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What has atheism done for us lately?
Centre Daily Times ^ | 12/1/01 | Gary L. Morella

Posted on 12/01/2001 10:28:24 AM PST by Brian Kopp DPM

What has atheism done for us lately?

By Gary L. Morella

I have a question for those who believe that the atheistic worship of the state is to be recommended over an appreciation of a "higher" or "natural" law as the foundation for the rights that government ought to secure for the common good.

Natural law can be readily appreciated in the American experience, given the preamble to the Declaration of Independence: "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary ... to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them ..."

Natural law is something above power or force that gives content to the notion of justice. This notion suggests that there is a higher law by which the positive law of the state is to be measured and judged. Slavery was ultimately abolished in America because of the recognition of this "higher law."

Thomas Aquinas sets the most famous variation of this approach in his Summa Theologica. His natural law is a participation in the wisdom and goodness of God by the human person, formed in the image of the Creator. It expresses the dignity of the person and forms the basis of human rights and fundamental duties. This was the approach later used by Martin Luther King, Jr. in his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," which contains references to Aquinas.

Simply put, what has state worship done for us lately? We only have to look at recent history for an answer. We saw the deaths of six million Jews and 20 million Ukrainians in the concentration camps and gulags of Hitler and Stalin, respectively. Today, we see the killing of 40 million innocents in what should be their safest place of refuge, their mothers' wombs.

If the state is the final arbiter of the law, the sole dispenser of rights, we're in big trouble, given the lessons of history. The state can easily take these rights away with catastrophic consequences. This is inevitable when each man is a universe unto himself, courtesy of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which ignored a very important question: What happens when each citizen's "personal universe of rights" collides with another's? In the absence of some absolute, immutable, higher law, knowable through reason and not just faith, we're left with anarchy.

But more to the point, the traditionally recognized goal of a respected political regime is the common good. Does killing our children when they're most vulnerable and promoting aberrant behavior that leads to physical ruin meet that goal?

The fact is that ignorance of the necessity for human law to be rooted in the natural law has led to the major ills plaguing society today. This has nothing to do with theocracy. It has everything to do with common sense and the rule of right reason. This is obvious to any Christian who knows that God's supreme gift to us was the opportunity to choose him freely.

Interestingly, those decrying theocracies have no problem accepting a "state religion of amorality," which is promoted by demagogues who won't stand for any opposition. This is the current state of affairs in a "politically correct" but "morally bankrupt" America for which we can thank the example of the former "adolescent-in-chief," whose main claim to fame was making the country more comfortable with its vices.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: abortionlist; catholiclist; christianlist
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1 posted on 12/01/2001 10:28:24 AM PST by Brian Kopp DPM
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To: patent; *Catholic_list
ping
2 posted on 12/01/2001 10:29:03 AM PST by Brian Kopp DPM
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To: *Christian_list
*
3 posted on 12/01/2001 10:32:11 AM PST by Brian Kopp DPM
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To: proud2bRC
Hey, but what about all those Catholic tryants and Baptist terrorists inflicting terror and destruction on everyone? Huh? See, state worship is far supreme. Besides, a few piddly million, all right, hundreds of millions, killed in the pursuit of excellence can't bother us forever! < sarcasm >
4 posted on 12/01/2001 10:32:47 AM PST by Cleburne
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To: proud2bRC
I have a question for those who believe that the atheistic worship of the state...

I was going to read this article, but when you start out with a false premise, the rest, by definition, is meaningless.

5 posted on 12/01/2001 10:34:23 AM PST by eddie willers
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To: proud2bRC
"I have a question for those who believe that the atheistic worship of the state is to be recommended over an appreciation of a "higher" or "natural" law as the foundation for the rights that government ought to secure for the common good. "

That's stateism, not atheism. I question why anyone would read this garbage when the author makes an idiot of himself in the first sentence.

6 posted on 12/01/2001 10:35:23 AM PST by elfman2
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To: eddie willers
Great minds…
7 posted on 12/01/2001 10:37:05 AM PST by elfman2
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To: *Abortion_list
*
8 posted on 12/01/2001 10:37:32 AM PST by Brian Kopp DPM
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To: proud2bRC
One might think the world might have been a better place if Osama bin Laden had been an atheist. Ie, maybe atheists think of atheism what you or I might think of a condom: It doesn't do much for you, and might even cut down on your pleasure or enjoyment. But it can protect you from really nasty things.
9 posted on 12/01/2001 10:38:24 AM PST by ConsistentLibertarian
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To: proud2bRC
Is that your final answer?

YES - Jesus is my final answer!

10 posted on 12/01/2001 10:43:03 AM PST by krodriguesdc
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To: elfman2
The author lays out his premise from the start, and clearly is addressing only a certain subset of atheists, i.e.:

those who believe that the atheistic worship of the state is to be recommended over an appreciation of a "higher" or "natural" law as the foundation for the rights that government ought to secure for the common good

This would indicate communist/socialist type atheists to me. Why do you take exception if his comments are not directed towards you?

The premise is not false. Neither is the author an idiot.

Not all atheists are statists.

But indeed most statists are atheists.

11 posted on 12/01/2001 10:43:37 AM PST by Brian Kopp DPM
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To: ConsistentLibertarian
And the millions of Chinese and Russians killed in the twentieth century were killed under the banner of what?

Well, lets go into denial and say it was done under the name of uh.... how about ... uh... martian worship! yeah - that's it.

12 posted on 12/01/2001 10:44:31 AM PST by BRL
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Comment #13 Removed by Moderator

To: BRL
Well, working with the metaphor, maybe condoms aren't enough. Maybe it's best to use a condom _and_ a spermicide.
14 posted on 12/01/2001 10:47:33 AM PST by ConsistentLibertarian
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To: Norvokov
"What men believe... really matters"!
15 posted on 12/01/2001 10:48:39 AM PST by f.Christian
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To: ConsistentLibertarian
Condoms, of course, have a dismal failure rate, both at preventing pregnancy and at preventing "nasty things." So has atheism a dismal failure rate, every time it has been used as the foundation stone of any government.
16 posted on 12/01/2001 10:49:49 AM PST by Brian Kopp DPM
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To: proud2bRC
What has atheism done for us lately?

While I am not an atheist, I would answer that by saying "A lot less than Islam has done for us lately".

I am frustrated by their silly whining out school prayer and the like, I would take that anytime.

17 posted on 12/01/2001 10:50:26 AM PST by ahariail
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To: proud2bRC
Not all atheists are statists.

But indeed most statists are atheists.


Then he should have asked what statism has done for us lately. Using the term "atheist" and following it up in the fashion above is an implication that all atheists are statists. Even the title of the article is loaded; implying that "atheism" is supposed to do anything for "us".
18 posted on 12/01/2001 10:51:32 AM PST by Dimensio
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To: ahariail
"The 18th and 19th centuries witnessed the rise of positive sciences, and with this an intensification in skepticism about God and the claims of traditional religion, especially among the educated classes. This inclination became most marked after the publication of The Origin of the Species and The Descent of Man by the naturalist Charles Darwin. Darwin ascribed man's immediate ancestry to the anthropoids, supposedly through a process of gradual evolution. Man was no longer a creature made in the image of God, but merely a natural extension of certain lower forms of life, a refined gorilla, as it were. It was these circumstances, and this intellectual milieu, that led philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche to declare that "God is dead" and to predict the rise of new and terrible manisfestations of barbarism in the century that was to come. As he put it, "For ... we shall have upheavals, a convulsion of earthquakes, a moving of mountains and valleys, the like of which have never yet been dreamed of ... there will be wars the like of which have never yet been seen on earth." The non-believer Nietzsche would agree wholly with the Christian believer Dostoyevsky about one thing: Without faith in God, all horrors, all of man's worst nightmares, would become possible. And so they did. What men believe really matters."
19 posted on 12/01/2001 10:51:40 AM PST by f.Christian
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Comment #20 Removed by Moderator


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