What is the belief that a higher law, superior to any human-made law, exists?
456367
TThe short answer: the irrational idea springing from the limbic system of all human brains...comes from our cave man days and shows up as irrational worldviews.
613752
The law does not save us, faith does. Faith does not make the law invalid. We obey the law because of our faith.
599568
This is an excellent question. If God created life and He is all powerful, why do people go to hell for disobeying his commands? Surely God would create us with a pre-ordained destiny if he is all powerful, hence no freedom of choice. Either God created us to go to hell or he is not all powerful, in which case he is not really God.\n\nAll our decisions are formed by our genetic code and past experiences, it is God who decides this. The laws of nature (including quantum mechanics) are controlled by God. In that sense there is no 'I'. \n\nTherefore, either God does not exist and free will does,\nor God exists and some people were destined from the dawn of time to disobey Him. Which leads us to conclude that if hell really does exist, then it is not the fault of the person but a fault of God that sent him there. He is chastising himself. This again invalidates the law of God being all powerful.\n\nIf freedom of choice does not exist, and God does, then judgement can not. If God doesn't hold judgement over his own creation, he can not be all powerful.\n\nWe must have free choice for God to exist. But God controls the life we have! Its a circular argument.\n\nDoes God not exist, then?\n\nHis ultimate wisdom allows us not to know the truth.
1166860
Someone how believes in a higher power but does believe that higher power is God.
41518
Yes. All theories exist. When a theory is proven, it becomes a law or a fact.
317517
In one sense you bring up an interesting point.  Let me challenge you with a broader concept...\n\n...do our Laws reflect our Morality....or does Morality stem from the Laws we make each other abide by?\n\nIn their written series of civilization, Will and Ariel Durant made the point in the first book, "Our Oriental Heritage", that man did not need or make laws until he thought his neighbor needed them.\n\nThink on that a bit as you ponder your own question.\n\nIn my own personal opinion, I do believe that faith can and should inform public policy.  In a republic such as ours, we have agreed to abide by the majority, until a new majority comes into being.  And each new majority will bring its' own set of values.
1136179
An interesting question.  \n\n#1 would seem at first glance to be automatically false, as everyone will agree that there is evidence that there was a time when the things we see today in nature, did not exist.  But to get a little deeper, what if these things are the natural products of natural laws that have always existed?  E.g. what if our universe is just one of an endless series of universes that appear, unfold under natural laws that have been in existence for eternity, and then disappear, only to get reborn again as a new universe?\n\n#2 is the *goal* of a scientific explanation.  I.e. to see how much we can explain by the discovery of natural laws.  Science has no way of knowing if such an explanation will always be possible, but it has to try.  And so far we have done remarkably well ... almost everything we see in nature can be explained in terms of the operation of natural laws.  And natural laws can often be shown to derivable from simpler natural laws.  (E.g., that's why physicists are on a quest to unify the four forces of physics ... so that all laws of atomic physics can be derived from a single law.)  However, scientists will always be faced with the question of where these simplest of natural laws came from.  And they may have to settle for the answer "they seem to have always been there", which brings us back to #1.\n\n#3, and #4 need more definitions to distinguish them.  What do you mean by phrases like "beyond nature", and "intelligence."  \n\nHOWEVER, despite being a died-in-the-wool evolutionist, I lean towards #4, (an intelligent, supernatural origin for all things in nature) but not with in the same sense as Intelligent Design.  I *don't* believe some intelligence designed every cell membrane, every flagellum, every eyeball, every bird, bat, or insect wing, every endochrine cycle, etc.  Evolution provides a far more satisfactory explanation for all those things based on such simple natural laws as the law of natural selection.  \n\nBut I do wonder where that force of natural selection, as a natural law, came from.   I believe it will be shown to be derivable from simpler laws of chemistry and thermodynamics, which can be derived from even simpler laws of physics.  But ultimately, we will still be faced with wondering where those primary laws of physics came from.
1042771
This is funny because i am not religious but i believe there's superior.  The one others call GOD but I am not sure what he/she/it is.\nYES the GOD ( to me, for the purpose of this question... GOD is not a particular one, but a superior in terms of able to do super natural stuff and change something that we can't) exist but the GOD is not taking care of everyone of us because the GOD's job is not to make sure all of us live well.\nHowever, once a while the GOD would help some individual by fluke.... and that individual would try his/her best to convince other the GOD's existance.\n\nIF the GOD's job's make sure ppl live well then no one would be suffering and no need to pray.
1103231
Science is a faith.  To answer your question, perhaps physical laws were created from the perfect mind of God simultaneous with His creation of our physical universe.
1147267
A false doctrine not found in the Bible but made by man.
794094
I do believe in an afterlife, but assuming heaven did not exist, then, yes I believe humans would create a belief in one for comfort and expectation of a new life to come.  I could even go as far as to say the mind is a powerful thing, powerful enough to even create supposed proof of afterlife by communicating with departed souls.  But, if the mind is that powerful, enough to falsely prove life exists after this one, isn't that power enough to say something bigger is going on here.  It points to the path the soul does live on, in my opinion.
1063730
Morally, if we were to universally follow The Law given to Man by his Maker, then it is a resounding "YES!"\n\nHowever, our man-made laws have yet to acquiesce to being held accountable and liable to such a MORALITY clause...
334960
There really isn't a parallel between religion and law.  If you think back to some of the original law codes (Hammurabi and such) these were more political and social laws rather than religious laws.\n\nNow, some religious books (Torah/Old Testament) do contain what amounts to social codes.  These are unique to the societies they originated in.  For example, rabbis were the more educated members of ancient Hebrew societies, so they recorded the laws.\n\nHowever, laws have a slightly different origin and purpose than religious codes.   Both are forms of social control, but law has its purpose and origins in keeping society orderly and keeping the power centered in the hands of the king.  We like to think that law has evolved to a point where the function of the law is to uphold justice and human rights.  Now, religion on the other hand, originated as humankind's experience of the divine.  Religion has a stake in society's stability, but, it's purpose is (or should be, at least) to bring a certain divinity's message to the people, to bring people closer to the divine.  The paths of law and religion have crossed, sometimes come together (when you have religion as law, that is a very bad thing.  As in, people get killed bad thing), and sometimes have been in opposition.\n\nAtheists, at least in the US, are protected by secular law and the Bill of Rights.  That is all that any US citizen needs.  Since we do not live in a theocracy, there is no need for protection from any one religion.\n\nAnd any US citizen should be incredibly grateful, and protective, of that.
296947
Morality is basically a set of rules, or a code of conduct that enables civilized people to live together in a society.\nIt has nothing to do with a 'higher power' but primitive people would be unlikely to accept rules and regulations dictated by just another person, so god was invented to keep a journal of who's doing what to whom.
100380
The universe has been shown to be decaying.  It is going from an orderly state to a disorderly state.  This is called entropy.\n\nThere is no known natural force or law in the universe that reverses this.  On a small scale, we can see that our intelligence reverses disorder temporarily.\n\nTherefore, on a universal scale, there must be an intelligence (obviously an intelligence far beyond ours) with the power to set the universe in order to start with.  These are two of the attributes of God.\n\nSo, yes, order in the universe is a proof of God.\n\n-------------------------\n\nTo address some flaws in a previous answer's argument:\n\nThe "Laws of nature" are just another way of saying "the rules of order."  And like any procedure, someone makes the rules.  Like a basketball game, there could be any set of rules, but the ones that are used are what distinguish it from being a hockey game.  And these rules were decided upon by intelligent beings.\n\nAlso, it is not true that all things must lead to infinite regression.  Infinite regression is only one possibility; the other is infinite existence -- in other words, God.
292962
Civil Law, Natural Law, and the Law of the Peoples.
810380
Law is designed to bring order out of chaos. Society cannot survive without laws. Just imagine if there were no laws and everyone did what they want, when they want. It would be anarchy. In the end vigilantism would rule. Still a form of law I guess, but not necessarily a preferred one. Law does not just punish, it also protects, both the innocent and the guilty.