Yep. I am of the opinion that a government shouldn’t start off by granting liberties for things you can do. Instead, they should start with all possible liberties and only limit certain things for good reasons.
It is why I don’t think we should forbid some actions many think are bad. If it is really “bad” action, then they will have a good reason for why it should be forbidden. We see this with things like murder, rape, theft. We don’t see this with things like homosexuality (it is usually no more than opinion).
Question: the solution is a strong cultural incentive against it without governmental involvement
No
I don’t know if it was you who said that above, if not, excuse the association, but the mentality that everything is equivalent is the problem. It’s easy:
government should stay out of it
I would fight for your right to say things I don’t like or do things you are allowed to do under law but aren’t moral
There’s things that are moral and things that aren’t, these have been defined for decades, they don’t change
You should not lose your job or your livelihood because of doing wrong or acting not in accordance with that but everybody else should judge you for it.
For example: you cheat on your wife. You don’t go to jail (1), I won’t go to the government and ask if they can criminalize cheating (2), it is immoral to do so (3), you keep your job and your livelihood, everybody around you says that this was messed up and you made a mistake (4), maybe people disassociate from you because you are a bad human.
The left today uses this in a very bad way, they go against point 2 and 4. You will lose your livelihood if you say something wrong and they go to the government to force you to say what they want.
How many decades? Who defined them? I don’t think there has been agreement on these things.
Even something that is now partly accepted like TRT probably would have been seen as immoral by many just a few decades ago. Lightly using steroids would also fall into that category. It seems that that has changed. Views on homosexuality have changed a lot even since the 80s. How do we determine which things were incorrect or correct?
There has been for a long time. Now we are trying to obfuscate.
There need to be a few key points which are the basis, from there you go. Traditional Christian faith which undergirds western culture would be a great option.
I am not convinced. I have seen what is acceptable morally evolve over time to match the views of society.
I don’t think there is consistency between different congregations from what I have seen.
Sure, testosterone and it’s derivatives were seen by many in a negative light especially after the 88 Olympics, and the baseball steroid stuff.
The judgement on those is subjective. Some believe the greater acceptance of homosexuality has had negative results on society. Some believe the opposite. How do we reconcile those two different thoughts in a way that isn’t subjective?
Christianity (for the most part) currently has little to do with the teachings of the Bible. They have abandoned the stuff that doesn’t make sense, along with the less palatable stuff.
How do they go about determining which Bible mandates they follow and which ones they don’t? Are they eating shellfish or wearing clothing of mixed fabrics?
Herein lies the Problem. We are talking about eternal truths not the whims of society.
For your train of thought, this would depend on what is the main priority for a human being. What is your aspiration for a human being that produces the most functional and strongest society? I believe there are attributes that must be embraced by men and women to foster such a society. Christian belief and a whole lot of philosophers (Marcus Aurelius for example) lay out complete concepts.
I don’t know how we go about figuring out what these are though? If we go with a religion, how do we determine which one? What about when a society has a mixed religious population that doesn’t agree?
I think this is individual. I have different goals compared to others.
I am not convinced that most functional and strongest are the top goals in regards to society for everybody (including myself). Some may be willing to sacrifice some of societies strength or functionality to increase overall happiness for example.
I agree here, but I don’t agree that the goal is necessarily shared. I think it follows that if this goal isn’t shared, that those who don’t share the goal will not embrace the all of those attributes (they will likely embrace the attributes that jive with their goals).
I am not sure what this means. I re read the lines. I am not sure what you are getting at.
Perhaps I am still misunderstanding, but it seems to have fundamentals set up, then a goal should be used. How close one gets to the goal is a measurement of how good the fundamentals are.
My point is, there are fundamental responsibilities a man has to take on and there are fundamental character traits he has to develop. If these are there, then everything else is personal decision but there has to be a base which men aspire to for I say the vast majority of men to make a society stable and functional. No avoiding the truths and duties of being a man. No weaseling, no simping, no catering to some weak crowd.
It’s what Marcus Aurelius said when he wrote “a man’s duty is his work. Like a bee produces honey, so you got to do your work every day”. With work he meant the duties of man, which he specifies elsewhere.
These duties, truths and guidelines come in many forms but it’s clear from overlapping which stand the test of time. The Bible is a book that not only stood the test of time but is so dense with information about the nature of man, that it encompasses all of these.
I have too much work to do to carry this on. I hope I could clarify some things whilst still being vague I know. The vagueness comes because we aren’t really able to agree on anything so it gets vaguer and more fundamental every post until we can establish a baseline from which we can increase the resolution.
But I got to call this an end now, it’s too time consuming and in the end in my opinion every man has to figure this out. We can’t discuss it until everything is set and clear, we can only point each other to problems. I’ll consider yours and @unreal24278 s points in my thoughts and I’ll keep the worries about my points in mind.
I wish we could all get together on a road trip through the US and discuss outlook on life, I think it would enrich all of us. In the end we would probably share more thoughts than we disagree on. It would probably contain these fundamental things. The misunderstandings and I think characterizations are more a problem of the format I think
Many religions pre and post Christianity came up with similar values. I think they came up with this stuff not because it is a mandated universal truth, but because it was good for society.
I don’t think that a religion is necessary for a functioning society. I think a secular moral system and secular government can achieve a successful society using reason. I think countries like the USA (I actually see religion’s influence on the secular government as an issue), Denmark, Norway are good examples of secular government being quite successful.