Posted on 04/03/2011 2:54:35 PM PDT by EternalVigilance
1) Divine laws exist that men did NOT make, and these “natural laws” are good.
2) Government is limited by the REALITY of natural laws.
3) Laws exist that men DID make, and these “human laws” are often bad because they deny the REALITY of natural and Divine law.
4) Law is the material necessary for the construction of a human conscience, and every human being has a conscience built with either good or bad law.
5) Government cannot save the human soul, but can encourage either its redemption or damnation, therefore, it must also be restrained by the Divine influence of conscience in order to limit the potential damages within its grasp and capability.
6) A conscience built upon good law acknowledges reality and thereby fosters the liberty produced by limited government.
7) A conscience built upon bad law denies reality and thereby fosters the tyranny produced by unlimited government.
8) America was founded by followers of the only religion in the world that exclusively recognized the absolute, non-optional REALITY that government was (and is) limited: Christianity. This is why America must remain a “religion-sanctioned state” as intended by the founders, and refuse both the “state-sanctioned religion” and “secular-humanist state” they rejected.
9) Christianity is as necessary for the maintenance of limited government, as it is incompatible with unlimited government.
10) Secular humanism is the enemy of limited government, and remains incompatible with authentic Christianity.
11) The most powerful way to limit government is to chain… to codify man-created laws to the laws men did not make.
12) A secular-humanist version of conservatism (like libertarianism) denies reality, by refusing to promote the laws necessary for the construction of a human conscience, and, therefore, produces no more lasting liberty than overt liberalism. (See points #4 and #5 above).
So brief, yet so deep.
Amen!
Excellent!
Truly, this is a masterwork of brevity and power.
One might say ten...The Ten Commandments and the Bill of rights....what a perfect fit. I’m with you.
shot = short
sheesh
These ideas are right out of the book “The 5000 Year Leap” — a book of 28 principles behind the construction of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution; principles that were clearly in the minds of the Founding Fathers. A great book — one that all freedom-loving people should read and re-read — it brings right thinking to your brain — I know it did to mine...
A reason we have so much difficulty today lies in the degree to which we have allowed the so-called "progressives" to control the education of youth for the past several decades.
The ideas which dominated the "American mind" of 1776, according to Thomas Jefferson, were those encapsulated in the Declaration of Independence. Those ideas are contrasted with the "progressive" ideas which have replaced them in the public schools of America. The following is excerpted from "Lessons on Liberty," by La Vaughn G. Lewis, Co-Editor, "Our Ageless Constitution" & "Rediscovering the Ideas of Liberty." The "Lesson" contrasts the Founders' Ideas of Liberty" to be taught to rising generations, with the Counterfeit Ideas being promoted in the so-called "public schools" of America for decades.
“The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.” (Jefferson - 1774)
“Statesmen may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone which can establish the principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.” (John Adams - 1775)
“The Sacred Rights of Mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the Hand of the Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.” (Alexander Hamilton)
“Without God, there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first and the most basic expression of Americanism. Thus the founding fathers saw it, and thus, with God’s help, it will continue to be.” (Dwight Eisenhower)
“The same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe, the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.” (John F. Kennedy - 1961 Inaugural)
“…it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly implore His protection and favor….”(George Washington)
“Now the virtue which had been infused into the Constitution…and was to give it…the stability and duration to which it was destined, was no other than…those abstract principles…proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence—namely, the self-evident truths of the…unalienable rights of man…the…sovereignty of the people, always subordinate to a rule of right and wrong, and always responsible to the Supreme Ruler of the universe for the rightful exercise of that sovereign…power.” (John Quincy Adams, on the occasion of The Jubilee of the Constitution - 1839)
"Today, across our nation, we see consequences of decades of gross neglect and outright censorship of the Founders’ ideas from textbooks and from our public discourse. We have allowed counterfeit ideas to dominate the public square, and the Founders’ principles have been crowded out. Unwittingly, many teachers and other unknowing officials have participated in the agenda of an unelected mind-controlling elite whose tyrannical actions have robbed generations of Americans from reading or studying the ideas that made America free. Like termites, they have eroded our foundations as effectively as if they had burned the books. Yet, not once have they been willing to call it by its rightful name—censorship. Once, in America, stifling ideas about the Creator and Creator-endowed liberty was considered unthinkable. . . .
"The ideas of liberty must be passed on from generation to generation if liberty is to survive. These ideas, when they are allowed to be examined freely, will prevail, because their appeal is to reason and to the love for liberty that is deep in the human heart. John Adams warned: “The people of America now have the best opportunity and the greatest trust in their hands, that Providence ever committed to so small a number…if they betray their trust, their guilt will merit even greater punishment than other nations have suffered, and the indignation of Heaven.”
“The idea of God is the keystone of a perverted society. The true root of liberty, equality and culture is atheism.” (Karl Marx)
Our thinking is enlightened “in the degree in which we cease to depend upon belief in the supernatural.” (John Dewey, father of ‘progressive education’ and 1st President of American Humanist Society)
“…democracy is a human faith and movement, unencumbered by supernatural preconceptions.” (John Childs, a protégé of John Dewey at Columbia)
“…the majority of our youth still hold the values of their parents, and if we do not alter this pattern, if we do not resocialize ourselves to accept change, our society may decay.” (John Goodlad, 1971 Report to President, Schooling for the Future)
“As in 1933, humanists still believe that traditional theism, especially a faith in the prayer-hearing God, who is assumed to love and care for persons, to hear and understand their prayers, and be able to do something about them, is an unproved and outmoded faith.” (Humanist Manifesto II, 1973)
“…the most important factor moving us toward a secular society has been the educational factor. Our schools may not teach Johnny to read properly, but the fact that Johnny is in school until he is sixteen tends to lead toward elimination of religious superstition.” (Paul Blanshard, The Humanist, March-April, 1976)
“It [the Nat’l. Education Association’s publication list] includes the delegitimizing of all authority save that of the state, the degradation of traditional morality and the encouragement of citizens in general and children in particular to despise the rules and customs that make their society a functional democracy. The NEA is drifting into exceedingly dangerous waters, and probably carrying more than a few teachers and pupils with it.” (Chester E. Finn, Jr., Ass’t. Sec. Of Education & Prof. Of Education & Public Policy, Vanderbilt Univ., 1982)
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“Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines which conflict with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence…let me entreat you to come back. Return to the fountains whose waters spring close to the blood of the Revolution.” (Abraham Lincoln)
nice! I’m printing out for my wallet
Great quotes! thank you for compiling them
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. Common Sense
I note that none of them say “Christianity” in their quotes. Could it be that they believed in God but not Christianity?
I suppose Solomon Haym was good enough to be the financier of the American Revolution, but not good enough for Rev. Gordon?
And here without anger or resentment I bid you farewell. Sincerely wishing, that as men and christians, ye may always fully and uninterruptedly enjoy every civil and religious right; and be, in your turn, the means of securing it to others; but that the example which ye have unwisely set, of mingling religion with politics, may be disavowed and reprobated by every inhabitant of AMERICA. --Thomas Paine, Common Sense
As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensible duty of all government, to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business which government hath to do therewith. Let a man throw aside that narrowness of soul, that selfishness of principle, which the niggards of all professions are so unwilling to part with, and he will be at once delivered of his fears on that head. Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society. For myself, I fully and conscientiously believe, that it is the will of the Almighty, that there should be diversity of religious opinions among us: It affords a larger field for our Christian kindness. --Thomas Paine, Common Sense
“A people unwilling to use extreme violent force to preserve or obtain their liberty deserves the tyrants that rule them.” stockpirate
“Those who beat their guns in to plows will plow for those who do not.” Jefferson
“When people fear the government you have tyranny, when he government fears the people you have liberty.” Jefferson
“Rebellion to tyranny is obedience to God”
ping to self
Well said, Mr. Paine. For if a man is not free to be a Christian as best he understands that duty, then he is not free at all. (Hence the protections of religion provided for in the First Amendment.)
If he does possess such freedom, and fulfills the purpose of such freedom, the qualities when enable self-government will persist in this nation, and ensure that liberty can continue.
Or, if he ignores the purpose of that freedom, he contributes to not only its loss but that of liberty as a whole.
Our bureaucratic representatives are sitting in judgement of all of us, just as the Pharisees wrote more and more laws to condemn the Hebrews.
Those of use who believe in God need only the 10 Commandments.
This is the best thing I’ve read on Freerepublic in a while! VERY GOOD! right on!
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