“You can’t legislate morality” sounds like “You better not get wet if you jump into that ocean junior.” That’s silly and lamentable. By nature laws prescribe what one ought or ought not do. Like water and wetness moral standards can’t be separated from their prescriptive design, nor can morality from any legislation. Douglas Groothuis answers this issue succinctly, clearly and cogently. Click http://douglasgroothuis.com/2015/07/08/should-we-legislate-morality/comment-page-1/#comment-1649
Happy pondering!
That was a great article, thanks for sharing it.
This kind of thinking drives me crazy. When someone tells me “You can’t legislate morality” my answer to them is “We can’t Legislate morality? Of course we can and we do it all the time. By the way, you don’t think the Supreme court just legislated morality? They did, it is just a different kind of morality, one you agree with!”
When bringing up that objection, I think most people are really saying to the religious person “You can’t force us by law to act the way your God wants us to.” That is an understandable objection, as nobody wants to be forced to behave in a manner they believe to be wrong. The irony is that much of our legislation IS based on the Judeo-Christian worldview. We love the morality based laws that keep people from killing us, robbing us, or raping us. Thank God, literally, for those laws!
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Jim,
I’m glad you enjoyed it.
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