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that "divine law" is anything more than a game of logical levels.
Rather than dealing with practical problems pragmatically, on the appropriate level on which they exist, this methodology presents a large abstraction into which they place all problems and conflate it with good, pragmatism, spirituality, etc.
Once this appeal to "divine law" is in accepted and in place, it clearly becomes subject to the presentation and interpretation of the "Scribes and Pharisees" that serve the agenda of the most powerful.
Notice how the theocratic evoke Marxism. While I think of democracy as an abstract itself, which we should really try someday, those who promote theocracy often abhor democracy itself. In my mind, it is important to frame theocracy as directly opposed to rule by the people. In fact, it is a throwback to, from the depth and scope of our modern understanding, to the most repressive, tyrannical and cruel systems that we have chosen to liberate ourselves from.
As many who are familiar with the theocratic sub-culture that works diligently both overtly, and more importantly covertly, to literally overthrow the ideals, (and many remain idealistic, to date) that most of us understand to be the context of what those important documents, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, stand for and convey, then those efforts move from a spiritual or religious realm to a political will towards nothing less than absolute power and domination of the people.
Note that some of the major promoters of Theocracy focus, for their "divine" legal system, on Mosaic Law from the Old Testament with little if any emphasis on the New Testament, except where it is congruent with their agenda. In other words, like any tyrannical political philosophy, or one that dis-empowers the people for the sake of the few, the Elite, may simply represent the use of the idea of the "divine" as a tool to beguile and overthrow the freedom of the many. It is up to us to contemplate that dilemma and consider our response to the assumption that someone, anyone, has a divine right to control and dominate our lives because of their interpretation of ancient texts that are already subject to much philosophical and scholarly debate as to accuracy of the translations and the context of the idioms involved.
In essence, theocratic movements are utilizing the rights that we, collectively afford to them in order to end ours. This leads us to question how tolerant we must be about such a movement when we find ourselves in a predicament where our ideals will be bent into dogmatic bars which intend to enslave us to someone's notions of divine will when they could easily be a nightmare hiding behind a pretentious facade, foisted upon us not by spiritually-inclined followers of a religion, but by nefarious, insecure power-mongers dressed in shabby, sheep's clothing.
When does religion become nothing more than a political, or sub-rosa corporatist tool, moving from a fairly benign matter of personal faith and belief to be exercised as a protected right to a propagandacist's tool of choice in a war to manufacture consent and justify the subjugation of millions, (along with brutal, barbaric proscriptions for punishment) with a premise that cannot reasonably and logically be argued against. After all it is God's Will and you are not God, and WE speak for him, being chosen.
Yeah, right.
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