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"Matt Barrow" wrote in message
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"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
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Matt Barrow wrote:

And the Greeks, Romans, Eastern Indians (all atheist or non-religious)
that
had such laws long before Christianity, they...hmmm

These people all had religious beliefs.

Not in the sense that CJ was using the term.

You presume a lot if you are trying to tell me what I think. Yes, these
people had religious beliefs in the sense that I was using the term.

C J Campbell wrote:

If you get right down to it, the only arguments against murder or theft are
basically religious.

Well, if you kill a man, he won't be paying income taxes anymore. There may even be
some drain on the state funds to support his dependents in some fashion. And if
thieves take much of his property, he may be unable to pay his taxes. It also
encourages theft, and the government hates competition.

Either has adverse effects on the health of society, and, like any good parasite
(symbiotic or not), government has a vested interest in keeping its host healthy.

George Patterson
If a man gets into a fight 3,000 miles away from home, he *had* to have
been looking for it.

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
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C J Campbell wrote:

If you get right down to it, the only arguments against murder or theft
are
basically religious.

Well, if you kill a man, he won't be paying income taxes anymore. There
may even be
some drain on the state funds to support his dependents in some fashion.
And if
thieves take much of his property, he may be unable to pay his taxes. It
also
encourages theft, and the government hates competition.

Either has adverse effects on the health of society, and, like any good
parasite
(symbiotic or not), government has a vested interest in keeping its host
healthy.

So? There is no cost, either societally or economically, if gay marriages
are legalized?

Besides, why should the government care whether it collects taxes?

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
So? There is no cost, either societally or economically, if gay marriages
are legalized?

Other than the usual cost of marriage, no. There's nothing special about
gay marriages that make them any worse than any other marriage.

Besides, why should the government care whether it collects taxes?

All depends on the taxpayer, I'd guess.

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
If you get right down to it, the only arguments against murder or theft
are
basically religious.

Hardly. A peaceful society requires that members of that society be safe
and that their property remains safe. If murder and theft are allowed, the
outcome is assured: rampant violence, and an enormous waste as everyone
invests most of their resources trying to take what the other members of
society have, including their lives.

You don't need religion to justify rules against murder or theft.

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
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"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
If you get right down to it, the only arguments against murder or theft
are
basically religious.

Hardly. A peaceful society requires that members of that society be safe
and that their property remains safe. If murder and theft are allowed,
the
outcome is assured: rampant violence, and an enormous waste as everyone
invests most of their resources trying to take what the other members of
society have, including their lives.

You don't need religion to justify rules against murder or theft.

No? Why is it important that society be peaceful or safe?

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
No? Why is it important that society be peaceful or safe?

If you don't believe in trying to maximize human happiness, then there's
nothing important about making society peaceful and safe. Maybe you don't
hold that belief.

Fortunately for me, and lots of other people, as humans we agree that being
happy is a good goal, and thus being peaceful and safe is also a good goal.
Very few people are happy when they are not safely at peace with other
humans.

From a purely pragmatic point of view, humanity can progress intellectually,
technologically, and economically fastest if we aren't wasting time trying
to kill each other.

Pete

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
"C J Campbell" wrote in message
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No? Why is it important that society be peaceful or safe?

If you don't believe in trying to maximize human happiness, then there's
nothing important about making society peaceful and safe. Maybe you don't
hold that belief.


If a belief in maximizing human happiness is not a religious belief, what is
it?

After all, if we are nothing but sacks of chemicals, doomed in the end to
become nothing but waste heat, why should we care what happens to us or to
anything else? Nothing we do makes any difference at all if we eventually
just become random ergs scattered throughout the universe.

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
No? Why is it important that society be peaceful or safe?

If you don't believe in trying to maximize human happiness, then there's
nothing important about making society peaceful and safe. Maybe you
don't
hold that belief.


If a belief in maximizing human happiness is not a religious belief, what
is
it?

Not a religious belief. You should not be trying to redefine religion,
which is based on a god or gods and is best acknowledged as founded on the
gullibility of the many and the calculations of the few.

After all, if we are nothing but sacks of chemicals, doomed in the end to
become nothing but waste heat, why should we care what happens to us or to
anything else? Nothing we do makes any difference at all if we eventually
just become random ergs scattered throughout the universe.

Not random, my moorman friend. You can leave footprints in the sands of
time, or be a lasting legacy like Charles Dickens or Henry Ford, sire
children who will in turn sire children, perhaps even contribute to the
fossil record --- like the missing link between Neanderthal and human
recently discovered, or the subhumanoid bones recently unearthed in
Indonesia.

Having read some of your scribblings, however, I am not encouraged that your
legacy will be anything more than dust.

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
If a belief in maximizing human happiness is not a religious belief, what
is
it?

It's an innate desire, not a religious belief. It's basic biology. We come
pre-wired to desire happiness.