Thursday, November 21, 2013

Can morality be created by laws? Is something wrong if it is illegal?

All law implicitly involves morality; the popular idea that “you can’t legislate morality” is a myth. Morality is legislated every day from the vantage point of one value system or another. The question is not whether we will legislate morality, but whose morality we will legislate.  --Chuck Colson

  Our culture accepts relativism more and more with each generation. As these generations get older and become voting age and then law makers themselves, we reach a dilemma. Laws get changed or new laws get created, but without absolute values, their is no foundation to these laws. They simply represent the current [unstable and ever changing] values of our society. This means that something can be illegal in one year, then legal the next, and illegal later still. As our laws start to reflect relativism more and more, our laws will sway back and forth with the wind with no real anchor. People may start to ignore some laws altogether.

  As the quote above from Chuck Colson asserts, all laws have a moral aspect. A law declares something wrong and something right. If we have to pay a fine for not wearing a bicycle helmet, then wearing a helmet is right and not wearing one is wrong. You may reject this value and practice your own, buy the law maker's value system is the one that gets enforced when you get a ticket for not wearing your helmet. Relativism in practice often does not work out well. I hope for the sake of our country that our culture turns away from relativism.

Here is an interesting quote and source below:
"It is absurd and ignorant to lament conservative Christian efforts when it comes to abortion, marriage, and so on as some attempt to "legislate morality."  The other side is attempting the very same thing!  In fact, the lamenter (whatever his political persuasion) has also taken a moral stand.  Thus, he is like the bank robber who calls the police because his getaway car gets stolen."

Source: The Truth about Legislating Morality
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/03/the_truth_about_legislating_morality.html