolutes can co exsist without the intrusion of law to guide the behavior of people.

Now Willy, you should know as well as anyone should that the part in your above statement that I added a "strike-through" to ...... absolutely, positively does not belong in that statement.

Of course, ya gotta remember, having a set of moral absolutes ..... is the same as having "unwritten Laws" that one was nurtured to have at a very young age.

One is not born having any "moral absolutes" ..... other than those that are specific to one's self, that is if that is what you want to call their inherited traits.

.

So are you saying that absolutes moral or otherwsie don't exist?

What is your defination of absolute moral Cato???

Aaron wrote:What is your defination of absolute moral Cato???

There are behaviors that are absolute. For example, don't steal, don't lie, don't shed innocent blood, don't covet what another has, don't commit adultry, don't lie about another person, treat people like you want to be treated. These and others came from the same God of Nature that our inalienable rights come from. Man did not create these. They exist, like our rights, beyond mankind.

In the few I listed, if a majority of people would adheare to them, we wouldn't be int he shape we are in today in this nation, or at least it wouldn't be near as bad.

Stephanie wrote:Moral absolutes don't always come from religion, Cato. I'm not disputing Adams wrote those words. I'm disputing what he wrote.

Then Stephanie where do they come from? Why I ask is if they come from man, what makes them absolute?

The society they live in.

You ask for moral absolutes. Americans consider marrying off our adolescent girls morally repugnant, yet it is perfectly legal in countries around the world and at one time was legal in this country. My MIL was married and had her first child at the age of 15 and had her first child at 16 and that took place in 1960's America. Is my FIL an evil man, was Grandma a shitty mom for letting it occur?

In this moral and religious country people were executed for stealing horses. The mentally ill were warehoused in conditions I wouldn't subject my dogs too.

Now when you talk about moral absolutes based upon religion, I suspect you're talking about biblical scripture. So which scripture do you decide to heed? Do you heed to an eye for an eye? What about judge not lest you be judged?

Stephanie wrote:The society they live in.

You ask for moral absolutes. Americans consider marrying off our adolescent girls morally repugnant, yet it is perfectly legal in countries around the world and at one time was legal in this country. My MIL was married and had her first child at the age of 15 and had her first child at 16 and that took place in 1960's America. Is my FIL an evil man, was Grandma a shitty mom for letting it occur?

In this moral and religious country people were executed for stealing horses. The mentally ill were warehoused in conditions I wouldn't subject my dogs too.

Now when you talk about moral absolutes based upon religion, I suspect you're talking about biblical scripture. So which scripture do you decide to heed? Do you heed to an eye for an eye? What about judge not lest you be judged?

Just because something is legal somewhere doesn't make it a moral absolute. Additionally, the examples you gave are prime examples of man's estalishment of what would be considered exceptable behavior by the trend sitters of said culture. That makes them neither right or morally absolute.

I am saying the moral absolutes exist beyond man, just as the right to life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness does. The founders recongnized that these right were not something that man conveyed or created, they existed beyond mankind.

Nor does one have to "religious" to be morally absolute. In fact, with all that has happened with organized religion over the past 50 years or so, what with the lying, cheating, sex, drugs and prosperity gospel being preached, one could argue that involvement in religion could very easily make one less morally absolute.

50 years? Please, people have been using the cover of religion for abuses of every kind for thousands of years, and some of them have been very well documented incidents of people violating your moral absolutes in the name of your savior.

Cato wrote: So are you saying that absolutes moral or otherwsie don't exist?

Only in the programming of your subconscious mind, Willy, ......... only in your mind.

You can read about said morals or you can talk about said morals or you can listen to someone else talk about said morals, ....... but unless you actually program them in your subconscious mind to be real, factual or whatever ......... then they will mean no more to you than a fart in a wind storrm.

Willy, the only absolutes there are when it comes to one's "thinking" are one' "inherited survival instincts", such as: crying when hungry or hurt, procreating (desiring sex), avoiding danger, etc. And those are only good for as long as one does not "re-program" himself/herself. Everything else one must learn from their environmental influences and program them into their permanent memory that is only accessible to one's subconscious mind (except when they can consciously "see" their dreams).

Willy, that is why you are consciously capable of reading, speaking, hearing and understanding the English Language ......... and you don't even have to consciously think about "how you do it", ..... actually how your subconscious mind does it.

Your subconscious deciphers those 2-channels of streaming video from your eyes and defines the words on the paper, it adjusts your vocal cords and directs your lungs to exhale to make the audible sounds you speak and it deciphers the sounds your ear drums transmit ....... into meanings that you consciously understand.

And this is why if you see, hear or read something you are unfamiliar with, your standard reply will be, ..... "Hells bells, I don't know what that is". And that is because they were not "programmed" into your permanent memory, or, if they were, your subconscious mind just couldn't locate them.

Willy, you are what you were nurtured (self programmed) to be.

End of story

Cato wrote:

ziggy wrote:

The reason is only a people who understand and embrace a moral absolute can live free.

Who's moral absolute?

Yours? Mine? Or someone else's?

Tell me Ziggy do you believe moral absolutes exist?

Every individual has some level of moral absolutism. You have yours. I have mine. And your and my neighbors have theirs. But they are not all the same. What works for one of us does not necessarily work for others of us.

So yes, I believe that moral absolutes exist on an individual level- but not on a universal level.