Moral law > Civil law

[Fenixgoon]

odd, right now the poll is in favor of moral law > civil law.

but then people get their panties in a wad of moral law is legislated. me = 😕

 

[DaiShan]

Originally posted by: BigToque

Originally posted by: Astaroth33
DISAGREE.

The problem is that a state must have a framework of laws under which society can function. If "moral law" (whatever that is) trumps civil/criminal law, then breakdown can occur when, for example, Muslims decide that per Sharia they must stone women for committing adultery, or behead infidels, or whatever.

I tend to think that there is a set of universal morals and truths that exists. No society has evolved to the point where they encompass these values.

I think that a society that executes people is further from the truth than a society that doesn't.

Violence is never a solution. It's an act of desperation when people can't reason through their problems.

And by universal morals of course you mean those that are compatible with your own? The fact of the matter is: our laws are based fundementally on Christian values. If another culture believes, to use your example, that it is ok to stone adulterers, who are we to say otherwise. Additionally, you gave an example of a Theocracy. In a Theocracy, the religious law IS the civil law.

 

[DaiShan]

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon
odd, right now the poll is in favor of moral law > civil law.

but then people get their panties in a wad of moral law is legislated. me = 😕

The same thing is true of people and divorce. Right now the divorce rate of marriages is between 40 and 50% (based on statistical studies by the US Census Bureau) yet it isn't acceptable for public figures such as the President to divorce. People seem to have a need to run other people's lives to make up for the deficiencies in their own.

 

[AlienCraft]

In theory, perhaps.
The problem with this is that "morals" are a fluid thing. They change from society to society as well as geographically and temporally. What was "moral" in Ancient Rome may not be "moral" today. What is "moral" in the Sudan, may not be moral in The U.S.
The codification of these "morals" is what keeps the demarcation clear between people who may have different basis for these morals and find themselves inhabiting the same place in time and space.
A person raised in a religious home will undoubtedly have a different moral code than one raised in an atheist home.

That being said, I believe that the "Golden Rule" is in this society... "He who has the Gold, makes the rules." The altruistic one as quoted in other posts above has been supplanted by the one I have mentioned, by the people with "The Gold".

 

[chambersc]

morals are relative. there is no objective law/rule (besides empircal observations)