My trouble with whether drugs should be illegal or not is that using them is a victimless crime–unless you drive under the influence or have a baby. If you commit violent acts in order to secure more, or whatever, we already have laws against that.

I don’t think making drugs illegal helps much. It helps some, I think (maybe because I like to?). Some people will try things when they’re legal that they wouldn’t otherwise, so the law is at least a mild deterrent. But I’m not worried about people who are interested in trying things; I’m interested in those who cannot control them.

It seems like a contradiction to me that our society adopts the “disease” model of alcohol and drug abuse, but at the same time HOLDS THE USERS ACCOUNTABLE. Wouldn’t the logical path be to either reject the disease model OR find help for drug abusers instead of prosecuting them?

d

I don’t have numbers to back any of my statements up, but it seems to me that crack babies, DUIs, murders in drug rings, deadbeat moms and dads, unemployment, theft, etc. etc. will be side-effects of hard drugs whether they are legal or not. So the question should not be, to prevent or not to prevent, but rather, how to prevent? If you’d rather just prosecute the murders and thefts as those crimes, and not reach the underlying cause of hardcore drugs, you’re like a doctor who’ll give pain medicine but never put a broken leg in a cast so it can heal… so it seems to me.

Secular laws ought to be based off social contract-type reasoning, I think I agree with you there. but the pursuit of truth should never be negated, and the pursuit of truth includes trying to figure out what is truth, what is good and evil, etc.

I understand (to some extent) what you believe is right and wrong, but my focus is on what should be the basis of our laws, and why. Your beliefs are your beliefs. I submit that you don’t have the right to force them upon others simply on the basis of them being your beliefs (morals).

If there is a good argument to be made for outlawing hard (illicit) drugs based upon the violence and pain they cause, then our laws should be based upon THAT argument. The argument that you believe they are “evil” SHOULD have no bearing on whether they are legal or not.

Of course, the argument that hard drugs cause violence and pain etc is balanced (at LEAST, if it isn’t obliterated altogether) by the argument that making them illegal causes MORE violence and pain, not to mention huge chunks of our tax dollars spent to fund the War On Drugs (and for some reason, after several decades, we’re still losing that war, anyway).

d

I think that morality is both objective and subjective at the same time. yay paradoxes.

I do believe in an absolute God who is synonymous with Love. God = Love. Therefore, things which violate love, things which originate from the absence of love–selfishness more so than hate, but hate counts here too–are participating in evil. A woman who gets an abortion due to her own selfishness–I want to kill this fetus because it will ruin MY life–is committing an evil act. Killing someone to spare them from suffering is also evil, I think, because you are denying them an opportunity to face suffering which could be redemptive and glorifying… but that’s another argument altogether.

Even destroying your own body would be evil; while it does not hurt anyone else, you are mutilating what God gave you out of selfishness. And often self-harm harms those who love you even more than it harms you. It is selfish to pretend that you can do what you like to yourself (including drugs) and not end up hurting others. Diana, think about cases where hallucinogenic drugs cause people to kill each other, or steal from each other to afford them, or beat their kids, or whatever. No good comes from hardcore drugs but personal pleasure, which is selfish especially considering that drug use affects everyone who knows and loves you. Mind-altering drugs which cannot be used in moderation (you can stop with just one alcoholic drink, but can you stop with just one shot of heroin?), should be illegal because they DO infringe on others’ rights and safety very often.

Okay, so, there are moral absolutes, like killing is bad, stealing is bad, etc. But there is a subjectivity to morals that is situation based. Is killing altogether bad if you kill to protect the innocent? Is stealing altogether bad if you steal to put bread in the mouth of your hungry child? (Jean valJean’s dilemma.) And so forth. I think a balanced Christianity–the Orthodox, obviously, in my opinion–sees and recognizes this. For example, Orthodoxy sees divorce as bad, and divorce and remarriage even worse. but unlike in the Catholic church, where divorces are not allowed unless you can find some mental loophole with which to invalidate the entirety of the marriage by an annulment (which basically says, “y’all were never ACTUALLY married"), Orthodoxy allows a certain number of divorces due to adultery, etc. They don’t have to invalidate your previous marriage. They just allow for human weakness. But they won’t let you become a serial polygamist either, because they draw the line at some point, and won’t let you go to marriage four, five, six, seven, and so forth…

So, there is a supreme, infinite God, who decides what is good and what is bad. But that does not mean that good and bad is black and white: Orthodoxy allows for gray areas and pastoral decisions based on individual situations. The binary thinking which you rail against does not include all Christian groups. And it is a travesty that Christianity is splintered as it is, but if I were you I would look to the two-thousand-year-old Christianities for a representative sample of Christian thought rather than the barely two-hundred-year-old ones.

I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying here. You think there shouldn’t be laws governing any of these?

d

If the state does not have the right to regulate your mores, based upon your mythology, then you’d agree that polygamy should not be illegal, yes?

d

The only reason, in my estimation, for legislation, is for the proper care of this nation and its citizens. If something is available for one, it should be available for all. If one is denied that care, all should be denied the same care. And government of the people, by the people, an d FOR the people should be for those now living, and considering to the best of our ability those yet to be born as citizens of this country.

That’s where I was headed with this.

Daddy

If I’m understanding you correctly, then, the mores of the group determine the morals of the individuals within that group. Since we agree that morals are not inborn, then the line of development is as follows:

birth –> saturation with the mores of our culture –> individual morals

I would submit to you that religious beliefs place us within a further subculture which alters how we view the mores of our original group, and if it is successful, alters our individual morals, as well. Would you agree?

Love,

d