Steve
I was originally going to publish this as a comment on Lance’s 10/17 noon-ish post, but I expect it will be much too long for that. (Anyone surprised?)
It seems that both Lance and Al are posting along the similar themes lately; Liberalism vs. Libertarianism (via Objectivism in Al’s case) vs. Neoconservatism vs. the Christian Right; self-interest vs. cooperation. Excellent!
I have two quick comments on Lance’s posting. First, if there is no judge over man’s acts throughout history, then there is no standard by which to judge that even murder is the worst thing you can do to someone. Recycling of molecules can’t be a bad thing. (‘Ain’t we gonna bury ‘em, Josey?’ ‘Nah, boy, a buzzard’s gotta eat– same as a worm.’) Second, the cited commentor who averred that our ‘damn good’ morality today should be thankfully credited to 6,000 years of human thought and experience is obviously an American or of Western European ilk. He writes history and develops a moral philosophy from the ‘winner’s’ protected perspective. He could not write this from a concentration camp, or from the Sudan, or from the womb in an abortion clinic. I daresay that Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, and Pol Pot would judge themselves of ‘damn good’ morals in a telephone poll. But we, being the winners, can judge them otherwise in self-righteousness, even without supra-historical standards of judgment.
We are at a point in history that freedom is at an apex. We may be falsely lulled into thinking that this is the inevitable outcome of historical teleology and that it will necessarily continue. The present condition is a rarity in history. Despotism is the rule. Freedom is the exception with no assurance that it will continue or increase.
Six thousand years of human history have demonstrated to me that as man increasingly denies God, and the going gets tough, even free men will raise the crescendo cry for a savior-king or savior-government onto the fast track back to loss of those freedoms. Libertarians, et al., may deny that this is a necessity, but this is just a statement of their faith. Denial of God’s sovereignty leads natural man in one of two destructive directions; rebellion or slavery; anarchy or subjection; self-interest or forced cooperation. These situations may transpire overnight or slowly, almost imperceptibly. But occur they will.
I hear and read a lot about people not wanting Christianity ‘crammed down their throats’. I agree. Christianity enforced by law is just as oppressive as any other despotism could be. An individual doesn’t become a Christian by performing certain actions like going to church or reading the Bible. It is indeed a personal transaction performed by God on his inner being. Nevertheless, it is considered illegal that the Christian worldview be allowed in the public political forum. Any law enacted by the usual, legal legislative processes would be immediately struck down simply by labeling it Christian. If the wannabe-god Supreme Court and its federal and state subsidiaries deny God over them as their standard, why would they ever be bothered by a simple piece of paper called the Constitution? They now are judges over the Constitution and its meaning. The logical consequence is to judge over all of American life regardless of majority choices. Their only standards are the same as anyone not recognizing God– their own feelings or sentiments rationalized and stated in some form of ‘logical’ justification. (Oh, yeah, but the court-gods have a nearly inexhaustible supply of lawyers, guns and money.)
It’s seems odd that people will heartily reject God, who created everything ex nihilo, and his standards, but so easily will accept standards made by themselves or other men that were created ex nihilo. Anarchy or slavery, anyone?
6 comments:
Sorry that I haven't responded to your pointing out an article to me but I have been battling a computer virus and other various attacks. I have done a less than thorough search for the bandaids article. I did however peruse your blogs and found them of interest. I have some interesting other names for the dummocrats though. Such as flemocrats and scumocrats or sputumocrats. lol I make me laugh.
Just as offensive as religion by law is no-religion by law, and that government includes the courts. They are not outside of the law either. Also note that if our founding fathers had no intention of including God in Government then they would not have had the forsight to include a carving of Moses holding the ten commandments over the portico of the supreme court for all to see. Hm, raises interesting questions concerning the intent of the originating founders of this country versus what the intellegencia of today says were thier intentions .
It is also interesting to note that the Supreme Court Building was not completed until 1935. Here is some of its description by the National Park Service:
"The raised Bench behind which the Justices sit during sessions, and other furniture in the Courtroom are mahogany. The Bench was altered in 1972 from straight-line to a "winged" or half-hexagon shape to provide sight and sound advantages over the original design."
"Directly above the Bench are two central figures, depicting Majesty of the Law and Power of Government. Between them is a tableau of the Ten Commandments."
Take that, (former) Alabama Justice Moore. The first amendment of the Bill of Rights has, since its inception in 1791, never allowed such foolishness as you have tried to perpetrate.
Liked your last paragraph. Yes, I read the rest of it, too.
I know we can never really settle the question of where morality comes from. I can tell you this, though: if I knew for a fact that there was no God, and that all morality really comes from men, the first thing I would do is invent religion, because I just don't trust us to handle it.
"...[I]f there is no judge over man’s acts throughout history, then there is no standard..."
We know that the universe and society exhibit orderly behavior in the main. We have no evidence that there is, hence, an orderer. We have books that claim various things about the Orderer and how to propitiate Him/Her/Them/It.
Since writing was invented there have always been governments, but that doesn't prove that they are anything but an aberration. How happy were people before that? A lot of assumptions are made by people to promote their various systems.
I'm not arguing for Atheism or anarchy. The standard is human happiness. For models, I would look at the places people have been fleeing from and to.
Hm people fleeing to a predominately Christian nation from places that have lower moral standards than Christians or fleeing from nations that have extreme moral standards to a that is us by the way.
My contention has always been that Without Christianity this country would fall into poverty and some ugly form of Government unrecognizable to even what we have today. That the viewpoints that the originators of the constitution had and we strive so hard to maintain and have become that "shining city on a hill", to the rest of this dark world were all shaped by thier biblical viewpoints.
Who is going to be first to step outside of the little square of Christianity and try and work out, for example, why Japan is among the lowest crime rates in the world.
Remember, they are a predominantly Bhuddist nation with a statutory monarchy based upon the "divine right of kings".
BUSH FOR KING BUSH FOR EMPORER!!!! yeccchhh!
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