Posted on 08/28/2003 12:24:49 PM PDT by Chancellor Palpatine
The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector
9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10 "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about[1] himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' 13 "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' 14 "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Please do. I also recall Moore mentioning that there was a statue of a Greek god somewhere in the same building. But no one seems to care about that.
It seems anything that might remind people of Jesus scares them to pieces.
No, by the lady who chose to play the 'victim' and be 'offended' by the monument (while she chooses not to be offended by statues of Greek and Roman gods in governmental buildings). And by the federal judge who has decided this monument must be removed, but the memorials to 'law givers' in the SCOTUS building are just fine (as are all those memorials to Greek and Roman gods).
You wouldn't have heard from Moore if there wasn't an unconstitutional effort to stifle certain expressions in only certain cases.
I did not hear him say 'God of the bible.' I did hear him say that, based upon the constitution of Alabama, he was required to acknowledge God.
Then lets do so. The constitution forbids the federal government from establishing any law regarding religion. It does not say they can establish laws forbidding religious reference on the state level. So apparently, this federal judge is way out of bounds constitutionally.
1) the laws of God as stated in the Ten Commandments are superior to any other law;
2) what (the words) he has chiseled on his monument comes from God;
3) he derives his secular judicial powers from God;
4) no other religious statements may be made there, only his.
And your point? There are many Christians in this nation who feel that there are those who would love nothing more than to oppress us. (And I've seen many comments from people on these Moore threads that would only support that notion.)
Many people, not just Judge Moore, feel that the removal of the monument is not really about protecting constitutional rights of that whiny little biddy with her panties in a twist. It's about suppressing any perceived reference to the biblical God from the public arena. Which, in the end, will suppress the free speech rights of Christians in particular.
So the monuments to religious law-givers in the SCOTUS building are doing the same? How about all those statues to Greek and Roman gods in governmental buildings?
Please be specific - how do you view the 14th amendment as regards this particular case?
Nonesense and slop.
All this means is you are too intellectually lazy to care, or you sense the conclusion before you start and you are not honest enough to accept it.
"Plain meaning", in any field, makes the text putty in the hands of the interpreter, and you know it. It produces crap in New Testament studies, crap in literary criticism, and crap -- which you probably complain about elsewhere -- in constitutional law.
When I read Shakespeare, and he uses a word, I don't ascribe the meaning to that word which is "plain" to me -- I look the word up, I find out what it meant to him, and thus I am really reading Shakespeare. Looking it up and otherwise finding out what it meant in his century and culture is not "channeling" (your strawman argument) -- it is SCHOLARSHIP. If you don't do it, or rely on someone who has by reading their marginalia with the play, you can still enjoy the play, of course. But no further; you can't take part in an argument about the meaning of a detail in the play by saying "well, the plain meaning of the phrase to ME IS..." -- you'd be laughed out of the classroom. In a rigorous classroom you'd be told "shut up. We don't care what the words mean to you. Talk about what they meant to the Bard." You can take Shakespeare and supply your own meaning, but the IT'S NO LONGER SHAKESPEARE. IT'S YOU.
Now along comes the Constitution. Somehow, now it's o.k. to just make up meanings. The guys who wrote it meant one thing, and we know that very well because of what they said in commentary or what they dd or didn't object to in their day. (say it with me: SCHOLARSHIP)
But somehow we're allowed to disregard their meaning, but take their words and ascribe to them NEW MEANINGS, which, of course, are just "plain meanings" to us -- but then it is no more the Constitution we're discussing than if we were discussing Hamlet by saying "well, when I SAY 'to be or not to be', here is what I MEAN".
You're lazy. You're lazy, and you happen to like the result this time, but others can interpret other Constitutional words by their "plain meaning" ('MILITIA?" FREE SPEECH") another time and on another issue and you won't like it and you have no grounds to protest.
But you will, of course, and that will just make you a lazy hypocrite. "Plain meaning" is the petard on which you yourself will be hoisted.
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