Critical thinking and political matters.

Ya....Don't talk with your mouth full...

It has to be people. There are a few basic moral 'rules'. Much less than ten. Religion is a construct of people, so of course it's people that fail.

What is religion separate from people? Is it not just an idea, a faith in an unproved theory?

No moral form has an independent existence for human kind... What you have to understand is that people create social forms like law out of their moral forms like justice and peace... If the social form then goes against the moral form after which, and for which it was fashioned, then it will fail... Law should not lead to injustice, but it does, and this Abalard suggested was impossible since Jus is the Genus and Lex a species of it... If law is not just, it is not law... The same is true of government, that the goals of ours is plainly stated, and all moral forms, but if the social form of government does not seek after and reach the moral goals it has set for itself, it is not government but an organization of rule bent on subverting the form from the principals that made it...

It is true that the people of this country have always been corrupt, and while the stated goals of this government were clearly stated and noble, that they were never generally supported... A people too filled with avarice and immorality are not fit for democracy and so they never have had it; and yet, if they should know and practice too much immorality they will be fit only for destruction... Morality and liberty go hand in hand, and you will not find one without the other... Those whose morality allows slavery will be slaves...Those whose morality demands freedom will be free...And it is true that the one who can exhibite self control needs no other government, and yet external event and circumstances will always need government even if people do not...

It is wrong to conceive of religion as a construct... Religious denomination are social forms built over moral forms; but the feelings that makes religion actually possible spring from the powerlessness of infancy... Some people never grow up, and never accept that powerlessness is the only power any of us will ever weild... Instead they hitch their wagons to mighty spiritual forces in order to go no where fast...

Life isn't that simple; just look at the community center issue in NYC. Your assumptions about moral forms and government is too simplistic, and not realistic based on how the citizens of this country have reacted to this one issue. After all, government is made up from the same "pile."

I guess the most basic moral rule would be do no harm. But I am not going to hold my breath untill every citizen in america lives by this rule. I would smother. Many people would be able to pervert even so basic rule as this for gain.

You are exactly right! People's perception of "do no harm" has many different interpretations. Aren't most of us confused how many christians are reacting to the community center in NYC? "Love thy neighbor as thyself." Sure.

It is wrong to conceive of religion as a construct... Religious denomination are social forms built over moral forms; but the feelings that makes religion actually possible spring from the powerlessness of infancy... Some people never grow up, and never accept that powerlessness is the only power any of us will ever weild... Instead they hitch their wagons to mighty spiritual forces in order to go no where fast...

Well, I agree with that comment. I believe that may be true for many people, and their belief is out of fear, rather than true faith. Does not the church propagate this fear?

You may be confusing religion with the church. The original teachings of religion may have a much deeper meaning.

Investigate Buddhism, you may find it tends toward the acceptance of powerlessness that you describe. My acceptance of Buddha's teachings are not out of fear, but rather an understanding that the teachings actually work, and do lead to enlightenment, which is an absence of fear.

Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream

frank. I took your advice a few weeks back, went camping with my wife and people from her VB team, and a few others. they had a lot of booze, and made up about a hundred a fifty Jello shots with vodka, rum and tekella or what ever and then we went tubing in the river down by Hastings... Kind of late in the season for that, nice, nice people; but it was like a ride down a sewer in a glass bottom boat... We might have lost a few cans and empty jello shot cups...

God is just a moral form, and moral forms have that subjective quality to them which make agreement nearly impossible... But when people think they have God all figured out they build a church or a denomenation to spell out clearly where the subjective moral form will not be allowed...