Do you support theocracies?

Thunder said:

edited for accuracy.

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I don't see a difference between the two phrases. One leads to the other, and that's not something a Proper Society has an interest in seeing happen.

Tigger said:

I'm an Authoritarian. I have never made any bones about that. I believe that Morality is the highest calling in life. Beyond Religion, Culture, Nationality, Society, Family, etc.... To live an Immoral Life is worse than Death itself.

Moral Decency is very simple.... It is acutally LIVING life by the standards set by A Proper Society. No more paying lip service to the ideals of A Proper Society. . Either you live your life by those rules or you have no place in the Proper Society. You may choose to leave the society completely, live as a second-class resident in the society, or end up facing Punishment when you are found to be living an Immoral Life.

It would take hours (which I don't have) to explain all the tenants of Moral Decency specifically; but as a general overview you may look at the social order of the Middle East or the era of history from the Middle Ages through the American Colonial period. For a limited idea of how this sort of society might work, see Robert Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" world.

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The problem with your arguments: WHO DEFINES "Moral Decency and Proper Society"? If it were you, you'd constantly raise the bar in order to punish people for their behaviors outside of your perceptions of what those should be. Mao, Stalin and Hilter loved exploiting humanity at their own bidding and based on your obvious hunger to control people, I'm sure that you'd be no more forgiving for those who don't agree with your visions of how the world should live.

Removable Mind said:

The problem with your arguments: WHO DEFINES "Moral Decency and Proper Society"? If it were you, you'd constantly raise the bar in order to punish people for their behaviors outside of your perceptions of what those should be. Mao, Stalin and Hilter loved exploiting humanity at their own bidding and based on your obvious hunger to control people, I'm sure that you'd be no more forgiving for those who don't agree with your visions of how the world should live.

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I've been through this before. I believe there is what I have called a "Universal Morality", defined as the commonality between accepted standards of the successful societies, cultures, and religions over the centuries. It comes out to be somewhere between Colonial America and the current Middle East. THAT is the standard which I would use.

As for being forgiving.... I'd probably be more forgiving than you might believe. As I said, there is always a place in society for a second, lower tier of individuals who are not required to meet the criteria for citizenship and who foresake all Rights and Privileges as well. It would also be perfectly fine for people to simply LEAVE if they didn't like the way things were being run. It's only when they refuse to leave or to accept their proper place in society (or to attempt to hide their immoral acts) that true Punishment would be necessary.

Tigger said:

"what "I" have called a "Universal Morality" THAT is the standard which I would use.

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Nuff said...

Woe on this already troubled world if it were in your hands. I'd rather live in Iran than under your rule. It'd be more like living in Syria with you at the helm.

Tigger said:

I've been through this before. I believe there is what I have called a "Universal Morality", defined as the commonality between accepted standards of the successful societies, cultures, and religions over the centuries. It comes out to be somewhere between Colonial America and the current Middle East. THAT is the standard which I would use.

As for being forgiving.... I'd probably be more forgiving than you might believe. As I said, there is always a place in society for a second, lower tier of individuals who are not required to meet the criteria for citizenship and who foresake all Rights and Privileges as well. It would also be perfectly fine for people to simply LEAVE if they didn't like the way things were being run. It's only when they refuse to leave or to accept their proper place in society (or to attempt to hide their immoral acts) that true Punishment would be necessary.

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And eventually the people would rise up, and topple that oppressive government.

I am largely with Tigger on this. I too am unabashedly authoritarian, though I have not thought through any utopian theocratic authoritarian scheme as has he. I would have to side with Blackstone and agree that only until Christ returns that such a regime could be created. To me, respect in society ought to be based more on a persons adherence to God's will rather than how much money they make/stuff they own/women they can get/etc. However, piety can be too easy to fake, masking a dark and corrupt heart.

The brutal regimes of the Middle East are stifling and enforce shows of piety (a man cannot truly be Godly unless he chooses to be pious), but the carefree regimes of the U.S. and Europe corrupt the soul.

As a Christian, I am not sure which is worse.

"But this is got by casting pearl to hogs,
That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,
And still revolt when Truth would set them free.
Licence they mean when they cry Liberty;
For who loves that must first be wise and good." --- John Milton

There's no tradition of a separate clergy in the indigenous Germanic religions. We weren't ruled by clerics, we were clericked by rulers who would occasionally take counsel from someone known to be elf-wise or particularly close to the gods.

That works fine for me, but I'm not going to submit to being ruled by someone else's church. As far as Muslim theocracies in north Africa and central Asia go, that's really their business how they govern themselves; we'll see which form of government is better when we're looking back on today from a thousand years in the future.

Hatuey said:

I don't really have a real opinion about theocracies in countries that I don't live in. Sure, they're ****ty and backwards as ****, but I neither support or oppose them. That's up to the living under them to decide.

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Viktyr Korimir said:

that's really their business how they govern themselves;

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A couple o' Global Citizens right there. Real men of the people. Screw them, I got mine right?

we'll see which form of government is better when we're looking back on today from a thousand years in the future.

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No, I think it's pretty obvious right now.

I'm not saying "screw them, I've got mine", I'm saying that if that's the kind of government they want then that is their own ****ing business and we've got no right forcing another on them.

ecofarm said:

A couple o' Global Citizens right there. Real men of the people. Screw them, I got mine right?




No, I think it's pretty obvious right now.

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In our opinion only, does not their's count ???
Remember, one man's trash is another's treasure.
We must NOT go about thinking that we have the best way of doing things, even if ultimately we are correct.

ChuckBerry said:

To me, respect in society ought to be based more on a persons adherence to God's will rather than how much money they make/stuff they own/women they can get/etc. However, piety can be too easy to fake, masking a dark and corrupt heart.

The brutal regimes of the Middle East are stifling and enforce shows of piety (a man cannot truly be Godly unless he chooses to be pious), but the carefree regimes of the U.S. and Europe corrupt the soul.

As a Christian, I am not sure which is worse.

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You truly have difficulty distinguishing the worth of a government which promotes the value of non-sectarian faith and religious institutions in general, prohibitively barred from establishing a national religion, versus that of an Islamic theocracy which seeks to establish a worldwide caliphate, enslaving or killing non-Muslims? Seriously?

Jucon said:

Why or why not?

Which ones do you / would you support?
Which are you / would you be against?


Edit: Also, how do you feel theocracies should be dealt with (or not dealt with) by the international community? Feel free to give real or hypothetical situations to explain your view.

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Like any other dictatorship.

Blackstone said:

You truly have difficulty distinguishing the worth of a government which promotes the value of non-sectarian faith and religious institutions in general, prohibitively barred from establishing a national religion, versus that of an Islamic theocracy which seeks to establish a worldwide caliphate, enslaving or killing non-Muslims? Seriously?

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Some might argue that capitalist use of people in third world countries to make disposable consumer goods for first worlders is enslavement, too. If the core of a society is self-satisfaction to the exclusion of acknowledging moral culpability in wrong-doing, its foundation is no more to be admired than a society whose core is a desire for forced religious homogenization.