Week 5

We often find that religious beliefs are present in other aspects of life than we expect. In law, we do see a lot of elements that are mostly morals of society. But what do these societal morals reflect? They reflect certain religious beliefs (if applicable, since some people do not necessarily identify with a religion)

When we look at things in our very own American legal system, we see that a lot of laws are based on general moral opinions of the American public. There are the standard laws that make things like murder and assault illegal because long ago, the general public agreed that they did not like these practices. It is safe to say that these types of ideals are consistent with Christian values (as well as many other religions, although Christian values are more prominent in the U.S). For example, "thou shall not kill", correlates with the moral public belief against killing. 

If ideals and laws are so similar to each other, then why does the U.S. have a separation between church and state? It technically can't because in reality, the U.S. is not uniformly Christian (or any other religion for that matter) and there are many other groups who all share this society. To keep things fair, these two aspects of society (political and religious) are two different things. However, we can see that the opposing type of system works more effectively. Tibet, for example, had a long time ruler who was considered the head of the country politically and as their religious leader. The Dalai Lama was and is an important figure today although he no longer holds his political position he once did. People continuously look up to him regardless of the turmoil that continues in Tibet. The country this type of system was applied is not in the best place but, that is due to other political conflicts. Although we see more or less separation of belief and politics, I believe there is always at least a small tie between the two.

While law is based on public belief, it also reflects the things that members of a society want to see happen within it. Typically laws are put in place to make things better for society later. Cover says "law is the projection of an imagined future upon reality," meaning that with a legal system, society hopes to create a better world in the future. Humans tend to have a common goal to create a "more perfect" place.  

This idea gets a little iffy when it gets to certain subjects. The death penalty is a strongly arguable topic among many in the U.S. While some agree that an "eye for an eye" is an acceptable policy, some think that performing the same act on the one who did it doesn't make things better. It also gets difficult to determine who is allowed to dish out this type of punishment. Who has authority to kill someone and not 'get in trouble' for it? Does any human truly have this kind of authority? That is where it gets hard to determine whats effective and what isn't or what's right and what's taking it too far.

Another thing that occurs with the intermingling of religion and legal and ethical systems is scapegoating. The community tends to find a specific source for an issue and often blames a certain group for something. Rene Girard stated that society likes to blame and seek revenge on specific people or groups. In present day U.S., you might often see someone on Facebook or some other site saying how we should inflict other punishments on all prisoners. Or some might have a specific stereotype in mind that makes them believe one group is responsible for something. For example, we have he old stereotype that African Americans are most responsible for stealing. Or that Mexicans are the main source of illegal immigrants. Another example that I'd like to think is applicable, is the thought that 'out of towners in IV are the ones that cause most of the crimes.' We as humans like to blame something for our troubles and for the turmoil in the world. we also see this historically, in the Holocaust, where Jews were targeted for the many downfalls that Nazi Germany faced.