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To: JMJ333
This idea stems from 18th century liberalism [specifically from the French revolution],

There is no way you can reconcile Locke and Robspierre. Locke was a liberal. Read the opening of the 2nd treatise, he makes a very logical argument why no one has a natural right to rule. The French Revolutionaries were Liberalism-turned-Absolutism that resulted mainly from the anti-Church/Monarchy sentiments that a lot of the people held due to the abuses they suffered from said institutions. Absolutists twisted Locke's arguments and used them to justify absolutism. If you condemn 18th liberalism, you condemn the DoI and the US Constitution in the same breath. Our government in no way is a Christian government. It is founded on heresy and according to paul, direct rebellion against God. There is no way to justify the 1776 War for Independence with the Bible, none whatsoever. Read Romans 13:1-13:7. We rebelled against a "legitimate authority" that God had instituted to rule us therefore we rebelled against God in 1776 according to the Bible.

Or maybe, just maybe, America was the result of a larger movement: the ending of Judao-Christian control over Western civilization and in many intellectual and political areas a return to our roots. For 1/3-1/2 of its existance, Western Civilization was not Christian and not influenced by Judaism. It was a culture that valued reason heavily, valued aesthetics, promoted learning natural science as a virtue and believed that equality and individual rights are a key foundation of civil society. That is the reason why the West was essentially culturally dead until the Renaissance began the push toward a return to our cultural heritage.

41 posted on 06/29/2002 5:23:30 PM PDT by dheretic
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To: dheretic
I didn't say you could reconcile Locke with Robspierre. I said it was the system..specifically the issue of sovereignty. Most constitutionalists have no problem acknowledging where the founders got their political thought from. I think I was clear enough.

Where do you believe the founders took their political ideals from? It certainly wasn't from the rebirth of civilization after the dark ages, because it was at that time that men regarded sovereignty as coming from God.

43 posted on 06/29/2002 5:29:03 PM PDT by JMJ333
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To: dheretic; JMJ333
There is no way to justify the 1776 War for Independence with the Bible, none whatsoever.

Jonathan Mayhew didn't think so. His 1750 sermon, "A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers", has been called the spark that ignited the American Revolution.

59 posted on 06/29/2002 6:40:52 PM PDT by LarryLied
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To: dheretic
According to Witherspoon, a Calvinist and only signeer of the Declaration of Independence, we were within our rights.
88 posted on 06/30/2002 3:47:34 PM PDT by rwfromkansas
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