We each do what our own best judgement and understanding tell us to do in each particular situation...which is infinitely variable. Therefore, no one can write down a simple set of instructions which will work every time. Civil and religious laws are an attempt to do just that, and that is why laws are sometimes inapplicable or downright wrong in a certain situation. We all have had some experience of observing that, I believe. Laws are primarily for people who are so unconscious of the basic human responsibilities of life...or so weak...that they need someone else to tell them what to do, as if they were robots...and punish them when they don't do it. Laws are virtually unnecessary in a community of strong, emotionally mature people...who need not laws, but just general (and flexible) guidelines, understood and agreed upon by all members.

I can tell you plainly that, although not perfect, I am essentially harmless and essentially helpful. I would likewise be so in a place which had NO laws, I can assure you. So would most of the people I presently know (but not ALL of them!).

Anyone's cultural background will strongly affect his judgement and understanding of a given situation. The way his parents brought him up will do the same.

If someone says "follow the law of Allah", I must point out that there are numerous Muslim sects who all claim to do that, and yet they frequently disagree with each other regarding certain points of that law and how to apply it.

This is equally true of Christians, Buddhists, etc. They are not united in their understanding of their own written "law" or in how they practice it.

In the end, everyone must decide whose judgement and interpretation to rely on...his own or someone else's. I would suggest that adult people who rely on someone else's judgement are usually:

1. surrendering responsibility

2. disempowering themselves

3. failing not only themselves, but also the God who gave them free will (*that is, if you believe in God...if you don't, then just disregard that last part, since it makes no sense in your definition of reality)

4. often contributing to a great evil

The Nazi soldiers (and many other soldiers) who repeatedly followed grossly inhumane orders were generally obeying the military and civil laws of their society at the time in so doing. Many of them did it, despite being dimly or even bitterly and keenly aware that they were doing wrong. Many became alcoholic and depressed as a result, and some few even killed themselves to escape the pain. Others became brutalized and gave in entirely to the legal evil imposed upon them and learned to relish it.

If you cannot rely on your own conscience to distinguish right from wrong...then what can you rely on? Civil law? No! Civil law is a temporary construct, it is not infallible, and a mature and aware person copes with it as best he can (because he must), while seeing far, far beyond it.

As for religious law, the wise can spend a whole lifetime studying it, and still find deeper meaning and more powerful love in it, while the unwise and literal-minded can use it to justify the most horrendous blindness, cruelty, vengefulness, and atrocity.

Thus everyone, in the end, follows the law...of his own individual judgement and tendencies (good or bad). If his judgement is REALLY bad, he simply hands it over entirely to someone else's judgement...someone with a stronger sense of identity than his own.

If so, let's hope that someone else knows what in the world he is doing, and that he is doing something in favour of life rather than against it! Evil is that which is opposed to Life and liveliness. Good is that which promotes Life and liveliness.

Be careful of people who use a death's head insignia, talk about "kicking ass" all the time, and design stealth bombers that look like something Darth Vader would have ordered from the weapons supply section of the Imperial Command.

- LH