Posted on 09/05/2003 1:45:10 PM PDT by G. Stolyarov II
In all the discussion about displaying the Ten Commandments in the Alabama courthouse, has anyone asked the fundamental question: what are the Ten Commandments? What is their philosophic meaning and what kind of society do they imply? Religious conservatives claim that the Ten Commandments supplied the moral grounding for the establishment of America. But is that even possible? Let's put aside the historical question of what sources the Founding Fathers, mostly Deists, drew upon. The deeper question is: can a nation of freedom, individualism and the pursuit of happiness be based on the Ten Commandments? Let's look at the commandments. The wording differs among the Catholic, Protestant and Hebrew versions, but the content is the same. The first commandment is: "I am the Lord thy God." As first, it is the fundamental. Its point is the assertion that the individual is not an independent being with a right to live his own life but the vassal of an invisible Lord. It says, in effect, "I own you; you must obey me." Could America be based on this? Is such a servile idea even consistent with what America represents: the land of the free, independent, sovereign individual who exists for his own sake? The question is rhetorical. The second commandment is an elaboration of the above, with material about not serving any other god and not worshipping "graven images" (idols). The Hebrew and Protestant versions threaten heretics with reprisals against their descendants—inherited sin—"visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation . . ." This primitive conception of law and morality flatly contradicts American values. Inherited guilt is an impossible and degrading concept. How can you be guilty for something you didn't do? In philosophic terms, it represents the doctrine of determinism, the idea that your choices count for nothing, that factors beyond your control govern your "destiny." This is the denial of free will and therefore of self-responsibility. The nation of the self-made man cannot be squared with the ugly notion that you are to be punished for the "sin" of your great-grandfather. The numbering differs among the various versions, but the next two or three commandments proscribe taking the Lord's name "in vain" and spending a special day, the Sabbath, in propitiating Him. In sum, the first set of commandments orders you to bow, fawn, grovel and obey. This is impossible to reconcile with the American concept of a self-reliant, self-owning individual. The middle commandment, "Honor thy father and mother," is manifestly unjust. Justice demands that you honor those who deserve honor, who have earned it by their choices and actions. Your particular father and mother may or may not deserve your honor—that is for you to judge on the basis of how they have treated you and of a rational evaluation of their moral character. To demand that Stalin's daughter honor Stalin is not only obscene, but also demonstrates the demand for mindlessness implicit in the first set of commandments. You are commanded not to think or judge, but to jettison your reason and simply obey. The second set of commandments is unobjectionable but is common to virtually every organized society—the commandments against murder, theft, perjury and the like. But what is objectionable is the notion that there is no rational, earthly basis for refraining from criminal behavior, that it is only the not-to-be-questioned decree of a supernatural Punisher that makes acts like theft and murder wrong. The basic philosophy of the Ten Commandments is the polar opposite of the philosophy underlying the American ideal of a free society. Freedom requires: — a metaphysics of the natural, not the supernatural; of free will, not determinism; of the primary reality of the individual, not the tribe or the family; — an epistemology of individual thought, applying strict logic, based on individual perception of reality, not obedience and dogma; — an ethics of rational self-interest, to achieve chosen values, for the purpose of individual happiness on this earth, not fearful, dutiful appeasement of "a jealous God" who issues "commandments." Rather than the Ten Commandments, the actual grounding for American values is that captured by Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged: "If I were to speak your kind of language, I would say that man's only moral commandment is: Thou shalt think. But a 'moral commandment' is a contradiction in terms. The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments."
Again historically inaccurate. The 14th Amendment was never intended to apply the establishment clause to the states. That is evidenced by the Blaine Amendment which failed and 14 other attempts to begin the amendment process in Congress applying the 1st Amendment to the states.
The 14th Amendment was intended to protect the individual rights of all US citizens. A worthy cause. The establishment clause was a restraint on the federal government, not an individual right.
Of note here is that all the states managed to disestablish state religions without the omnipotent 14th Amendment and it's penumbras.
But that's neither here nor there. The Constitution never required the banning of religion from the public square. Quite the contrary as evidenced by Article 1 Section 7 of the US Constituion which proscribes doing business on Sunday, a bow to the Fourth Commandment. More to the point the founders acknowledged that rights come from God, "the Creator", not from the state, the SCOTUS or Presidents writing letters to Danbury Baptists.
Banning of religion from the public square is Marxist, not Jeffersonian.
Which brings us to your final paragraph. Undoubtedly in times past there has been lots of killing and mayhem due to religion and there is to this day. But if you want to go purely on a numbers basis Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot et al have religion beat by miles and there deeds have been in the recent past, not ancient history.
You can argue that God shoul be banned from the public square because it offends some folk but you can't do it honestly from a historical or Constitutional basis.
If you want God and religion banned from public you should do it honestly be amending the Constitution to do just that and not rely on judicial activism whne it accords with your ideology. When they come for your guns don't be surprised if they find a right to be free of weapons in the 14th Amendment.
-James Madison
The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: that it connected in one indissoluble bond civil government with the principles of Christianity.
-John Quincy Adams
(Source: John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), Vol. VI, p. 9.)
At least two ways that I know of. One, the privileges and immunities clause -- the rights set forth in the First Amendment (including but not limited to the establishment clause) are privileges and immunities of all US citizens. Two, these rights are part of our substantive right to liberty under the due process clause. I personally prefer the first method, but my understanding is that the Supreme Court essentially adopted the second method.
A third method is the Ninth Amendment, which should be construed to incorporate by reference the individual rights philosophy set forth in the Declaration of Independence. My understanding is that no court has ever used the Ninth Amendment this way -- unfortunately.
The federal courts have this power of judicial review under Article III -- a question of law that has been settled since the Marbury vs. Madison case. Moreover, the right to religious freedom -- which is what we are discussing here -- can equally be derived from the Ninth Amendment, the privileges and immunities clause of the 14th Amendment, or the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.
I agree that the 14th Amendment was intended to protect individual rights, but would add that religious freedom (and, more broadly, intellectual freedom) is not only an individual right, but arguably one of the most important individual rights we have. The Founding Fathers, such as Jefferson and Madison, were acutely aware of the long, sorry history of the commingling of church and state during that time that historians now call the Dark and Middle Ages. Indeed, many people came from Old Europe to the New World to escape religious tyranny.
If the State has the right to impose religion on you, then it effectively owns or controls your mind and your life -- the very opposite of the State's recognition of your "inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It is no accident that the man who wrote these words in the Declaration of Independence was also the man who explained that the establishment clause of the First Amendment established the principle of separation of church and state.
I don't think that our choice is between religion and Communism (or Marxism, or socialism), but between freedom and statism -- whether the government recognizes your inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, or whether the government violates these rights to some degree by asserting ownership or control over your mind, your property, and your life. Theocracy, or religious tyranny, is merely one form of statism. Communism is another form of statism. Both forms, and many other variations, are to be distinguished from the constitutional republic that our Founding Fathers actually intended for us, a form that -- albeit imperfectly -- was based on the individual rights philosophy outlined in the Declaration of Independence.
An excellent idea! :-}
Keep in mind that despite what Myron Thonpson has to say there is no right not to be offended in the Constitution nor have I ever met anyone who believs it is a natural right.
The Fifth Circuit banning football players in Texas from voluntary prayer is an abrifgement of their rights as human beings to free speech and their exercise of religion.. The Eleventh Circuit ordering the cessation of voluntary prayer at dinner time at VMI is a violation of their individual rights to free speech and their exercise of religion. The Ninth Circuit oredering public school children to cease and desist the recitation of the POA with the words "under God" included is a violation of their rights to free speech and the exercise of their religion. And finally, Myron Thompson and the Appeals Court ordering Alabaman's how to decorate their courtroom with what historical documents is a power never granted to the federal government, it is a power delegated to the states.
Putting a statue of the Virgin Mary in the courthouse would establish a religion. Installing a crucifix on the steeple would establish a religion. Hanging a Jewish Star on the courthourse would establish a relgion.
Banning the Ten Commandments which even Myron Thompson admits is the basis for American jurisprudence is also the establishment of religion. The New Age religion of secular humanism whose creed is moral relativism.
I don't know anybody who advocates a theocracy. I certainly don't but I'm sick of judicial activists, the ever widening wall and an American judicial sytem that favbors the secualists at the expense of those who believe in God.
You're going to see a push back.
When I read the above, I discontinued further reading. No need to... this is just another humanist rant.
Catch phrases to keep in mind: Western Civilization - 2 philosophies of living, symbolized by two men: Locke & Rousseau - let's compare them...
One leads to our Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and the Constitution; the other leads to what is probably the first political slogan ever invented by a democRAT " Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite " and then strives to purify its higher plane of reasoning by instilling the Terror.
One engenders a Great Nation that almost rends itself asunder in a civil war to decide if it will live free or allow part of it's people to be nothing more than chattel - the other, during the same time frame, engenders the seeds of totalitarian thought that will soon give birth to the murderous "ism's" of the 20th century.
Which one do you think the author of the above article thinks he lives in?
CGVet58
Are you sure about that?
Taken from the book description of "Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris, the Rake Who Wrote the Constitution."
James Madison admitted it after Gouverneur Morris died: Madison held the title "Father of the Constitution," but the "finish given to the style and arrangement of the Constitution fairly belongs to the pen of Mr. Morris." The author of the great Preamble to the Constitution and much of the rest of the document was a wealthy, raffish New Yorker who was above all things a loyal son of the American Revolution.
Let's put aside the historical question of what sources the Founding Fathers, mostly Deists, drew upon.
Translation: Let's open up with a typical Libertarian bald faced lie. (Truth: 21 Anglicans, 16-18 Calvinists, 2 Methodists, 2 Lutherans, 2 Roman Catholics, 1 lapsed Quaker sometimes Anglican, and 1 (ONE) open Diest - Dr. Franklin, who attended every kind of Christian worship, called for public prayer, and contributed to all denominations. - source: Bradford "A Worthy Company")
It says, in effect, "I own you; you must obey me."
The typical Libertarian statement of open rebellion and blind allegiance to the god of Chance who authored "evolution" which says that man is an accident of random chance. If our author hates God, denies the eistance of Creator, and believes that he is nothing but an accident of random chance, then it is not possible for him to subscribe to abstracts like reason and morality since they are nothing but random chemical processes. If the chemistry in his brain is a result of what is ingested, his thought process is the total result of dinner and whatever narcotics the Libertarian is fueled on. We can reasonably assume then that this avowed atheist created himself, or is dependent on two other animals for his existance. Both prospects are laughable.
Could America be based on this?
Absolutely. Who exactly were the Puritans and the Pilgrims, and what was Christopher Columbus and the Spanish explorers if they were not highly religous people who trusted God? When examining the Constitutions of the various states, why was it a requirement for most of them to believe in orthodox Christianity?
Is such a servile idea even consistent with what America represents: the land of the free, independent, sovereign individual who exists for his own sake?
This is evidence that we are dealing with a complete ignorant moron, and total apparatchik of the Atheist Deconstructionalists. For the abundant evidence of the remarkable faith of America's forefounders, that this clod can't find any evidence of it, speaks openly against his claims. Furthermore, wherever Christianity has been rejected in favor of other gods (like Islam), or no God (like Cuba, China and the former Soviet Union), or many gods (like India), or a new found rejection of Christianity (like the united States and Europe), then one sees slavery, servitude, dependance and everyone as Wards of the State. I can only conclude that this is really the goal of Dr. Binswanger - to usher in a pagan servile state of Lords, Barons, Kings and serfs.
Inherited guilt is an impossible and degrading concept.
That is why Christians reject Binswanger's premise. How can we expect a belligerent and open God Hater to express any honesty whatsoever when it comes to things he is an irrational enemy to? Christianity, or for that matter, the entire gospel looks towards Christ to break the chain of sin and death. Binswainger, like all of his Libertarian myrmidons, can not possibly fathom Cause & Effect. They want to do whatever they want to do, are scared silly by the obvious consequences of their open rebellion and self gratification, so they conjure up this new religion that denies all of the history of man, invents a new world thoroughally constrained within the bounds of their hedonistic minds, and then compiles this sort of dreck - a hit piece on Christianity and a total rewrite of history. Libertarians, like their Marxist bretheren employ the exact same techniques in their plot to destroy the Middle Class, kill off God, and return the world to a thousand years of darkness.
The nation of the self-made man cannot be squared with the ugly notion that you are to be punished for the "sin" of your great-grandfather.
In other words, Dr Binswanger wants to engage in any kind of immorality, and then he wants to pretend that none of his friends or relatives are harmed by his rotten reputation. Typical Libertarian "thought", throughout the history of man, it has been important to not defame or taint the name of the family. Why do you suppose that is? Dr Binswainger is to ignorant to see that reputation and integrity have long lasting effects. Dr Binswainger is too stupid and self-centered to understand that rotten parents usually raise rotten children. Good fruit does not come from a diseased tree, but Dr Binswainger doesn't live in this world, he lives in this fantasy land of Unicorns, elves, and the inherent perfect nature of man
...taking the Lord's name "in vain" and spending a special day, the Sabbath, in propitiating Him. ...
No, Dr Binswainger would rather say "God Damn" all the time, not recognizing that he is offending people who believe in God, he is also stating foolishness according to his own folly, in that he denies the existance of a Creator God, yet wants to be able to send down curses according to God's name. And what is this "propitiating" business? The Ten Commandments says "for in six days God labored, and on the seventh day he rested..." God is giving man a day off. Dr Binswainger is too stupid to realize that during the French Revolution and in Stalin's reformation, the tried to change the work week into a ten day cycle. God decreed that man should live according to a hebdamodal cycle, thus both experiments to deviate from seven days resulted in failure. But Dr Binswainger's raw arrogance and self worship prevents him from considering that.
Your particular father and mother may or may not deserve your honor—that is for you to judge on the basis of how they have treated you and of a rational evaluation of their moral character.
Notice at this point, he has completely deviated from the original premise, and is now standing on a soap-box preaching his open rebellion and utter hatred towards God, Christians, the Family unit, and traidional American values. What kind of demonic hell hole has this guy been raised in where he openly desires the destruction of the family unit? This is why Libertarianism should be killed while it is still young. It is perversion and moral sickness straight from the bowels of Hell. Notice that Libertarianism shares the exact same attitudes towards the family unit as Marxist Communism. I am not surprised.
To demand that Stalin's daughter honor Stalin is not only obscene,
Yes, of course, everyone has a Stalin for a father. This is typical Libertarian demagoguery, notice that God hating, and dwelling on Stalin and sharing Stalin's ideals for the perfect state occupy this man's mind. Need I say more about their true origins and commonality?
...a metaphysics of the natural, not the supernatural; of free will, not determinism;...
Can anyone explain the evolutionary origins of "free will"? It would seem to me, that chemical processes are highly deterministic. But Dr Binswainger is so steeped in his own foolishness and stupidity that he can't even be consistant - except that he is a consistant Libertarian - IOW, irrational, fanatical, rebellious, deceptive, and immoral.
I'm not sure that voluntary trade constitutes "coveting your neighbor's goods," but I would agree with the broader point that people can use the Bible, instead of facts and logic, to attempt to justify just about anything.
"the fear of god is the beginning of knowledge" i dont know where this is in the bible but i saw in on a bumper sticker, and i ask myself, should we live our lives in total fear?
No. Besides, the statement on the bumper sticker is simply wrong.
i would never argue about labels, but from looking at his life and writings it is pretty clear that franklin, while a christian, was not at all dogmatic and not even particularly religious. he was a product of enlightenment rationalism and clearly rejected the type of puritan psuedo-theocracy he'd experienced growing up in new england.
you talk about selective quoting, but neo-puritans themselves are quite fond of pointing to the mere mention of God in any of the framer's writing (included, laughably, the term 'anno domino') as evidence that they were both devout and activist.
I agree. The Constitutional prohibition is against the establishment of religion, not merely offending someone. In fact, the First Amendment guarantees the right of free speech even if such speech might offend someone.
Putting a statue of the Virgin Mary in the courthouse would establish a religion. Installing a crucifix on the steeple would establish a religion. Hanging a Jewish Star on the courthourse would establish a relgion.
I agree. How is installing a monument of the Ten Commandments any different from any of these examples?
Banning the Ten Commandments which even Myron Thompson admits is the basis for American jurisprudence is also the establishment of religion. The New Age religion of secular humanism whose creed is moral relativism.
I don't know what Myron Thompson admitted (or didn't admit) about the Ten Commandments, but I certainly don't admit it. I don't need some ancient religious tablet to tell me that, e.g., murder, theft, and perjury are morally wrong and should be against the law.
I don't know anybody who advocates a theocracy. I certainly don't but I'm sick of judicial activists, the ever widening wall and an American judicial sytem that favbors the secualists at the expense of those who believe in God.
I'm sick of anyone -- whether religious zealots on the right, political correctness nazis on the left, or whoever -- who wants to use the coercive power of government to tell me what I should think, what I should do, or how I should live. Who are you or anyone else to tell me how I should live my own life? It isn't yours to tell me how to live it. The Founding Fathers, too, understood that every man's life belonged to him and him alone. It doesn't belong to the State, and it doesn't belong to any church, either.
funny you should say that.
in europre, it was the very birth of the middle class, and the reemergence of rational sciences after a thousand years of dogmatic darkness, that led to God's decline.
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