Libertarian pushing morality?

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Wed Dec 08, 2010 9:11 am

Ah Punishing sinners. A thankless pass time. A LOT of money in it though.

According to Judeo/Christian philosophy punishing sinners is reserved for the Maker. Punishing disturbers of the peace is allowed.

Where our "religious" friends go off the rails is in conflating the two. Vice may be unseemly. It is not crime. Vice is to be regulated. Crime punished.

You can't stop people from doing damage to their immortal souls - called in some cases "a learning experience". You can create quite a bit of crime by trying to suppress vice though.

Disturbers of the peace?

Well fashions in vice abatement change over time. For a long time in America alcohol was the favored target. Now we have new ones. And even those are on the verge of passing in the next 10 to 20 years. I wonder what we will be hating in 2030?

Of course part of the problem here is the fragmented nature of the hate market. Some hate bankers, some politicians, Jew hatred is coming back to more normal levels, and some people are even so picky as to hate only Democrats or on the other side only Republicans. A very interesting dichotomy in America. The Democrats want to force you to do one thing. The Republicans another. They are united in the belief in force. Which is rather far from a belief in the Maker.

Since every society need something to hate I propose the Andromeda Galaxy. It is sufficiently far away so that it is probably safe for a while.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Wed Dec 08, 2010 9:14 am

Like any human I have my petty hatreds. I refuse to elevate them to the level of principle.

mdeminico · Post by **mdeminico** » Wed Dec 08, 2010 7:36 pm

Skipjack wrote:
Take a stroll around Washington DC and look at the engravings on the buildings. Read the federalist papers and the anti-federalist papers. Read the writings of the founding fathers. Then tell me the entire basis of our society isn't Judeo-Christian principles.
Why, just because the word "god" is mentioned a couple of times?
That does not mean anything.
All emperors in Christian Europe were crowned by the pope. They claimed to be emperors by gods divine choice, blah, blah. They even fought wars for their version of Christianity (catholic versus protestant). They sloughterd thousands of those adhering to the wrong version and starved many more to death. They had their god given right to rule whatever part of the world written in many papers and on many inscriptions. All of that did not make their ruling any more divine, did it?

Nowhere in there is a command to continue for the church members (let alone force other people in the society) to give all of their possessions to the church (and especially not to any other central organization).
Did you actually read chapter 5? Yes? What happened to Hananias and Saphira when they did not want to share all their money that they got for their land with the church?

This was ONLY possible one time in history, and you read about it in the book of Acts.
The catholic church, as an institution is still working this way up to this day. Their priests own nothing (nowadays they possess a few personal items), everything belongs to the church and after their death even the few things that they owned go into the possession of the church.

Um, I grew up Catholic, my uncle is a priest. Trust me, he owns things. He gives most of his things away because he's provided for by the Church, and feels that he always will be.

And yes I did read Chapter 5, and my point still stands, that was for the community at the time. Communism works great in small groups for short periods of time. Heck, variants of "Communism" exist in every household in this country, my kids don't work to earn their keep, we give it to them. It's hardly Communism, but you get the point.

And on your first question, are you serious? "Because God is mentioned a few times?" You aren't blind, open your eyes, He's not just "mentioned a few times". And it's not "religion", it's "Christianity" they were using as their basis...

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, not on religion but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ" - Patrick Henry

"You do well to wish to learn our arts and our ways of life and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are. Congress will do everything they can to assist you in this wise intention." - George Washington speaking to the Delaware Indian Chiefs

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports . . . And let us indulge with caution the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion . . . Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail to the exclusion of religious principle." President George Washington

"...The Smiles of Heaven can never be expected On a Nation that disregards the eternal rules of Order and Right, which Heaven Itself Ordained." President George Washington

"The reason that Christianity is the best friend of Government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart." President Thomas Jefferson

"Of all systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appear to be so pure as that of Jesus." Thomas Jefferson, To William Canby, 1813

I don't personally care what you believe, but don't come lying to me about what our founders believed and on what principles they founded this nation.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Wed Dec 08, 2010 8:43 pm

mdeminico wrote: "The reason that Christianity is the best friend of Government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart." President Thomas Jefferson

Hmmm. Wasn't Jefferson mostly anit-govenment? Doesn't this suggest that he has similar concerns about Chritianity? Just a thought.

mdeminico · Post by **mdeminico** » Thu Dec 09, 2010 4:10 pm

KitemanSA wrote:
mdeminico wrote: "The reason that Christianity is the best friend of Government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart." President Thomas Jefferson
Hmmm. Wasn't Jefferson mostly anit-govenment? Doesn't this suggest that he has similar concerns about Chritianity? Just a thought.

Every single one of our founders were "mostly anti-government" by today's standards.

They envisioned a government where a central authority did almost nothing (national defense, common human rights laws, and settling interstate disputes were about it).

Diogenes · Post by **Diogenes** » Thu Dec 09, 2010 7:06 pm

KitemanSA wrote:
mdeminico wrote: "The reason that Christianity is the best friend of Government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart." President Thomas Jefferson
Hmmm. Wasn't Jefferson mostly anit-govenment? Doesn't this suggest that he has similar concerns about Chritianity? Just a thought.

Jefferson was the leader of the Anti-Federalist coalition. He was opposed to the idea of an excessively powerful central government. He wasn't against government, just government which was too big. (He'd sh*t if he saw what we had now!

)

Jefferson was thought to be a deist, as opposed to a Christian. He had been accused of not being a Christian by his political enemies, and he made public pronouncements which were designed to allay this suspicion. I suspect the one above was one such of these.

Diogenes · Post by **Diogenes** » Thu Dec 09, 2010 7:07 pm

mdeminico wrote:
KitemanSA wrote:
mdeminico wrote: "The reason that Christianity is the best friend of Government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart." President Thomas Jefferson
Hmmm. Wasn't Jefferson mostly anit-govenment? Doesn't this suggest that he has similar concerns about Chritianity? Just a thought.
Every single one of our founders were "mostly anti-government" by today's standards.

They envisioned a government where a central authority did almost nothing (national defense, common human rights laws, and settling interstate disputes were about it).

What he said.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 2:10 am

My favorite description of Jefferson is that he was a man who wanted the best government possible.

"That government is best which governs least"; Th. Jefferson

happyjack27 · Post by **happyjack27** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:17 pm

jefferson was the most ardent supporter of separation of church and state. he wrote it in to the constitution. and he wrote it in in much clearer and comprehensive terms into his own virginia state constitution. if i were to guess i'd say he was an atheist. he was man of science and secular principles through and through.

rjaypeters · Post by **rjaypeters** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:37 pm

Jefferson had a copy of the Bible where he had cut out every reference to Jesus performing a miracle or being closely associated with divinity. I don't know why he cut out those passages...but he might have been a Deist. Look here:

http://www.sullivan-county.com/id3/jefferson_deist.htm

Diogenes · Post by **Diogenes** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 6:57 pm

happyjack27 wrote:jefferson was the most ardent supporter of separation of church and state. he wrote it in to the constitution. and he wrote it in in much clearer and comprehensive terms into his own virginia state constitution. if i were to guess i'd say he was an atheist. he was man of science and secular principles through and through.

He did not.

Jefferson was ambassador to France during the constitutional convention. He had no personal input into the founding document.

"The Words "Separation of Church and State" are not in the US Constitution. They were taken from a letter that Jefferson Wrote (in 1802, ~15 years later.) to the Danbury Baptist association in Danbury Connecticut, reassuring them that there would be no official State Church.

The Supreme court references this document because it's the only document they can find to support their theory that our government is supposed to be religion neutral. You would have thought the silly bastards would have read THIS part of the US Constitution:

"Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth."

Diogenes · Post by **Diogenes** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 7:03 pm

rjaypeters wrote:Jefferson had a copy of the Bible where he had cut out every reference to Jesus performing a miracle or being closely associated with divinity. I don't know why he cut out those passages...but he might have been a Deist. Look here:

http://www.sullivan-county.com/id3/jefferson_deist.htm

He was long accused of being a deist. He denied it repeatedly. Thomas Payne was a deist. He was ostracized in this country for admitting it. Jefferson would have been thrown out of office had he admitted the same.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 7:05 pm

in the Year of our Lord

Which was a very common way to say Anno Domini in these days.
Just saying.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 7:09 pm

Also, be careful what you wish for. I would rather be living in a country that is secular, no matter what the dominant religion is, than a country that is non secular with a religion that I can not identify with.
E.g. Iran is one of the few non secular countries in the world. The US would be on the same level with that country, just a different color...
Of course the scientists of this world would probably abandone the US for countries where education is not spoiled by religious believes.
I can predict that as well.

Example: Scientology is a dangerous cult with world dominance ambitions.
Their goal is it to overthrow the government. In a non secular country, you have to be worried about this.

Diogenes · Post by **Diogenes** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 7:36 pm

Skipjack wrote:
in the Year of our Lord
Which was a very common way to say Anno Domini in these days.
Just saying.

"Year of our Lord" was quite common in most legal documents up to a decade or so ago.

During the founding era, no one thought anything of it, because the Christian culture was so ubiquitous that it was only peculiar in it's absence. The Bulk of the people in 1787 regarded the phrase "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" as simply meaning there would be no Official State Church.

They certainly did not regard it as meaning that Christianity would be excluded from government. The Various contemporary acts of the Legislative, Judicial, and Executive branches of government demonstrate that.

(Official Prayers, Official Proclamations, Laws giving bibles to the Indians, etc.)

Hell, they even had officially sanctioned prayers DURING the convention.

Benjamin Franklin speech during convention:

"I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth -- that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that "except the Lord build they labor in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall be become a reproach and a bye word down to future age. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human Wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, and conquest.

I therefore beg leave to move -- that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that service."