AndreusMaximus
Master
Thank you for trying again to explain it to me, and my apologies for misinterpreting you earlier.Yes, I oppose abortion because of the sanctity of life in my opinion. Man’s laws may be different than that. The Indiana code is man’s, not Gods, and therefore Caesars. It is similar to those that say how can a Christian vote for a presidential candidate that has done immoral things, we are not electing god, we are electing Caesar. Not saying our beliefs should not inform our decisions, but laws on topics like abortion are.
So it sounds more like you're saying that even though you believe that abortion is murder, you are still willing to vote for a politician who doesn't align with your belief on abortion, because a vote, being a political action and not a religious one, doesn't need to be held to as perfect of a standard? Is that closer to what your saying?
Well, no, which is why, in my mind, I always separate religious issues from moral ones.Is it in the Bible that Christians should make rules governing how other live and what they do?
Religious issues are things like going to Church on Sundays, receive Baptism, worship God alone. Extremely important things, but not things that should be imposed on other through force of law.
Moral issues are things that human beings should be held to, regardless of religion. Things like don't steal, don't murder, don't lie, don't cheat on your wife. These are tings that "belong to Caesar", if you will. Even though they are generally also forbidden for religious reasons, there are purely natural, human reasons that they should be viewed as wrong, so even an atheist, if they have a properly calibrated moral compass, will see all those things as wrong. Some of those things should always be illegal (like theft/murder) some should only be illegal depending on the gravity of the circumstances (like lying) and some shouldn't be illegal at all, just frowned on by society (like cheating on your wife.)
Then, there's a further gradation among immoral actions that I believe should be illegal: those things I am willing to compromise on, vs. those I am not. For instance, I am somewhat willing to compromise on theft. I view the current exorbitant taxes imposed on middle and upper class people, for the purpose of wealth redistribution, as a form of theft. However, in a hypothetical scenario, I might be willing to vote for a politician who supported such things, if there were other, more important issues at stake.
But when you get to an issue like murder, I'm just not willing to compromise at all. And my reasoning for that seems to (maybe?) be the opposite of what you're saying. I don't refuse to compromise on murder because there is a religious mandate against it. If that were the case, I would also demand to see laws against idolatry, fornication, etc, because those also have religious mandates against them. But in the case of murder, I don't even have to, in my own mind, refer to my religious beliefs, because on a purely human level I see the purposeful taking of an innocent human life as completely abhorrent to a moral person. And I couldn't bring myself to associate with it in the remotest way, even by voting for a politician who wants to legalize more murder.
Me too; I'm not sure if my rambling above made sense or not...P.S. I’m just thinking this through out loud…