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Sincere Question About Civil Government, God And Science

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Posted by Michael W. Pearson on January 13, 2002 20:33:59 UTC

Dear Mr. Abhijit Patil,

I send this note to all the list, but if you will answer my letter here first, I will thoroughly review your post and give a friendly, rigorous response.
I notice in your letterhead you are from Shahada city. I looked up "Shahada" and found the following quotes.

>Verily We have prepared Hell as an entertainment for the disbelievers (in the Oneness of Allah - Islamic Monotheism)."
"The intentions while doing such deeds must be totally for Allah’s sake only without any show off or gaining praise or fame, etc."

IN NO WAY will I deny your faith, but wish clarification. Even if you cannot safely give a full answer, there is no prejudice here.

My questions
In our Declaration of Independence, the following phrase appears, and appeared in earlier writings too:
" . . .government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed . . . "

We had found that persons DO sometimes do things for their own sake rather than God's. And if those persons have great worldly position, it causes much trouble for all of us. So, we have
separated religion from civil government. When Jesus said His Kingdom is not of this world, that helped our religions in some ways, while churches may have regrets for not having earthly dominion, they can more freely argue and develop their theologies without fear of reprisal by some wicked powerful person.

I borrowed this line of commentary from someone
" . . .government, in its essence, is a form of organized human collaboration/cooperation. it is a nervous system for a society."

This idea is combined with the next quote for
further discussion"
From the Koran?
"So whoever has confessed this (with his or her Lord), he shall not commit sins like robbing, killing, stealing, illegal sexual intercourse, eating pig meat, drinking alcoholic beverages, taking undue advantage of orphan’s property, cheating in trade, bribery and earning money through illegal means, telling lies, back-biting etc."
In my society, I hope these practices will all disappear by the excellence of management...except in the innocent forms of those, such as telling lies for entertainment, or to protect kindness and goodness.
To Westerners, many OR all of those are worthy goals...but what does a "nervous system" do if some parts of a body are not "living right?"
It is only a metaphor...but in the human nervous system, no part of the body would be "punished" for misbehavior. It would receive "attention."

To confound the metaphor: (metaphor can be for all mankind, or a nation, or a smaller group)
what if the body's Person has different faults than another Person. Shall we presume what their judgement should be? So I do not believe in cruelty and the only reason to imprison or punish is to improve public safety, while never giving up on the individual who has gone however far astray.

Different faiths in our country have different definitions for "illegal sexual intercourse,"

AND while some persons should never drink alcoholic beverages, others should probably not drink coffee.

It is BEST to have relationships with persons who are never "taking undue advantage of orphan’s property, cheating in trade, bribery and earning money through illegal means, telling lies, back-biting"

However, if they believe in " Hell as an entertainment for the disbelievers (in the Oneness of Allah - Islamic Monotheism)."
then it is a little scary...because that is not government with the consent of the governed...or a nervous system for society...it is, instead,
a remover of free will...and a potential for abuse by frail humans who were born to earthly power either by their strength or their family position... giving less powerful persons very little way to escape from the corruption if it is widespread. And in our society, I observe that persons do tend to be blind to their own logical fallacies and unless they are unusual, do not always have skill in seeing the proportional importance of every matter.

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