In a democracy, bi-partisan support is usually a bad sign for democracy. People need to learn the difference between policies that get enacted vs. a REAL debate that informs which policies should get enacted. Many people seem to think that the latter half should simply be ignored in this situation, which is terribly wrong in a democracy.
In a democracy, it doesn't matter: all the people are still responsible for the political will, whether by action, inaction, or any degree in between. At some point, Bush getting elected was not important enough for some people to try and stop (remember the Green Party, for instance?) At some point, there was a tradeoff between how important it was and how much effort they were willing to spend.
It may seem unfair, but that's the general theory behind why democracy IS legitimate (there are, of course, MANY problems with this model, but there always are)
Re:This gets modded up with no proof!?!
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A New Kind of War
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The problem is that if you are familiar with how terroist cells around the world operate "ties to Bin Laden" doesn't really mean all that much. Just about every terrorist network these days has ties to every other. Almost certainly Bin Laden was involved with these men in some way at some point (trained at his camps, for one), and almost certainly some of their money comes from him. But was the mastermind: was he directly involved in this? These "ties" to Bin Laden don't tell us anything about that. Always beware of statements by government agencies that can be both true and totaly off-topic at once. This is the first technique they teach for intelligence PR.
Re:World Without Borders
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A New Kind of War
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· Score: 5, Insightful
As most political science people have been warning for years, increased globalization must inherently lead to anger and frustration, even if every country in the world were a democracy (which they are not, making it even worse). The reason is that while the actions of your national government have at least the stink of legitimacy for a dictatorship, and lots of legitimacy for a democracy: the actions of on foriegn nation upon another have absolutely none. So, as the foriegn policy of one nation increasingly effects the lives of people in other countries, we're bound to see major unrest and anger. It's simply what occurs whenever there is major disconnect between people who make a policy and those affected by it. The innovation of democracy is that it mostly solves this problem. But it can only do so domestically. The fact that a nation is "democratic" is totally meaningless from the perspective of those who are not citizens.
The Middle East is a prime example: many of our foriegn polices, which seem almost trivial wave of our hands to us, have had tremendous effects on the lives of people there. Some are good, some are bad. Naturally, those who feel they are bad are going to feel absolutely violated, and these feelings of illegitimacy often give rise to extreme fringes that are willing to use violence- because they lack any other avenue (remember: in a democrcacy, this avenue is becoming part of the political and legal system: even if your party loses, it still has a chance to live and fight another day).
So, contrary to people's claims that Bin Laden hates democracy: that we are a democracy is actually probably totally irrelevant to people like him. This concept, in fact, is almost totally opposite to the real problem: that he feels that there is no legitimacy (which democracy would be one avenue of providing) to what the US does in the Middle East. The problem is not that we are a democracy, but rather that there is NO democracy at work to mediate between our ME policies and the people affected by them.
Remember: this is not a moral estimation of anything or anyone: simply a policy analysis of the dangers that inevitably arise when situations of political illegitimacy exist.
A side note: The one morbid effect our democracy might have on Bin Laden would be to lead him to conclude that all Americans are ultimately responsible for what our government does, since it's power ultimately rests in us. That this rationalization might be how he or his cells justified attacking civilians is an almost chilling thought. There is nothing per se wrong with this reasoning: we are responsible for our government. But to think that such a previously glorious and wonderful fact could be employed in such a sick, blowback fashion, is deeply deeply saddening.
Re:This gets modded up with no proof!?!
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A New Kind of War
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· Score: 1
The first confusing piece of evidence is this: there were on place cellphone reports that the terrorists were wearing red headbands. These are a symbol not of Shiite, but rather of Sunni Muslim extremists: people who are theological enemies of Bin Laden's networks. However, as many have pointed out, the extremists in both sects aren't really theologians: they've been increasingly willing to work together. But it could well mean that some of the terrorists were working on Iraqi funds. And there is also the confusing question of Osama huimself.
The basic confusion is this: Bin Laden's network is definately implicated. However, this doesn't have to mean that he had any direct influence over what happened (that the Taliban could well be telling the truth). He's still totally culpable, but for the most part, we're focusing on him because he's the only face we have. Despite his pretensions otherwise, Bin Laden's primary role is to dole out money: to open his accounts to these groups. He is not much of a mastermind, just a folk hero. He's part of these terrorist movements to be sure, and certainly a man we need to get, but there's no reason to think that he is the one who actually planned and coordinated this particular attack, this time. Many of his cells operate largely on their own: they already have all the money they need from him. For all we know, the mastermind of this attack could have been on one of those planes. Or they could still be out there, planning a follow-up.
So, while it may be nice for the American public to have a face to hate, it's probably not the most accurate picture of what's actually going on, and what the intelligence community is really concerned about. He's more probably just another accomplice in this particular case, rather than the guy or guys we really need to get as soon as possible. If he's ever brought to trial, I can see how this might confuse Americans who had been focusing on him as the ultimate mastermind. The media can't present a complex picture. It has no ability at the moment to explain how terrorist cells operate, and no one has the patience to listen.
One major problem is that strict Muslim law forbids the handing over of a Muslim, no matter what crimes they have committed, to unbelievers. Hence Afghanistans claim that if we present evidence to them, they will try him and sentance him to death there, but they will not hand him over. This could be a real breaking point in negotiations, and I have no idea how we could possibly resolve these differences (we certainly aren't going to trust their "legal system" on this one).
I can think of a nice cynical answer for the "long, new kind of war rhetoric." If we just limited this action to killing off Osama and his cells, then we'd have some sort of resolution for the time being (though of course that would solve none of the social problems underlying terrorism, but they're not talking about solving those anyway).
But if we can drag this out a couple more years, long after the present crisis is over, then guess who is a shill-in next Presidential election? All he'd have to do would be to give us those big doe-eyes and say "You wouldn't replace me right the midst of this time of crisis, now would you?" We are now setting up to fight an enemy that is invisible, that could be everywhere and nowhere, that could live in rhetoric just as easily as reality: to any real threats can be added just about any rumored evil to scare people into doing just about anything. Furthermore, this "war" footing gives Cheny and Rumsfeld all the power they've ever dreamed of having over both American poluace and the world. At this very moment, this country has impunity to do almost anything it wishes, with the ready-made reason that there were terrorists involved: a claim that is almost impossible to disprove (them no longer being under any obligation to prove it.) They've already announced that the press is basically going to be shut out of government actions altogether from now on, far moreso than even in the heavily managed Gulf War. Why this may tactically be a good idea, this sort of secrecy has steadily increased since the Reagan era. The government tells the press what to say. The press, not wanting to lose what few leads they actually have, simply repeat government claims verbatim. They have no other way to confirm or deny them. It's REALLY dangerous for any sort of public ability to do oversight, especially when the government can consistently get away with not releasing documents even after 20 years (the Reagan documents STILL haven't come out, even though by law they are past due almost a year now).
If they are indeed a monopoly (especially if they are a government sponsored one, as favoritism from the FCC could well be argued) then they have just as much power to censor music as the government. The fact that we call one entity the government and another entity a corporation makes little difference if the authority is the same.
One fairly hilarious reality is that our economy today is far LESS global than it was when, say, England was the center of world trade. Foriegn trade in the the US is simply not anywhere near as important as everyone (especially Clinton's "strategic traders") makes it out to be. As most serious economists have pointed out, trade can be simply a thought of as another form of production technology.
Reagan, in practice, was far more willing to compromise on sensible issues, especially after his economic advisors failed to deliver their promises of huge growth, and their errors merely cost us a huge deficit.
I'm just wishing for any President that will employ actual thoughtful economists instead of wacky hacks who were laughed out of academia and are looking for revenge. Back to the gold standard!
The problem, then, is a legal and political one, not an economic one. If the government were this powerful, they could simply force people to work in any factory, Nike or not. The problem is that workers have no legal rights AT their jobs, not that they HAVE jobs at all. There is nothing at all wrong with a corporation offering a job with low pay (at least it seems that way to us!). There is only something wrong with people being forced to work there in conditions that are horrendous, or having what we consider to be their rights violated by their own government.
How common: make claims, then get all huffy when someone DARES to point out that they are unconvincing or fallacious. You made a bigoted claim: I was well within the bounds of legitimacy in labeling it as such. And you consistently made statements that again and again demonstrated that you will simply through out reason whenever it doesn't suit your opinions. You said as much, so what exactly is wrong with me pointing it out?
---Your stupid assumption that I am one of these religious freaks is so far off it is not even funny.---
Who said you were even religious? I said you speak in the language of a demagouge, not religion. At least most religious people don't make such silly nihilistic statements as that everything is just a matter of one faith or another.
---I do believe that for most people religion is a great way to vent off and allows many of them to keep their sanity. ---
Sure, whatever floats their boat. But the fact that religion is part of many people's lives does not somehow make it fundamental to human life, morality, etc, nor does it actually itself address any moral issue.
As usual, because you have no actual answer to the question at hand, you resort to confronting people, not arguements.
Plato's arguement is simple: If "good" is whatever a particualr god says is moral, then this collapses the entire idea of morality, making it entirely arbitrary. WHATEVER the god says is moral would be moral: rape, murder, anything. There wouldn't even be any grounds for calling this god "good", because NOTHING such a god could do could even possibly not be "good" since "good" is defined as "whatever this god wills." But if a god is good because it respects certain moral values (is against rape, etc.), then the standard of good must exist entirely outside and independant of the existence of this god. Thus, the existence or non-existence of god cannot be relevant to whether a certain thing is moral or not. Because if it WERE relevant, this would destroy the entire concept of moral in the first place. Morality can only stem from the inherent qualities put in the things themselves, not simply as a mandate.
It is bigoted because it claims that people who do not believe in gods are incapable of having just as much and as many moral values as anyone else. That not believing in a god somehow makes one less capable of having moral values. That's no less bigoted than claiming that being a woman makes one less capable of having strong moral values, as many philosophers used to argue.
---I wrote:...notion that life isn't a fundamental right given to us by God To which you replied: rights come from the law, and the vigalence of the values of the people
Objectively speaking, which notion, taught to generations of children, does more to discourage them from taking life so lightly as to destroy it?
----
Neither inherently does: it simply matters what certain people will happen to find more compelling. But I should point out that your claim is still nothing more than arbitrary grant of rights based on a fable, based on a philosophical idea that no philosopher has taken seriously since Plato (that morality can inherently "come from" of have anything to do with the will of a god). Personally, I'd rather have people's morals based in their actual values instead of their variable faith in the stories of one religious tradition or another, especially one as morally relativistic as the Christian tradition. You're in a losing position anyway, because for most believers, the unspoken reality is that these values DO come first: the belief in a god who shares these values comes later. If they didn't have the moral values, they wouldn't respect the god for having them! You yourself totally undermine your own point with your extended discussion of why you find Christian ethics worthwhile: that to you they are most in accord with your values and feelings about morality and compassion!
---By acknowledging, even if just via lip service, that we are endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights, including life, liberty, etc., we teach our children that everyone is created equal in God's eyes, that everyone has an equal right to life.---
Why not simply teach them to respect these rights period? What, exactly, do you think is added by going on about God? I mean sure, we could make up any number of fables about why we have rights. Many cultures have different fables. But if we expect people to intelligently defend and discuss these rights, then it behooves us to have an honest discussion about the real facts of what they are. They didn't shoot out of the sky: they shot out of the pen and mind of Jefferson. Was Jefferson infaliable? No. Some rights might be bad (right to abortion). Some might be good. We need to be able to rationally discuss these issues, not hold rain dances.
---But what does your prescription teach? That life, or at least the right to it, is nothing more than the result of laws and vigilance of the people. (Which may be true as practiced on earth.)----
Where else are they supposed to be practiced if not on earth?! We live on earth!? This is where we keep our stuff, as well as our governments and our lives. You know: the ones we supposedly care about giving rights?
---In other words, people indoctrinated into your worldview will not only view life as easily swept away, with no moral culpability, by simply changing the law or even being less "vigilant", they will assume there is no moral basis from which to construct or modify law in the first place, ----
You are operating under the delusion that A) moral culpability is only "real" if it is eternal and B) that the existence of some god can possibly have any relevance to what is or is not moral. Neither idea can be taken seriously as a philosophical position. If a few minutes of moral culpability are worthless, then how exactly is an eternity of it build up to being worthwhile? 0 + 0 = 1232313?? And I suggest you read up on your Plato, o supposed conservative.
---they'll believe that they needn't be vigilant about anything more than their own self-interest, as modified by the impositions of the law of the day.----
This is what I find most disturbing about people with your position: your barely concealed nihilism. I mean look at you: you can't even see the possibility that anyone has anything other than self-interest in mind. That they could possibly have VALUES of their own. Values for their familes. For their country. For their own ethical conduct and self-appraisal. For the universe. No: you are a nihilist because you think values can ultimately only be things that people are tricked into having by fear of punishment.
---The former Soviet Union: tens of millions of innocents murdered in the name of Communism and atheism. ---
You sir, are a bigot, plain and simple. Assuming that atheism is itself even a value, or that atheism has anything inherently to do with communism! There is nothing a believer can do that an atheist cannot also do: nothing but believe in god.
---I'm pointing out that there is a substantial body of evidence that belief in God, specifically, the belief that life is a right divinely given to all human beings, gives most people an extra, and important, natural resistance to committing violence against innocents, as well as an extra willingness to fight and die to protect the lives of innocents from tyrants. ---
There is, simply, no such body of evidence. No study demonstrates that belief in god makes one more charitable, compassionate, or less violent. In fact, most believers would tell you that that's sort of beside the point. Communism is a moral evil. But communism is a variable independant of belief in god.
---I'm saying that, when you compare how POWs were treated in WW2 by the USA, Germany, and Japan, you'll see a fairly close correlation between belief in one Creator and decent treatment of prisoners of war----
How do you figure? The Germans believed in One God (the Christian god, no less). In fact, moreso than Americans, they had even more of a sense that their mission was in fact DIRECTED and ORDAINED by their god. Not that Americans were all that morally commendable to all their POWs: where was their compassion for their own civilians who happened to be Japanese? The Japanese also had one god: their emporer. You have a quaintly naive idea of history, I'm afraid. Monotheism, or any sort, tends to be very exclusivist, and when elevated as a central cultural value, almost always leads to violence and oppression.
---As far as how mankind treats animals, who are supposedly "more advanced than stem cells" (or embryos, or sufficiently retarded or even unconscious adult human beings, perhaps? justifying their termination to serve science?)?---
I love how you can draw totally unwarranted conclusions out of a position you have not even bothered to try and understand. Retarded human beings have just as much of an interest in living as you or I. Sleeping human beings do as well. Stem cells and embryos, however, don't even have the bare apparatus to HAVE any interests at all!
----Unlike those animals, embryos, could, if their right to life was respected, contribute far more to the well-being of all mankind than any chicken ever will.----
We don't grant moral rights in the present on the basis of potential payoffs in the future! Children do not have the right to consent to sex just because they someday will be able to. What is relevant is the present moral interests of the thing we are talking about, not moral interests it might one day have. For all I know, this apple I have here may one day, if eaten, become part of a sperm cell that joins with an egg to grow into a world famous piano player. Does that mean that the apple has a right to life- because it will one day "be" that piano player?
---As far as Plato refuting "nonsense" -- I'm unaware of him healing the leper, casting out sins, raising the dead, and preaching the gospel that everyone else is capable of doing the same things. ----
"Wouldn't it be nice if we could raise the dead? That would be nice: so obviously any stories about it happening must have been true! Also, since I have no idea how to refute the arguement that morality cannot possibly stem from the dictates of a god, I'll change the subject! I'll attack Plato's character instead of hsi arguement. He couldn't raise the dead, like my favorite Bible character says he could... in the Bible, so his argument cna't possibly be of any relevance!"
---As far as where logic itself comes from? If not from Mind, which is God to many of us, then it has no validity since it is not intelligent, in which case it can tell us nothing about the existence of God or from where we derive whatever "rights" we may have. ---
Oh, that's rich: "I don't have to rationally argue that god exists, because god exists, and therefore logic has no validity against god!" In other words, you do not respect raitonal discussion: even if someone were to demonstrate that your arguments were terrible, it wouldn't matter: you never cared about rational arguement anyway.
---So, sorry to say, I find "if thine enemy strikes thee on the one cheek, turn to him the other cheek also" much more persuasive as a moral basis by which humans should interact with each other, ---
Too bad that, not only is this sentiment not orignial to the character of Jesus (and expressed far more completely, consistently, and better elsewhere), not something that any religious belief is required to hold as a value, but it's also countless times violated as moral principle by the very god who claims it's worthwhile. In other words, if I wanted to teach my children this value, the LAST thing I'd have them read is the Bible.
I think it's great you have a religious belief that you enjoy having and that gives you life meaning. However, I must point out that just because you believe something (like, perhaps, that embryos have an kind of immortal soul that, say, a dolphin does not) doesn't magically make it true and certainly doesn't relieve you of the burden of having to back up your claims. And yes, I'd much rather prefer to speak of actual moral values and what values they actually have themselves, rather than extended ad hominem attacks of this or that political label.
If you really think Bush is such a moral leader, tell me: why is he cutting funding (your money) from stem cell research, but not from the fertility clinics that routinuely create and destroy thousands of embryos? Do you think that this is a consistent moral stand? Or is he simply attacking a convienient political target?
Oh, please do go on about how the Nazi's were leftists. I'm sure historians around the globe are smacking themselves on the foreheads for missing what you, in your brilliance, have just revealed to them.
Then, please continue with your conspiratorial straw man of the left. It's just so original and incisive!
---All lifeforms on this Earth are just "blob of jelly with DNA instructions" when you look at them. ---
No, some lifeforms have developed, for instance, nervous systems. Some lifeforms actually have the capacity to care about whether or not they exist or do not exist. This is the whole reason we can sit here discussing ethical values in the first place: we have the capacity to value things! Your problem is that you are, for the purposes of attacking animal rights advocates, pretending to consider their position, and declaring it hypocritical when you find that they destroy life. But you forgot to notice that mere "life" is not the moral distinction that any animal rights advocate makes.
---What is the biological distinction between a chicken and a turnip? ---
Well, there are thousands, but perhaps you meant to ask a relevant question, like "What about chickens makes them of more moral worth than a turnip?" The answer is that chickens can feel pain and have concern for their own well-being, however limited. Turnips cannot.
---Killing a plant kills the plant as surely as killing a cow kills the cow. Hence the use of the word "kill". ---
Killing is wrong when it violates an moral interest. As far as anyone has argued, plants, lacking any nervous system with which to even notice their own existence, have no moral interests. This is not true of animals, however. Hence, the moral distinction that you entirely miss.
---They might ask you the same question, "Are you a vegetarian? Oh, how brutal you are. And what an 'entirely _arbitrary_ and meaningless line for your moral values' you have drawn. Isn't that eggplant a living organism? Just because it doesn't have a brain doesn't mean it isn't alive."
---
What does "alive" have to do with moral distinctions? Is it morally wrong to destroy a few thousand skin cells by typing this reply? No. The reason concern for cells is arbitrary and meaningless is because it is not rooted in any actual consideration of the moral interests of the thing being discussed. Declaring that all killing is wrong, by fiat, as your scifi aliens do, accomplishes nothing in the way of meaningful distinction. It represents only their preferential values (killing ANY living thing is wrong), not the values or non-values of the things potentially harmed by their actions. Fungus have no values. Killing a fungus does not violate any values of which I am aware. If we discovered that fungi DID hold moral values, we might have grounds to discuss that possibility. But we cannot act on mere speculation or unsupported articles of faith.
"It's all prejeduce, everything must be taken on faith." Yes, that's the usual language of demagouges....
If you don't know what a "relevant moral interest" is, how to objectively discern one, and why it's important for figuring out moral considerations, I suggest you stop lecturing people on ethics and start learning about the actual field of ethics yourself.
The charge of moral relativism is irrelevantly off-topic. The problem is not that there is any lack of people claiming to have the only "right" values: the point is that why are YOUR values better than mine, which I happen to think are superior to yours? How do we decide which are superior? But of course, you dodged the real issue, which is your bigoted claim that having moral values has anything inherently to do with belief in dieties. It does not. I have lots of very passionately held values and ethics, and I don't believe in any gods. Heck, Plato conclusively refuted the idea that gods could have anything to do with morality thousands of years ago.
---Maybe if you actually knew the correct history of the US? ---
Whatever it is, it sure aint the nonsense you follow up this question with: --Separation of Church and State (the way the left wingers look at it) wasn't started until 1947 I believe. ---
Really? What significant event occured in 1947?
---The founding fathers firmly believed in the true God and they even had to sign something saying they believed in God and that they were saved!---
I find that hard to believe considering the fact that most of major players were Diests, not Christians- amny of them with some rather harsh and dismissive words for Christianity, and who the "religious right" at the time labeled atheists. The Constitution explicitly left OUT all the proposed language that credited God or established federal chaplains and the like. Religious freedom won out. It's only been from long decades of fighting to destroy religious freedoms that Christians acheived such travesties as adding "under God" to the pledge and "in God we trust" to our money: both in the McCarthy era of facist blackmail.
---Thomas Jefferson (he wasn't a founding father) later mentioned a wall of separation which was meant to keep the government out of the church, not the church out of the government. He even talked about that at a church he was at right before he mentioned that as president. ---
Sorry kiddo, but you've been lied to. David Barton, of Wallbuilders Inc. made up these quotes, and more. Anything to sell an ideology right? I suggest you study up on Jefferson in more detail. This was a man who took a pair of scissors to the Gospels to cut out anything he thought was religious. This was a man who demanded that religion NOT be forced upon anyone, a tireless defender of religious freedom. In fact, Jefferson even said some things which I consider to be outright BIGOTRY against Christians (you can see a sampling of these below) So, here are some REAL quotes from Jefferson: The first is the "church address" quote that Barton selectively quoted from to turn its meaning 180 degrees:
Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of the church tends to make the clergy unresponsive to the people and leads to corruption within religion. Erecting the "wall of separation between church and state," therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.
We have solved the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries.
-- Thomas Jefferson, to the Virginia Baptists, 1808
Our Constitution... has not left the religion of its citizens under the power of its public functionaries, were it possible that any of these should consider a conquest over the conscience of men either attainable or applicable to any desirable purpose.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Reply to New London Methodists, 1809
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
-- Thomas Jefferson, to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813 (see Positive Atheism's Historical section)
If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such thing exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in Protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in Catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than love of God.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814, using the term atheist to mean one who lacks a god belief, not one who is without morals, as was a common use of the term in Jefferson's day
I am not afraid of the priests. They have tried upon me all their various batteries, of pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying and slandering, without being able to give me one moment of pain.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio Gates Spafford, 1816
The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to his nephew, Peter Carr
To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. Papers, 1:545
Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814, responding to the claim that Chritianity was part of the Common Law of England, as the United States Constitution defaults to the Common Law regarding matters that it does not address. This argument is still used today by "Christian Nation" revisionists who do not admit to having read Thomas Jefferson's thorough research of this matter.
But every state, says an inquisitor, has established some religion. No two, say I, have established the same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of establishments?
-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82
In reviewing the history of the times through which we have passed, no portion of it gives greater satisfaction or reflection, than that which represents the efforts of the friends of religious freedom and the success with which they are crowned.
-- Thomas Jefferson, from Henry Wilder Foote, Thomas Jefferson: Champion of Religious Freedom (1947), quoted from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom
It behoves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Benjamin Rush, April 21, 1803
The rights [to religious freedom] are of the natural rights of mankind, and... if any act shall be... passed to repeal [an act granting those rights] or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. Papers, 2:546 (see Positive Atheism's Historical section)
Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one-half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82
I know it will give great offense to the clergy, but the advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from them.
-- Thomas Jefferson, to Levi Lincoln, 1802. ME 10:305
And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.... error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.... I deem the essential principles of our government.... Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political;... freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected.
-- Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
----Perhaps we should just do away with any laws of right and wrong, that way I can put a bullet in your phat head. You people are beyond help and I give up on you.---
Oh, that's right: people who aren't Christians have no moral values, and only religious belief can allow people to have moral concerns. Thanks for the bigot's-eye view on the matter!
--Heh, disappearance of religion coincided with slow degeneration of this empire.---
Or rather, the adoption of Christianity as a state religion, with it's leader as a sort of godhead in absentia.
And how is non-religious Japan not a good example: its a peaceful society largely with no religious belief (and what belief there is is rarely theistic or exclusivist). Every since Emperor worship was largely discarded, the society has functioned without the sort fo blood-rain violence that you CLAIM would be the direct result of a society without religion. You made the claim that without religion, society would not only fall apart, but people would have no values and so would fall upon each other in violence. So, where is your Japanese apocolypse? Still waiting?
---I am not practicing Christian but I do recognize value of organized religion ( as a glue for a society.) As much as you would like you cannot operate in a moral vacuum, especially when being paid by our tax money.----
What does morality have to do with being a Christian? Non Christians and non-religious have just as many moral concerns and moral values as Christians. The idea of anyone advocating a "moral vacuum" is flatly absurd: it is the common slander that is laid upon anyone who doesn't happen to share YOUR values.
Really, I find that Mengele and you share the trait of not thinking through their ethics: arbitrarily classifying things to be of moral concern or not based not on any consideration of their actual moral interests, but merely on some faith based cultural prejeduce (religion/ racism, whatever). It is THAT that's the general similarity, and what's truly dangerous.
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Stupid? Don't let me get started....
In a democracy, bi-partisan support is usually a bad sign for democracy. People need to learn the difference between policies that get enacted vs. a REAL debate that informs which policies should get enacted. Many people seem to think that the latter half should simply be ignored in this situation, which is terribly wrong in a democracy.
In a democracy, it doesn't matter: all the people are still responsible for the political will, whether by action, inaction, or any degree in between. At some point, Bush getting elected was not important enough for some people to try and stop (remember the Green Party, for instance?) At some point, there was a tradeoff between how important it was and how much effort they were willing to spend.
It may seem unfair, but that's the general theory behind why democracy IS legitimate (there are, of course, MANY problems with this model, but there always are)
The problem is that if you are familiar with how terroist cells around the world operate "ties to Bin Laden" doesn't really mean all that much. Just about every terrorist network these days has ties to every other. Almost certainly Bin Laden was involved with these men in some way at some point (trained at his camps, for one), and almost certainly some of their money comes from him. But was the mastermind: was he directly involved in this? These "ties" to Bin Laden don't tell us anything about that. Always beware of statements by government agencies that can be both true and totaly off-topic at once. This is the first technique they teach for intelligence PR.
As most political science people have been warning for years, increased globalization must inherently lead to anger and frustration, even if every country in the world were a democracy (which they are not, making it even worse). The reason is that while the actions of your national government have at least the stink of legitimacy for a dictatorship, and lots of legitimacy for a democracy: the actions of on foriegn nation upon another have absolutely none. So, as the foriegn policy of one nation increasingly effects the lives of people in other countries, we're bound to see major unrest and anger. It's simply what occurs whenever there is major disconnect between people who make a policy and those affected by it. The innovation of democracy is that it mostly solves this problem. But it can only do so domestically. The fact that a nation is "democratic" is totally meaningless from the perspective of those who are not citizens.
The Middle East is a prime example: many of our foriegn polices, which seem almost trivial wave of our hands to us, have had tremendous effects on the lives of people there. Some are good, some are bad. Naturally, those who feel they are bad are going to feel absolutely violated, and these feelings of illegitimacy often give rise to extreme fringes that are willing to use violence- because they lack any other avenue (remember: in a democrcacy, this avenue is becoming part of the political and legal system: even if your party loses, it still has a chance to live and fight another day).
So, contrary to people's claims that Bin Laden hates democracy: that we are a democracy is actually probably totally irrelevant to people like him. This concept, in fact, is almost totally opposite to the real problem: that he feels that there is no legitimacy (which democracy would be one avenue of providing) to what the US does in the Middle East. The problem is not that we are a democracy, but rather that there is NO democracy at work to mediate between our ME policies and the people affected by them.
Remember: this is not a moral estimation of anything or anyone: simply a policy analysis of the dangers that inevitably arise when situations of political illegitimacy exist.
A side note: The one morbid effect our democracy might have on Bin Laden would be to lead him to conclude that all Americans are ultimately responsible for what our government does, since it's power ultimately rests in us. That this rationalization might be how he or his cells justified attacking civilians is an almost chilling thought. There is nothing per se wrong with this reasoning: we are responsible for our government. But to think that such a previously glorious and wonderful fact could be employed in such a sick, blowback fashion, is deeply deeply saddening.
The first confusing piece of evidence is this: there were on place cellphone reports that the terrorists were wearing red headbands. These are a symbol not of Shiite, but rather of Sunni Muslim extremists: people who are theological enemies of Bin Laden's networks. However, as many have pointed out, the extremists in both sects aren't really theologians: they've been increasingly willing to work together. But it could well mean that some of the terrorists were working on Iraqi funds. And there is also the confusing question of Osama huimself.
The basic confusion is this: Bin Laden's network is definately implicated. However, this doesn't have to mean that he had any direct influence over what happened (that the Taliban could well be telling the truth). He's still totally culpable, but for the most part, we're focusing on him because he's the only face we have. Despite his pretensions otherwise, Bin Laden's primary role is to dole out money: to open his accounts to these groups. He is not much of a mastermind, just a folk hero. He's part of these terrorist movements to be sure, and certainly a man we need to get, but there's no reason to think that he is the one who actually planned and coordinated this particular attack, this time. Many of his cells operate largely on their own: they already have all the money they need from him. For all we know, the mastermind of this attack could have been on one of those planes. Or they could still be out there, planning a follow-up.
So, while it may be nice for the American public to have a face to hate, it's probably not the most accurate picture of what's actually going on, and what the intelligence community is really concerned about. He's more probably just another accomplice in this particular case, rather than the guy or guys we really need to get as soon as possible. If he's ever brought to trial, I can see how this might confuse Americans who had been focusing on him as the ultimate mastermind. The media can't present a complex picture. It has no ability at the moment to explain how terrorist cells operate, and no one has the patience to listen.
One major problem is that strict Muslim law forbids the handing over of a Muslim, no matter what crimes they have committed, to unbelievers. Hence Afghanistans claim that if we present evidence to them, they will try him and sentance him to death there, but they will not hand him over. This could be a real breaking point in negotiations, and I have no idea how we could possibly resolve these differences (we certainly aren't going to trust their "legal system" on this one).
I can think of a nice cynical answer for the "long, new kind of war rhetoric."
If we just limited this action to killing off Osama and his cells, then we'd have some sort of resolution for the time being (though of course that would solve none of the social problems underlying terrorism, but they're not talking about solving those anyway).
But if we can drag this out a couple more years, long after the present crisis is over, then guess who is a shill-in next Presidential election? All he'd have to do would be to give us those big doe-eyes and say "You wouldn't replace me right the midst of this time of crisis, now would you?" We are now setting up to fight an enemy that is invisible, that could be everywhere and nowhere, that could live in rhetoric just as easily as reality: to any real threats can be added just about any rumored evil to scare people into doing just about anything.
Furthermore, this "war" footing gives Cheny and Rumsfeld all the power they've ever dreamed of having over both American poluace and the world. At this very moment, this country has impunity to do almost anything it wishes, with the ready-made reason that there were terrorists involved: a claim that is almost impossible to disprove (them no longer being under any obligation to prove it.) They've already announced that the press is basically going to be shut out of government actions altogether from now on, far moreso than even in the heavily managed Gulf War. Why this may tactically be a good idea, this sort of secrecy has steadily increased since the Reagan era. The government tells the press what to say. The press, not wanting to lose what few leads they actually have, simply repeat government claims verbatim. They have no other way to confirm or deny them. It's REALLY dangerous for any sort of public ability to do oversight, especially when the government can consistently get away with not releasing documents even after 20 years (the Reagan documents STILL haven't come out, even though by law they are past due almost a year now).
If they are indeed a monopoly (especially if they are a government sponsored one, as favoritism from the FCC could well be argued) then they have just as much power to censor music as the government. The fact that we call one entity the government and another entity a corporation makes little difference if the authority is the same.
One fairly hilarious reality is that our economy today is far LESS global than it was when, say, England was the center of world trade. Foriegn trade in the the US is simply not anywhere near as important as everyone (especially Clinton's "strategic traders") makes it out to be. As most serious economists have pointed out, trade can be simply a thought of as another form of production technology.
Reagan, in practice, was far more willing to compromise on sensible issues, especially after his economic advisors failed to deliver their promises of huge growth, and their errors merely cost us a huge deficit.
I'm just wishing for any President that will employ actual thoughtful economists instead of wacky hacks who were laughed out of academia and are looking for revenge. Back to the gold standard!
The problem, then, is a legal and political one, not an economic one. If the government were this powerful, they could simply force people to work in any factory, Nike or not. The problem is that workers have no legal rights AT their jobs, not that they HAVE jobs at all. There is nothing at all wrong with a corporation offering a job with low pay (at least it seems that way to us!). There is only something wrong with people being forced to work there in conditions that are horrendous, or having what we consider to be their rights violated by their own government.
How common: make claims, then get all huffy when someone DARES to point out that they are unconvincing or fallacious. You made a bigoted claim: I was well within the bounds of legitimacy in labeling it as such. And you consistently made statements that again and again demonstrated that you will simply through out reason whenever it doesn't suit your opinions. You said as much, so what exactly is wrong with me pointing it out?
---Your stupid assumption that I am one of these religious freaks is so far off it is not even funny.---
Who said you were even religious? I said you speak in the language of a demagouge, not religion. At least most religious people don't make such silly nihilistic statements as that everything is just a matter of one faith or another.
---I do believe that for most people religion is a great way to vent off and allows many of them to keep their sanity. ---
Sure, whatever floats their boat. But the fact that religion is part of many people's lives does not somehow make it fundamental to human life, morality, etc, nor does it actually itself address any moral issue.
As usual, because you have no actual answer to the question at hand, you resort to confronting people, not arguements.
Plato's arguement is simple: If "good" is whatever a particualr god says is moral, then this collapses the entire idea of morality, making it entirely arbitrary. WHATEVER the god says is moral would be moral: rape, murder, anything. There wouldn't even be any grounds for calling this god "good", because NOTHING such a god could do could even possibly not be "good" since "good" is defined as "whatever this god wills." But if a god is good because it respects certain moral values (is against rape, etc.), then the standard of good must exist entirely outside and independant of the existence of this god. Thus, the existence or non-existence of god cannot be relevant to whether a certain thing is moral or not. Because if it WERE relevant, this would destroy the entire concept of moral in the first place. Morality can only stem from the inherent qualities put in the things themselves, not simply as a mandate.
It is bigoted because it claims that people who do not believe in gods are incapable of having just as much and as many moral values as anyone else. That not believing in a god somehow makes one less capable of having moral values. That's no less bigoted than claiming that being a woman makes one less capable of having strong moral values, as many philosophers used to argue.
---I wrote: ...notion that life isn't a fundamental right given to us by God To which you replied: rights come from the law, and the vigalence of the values of the people
Objectively speaking, which notion, taught to generations of children, does more to discourage them from taking life so lightly as to destroy it?
----
Neither inherently does: it simply matters what certain people will happen to find more compelling. But I should point out that your claim is still nothing more than arbitrary grant of rights based on a fable, based on a philosophical idea that no philosopher has taken seriously since Plato (that morality can inherently "come from" of have anything to do with the will of a god).
Personally, I'd rather have people's morals based in their actual values instead of their variable faith in the stories of one religious tradition or another, especially one as morally relativistic as the Christian tradition. You're in a losing position anyway, because for most believers, the unspoken reality is that these values DO come first: the belief in a god who shares these values comes later. If they didn't have the moral values, they wouldn't respect the god for having them! You yourself totally undermine your own point with your extended discussion of why you find Christian ethics worthwhile: that to you they are most in accord with your values and feelings about morality and compassion!
---By acknowledging, even if just via lip service, that we are endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights, including life, liberty, etc., we teach our children that everyone is created equal in God's eyes, that everyone has an equal right to life.---
Why not simply teach them to respect these rights period? What, exactly, do you think is added by going on about God? I mean sure, we could make up any number of fables about why we have rights. Many cultures have different fables. But if we expect people to intelligently defend and discuss these rights, then it behooves us to have an honest discussion about the real facts of what they are. They didn't shoot out of the sky: they shot out of the pen and mind of Jefferson. Was Jefferson infaliable? No. Some rights might be bad (right to abortion). Some might be good. We need to be able to rationally discuss these issues, not hold rain dances.
---But what does your prescription teach? That life, or at least the right to it, is nothing more than the result of laws and vigilance of the people. (Which may be true as practiced on earth.)----
Where else are they supposed to be practiced if not on earth?! We live on earth!? This is where we keep our stuff, as well as our governments and our lives. You know: the ones we supposedly care about giving rights?
---In other words, people indoctrinated into your worldview will not only view life as easily swept away, with no moral culpability, by simply changing the law or even being less "vigilant", they will assume there is no moral basis from which to construct or modify law in the first place, ----
You are operating under the delusion that A) moral culpability is only "real" if it is eternal and B) that the existence of some god can possibly have any relevance to what is or is not moral. Neither idea can be taken seriously as a philosophical position. If a few minutes of moral culpability are worthless, then how exactly is an eternity of it build up to being worthwhile? 0 + 0 = 1232313?? And I suggest you read up on your Plato, o supposed conservative.
---they'll believe that they needn't be vigilant about anything more than their own self-interest, as modified by the impositions of the law of the day.----
This is what I find most disturbing about people with your position: your barely concealed nihilism. I mean look at you: you can't even see the possibility that anyone has anything other than self-interest in mind. That they could possibly have VALUES of their own. Values for their familes. For their country. For their own ethical conduct and self-appraisal. For the universe. No: you are a nihilist because you think values can ultimately only be things that people are tricked into having by fear of punishment.
---The former Soviet Union: tens of millions of innocents murdered in the name of Communism and atheism. ---
You sir, are a bigot, plain and simple. Assuming that atheism is itself even a value, or that atheism has anything inherently to do with communism! There is nothing a believer can do that an atheist cannot also do: nothing but believe in god.
---I'm pointing out that there is a substantial body of evidence that belief in God, specifically, the belief that life is a right divinely given to all human beings, gives most people an extra, and important, natural resistance to committing violence against innocents, as well as an extra willingness to fight and die to protect the lives of innocents from tyrants. ---
There is, simply, no such body of evidence. No study demonstrates that belief in god makes one more charitable, compassionate, or less violent. In fact, most believers would tell you that that's sort of beside the point. Communism is a moral evil. But communism is a variable independant of belief in god.
---I'm saying that, when you compare how POWs were treated in WW2 by the USA, Germany, and Japan, you'll see a fairly close correlation between belief in one Creator and decent treatment of prisoners of war----
How do you figure? The Germans believed in One God (the Christian god, no less). In fact, moreso than Americans, they had even more of a sense that their mission was in fact DIRECTED and ORDAINED by their god. Not that Americans were all that morally commendable to all their POWs: where was their compassion for their own civilians who happened to be Japanese? The Japanese also had one god: their emporer. You have a quaintly naive idea of history, I'm afraid. Monotheism, or any sort, tends to be very exclusivist, and when elevated as a central cultural value, almost always leads to violence and oppression.
---As far as how mankind treats animals, who are supposedly "more advanced than stem cells" (or embryos, or sufficiently retarded or even unconscious adult human beings, perhaps? justifying their termination to serve science?)?---
I love how you can draw totally unwarranted conclusions out of a position you have not even bothered to try and understand. Retarded human beings have just as much of an interest in living as you or I. Sleeping human beings do as well. Stem cells and embryos, however, don't even have the bare apparatus to HAVE any interests at all!
----Unlike those animals, embryos, could, if their right to life was respected, contribute far more to the well-being of all mankind than any chicken ever will.----
We don't grant moral rights in the present on the basis of potential payoffs in the future! Children do not have the right to consent to sex just because they someday will be able to. What is relevant is the present moral interests of the thing we are talking about, not moral interests it might one day have. For all I know, this apple I have here may one day, if eaten, become part of a sperm cell that joins with an egg to grow into a world famous piano player. Does that mean that the apple has a right to life- because it will one day "be" that piano player?
---As far as Plato refuting "nonsense" -- I'm unaware of him healing the leper, casting out sins, raising the dead, and preaching the gospel that everyone else is capable of doing the same things. ----
"Wouldn't it be nice if we could raise the dead? That would be nice: so obviously any stories about it happening must have been true! Also, since I have no idea how to refute the arguement that morality cannot possibly stem from the dictates of a god, I'll change the subject! I'll attack Plato's character instead of hsi arguement. He couldn't raise the dead, like my favorite Bible character says he could... in the Bible, so his argument cna't possibly be of any relevance!"
---As far as where logic itself comes from? If not from Mind, which is God to many of us, then it has no validity since it is not intelligent, in which case it can tell us nothing about the existence of God or from where we derive whatever "rights" we may have. ---
Oh, that's rich: "I don't have to rationally argue that god exists, because god exists, and therefore logic has no validity against god!" In other words, you do not respect raitonal discussion: even if someone were to demonstrate that your arguments were terrible, it wouldn't matter: you never cared about rational arguement anyway.
---So, sorry to say, I find "if thine enemy strikes thee on the one cheek, turn to him the other cheek also" much more persuasive as a moral basis by which humans should interact with each other, ---
Too bad that, not only is this sentiment not orignial to the character of Jesus (and expressed far more completely, consistently, and better elsewhere), not something that any religious belief is required to hold as a value, but it's also countless times violated as moral principle by the very god who claims it's worthwhile. In other words, if I wanted to teach my children this value, the LAST thing I'd have them read is the Bible.
I think it's great you have a religious belief that you enjoy having and that gives you life meaning. However, I must point out that just because you believe something (like, perhaps, that embryos have an kind of immortal soul that, say, a dolphin does not) doesn't magically make it true and certainly doesn't relieve you of the burden of having to back up your claims. And yes, I'd much rather prefer to speak of actual moral values and what values they actually have themselves, rather than extended ad hominem attacks of this or that political label.
If you really think Bush is such a moral leader, tell me: why is he cutting funding (your money) from stem cell research, but not from the fertility clinics that routinuely create and destroy thousands of embryos? Do you think that this is a consistent moral stand? Or is he simply attacking a convienient political target?
Oh, please do go on about how the Nazi's were leftists. I'm sure historians around the globe are smacking themselves on the foreheads for missing what you, in your brilliance, have just revealed to them.
Then, please continue with your conspiratorial straw man of the left. It's just so original and incisive!
---All lifeforms on this Earth are just "blob of jelly with DNA instructions" when you look at them. ---
No, some lifeforms have developed, for instance, nervous systems. Some lifeforms actually have the capacity to care about whether or not they exist or do not exist. This is the whole reason we can sit here discussing ethical values in the first place: we have the capacity to value things! Your problem is that you are, for the purposes of attacking animal rights advocates, pretending to consider their position, and declaring it hypocritical when you find that they destroy life. But you forgot to notice that mere "life" is not the moral distinction that any animal rights advocate makes.
---What is the biological distinction between a chicken and a turnip? ---
Well, there are thousands, but perhaps you meant to ask a relevant question, like "What about chickens makes them of more moral worth than a turnip?" The answer is that chickens can feel pain and have concern for their own well-being, however limited. Turnips cannot.
---Killing a plant kills the plant as surely as killing a cow kills the cow. Hence the use of the word "kill". ---
Killing is wrong when it violates an moral interest. As far as anyone has argued, plants, lacking any nervous system with which to even notice their own existence, have no moral interests. This is not true of animals, however. Hence, the moral distinction that you entirely miss.
---They might ask you the same question, "Are you a vegetarian? Oh, how brutal you are. And what an 'entirely _arbitrary_ and meaningless line for your moral values' you have drawn. Isn't that eggplant a living organism? Just because it doesn't have a brain doesn't mean it isn't alive."
---
What does "alive" have to do with moral distinctions? Is it morally wrong to destroy a few thousand skin cells by typing this reply? No. The reason concern for cells is arbitrary and meaningless is because it is not rooted in any actual consideration of the moral interests of the thing being discussed. Declaring that all killing is wrong, by fiat, as your scifi aliens do, accomplishes nothing in the way of meaningful distinction. It represents only their preferential values (killing ANY living thing is wrong), not the values or non-values of the things potentially harmed by their actions. Fungus have no values. Killing a fungus does not violate any values of which I am aware. If we discovered that fungi DID hold moral values, we might have grounds to discuss that possibility. But we cannot act on mere speculation or unsupported articles of faith.
"It's all prejeduce, everything must be taken on faith." Yes, that's the usual language of demagouges....
If you don't know what a "relevant moral interest" is, how to objectively discern one, and why it's important for figuring out moral considerations, I suggest you stop lecturing people on ethics and start learning about the actual field of ethics yourself.
The charge of moral relativism is irrelevantly off-topic. The problem is not that there is any lack of people claiming to have the only "right" values: the point is that why are YOUR values better than mine, which I happen to think are superior to yours? How do we decide which are superior? But of course, you dodged the real issue, which is your bigoted claim that having moral values has anything inherently to do with belief in dieties. It does not. I have lots of very passionately held values and ethics, and I don't believe in any gods. Heck, Plato conclusively refuted the idea that gods could have anything to do with morality thousands of years ago.
---Maybe if you actually knew the correct history of the US? ---
... has not left the religion of its citizens under the power of its public functionaries, were it possible that any of these should consider a conquest over the conscience of men either attainable or applicable to any desirable purpose.
... if any act shall be ... passed to repeal [an act granting those rights] or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.
... freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected.
Whatever it is, it sure aint the nonsense you follow up this question with:
--Separation of Church and State (the way the left wingers look at it) wasn't started until 1947 I believe. ---
Really? What significant event occured in 1947?
---The founding fathers firmly believed in the true God and they even had to sign something saying they believed in God and that they were saved!---
I find that hard to believe considering the fact that most of major players were Diests, not Christians- amny of them with some rather harsh and dismissive words for Christianity, and who the "religious right" at the time labeled atheists. The Constitution explicitly left OUT all the proposed language that credited God or established federal chaplains and the like. Religious freedom won out. It's only been from long decades of fighting to destroy religious freedoms that Christians acheived such travesties as adding "under God" to the pledge and "in God we trust" to our money: both in the McCarthy era of facist blackmail.
---Thomas Jefferson (he wasn't a founding father) later mentioned a wall of separation which was meant to keep the government out of the church, not the church out of the government. He even talked about that at a church he was at right before he mentioned that as president. ---
Sorry kiddo, but you've been lied to. David Barton, of Wallbuilders Inc. made up these quotes, and more. Anything to sell an ideology right? I suggest you study up on Jefferson in more detail. This was a man who took a pair of scissors to the Gospels to cut out anything he thought was religious. This was a man who demanded that religion NOT be forced upon anyone, a tireless defender of religious freedom. In fact, Jefferson even said some things which I consider to be outright BIGOTRY against Christians (you can see a sampling of these below)
So, here are some REAL quotes from Jefferson: The first is the "church address" quote that Barton selectively quoted from to turn its meaning 180 degrees:
Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of the church tends to make the clergy unresponsive to the people and leads to corruption within religion. Erecting the "wall of separation between church and state," therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.
We have solved the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries.
-- Thomas Jefferson, to the Virginia Baptists, 1808
Our Constitution
-- Thomas Jefferson, Reply to New London Methodists, 1809
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
-- Thomas Jefferson, to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813 (see Positive Atheism's Historical section)
If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such thing exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in Protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in Catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than love of God.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814, using the term atheist to mean one who lacks a god belief, not one who is without morals, as was a common use of the term in Jefferson's day
I am not afraid of the priests. They have tried upon me all their various batteries, of pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying and slandering, without being able to give me one moment of pain.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio Gates Spafford, 1816
The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to his nephew, Peter Carr
To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. Papers, 1:545
Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814, responding to the claim that Chritianity was part of the Common Law of England, as the United States Constitution defaults to the Common Law regarding matters that it does not address. This argument is still used today by "Christian Nation" revisionists who do not admit to having read Thomas Jefferson's thorough research of this matter.
But every state, says an inquisitor, has established some religion. No two, say I, have established the same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of establishments?
-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82
In reviewing the history of the times through which we have passed, no portion of it gives greater satisfaction or reflection, than that which represents the efforts of the friends of religious freedom and the success with which they are crowned.
-- Thomas Jefferson, from Henry Wilder Foote, Thomas Jefferson: Champion of Religious Freedom (1947), quoted from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom
It behoves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Benjamin Rush, April 21, 1803
The rights [to religious freedom] are of the natural rights of mankind, and
-- Thomas Jefferson, Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. Papers, 2:546 (see Positive Atheism's Historical section)
Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one-half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82
I know it will give great offense to the clergy, but the advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from them.
-- Thomas Jefferson, to Levi Lincoln, 1802. ME 10:305
And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.... error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.... I deem the essential principles of our government.... Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political;
-- Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
----Perhaps we should just do away with any laws of right and wrong, that way I can put a bullet in your phat head. You people are beyond help and I give up on you.---
Oh, that's right: people who aren't Christians have no moral values, and only religious belief can allow people to have moral concerns. Thanks for the bigot's-eye view on the matter!
--Heh, disappearance of religion coincided with slow degeneration of this empire.---
Or rather, the adoption of Christianity as a state religion, with it's leader as a sort of godhead in absentia.
And how is non-religious Japan not a good example: its a peaceful society largely with no religious belief (and what belief there is is rarely theistic or exclusivist). Every since Emperor worship was largely discarded, the society has functioned without the sort fo blood-rain violence that you CLAIM would be the direct result of a society without religion. You made the claim that without religion, society would not only fall apart, but people would have no values and so would fall upon each other in violence. So, where is your Japanese apocolypse? Still waiting?
---I am not practicing Christian but I do recognize value of organized religion ( as a glue for a society.) As much as you would like you cannot operate in a moral vacuum, especially when being paid by our tax money.----
What does morality have to do with being a Christian? Non Christians and non-religious have just as many moral concerns and moral values as Christians. The idea of anyone advocating a "moral vacuum" is flatly absurd: it is the common slander that is laid upon anyone who doesn't happen to share YOUR values.
Really, I find that Mengele and you share the trait of not thinking through their ethics: arbitrarily classifying things to be of moral concern or not based not on any consideration of their actual moral interests, but merely on some faith based cultural prejeduce (religion/ racism, whatever). It is THAT that's the general similarity, and what's truly dangerous.