RE: God's law or private law?
December 28, 2022 at 1:09 pm
(This post was last modified: December 28, 2022 at 1:33 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
Seeing beauty in life, true beauty or false beauty...if the categorization even makes sense, is not a religion. It's a belief, but not all beliefs are religious. Religious beliefs are, by definition, normative and (at least perceptually) authoritative. I believe that vanilla ice cream is better than chocolate ice cream. I truly believe this. If I insisted that because this was true, there are no gods, a believer might notice that I've engaged in a particularly silly type of non sequitur. As it wouldn't matter whether I believed it, or it was truly true™..that vanilla is better than chocolate, with respect to the alleged outcome of my "logical" thoughts.
Similarly, a person could see beauty in abrahamism that you or I or the housecat do not, and it could even be there..truly...and it would matter precisely as much to the underlying claim of any god existing, for it to have laws in contrast to mans laws. Which is to say not at all. To be blunt, truth is as irrelevant as perceived beauty to the question of whether or not there is such a thing as a gods law. A gods law, assuming both existed, could be utterly and exclusively filled with bold faced lies - and it would still be a gods law.
This was the matter I'd hoped our friend would consider, but true to type, when confronted with the notion of a god saying false and/or fucked up shit, he immediately came to the conclusion that something must be wrong with him..rather than the issuer of such decrees. It's a massive dogmatic blindspot that touches every corner of the afflicted's god beliefs, and effects the lives of other people. Gods...apparently... can't be wrong, and so, no matter how horrible an idea may be a person deep into a gods asshole has to decide that they are sick, or the sick god is right. Which is exactly how these people our friend rejects genuinely..and truly come to their notions. The type of thing required to make a good man do evil. That's the consequence of submission to these gods wills.
The problem, here, is not that one set is from men and the other from gods - frankly, all the sets are from men...the problem is that there's no fundamental difference between following one set or the other. They're both an abrogation, both are derived from the same place, and the argument between them is itself a main driver of the problems it creates. From an outsiders pov, the whole thing is ridiculous..and it would be purely hilarious if it weren't for the tendency of the faithful to kill their co-conspirators for a psuedo-disagreement about what they're both doing together and in equal measure....a pursuit that only stops when they decide to turn their knives outward long enough to beat down some other guy..before inevitably returning to their ceaseless internecine madness.
Similarly, a person could see beauty in abrahamism that you or I or the housecat do not, and it could even be there..truly...and it would matter precisely as much to the underlying claim of any god existing, for it to have laws in contrast to mans laws. Which is to say not at all. To be blunt, truth is as irrelevant as perceived beauty to the question of whether or not there is such a thing as a gods law. A gods law, assuming both existed, could be utterly and exclusively filled with bold faced lies - and it would still be a gods law.
This was the matter I'd hoped our friend would consider, but true to type, when confronted with the notion of a god saying false and/or fucked up shit, he immediately came to the conclusion that something must be wrong with him..rather than the issuer of such decrees. It's a massive dogmatic blindspot that touches every corner of the afflicted's god beliefs, and effects the lives of other people. Gods...apparently... can't be wrong, and so, no matter how horrible an idea may be a person deep into a gods asshole has to decide that they are sick, or the sick god is right. Which is exactly how these people our friend rejects genuinely..and truly come to their notions. The type of thing required to make a good man do evil. That's the consequence of submission to these gods wills.
The problem, here, is not that one set is from men and the other from gods - frankly, all the sets are from men...the problem is that there's no fundamental difference between following one set or the other. They're both an abrogation, both are derived from the same place, and the argument between them is itself a main driver of the problems it creates. From an outsiders pov, the whole thing is ridiculous..and it would be purely hilarious if it weren't for the tendency of the faithful to kill their co-conspirators for a psuedo-disagreement about what they're both doing together and in equal measure....a pursuit that only stops when they decide to turn their knives outward long enough to beat down some other guy..before inevitably returning to their ceaseless internecine madness.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
