What are personal responsibility and private property rights?

[pianistimo]

Do you think we have the right to own personal property.  What about Intellectual property - does that infringe on the other?  Does anyone here know more about intellectual property and how it somehow encompasses the other?

And, about personal responsibility - why do public schools and other public offices want to get so MUCH personal information about what people do, think, and feel at HOME?  Is this an invasion of privacy to fill out forms asking what you or your children are doing at home? 

[ahinton]

Do you think we have the right to own personal property.  What about Intellectual property - does that infringe on the other?  Does anyone here know more about intellectual property and how it somehow encompasses the other?

And, about personal responsibility - why do public schools and other public offices want to get so MUCH personal information about what people do, think, and feel at HOME?  Is this an invasion of privacy to fill out forms asking what you or your children are doing at home? 

Welcome, forum members, to the new pianistimo; if ever any of you had cause to suspect that the old one spent a disproportionate amount of time promulgating very specific Christian attitudinisings and indulging in a superabundance of bible-banging, you can now attend upon a current edition that spends far more time asking questions that might seem to have arisen out of some desire to counsel opinion on a number of issues rather obviously in the immediate aftermath of an election defeat for John McCain that has almost certainly not harboured much appeal for her...

Best,

Alistair

[morningstar]

This is the pianistimo I remember!

[gyzzzmo]

We humankind dont have 'property rights'. Our heavenly father (who we must all embrace) owns our humble asses, our beautiful (by him) created planet and our destiny. Let his saintly wrath consume us all with fire upon the moment we think we can claim any property to be ours (as written in tinkerbell 7:11 : "Thou willst not claim no soil since the high Lord owns all, even McDonalds").

please pianistimo, no more of this blasphemy!

[ahinton]

We humankind dont have 'property rights'. Our heavenly father (who we must all embrace) owns our humble asses, our beautiful (by him) created planet and our destiny. Let his saintly wrath consume us all with fire upon the moment we think we can claim any property to be ours (as written in tinkerbell 7:11 : "Thou willst not claim no soil since the high Lord owns all, even McDonalds").

please pianistimo, no more of this blasphemy!

The Lord does NOT own McDonald's - not even the apostrophe therein! As for blasphemy, I have heard blasphemers call the Lord called many things, but never Big Mac. Furthermore,, on the occasion when five loaves and two fishes were supposedly made to stretch to feed five thousand people, no one serving any of those people asked "do you want fries with that?"...

Best,

Alistair

[gyzzzmo]

The Lord does NOT own McDonald's - not even the apostrophe therein! As for blasphemy, I have heard blasphemers call the Lord called many things, but never Big Mac. Furthermore,, on the occasion when five loaves and two fishes were supposedly made to stretch to feed five thousand people, no one serving any of those people asked "do you want fries with that?"...

Best,

Alistair

I heard the Lord loves Big Macs, he even bought a big amount of shares in Mc Donalds. But because of G. Bush his economic policy, our heavenly father lost a shitload of money, therefor brought Obama in the hearts of true christians (sorry pianistimo, i know you supported McCain).

About the fishes and loaves... Big Macs contain many more calories than fish and loaves, so it might be even true that our Big Friend JC (rest his soul) changed all fish and loaves into Big Macs. I dont think fries were involved, fries are probably Satan's work since they actually make people thirsty.

[morningstar]

What about your choice of drink? Coke...*drool*

[pianistimo]

Actually, the bible is most FAIR about property rights in that even if you SELL your land - you can buy it back at the jubilee (50 years) so that property remains in one's family.  You have FIRST right to it.

There is so much I could say about what people THINK the bible says vs. what it actually says.  Not that governments will choose it as law.  It's supposedly antiquated.  People don't change that much in their moral behavior.  It's grabby to take property whether money, or literal property.

[thalbergmad]

There is so much I could say about what people THINK the bible says vs. what it actually says. 

Please don't

[ahinton]

Actually, the bible is most FAIR about property rights in that even if you SELL your land - you can buy it back at the jubilee (50 years) so that property remains in one's family.  You have FIRST right to it.

There is so much I could say about what people THINK the bible says vs. what it actually says.  Not that governments will choose it as law.  It's supposedly antiquated.  People don't change that much in their moral behavior.  It's grabby to take property whether money, or literal property.

Susan, how many more times are you prepared to make it necessary for people to remind you that the Bible is two millennia old and the kinds of issues concerning land and other property rights, taxation ("render unto Cćsar" and all that) and goodness knows what else that pertained in those days are almost unrecognisably different in present-day society?

What the Bible (subject to all the caveats and shortcomings that I've mentioned before about our understanding of what remains of it) tells us relates only to a certain area of what we now loosely term the Middle East and has no bearing upon conduct in other societies even in its own time.

You have only to post once in this thread after initiating it and here you are already, predicating its topic upon the Bible, whereas the views of various forum members on "personal responsibility and private property rights" may have no conceivable connection with what the Bible might have to say about the subject in the context of society in the Middle East two thousand years ago.

That said, I do not regard the Bible as "antiquated" as such; it's not "out of date" although at the same time it's obviously not "in date" - it embraces various chronicles of events that occurred some 20 centuries ago so, like any other historical document, it includes reports of people, places and occurrences in ancient times and is therefore not "out of date" per se other than in the sense that it is clearly far less reliable and complete than certain more recent equivalent historical documents whose creation has been subject to far wider research.

It might do you a whole lot of good to undergo a self-imposed Bible-free year (to be initiated via a New Year's resolution, perhaps?); indeed, it might even help to enhance and broaden your own understanding of that Bible itself, but it would surely help to open you up to the possible enhancement and broadening of your own perspectives of life and your tolerance of and respect and compassion for others who may think and feel quite differently to the ways that you do. It would certainly do US a lot of good...

Best,

Alistair

[richard black]

There is so much I could say about what people THINK the bible says vs. what it actually says.

So you've studied it in the original Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic etc., yes? Just about the one thing all the students of divinity I've ever met agree on is that no two translations of the Bible quite tally, and therefore it can only be understood (if at all - which is doubtful) to one fluent in the original language (if it's known with certainty what that language was, which apparently it isn't always).

Do you think we have the right to own personal property.

Not automatically, no. Under the currently prevailing system in practically all parts of the world, that right is assumed, effectively, by all, but from a philosophical viewpoint I and many others (including, but not limited to, Marxists) would question it.

[jhallam1]

The right to own property is necessary for the individual's control over his own life.  Without property rights he is a slave.