Vincent said,

All we ask is that justifications be universal, not that the religious provide justifications that they themselves would not believe.

Because we share different worldviews there is no universal justification.

That’s just not true. If construction noise and vibrations keep people awake at night, a law prohibiting construction work after 10pm is based on the universal justification of getting a decent night’s sleep. Whether your religion says don’t work at night or not makes no difference since noise at night affects everyone equally. That’s a universal justification.

Any legal system “legally imposes a moral code”; unless every person subjected to the system agrees perfectly with every law and sanction, there is an element of imposition.

And in fact the absense of a legal system imposes a moral code as well. At the very least, it allows anyone to try and impose their moral code on anyone else.

As you identified, my question was: given that religious people are going to think about socio-political ethics/morality in religious terms (whether you personally like it or not), what, in y’alls opinion, is the best way for them to carry those convictions to the political sphere, if at all, especially when they happen to line up with your own secular political convictions?

I don’t think you can separate whether it’s justified to bring your religious convictions into politics from the question whether the religious morality itself is justified. After all, if I actually thought religion were a proper source of morality, then I’d be morally bound to advocate in favor of bringing religion into politics (although there would still be the small matter of freedom of religion to deal with). As it is, however, I have to reject religion as a source of morals, and advocate against bringing religion into politics.

From this position it directly follows that when deciding if it’s justified to bring religious convictions into politics, it shouldn’t matter whether I happen to agree with the conclusions of these convictions or not. Either way, these convictions are not justified by anything I would consider a reasonable basis. If it did matter what the conclusions were, I’d be applying a double standard. Although I have to admit that as a practical matter, I’d likely spend considerably more time refuting those religious convictions I happen to not agree with than those I do agree with.

And finally, if your religious convictions came to similar conclusions as my secular convictions, then that means you didn’t really need the religious convictions to begin with. You clearly could have used my secular reasoning to reach the same conclusions. Therefore, your religious convictions don’t really have anything to add to the political debate. In fact, they have the potential to greatly distract from this debate, by turning the debate away from the issues and making it about religion instead. So I think it’s better to leave the religious convictions out of politics as much as possible.

But the main point was about legally enforcing one’s morality on others.

Whatever you might consider to be the main point in this thread, you had asked for an explanation of one particular statement that had nothing at all to do with legally imposed morality. If you want to discuss that now, very well:

But that’s a separate issue from going that extra step and trying to legally impose that moral code on others.

Any legal system “legally imposes a moral code”; unless every person subjected to the system agrees perfectly with every law and sanction, there is an element of imposition. So, are you an anarchist, or do you think that some degree of imposition is acceptable? If the latter, what are your criteria? I’m particularly interested to see how they would differ from keddaw’s guideline “to have people unable to remove, reduce or impinge upon people’s freedom unless they are harming other people or their rights,” with which you’ve already claimed to agree.

Which leads into the central argument against wealth redistribution by the government – it is charitable works and charity should be by choice, not forced, with imprisonment for those who are selfish.

Not that I am against tax, people’s rights and property rights have to be enforced and that enforcement costs money that should be paid for by those who gain from those rights.

And yes, my question was not really about whether or not any of you here think a religiously-based morality is legitimate. I already know the answer to that one.

As you identified, my question was: given that religious people are going to think about socio-political ethics/morality in religious terms (whether you personally like it or not), what, in y’alls opinion, is the best way for them to carry those convictions to the political sphere, if at all, especially when they happen to line up with your own secular political convictions?

I appreciate all of you who have taken the time to respond to that question. There have been a lot of great answers and much that I agree with and have practiced myself as a pastor.

Peace

As a religious leader with social agendas that involve secular allies, I would hope you would merge your language somewhat so your religious audience gets wind that there are secular pillars to your reasoning. That will also garner nonreligious respect, I think.