Two Revolutions, Two Views of Man

Conservative Underground | July 6, 2010 | Jean F. Drew

[betty boop]

TWO REVOLUTIONS, TWO VIEWS OF MAN
By Jean F. Drew

As every American schoolchild has been taught, in Western history there were two great sociopolitical revolutions that took place near the end of the eighteenth century: The American Revolution of 1775; and the French, of 1789. Children are taught that both revolutions were fought because of human rights in some way; thus bloody warfare possibly could be justified, condoned so long as the blood and treasure were shed to protect the “rights of man.” The American schoolchild is assured that the American and French revolutions were both devoted to the expansion of human rights and thus were equally noble revolutions. Moreover, it is widely believed that the French Revolution was an evolution from the American one.

Rather than simply accept these ideas uncritically, comparison and contrast of the two revolutions can shed some light on what turns out to be their stark differences — as to inceptions, ostensible goals, foundational ideology, and respective outcomes.

Inceptions
There is a famous Pythagorean maxim (c. sixth century B.C.): “The beginning is the half of the whole.” That is to say, inception events have a way of profoundly influencing the course of events that follow from them; and so their analysis can give insight into the character of their development in time, and even of the motivations they configure. Less obviously, an inception event is itself the culmination of a train of social, political, and cultural development that finally “erupts,” or takes evident shape, as a concrete beginning, or precipitating event of what follows. At that point, a situation of no return has been reached: “The fat is in the fire.” There is no turning back….

And so, let us take a look at the beginnings of two revolutions:

The American:
“In London George III and his cabinet, their confidence bolstered by their huge majority in Parliament, moved toward a confrontation with the Americans. On February 2, 1775, [Prime Minister Frederick, Lord] North introduced a motion to declare the province of Massachusetts in a state of rebellion and asked the King to take steps to support the sovereignty of England. The opposition, led by Edmund Burke, decried this move as a declaration of war. But the measure passed by a majority of three to one. George III was immensely pleased….”

The King decided to send some 1,000 reinforcements to Boston, far short of the number that Governor General Thomas Gage had wanted.

“…The King and his ministers still refused to believe Gage’s assessment of the odds he faced…. Colonel James Grant — who had served in America, at one point in the same army with George Washington [in the French and Indian Wars] — declared he was certain the Americans ‘would never dare to face an English army.’… In this spirit the King … ordered Lord Dartmouth to draft a letter telling Gage that it was time to act.”

Gage promptly acted. Thanks to his spies, he knew that the Colonials were accumulating military stores at Concord, including large quantities of gunpowder. So Gage decided that a swift march on Concord to seize the powder as well as the fourteen cannon said to be in the town “would have a crippling, even demoralizing impact on the Provincial Congress’s plans to form an Army of Observation to pen the British inside Boston.”

From this decision ensued, on April 19, 1775, the opening shot — “the shot heard ’round the world” — of the American Revolutionary War, at North Bridge, Concord, Massachusetts at about 8 o’clock in the morning.

Although the Colonials already knew the British were coming to Concord and Lexington sooner or later, and for what purpose, and that the incursion would come by a night march (rare in that day) — the Americans proved early to be remarkably effective spies — what they did not know was the specific date, or whether the British forces would be moving by land — over Boston Neck — or by sea — in longboats across the Back Bay. Hence the famous signal of “one if by land, two if by sea” posted at the Old North Church, wherein observers were keeping an eye on British troop movements.

It turned out to be “two”: The British forces, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, were subsequently debarked at Cambridge across the Charles River, from longboats attached to H.M.S. Somerset then standing guard over the Boston Harbor ferryway. This was a force of some 700 men composed of light infantrymen and “fearsome” grenadiers. From thence the body proceeded overland, on a much shorter march than would have been the case had they approached Concord via Boston Neck. The route from Cambridge to Concord led straight through the heart of the neighboring town of Lexington.

As soon as the news came that the British were moving, Paul Revere set upon his famous midnight ride “on a fast mare,” traveling west at high speed to warn the people of Concord and the surrounding towns that the British were coming. Samuel Prescott and William Dawes likewise fanned out on horseback, spreading the alert to all within earshot.

The folks at Concord, having thus been warned, working feverishly overnight, managed to remove all the military stores to safe locations. The locals felt confident they could handle the threat: After all, the town had 600 drilled and trained Minutemen on spot, and there were some 6,000 other Minutemen and Militia — a body composed of all able-bodied men between the ages of 15 and 60 — within fairly easy reach of Concord town who were already pledged to come to her aid in the event of the outbreak of actual hostilities.

The people of Concord evidently figured a show of force would suffice to deter the British officers from doing anything rash. But really what they were relying on was their expectation — based on their understanding of the so-far prevailing rules of engagement, frequently tested — that British troops would never open fire on their fellow citizens — i.e., the Colonials themselves, who were British subjects also — unless they were fired upon first. And the Americans did not intend to fire first.

In this assessment of the situation on the ground, they were sadly mistaken. In the approach to Concord, the Brits had provoked a bloody engagement at Lexington Green in which “the British light infantry unquestionably fired the first volleys, killing eight men and wounding ten.” Then the British forces continued their march into Concord, to secure the bridges of the town: The British commander Smith had detached four squadrons to visit a prominent local farm to see whether contraband might be stashed there; and feared his troops could not safely return if the North Bridge were under the control of the Colonials. In defense of the bridge, the Brits again fired first. For a moment, the Americans could not believe this was happening. “‘Goddamn it,’ one man shouted, ‘They are firing ball!’” Then their commander, Major Buttrick, “whirled and shouted, ‘Fire fellow soldiers, for God’s sake fire.’” The Americans sustained six casualties at North Bridge, all fatal. On the British side, “Two privates were killed and a sergeant, four privates and four officers were wounded.”

Then the Brits cut their losses and in disorderly retreat high-tailed it back to the security of their barracks in Boston — empty-handed. Their mission was a failure: They had not found, let alone confiscated, any military stores.

But the American Revolutionary War was officially ON….

* * * * * * *

The French:
“History will record, that on the morning of the 6th of October 1789, the king and queen of France, after a day of confusion, alarm, dismay, and slaughter, lay down, under the pledged security of public faith, to indulge nature in a few hours of respite, and troubled melancholy repose. From this sleep the queen was first startled by the voice of the sentinel at her door, who cried out to her, to save herself by flight — that this was the last proof of fidelity he could give — that they were upon him, and he was dead. Instantly he was cut down. A band of cruel ruffians and assassins, reeking with his blood, rushed into the chamber of the queen, and pierced with an hundred strokes of bayonets and poniards the bed, from whence this persecuted woman had just time to fly almost half naked, and through ways unknown to the murderers had escaped to seek refuge at the feet of a king and husband, not secure of his own life for a moment.

“This king … and this queen, and their infant children (who once would have been the pride and hope of a great and generous people) were then forced to abandon the sanctuary of the most splendid palace in the world, which they left swimming in blood, polluted by massacre, and strewed with scattered limbs and mutilated carcasses. Thence they were conducted into the capital of their kingdom. Two had been selected from the unprovoked, unresisted, promiscuous slaughter which was made of the gentlemen of birth and family who composed the king’s bodyguard. These two gentlemen, with all the parade of an execution of justice, were cruelly and publicly dragged to the block, and beheaded…. Their heads were stuck upon spears, and led the procession; whilst the royal captives who followed in the train were slowly moved along, amidst the horrid yells, and shrilling screams, and frantic dances, and infamous contumelies, and all the unutterable abominations of the furies of hell…. After they had been made to taste, drop by drop, more than the bitterness of death, in the slow torture of a journey of twelve miles protracted to six hours, they were, under a guard composed of those very soldiers who had thus conducted them through this famous triumph, lodged in one of the old palaces of Paris, now converted into a Bastile for kings….”

And thus, the French Revolutionary War was officially ON….

On the question of origins — beginnings, inceptions, precipitating events — it would appear that the American and French Revolutions do not seem to resemble one another very much. It’s difficult to draw a common understanding of what human rights might be on the basis of such disparate evidence.

On the one hand, it’s possible to see that perhaps human rights had something to do with the defense of Concord: People coming together to protect and defend their lives, liberty, and property against the tyranny of George III, who then was most corruptly usurping the ancient “rights of Englishmen” not only in America, but also back in the home isles — as the Colonials were very well aware.

People today do not appreciate how close was the tie with the “mother country” at the time, through the printed word: In that day, the London presses were offloading their publications directly onto American ships bound for Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston, as soon as the ink was dry. It was from the London press that the Colonials learned of the usurpations of individual liberty that good King George was perpetrating at home, not to mention in their own backyard. They wanted no part of it.

On the other hand, it’s difficult to see what human right is implicated in the inception event of the French Revolution — unless it be the right to commit regicide. Or maybe the right to agitate and deploy mobs as instruments of social and political change….

In the end, “Citizen Louis Capet,” formerly known as King Louis XVI of France, was tried and convicted of treason by the National Convention and was guillotined on 21 January 1793 — the only French king in history to fall victim to regicide. His queen, Marie Antoinette, was also tried and convicted of treason: She was executed by guillotine on 16 October 1793, nine months after her husband.

Ostensible Goals
It seems clear that the Americans were not seeking to kill the king, or to overthrow the traditions of the British constitutional monarchy. Rather, they were seeking a complete, formal separation from it — because they were motivated by the conviction that their historic liberties were being systematically violated by George III.

By 1775, the Americans already had a tradition of local or self-government going back some 150 years. When the king sent in his governors, who ruled autocratically as directed by himself and his council, the Americans were outraged. The maxim “no taxation without representation” was but one expression of their revulsion for what they perceived as the wholesale destruction of the historic liberties of British subjects in America. The Sons of Liberty at Boston, notably including Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and John Hancock, eloquently argued for total separation from the British Crown — not the most popular idea at first. But the events at Lexington Green and Concord Bridge caused many to reappraise their position on this matter. In the end, complete separation was the idea that prevailed, and which was finally achieved….

So what was this notion of liberty that had the Americans so exercised? John Trenchard and Robert Gordon, writing in Cato’s Letters — serially published in The London Journal in 1721 and after, which was avidly read in America at the time — describe human liberty as follows:

All men are born free; Liberty is a Gift which they receive from God; nor can they alienate the same by Consent, though possibly they may forfeit it by crimes....

Liberty is the power which every man has over his own Actions, and the Right to enjoy the Fruit of his Labor, Art, and Industry, as far as by it he hurts not the Society, or any Member of it, by taking from any Member, or by hindering him from enjoying what he himself enjoys.

The fruits of a Man’s honest Industry are the just rewards of it, ascertained to him by natural and eternal Equity, as is his Title to use them in the Manner which he thinks fit: And thus, with the above Limitations, every Man is sole Lord and Arbiter of his own private Actions and Property....

These were the ideas that had earlier inspired the Glorious Revolution of 1688, of which the great British philosopher and political activist, John Locke (1632–1704) — a thinker enormously respected in America — was the intellectual father. Above all, Locke’s ideas constitute a theory of the individual human being. This is the same theory that inspired the American Revolution of 1775: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed….” Indeed, it appears the author of the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776) was strongly resonating to Locke’s essential political ideas in these passages.

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) — the great Anglo-Irish statesman, political theorist, and philosopher (who as already noted was sympathetic to the American cause) — also articulated the historic rights of Englishmen, and of all free peoples universally, as follows:

“…If civil society be made for the advantage of man, all the advantages for which it is made become his right. It is an institution of beneficence; the law itself is only beneficence acting by a rule. Men have a right to live by that rule; they have a right to justice; as between their fellows, whether their fellows are in political function or in ordinary occupation. They have a right to the fruits of their industry; and to the means of making their industry fruitful. They have a right to the acquisitions of their parents; to the nourishment and improvement of their offspring; to instruction in life, and to consolation in death. Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing on others, he has a right to do for himself; and he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with all its combinations of skill and force, can do in his favor. But as to the share of power, authority and direction which each individual ought to have in the management of the state, that I must deny to be amongst the direct original rights of man in civil society; for I have in my contemplation the civil social man, and no other. It is a thing to be settled by convention.

“If civil society be the offspring of convention, that convention must be its law. That convention must limit and modify all the descriptions of constitution which are formed under it. Every sort of legislative, judicial, or executory power are its creatures. They can have no being in any other state of things; and how can a man claim, under the conventions of civil society, rights which do not so much as suppose its existence?”

This last point draws attention to Burke’s understanding that the foundational rights of man declared by the French philosophes — Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité — are purely abstract rights indicating no sign of understanding of, or connection with, the actual development and maintenance of a just civil society. In other words, the philosophes envisioned man abstractly, or to put it another way, as abstracted from both nature and society as if this abstract man stands as a total end in himself, as sacrosanct, beyond any demand of society which nature assigns to him as inescapable part and participant of it. It seems the philosophes first reduce the human being to an abstraction — by taking him entirely out of the context of historical experience and traditional understandings of natural law going back millennia. Then, with man having been so abstracted, from there it is easy to dissolve him into an abstract mass: The individual is no longer the natural or even “legal” bearer of rights; rather, the legal bearer of rights is now the mass, the “group”— mankind at large or however else defined.

There is a further consideration regarding the original American founding that we should remember today: The British colony at Massachusetts was not established by means of military power — which is the usual way that states of whatever description acquire new territories. Instead, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was established by religious refugees: They were dissenters from the Church of England, the established church of which the reigning king was titular head.

Beginning with Henry VIII and extending to all his successors, the king of England entirely combined in his own person both the fundamental secular and spiritual authority of British society. But, when religious pilgrims on November 11, 1620, at Provincetown, Massachusetts, ratified what has been described as the first written constitution in human history, the Mayflower Compact, they were acting in resonance to a spiritual authority superior to that of the then-reigning king, James I — or of kings in general.

Just by making the voyage to America, the religious refugees were repudiating the authority of the king over their spiritual lives. Once there, the secular authority of the king was of absolutely no help to them. They had to shift for themselves, and basic survival was the highest priority: Almost the majority of the original colony perished during their first New England winter. They were forced to place their reliance entirely on themselves, on each other, and on God. The Mayflower Compact, moreover, made the pilgrim’s primary reliance on God perfectly explicit. Its first five words are: “In the name of God, Amen.”

Hold that thought while we turn to the French experience.

For centuries, the foundation of French society, culture, and politics had been the idea of the Etats General, of which there were three “estates”: the aristocracy, whose head was the King; the Church, whose head was the Pope; and everybody else; i.e., your average, everyday, common, “small” people….

What is known is that when King Louis XVI was decapitated, the social force of the French aristocracy was effectively decapitated with him. Also it is known that in the four-year period between the invasion of the queen’s bedchamber and the execution of the king, some 16,000 French men and women were guillotined at Paris — mainly aristocrats and other well-off people — as “enemies of the State.” Also all Church lands (probably accounting for some twenty percent of the total French real estate) and property were forcibly confiscated by the State, now reposed in a body called the National Assembly, composed by the Third Estate, the “people” of France. Thousands of clergy — bishops, priests, monks, and nuns — were murdered.

In effect the Third Estate utterly destroyed the other two: That’s the French Revolution in a nutshell.

Foundational Ideology
The French Revolution managed to kill off the first two Estates — and with that, evidently hoped to extinguish forever all aristocratic and theological ideas, pretensions, and powers regarding questions of the human condition. Indeed, the general expectation then seemed to be the Third Estate, the people, unchained from past “superstitions” and “repressions,” had at last come into its own sphere, where it could finally define and exercise true human “liberty.”

But the people were not some sort of homogeneous mass. Rather, there is a natural hierarchical order within the Third Estate similar to that found in both the aristocratic and theological estates.

In France at the time, at the top of this natural hierarchy were the people with expertise in manufacturing, commerce, banking, and law. They were the beneficiaries of the rising tide of the Enlightenment, as plentifully nourished from the side of Newtonian science.

In the rank immediately below them were the skilled craftsmen. Below this, relatively unskilled laborers. Then, the “least” of the people, the peasants/serfs who mainly were the impoverished suffering victims of the feudal order then embraced by both the aristocracy and the Church.

Thus within the Third Estate there were marked disparities of wealth, opportunity, education, talent, and ability. Yet the doctrine of Egalité erases all such distinctions: An Einstein and the most ignorant day laborer were considered “equal.” All were “equal” in the National Assembly too. On this basis, the doctrine of Fraternité, of the universal brotherhood of mankind, is blind and silent regarding the problem of: how the victims of the revolution become “non-brothers” in the first place, such that they could be destroyed with impunity by the mob, or condemned as “enemies of the state” by the National Convention and sent to the guillotine. On this basis, the doctrine of Liberté seems little more than a defense of gratuitous, passionate license that is immensely destructive to society.

Burke’s analysis of the situation in France, the condition of the National Assembly, and their combined implications, retains its extraordinary political noteworthiness to defenders of Liberty in our own day:

“It is no wonder therefore, that it is with these ideas of everything in their constitution and government at home, either in church or state, as illegitimate and usurped, or, at best as a vain mockery, they look abroad with an eager and passionate enthusiasm. Whilst they are possessed by these notions, it is vain to talk to them of the practice of their ancestors, the fundamental laws of their country, the fixed form of a constitution, whose merits are confirmed by the solid test of long experience, and an increasing public strength and national prosperity.

“They despise experience as the wisdom of unlettered men; and as for the rest, they have wrought underground a mine that will blow up at one grand explosion all examples of antiquity, all precedents, charters, and acts of parliament. They have ‘the rights of men.’ Against these there can be no prescription; against these no agreement is binding; these admit no temperament [modification], and no compromise: anything withheld from their full demand is so much of fraud and injustice. Against these their rights of men let no government look for security in the length of its continuance, or in the justice and lenity of its administration….”

Burke again reminds us a few pages later on that there is deep danger in relying on abstract rights when it comes to the organization of a just — that is “liberal,” in the sense of liberty, the root idea of classical liberalism — political society:

“The moment you abate anything from the full rights of men, each to govern himself, and suffer any artificial positive limitation upon those rights, from that moment the whole organization of government becomes a consideration of convenience. This it is which makes the constitution of a state, and the due distribution of its powers, a matter of the most delicate and complicated skill. It requires a deep knowledge of human nature and human necessities, and of the things which facilitate or obstruct the various ends which are to be pursued by the mechanism of civil institutions. The state is to have recruits to its strength, and remedies to its distempers. What is the use of discussing a man’s abstract right to food or medicine? The question is upon the method of procuring and administering them. In that deliberation I shall always advise to call in the aid of the farmer and the physician, rather than the professor of metaphysics.”

In Burke’s view — and I daresay in the view of his contemporary American readers — the French Revolution was a

“… usurpation which, in order to subvert ancient institutions, has destroyed ancient principles, will hold power by arts similar to those by which it has acquired it. When the old feudal and chivalrous spirit of Fealty, which by freeing kings from fear, freed both kings and subjects from the precautions of tyranny, shall be extinct in the minds of men, plots and assassinations will be anticipated by preventive murder and preventive confiscation, and that long roll of grim and bloody maxims which form the political code of all power not standing on its own honor and the honor of those who are to obey it. Kings will be tyrants from policy when subjects are rebels from principle.”

“Excuse me … if I have dwelt too long on this atrocious spectacle of the sixth of October 1789, or have given too much scope to the reflections which have arisen in my mind on occasion of the most important of all revolutions, which may be dated from that day, I mean a revolution in sentiments, manners, and moral opinions. As things now stand, with everything respectable destroyed without us, and an attempt to destroy within us every principle of respect, one is almost forced to apologize for harboring the common feelings of men….”

Clearly, Burke understands the French Revolution first and foremost as a “revolution in sentiments, manners, and moral opinions” — that is, it was preeminently a social, not a political revolution. Certainly that was not the case with the American Revolution. Indeed, Bernard Bailyn, eminent professor of Early American History at Harvard, has asked a tantalizing question: Was the American Revolution a revolution, or was it an evolution?

The prevailing American view at the time did not reject the ancient British tradition of natural liberty under natural law; it was rejecting King George as the traducer and usurper of this tradition. They didn’t want a king or a pope; they wanted a system of self-government that had already been in long usage in America. Ultimately they wanted a Constitution exclusively devoted to the defense of human liberty under just and equal laws. Which if history was of any guide meant that the action of the State had to be kept minimal in its scope by well-defined authority.

Most colonial Americans, being heirs of the same ancient, natural-law cultural tradition as Edmund Burke, likely would have agreed with him about this:

“…We are not the converts of Rousseau; we are not the disciples of Voltaire; Helvetius has made no progress amongst us. Atheists are not our preachers; madmen are not our lawgivers. We know that we have made no discoveries; and we think that no discoveries are to be made, in morality; nor many in the great principles of government, nor in the ideas of liberty, which were understood long before we were born, altogether as well as they will be after the grave has heaped its mould on our presumption….”

The allusion to Rousseau here is particularly instructive. Rousseau held that man is born perfectly good: He is born the “noble savage.” But as soon as he is in the world long enough, he becomes subject to a relentless process of corruption that makes him “bad” — because of the “bad institutions” of society, including churches and states, educational systems, economic organizations, and so forth. Man is victimized by society and powerless against it. “Bad institutions” are entirely to blame for human misery.

In short, Rousseau’s doctrine is directly opposed to the natural law doctrine that human beings are responsible (within limits) for whatever happens to them. Natural law theory holds that individual human beings alone have the ability to choose, decide, act; and that they are responsible for the decisions they make. And this implies the objective existence of good and evil. It also requires a universal (divine) spiritual authority to underwrite the foundational truths of the natural and moral worlds, thus to bring them into correspondence in human reason and experience.

In short, the Americans were not disciples of Rousseau…. He stands their theory of man on its very head.

Two Views of Man — Then and Now
The two revolutions have theories of man that are diametrically opposed, based on the idea of what constitutes human liberty, of the source of human rights. What Locke and Burke and the Americans held in common was the belief that human rights are the gifts of God, and are therefore inseparable from human nature itself. In other words, these rights inalienably inhere in concrete individual persons, each and every one, equally.

In contrast, on the French revolutionary view, human rights are the province of an abstraction known as “mankind.” Its doctrine is the Rights of Man — not the equal, inalienable rights of actual men. It sets up scope for the idea of “group rights,” as opposed to the idea of rights divinely vested in the individual person in such a way as to constitute his or her very own human nature. Under the French Revolution, the “metaphysicians” — Burke’s term for intellectual elites — would guide the rest of us in our understanding of such matters. In short, our rights as human beings ineluctably would be what politically powerful elites tell us they are. There is to be no higher standard of truth than that.

In the so-called post-modern world, the revolution that works overtime to kill truth wants to destroy it at its root — at the Logos. Rather than engage in fully free and fair debate, the entire project of the French Revolution seems have been the delegitimation of the idea that there is an “objective” standard by which Reality can be ascertained and judged, the root criterion for the discernment of good and evil in the actual world, by which human beings, acting according to reason and experience, can guide their lives in fruitful ways — or do the opposite. In short, once the concept of good and evil is destroyed, the human being has no firm guide by which to navigate his own personal existence.

Instead of the perennial question of good v. evil, in the post-modern world some “metaphysicians” tell us there is no objective truth at all — which logically follows from the presupposition of the “death” of God which they have, like Rousseau, already achieved in their own minds. The description of human reality thus boils down to a competition of amoral human “narratives,” or skilled opinions; but in the end still opinions. And under the principle of Egalité, one man’s opinion is just like any other man’s, neither good nor bad.

It appears we have among us today “metaphysicians” who desire, in the words of the great Anglo-American poet T. S. Eliot, to contrive and execute “systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.” And then to impose them on humanity. To succeed in this project, first they have to discredit the foundational motivating ideas of the American Revolution….

To speak of the Now: The currently sitting American president seems to be an activist of the French model. He is distinctly a post-modernist thinker, as an analysis of his words vis-à-vis his actions will show. Evidently he has no sympathy for the values, principles, and goals of the American Revolution, and has disparaged the Constitution — to which he freely swore an Oath of fidelity — on grounds that it is a “system of negative liberties” that has outlived its usefulness.

Indeed, it appears that he is doing everything in his power finally to drive a silver stake through the very heart of American liberty — the historic liberty of We the People of the United States of America, and that of our Posterity — for which the Constitution originally was “ordained and established.”

©2010 Jean F. Drew

ENDNOTES
¹ Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie, The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library, David Fideler, ed., Grand Rapids: Phanes Press, 1988, p. 97.
² Thomas Fleming, Liberty!: The American Revolution, New York: Viking, 1997, p. 104f.
³ Fleming, p. 105.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ Fleming, p. 112.
⁶ Fleming, p. 118.
⁷ Ibid.
⁸ Ibid.
⁹ Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, New York: The Classics of Liberty Library, 1982, p. 105f. Note: Because this edition is a facsimile of the original publication of 1790, I’ve taken the liberty of modernizing the spelling and punctuation.
¹⁰ John Trenchard and Robert Gordon, Cato’s Letters, Vol. 1, Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Inc., 1995, p. 406ff.
¹¹ Burke, p. 87–88.
¹² Burke, p. 85–86.
¹³ Burke, p. 89–90.
¹⁴ Burke, p. 116.
¹⁵ Burke, p. 119; emphasis added.
¹⁶ Burke, p. 127–128; emphasis added.

[kosta50]

"The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles." (John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, 20 June, 1815, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Albert Ellery Bergh Editor, in 19 volumes). Not the dogma. The values.

Straw man. No Christian values here. The Bible says all authority on earth is from God and commands everyone to submit to kings and princes in obedience. Those are Bible-sponsored Christian values; along with love your enemy and turn the other cheek, suffering for Christ, etc.

Revolutions, human rights, freedoms endowed by some nameless Creator, equality, inalienable rights, etc. are not found in the Bible. Those are slogans of the godless French Revolution in case you didn't notice.

That's why the Founders do neither quote verses from the Bible, nor use biblical language, nor mention Christ by name, nor even God, etc.—just their deist terminology and beliefs based on Quakerism (you know the "how-you-feel-today Christian Friends"), and the Trinity-denying Unitarians.

[YHAOS]

“Had you not made a comment I would have ignored hers, as I do, and as I told her . . . ”

OK, so you want to argue with grey_whiskers without the burden of having to deal with a difficult riposte. I don’t channel Elvis. I don’t propose channeling grey_whiskers (no offense grey_whiskers). If that’s your rules, then I’ll follow your practice and ignore your posts with respect to the issues you have with grey_whiskers. Go find another channeller. This time you might think of asking for volunteers, rather than acting like a Liberal and just simply shaghaiing someone.

“the word Creator in and of itself is not significant in that period.”

Not according to etymology dictionaries. Take it up with them. They make the distinction between Creator as God and creator as the author of a work of fiction. The Founding Fathers themselves attribute their revolutionary act to Christian values. Sounds like you’re standing in the need for someone to also channel the Founding Fathers.

[grey_whiskers]

“The self-appointed censor-general who tracks my posts with admirable passion . . . ”

Since your quarrel seems to be with grey_whiskers it’s a wonder you didn’t bother to ping him (or her, as the case might be). But I have summoned him should he wish to defend himself.

Thanks, YHAOS, for pinging me. And I have always been, and remain, a "him". I think our esteemed disputant was attempting to convey disrespect when using the word "her" to refer to me.

I'm puzzled as to why I'm called a "censor-general" when I haven't been engaged in censorship, but correction.

Now, back to etymology and other related matters.

I believe kos's original contention was that the Declaration of Independence was a Deist document Post#24; as evidence for this he pointed out that

"Nevertheless they all signed it and therefore gave their consent to the wording, which has no Christ, no triune God or even the word God in it. It's a deist document. It's not a Christian document. Period. "

He then bolsters this in Post #58 by saying

" Empty repetition doesn't become truth. The truth is that if they wanted to make a Christian document they would have written a Christian document, by calling on God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, instead of an anonymous and impersonal "Creator".

They knew what they were doing and the document reads exactly as they saw fit. It is written as a deist document.

Besides, capitalizing the word "Creator" means nothing. In those days they capitalized every noun (as Germans do to this day). "

So let's look a little deeper at this.

First -- my earlier post #198 and the one of YHAOS to which this is a partial reply, put paid to the idea that the Capitalization of "Creator" in the DoI is inconsequential; and with it, the second supporting argument that it was merely a Deist document.

Second, in Post #162, kos claimed that

"To me context matters, of course. Like most people I make a decision (for a variety of reasons) how much of the context serves to convey a message. Sometimes it's a lot, and sometimes it's not. "

That's good, if it were true; but what makes this appear disingenuous is the contents of post #162 itself, in which he makes the following quotation:

" As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed? [John Adams, Letter to F. A. Van der Kamp, December 27, 1816]"

There are two things which make this particularly relevant.

The first is that the hypertext link was to an atheist website.

The second, is that in Post #195, YHAOS gives the rest of the quote of John Adams, and shows that it is not in favor of atheism, nor anti-Christian, at all.

The upshot of this, is that, despite his claims of sensitivity to context, in this instance at least, kos IGNORED context directly relevant to a quote he was using (e.g. ignoring the first five items in a list to make reference only to the sixth, and using the appearance only of that sixth one in isolation); and furthermore, apparently IGNORED the "context" of the quote's appearance on an atheist site. Despite his claims that he is not an atheist. Contrast this to my behaviour w.r.t. my Post #202 about slavery, where I quote from a known (and maybe one of the most famous nowadays) abolitionists, but explicitly point out this person's affiliation, and also avoided choosing a primarily "Christian apologetics" site and then not mentioning it.

Now, to return to the positive claims of context, with regards to the DoI.

1) audience

2) purpose / historical context

The audience was (at least in part) George III, as it was the offenses of the crown which were at issue. He was Anglican, with some sympathy towards Catholics. Hence, a document directed to his ear would have taken the liberty of assuming he knew who was meant by the "Creator". Various verses such as John 1:3 and Colossians 1:16 notwithstanding, when you are talking to a Christian, when you speak of the Creator they will assume God the Father.

2) Purpose -- the DoI was NOT a theological document, but a political one. Keep in mind the following issues extant during this time frame (both generally, and specific to the colonies):

a) Religious / factional wars governing tolerance between Catholics and Protestants;

b) State Religions (e.g. Church of England)

Ergo, why would the Colonies, in the middle of breaking from England, want to simultaneously take on BOTH the issue of a state religion, and risk alienating any number of potential allies within the colonies, by explicitly tackling such a thorny topic, in the very midst of trying to pull away from Mother England?

Or, you have (source) the recollections of Thomas Jefferson about the lead-up to the declaration of independence.

One such episode he relates was a bill in 1774 which would shut up the port of Boston.

Jefferson writes:

"The next event which excited our sympathies for Massachusetts was the Boston port bill, by which that port was to be shut up on the 1st of June, 1774. This arrived while we were in session in the spring of that year. The lead in the house on these subjects being no longer left to the old members, Mr. Henry, R. H. Lee, Fr. L. Lee, 3 or 4 other members, whom I do not recollect, and myself, agreeing that we must boldly take an unequivocal stand in the line with Massachusetts, determined to meet and consult on the proper measures in the council chamber, for the benefit of the library in that room. We were under conviction of the necessity of arousing our people from the lethargy into which they had fallen as to passing events; and thought that the appointment of a day of general fasting & prayer would be most likely to call up & alarm their attention. No example of such a solemnity had existed since the days of our distresses in the war of '55, since which a new generation had grown up. With the help therefore of Rushworth, [a popular book, John Rushworth's Historical Collections] whom we rummaged over for the revolutionary precedents & forms of the Puritans of that day, preserved by him, we cooked up a resolution, somewhat modernizing their phrases, for appointing the 1st day of June, on which the Port bill was to commence, for a day of fasting, humiliation & prayer, to implore heaven to avert from us the evils of civil war, to inspire us with firmness in support of our rights, and to turn the hearts of the King & parliament to moderation & justice. To give greater emphasis to our proposition, we agreed to wait the next morning on Mr. Nicholas, whose grave & religious character was more in unison with the tone of our resolution and to solicit him to move it. We accordingly went to him in the morning. He moved it the same day; the 1st of June was proposed and it passed without opposition. The Governor dissolved us as usual." (Emphasis mine)

Now, as to the idea that Deism was the main belief? Recall John Witherspoon, Presbyterian minister, signer of the Declaration, and President of Princeton. Here is an excerpt of a letter from Witherspoon to George Washington:

We contemplate and adore the wisdom and goodness of divine Providence, as displayed in favor of the United States in many instances during the course of the war; but in none more than in the unanimous appointment of your Excellency to the command of the army. When we consider the continuance of your life and health -- the discenrment, prudence, fortitude, and patience of your conduct, by which you have not only sacrificed as others have done, personal ease and property, but frequently even reputation itself, in the public cause, choosing rather to risque your own name than expose the nakedness of your country -- when we consider the great and growing attachment of the army, and the cordial esteem of all ranks of men, and of every state in the Union, which you so long enjoyed -- we cannot help being of opinion, that God himself has raised you up as a fit and proper instrument for establishing and securing the liberty and happiness of these States.

We pray that the Almighty may continue to protect and bless you...

So we have a signer of the DoI, openly speaking to Washington about the direct interposition of the Almighty, with specific will and intent aforethought, into the affairs of men, in a contemporary setting.

Oh, and one other point in passing?

In Post #41 Wallop the Cat corrected kos about the (mis)quote that

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”

Note again, that CONTEXT is important: and here is another historical point which kos has apparently neglected in his rush towards anti-Christian wishful thinking.

The HISTORICAL context of that letter.

From The Atlantic Monthly Issue 180, October 1872 (note, kos, this was before Jerry Falwell, so save the cheap shots!), as quoted in the Cornell digital library:

Disguising their feelings as best they could, they "took the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury." The ambassador replied: It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every muslim who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy's ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once.

So in this historical CONTEXT, it makes sense that when seeking a peace treaty, pains would be taken to tell the Moose-limbs that America was not a Christian theocracy.

This was before teh Internets, btw, in case you forgot: news from halfway across the world was delayed and/or unreliable; and Moose-limbs(even as we have seen today in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan) are given to some pretty wild beliefs about the infidel.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Which is why slavery is still practiced in Muslim countries today, eh, kos?

Tell you what : since you are so concerned with theocracy, and with slavery, why don't you mosey on over to Kabul or Kandahar or Islamabad or Riyadh and tell the fine folks there the "Good News" that there is no Allah?

We'll wait.

[YHAOS]

“It was a world-wide movement which started with the French Revolution”

Right. 1792 came before 1775. The American Revolution had nothing to do with anything.

“At the same time American industrialist had no moral problems with 16-hour a day child labor”

Neither did anyone else. You’re applying Twenty First Century standards to Eighteenth Century practices. It took 250 years to get from there to here. You want to bridge that time in a moment. That’s an ahistorical criticism of the sort that propagandists use. You sound like an IWW field agent.

[grey_whiskers]

Itn Post #106 you wrote:

"Slavery was as much part of life as chickens. It has been there forever. It is biblical. It was not condemned in either Testament."

Which I blew out of the water in Post #202.

So now, of course, instead of admitting that you are wrong AGAIN -- you pretend your original declaration was never made, and move the goalposts. You even quoted back the very verses from my post in doing so!

But then in Post #230 you get so desperate, you misquote yourself in an attempt to wriggle out.

"She takes issue with my statement that the Bible legitimizes slavery.”

Note that I am including both the links and the actual language from posts verbatim. As you pointed out in Post #162, context *is* important:

To me context matters, of course.

Oh, but the rest of your sentence is:

Like most people I make a decision (for a variety of reasons) how much of the context serves to convey a message. Sometimes it's a lot, and sometimes it's not.

So, judging from your conduct in this thread, it appears that context is important "if and only if" it favors your initial contention; otherwise, not.

This reminds me personally of the quote from the recently deceased AGW propagandist shill, Stephen H. Schneider:

""To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective, and being honest." "

Also, in Post #102 you wrote:

No country at the time of the Declaration of Independence was free of slavery of some kind. Christian Europe retained slavery since the Church was recognized as the state institution just shy of 1700 ago. Ergo, no country could have been constituted well. The Church did nothing to stop slavery.

You haven't yet retracted this remark, given your well-deserved Fisking in my post Post #202.

Oh, and one last, in defiance of Winston Churchill's apocryphal remark that "there's no point in making the rubble bounce"...

In your Post #227, you quoted:

Soon many writers capitalized every noun they found important. Consequently, in some books all or most nouns were being capitalized

May I note in passing the following two points?

1) The DoI was, and is not, a "book". As you say, "context is important"...

2) Here's an example of a BOOK, written by one of the signers of the DoI (and an ordained clergyman), John Witherspoon.

Look through it and see if all or most of the nouns are being capitalized, mmmkay?

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Revolutions, human rights, freedoms endowed by some nameless Creator, equality, inalienable rights, etc. are not found in the Bible. Those are slogans of the godless French Revolution in case you didn't notice.

Revolutions -- for a counterexample see for example Judges 3:20, which involves regicide.

human rights -- for a counterexample see for example Exodus 22:21 - 23, Deuteronomy 17:6, and Deuteronomy 27:19.

freedoms endowed by some nameless Creator -- you're right. Exodus 3:13-14, so there are no freedoms from a nameless Creator. By the way, you capitalized "Creator" too.

As far as freedoms -- it was GOD who set Israel free from Egypt. They used to be slaves there, remember? And this is recalled in Galatians 5:1 while you're at it.

Equality -- for a counterexample see Deuteronomy 24:14, and Leviticus 25:35, and Galatians 3:28.

inalienable rights -- try Deuteronomy 24:5 on sanctity of marriage over induction into the Army.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

That's why the Founders do neither quote verses from the Bible, nor use biblical language, nor mention Christ by name, nor even God, etc.—just their deist terminology and beliefs based on Quakerism (you know the "how-you-feel-today Christian Friends"), and the Trinity-denying Unitarians.

See post #210, Einstein.

KC, YH, if kos ignores this because it's from me, could you remind him his remark was contradicted before he wrote it?

Cheers!

[KC Burke]

LOL, I think we can let others reading the exchanges look and make up their own minds. If he wants to maintain a certain opinion I don’t feel I have to try and correct every post with which I disagree.

I guess there was a time twenty-five years ago and 20,000 pages of historical reading in the past where I probably held some opinions in common with him. He is my brother conservative and not my student. He will get to where he gets...

[Diamond]

For the same reason Christians insist on the Ten Commandments.

Christians are not under the Ten Commandments as such, because we are not under the Law but under Grace. We have a higher calling under the New Covenant: "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" John 1:17. The Mosaic Law was given to Israel, not the surrounding nations;
Deuteronomy 5:1, 6:3,4, etc.
The Bible says how long the Old Testament law was in effect: "The law and the prophets were until John." Luke 16:16a, and "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes" Romans 10:4.

God intended the Old Covenant to be replaced by the New: "But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises. For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another." Hebrews 8:6,7. Verse 13 states: "By calling this covenant "new," he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear."

The Bible states what the purpose of the law was. From Galations 3: "The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you."So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law." Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith." The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, "The man who does these things will live by them." Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.... What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator. A mediator, however, does not represent just one party; but God is one. Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law."

Should I keep going?

To me morality is a set of socially agreed upon standards of conduct that constantly evolve and vary from culture to culture. In our present-day Zeitgeist and Weltanschauung, slavery is considered immoral because that's what we currently believe.

Your normative ethical relativism makes it impossible for you to critize any other culture, past or present with a different Zeitgeist and Weltanschauung, or even your own culture, if what you ought to do is what your culture tells you you ought to do. In fact, your definition of morality absurdly makes the notion of a moral reformer a contradiction in terms.

The Ten Commandments are part of the 613 mitzvot God mandated in the Torah. On what basis are, then, the Ten selected as morally 'biding' to Christians and the rest are not?

That question is based on a caricature of what the New Testament says on the subject.

besides, the New Covenant was promised only to the Jews (the two Jewish kingdoms House of Israel and the House of Judah), not to the Gentiles.

Prove it.

" even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? As He says also in Hosea: "I will call them My people, who were not My people, And her beloved, who was not beloved. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not My people,' There they shall be called sons of the living God."
Romans 9:24-26

Cordially,

[YHAOS]

I had always assumed you to be a “him” but I can’t say that the subject had come to my attention before. I can’t claim sufficient acquaintance with kosta’s manner to know whether or not he deems calling you “she” to be a term of denigration. I hope not because, if he does, then he has earned trouble with every “she” on this forum. Nor, like you, can I fathom why he would think you a “censor-general.” Everyone knows the drill on these threads.

Thanks very much for the information you’ve provided. It advances the dialogue considerably, I think. And, thanks for referencing post #210, thereby saving me the trouble (thanks again, KC).

Also, thanks for contributing post #41, Wallop. Somehow I missed acknowledging your post way back when. My apologies.

[kosta50]

Here's an example of a BOOK, written by one of the signers of the DoI (and an ordained clergyman), John Witherspoon

You are mocking my statement about context, but you fail (conveniently) to note that my statement also says up to the 18th century. Leaving out context as you see fit?

If you look at your own example the book in question was printed in the 19th century (1815 to be exact). Apples and oranges.

The reason I don't bother with your posts is because they are so full of holes such as the one above, I would have to spend my entire day devoted to your mistakes, inconsistencies and contradictions, as illustrated above. They are not worth it, trust me. I feel no such appetency whatsoever.

But every now and then I will send you a sobering note lest you forget.

[kosta50]

I can’t claim sufficient acquaintance with kosta’s manner to know whether or not he deems calling you “she” to be a term of denigration

He could have asked me. My sincere apologies to grey_whiskers. Maybe the association with cats is what initially led me to believe he was a 'she' (I must admit I have never known an ardent male cat lover). I heard nothing to the contrary so I continued referring to him as a 'she.' I have no vested interest in genders on the Forum.

But this wouldn't be the first time a poster decided to 'read' my mind imputing sinister motives on my behalf. 'Reading the mind ' is consider making it personal according to FR Religion Forum rules, and as such prohibited. Such acts are deemed inflammatory. I hate to disappoint potential flamers: rest assured I will never be provoked, no matter how hard a toll tries. (please note I am using an indefinite article; nothing personal)

[stfassisi]

Chesterton rightfully called sun worship paganism and Thomas Paine rightfully called freemasonry sun worship and disgustingly tried to tie the same sun worship to Christianity

[YHAOS]

“My sincere apologies to grey_whiskers.”

I didn’t believe you to be deliberately obnoxious.

“I will never be provoked, no matter how hard a toll tries.”

Now, just because there’s been a little misunderstanding leading to another little misunderstanding, we don’t want to start a big old pity party, do we? (was that an indefinite article? I’m not being personal, am I?)

[grey_whiskers]

I hate to disappoint potential flamers: rest assured I will never be provoked, no matter how hard a toll tries.

I think it was very near to this point on another thread (my response to it, actually, for which I was privately admonished by another FReeper) that relations between us went into a bit of a decline.

Precipitously, in fact.

Anyway, about the cats.

"'Reading the mind ' is consider making it personal according to FR Religion Forum rules, and as such prohibited."

So couldn't you have asked *me* about the cat thing, or FReepmailed someone else, since you had said you weren't going to post to me anymore?

Calling me "she" looked like a fit of pique, given the context.

But that's fine. The facts have been established, and no felines were harmed during the writing of this thread.

Ceiling cat approves too.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

We are in agreement.

If you read Chesterton's short story in the link, you'll see he does a good job of setting up and discrediting the prophet of Apollo as a mere charlatan.

The only two of his stories I liked more were from The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond, called When Doctors Agree and The Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

The latter contains this splendid line:

"After and before the deed the German Will is the same. It cannot be broken by changes and by time, like that of those others who repent. It stands outside time like a thing of stone, looking backward and forward with the same face."

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Hey, welcome back from your self-appointed exile from posting to your lovable toll.

There's gotta be a pun in there somewhere about pontifex maximus, but we'll leave that for later.

Actually, I completely missed the part of your quote about the 18th Century (cause if you check, I copied the part of your post which was offset, bolded, and italicized) -- but I was careful to find a book, written by one of the signers of the DoI, to another of the founding fathers.

Witherspoon, by the way, died in 1794 -- if you look on the inside front cover.

So, OK -- is an 1815 book, containing the works of a man who died within the 18th century, fair game or not? I'd say it calls for instant replay, so to speak.

The question becomes, is the capitalization used in the book faithful to that used in his original writings?

Which seems to have been a topic of some note recently, about other documents.

Funny thing is, you seem to think that known cases of variance in capitalization in documents associated with the Founding Fathers don't matter to a philosophical point you are attempting to make ABOUT capitalization, even there are known instances (see post #234) of differences in documents held in the grubby little hands of the principal players involved.

But...

Variations in the text of a foreign language, based on copies which are (how many?) years separated from the original, where we have no chain of custody, and no known originals, are *disposative* when ruling on the original intent of the authors.

Ummm, right.

The reason I don't bother with your posts is because they are so full of holes such as the one above, I would have to spend my entire day devoted to your mistakes, inconsistencies and contradictions, as illustrated above.

Oh hai, btw, your opthamologist called. He wanted to contact Weyerhauser about your eye.

Something about an old-growth forest?

Cheers!

[kosta50]

Christians are not under the Ten Commandments

Christian are not under God's moral laws? Wow. That's a new one.

God intended the Old Covenant to be replaced by the New

Not according to the original Jeremiah (31:31-34). The author of Hebrews copies Jeremiah 31:31-34 and then added some of his own (changing the scirptures as they saw fit), including that nonsense that the old one will pass become obsolete. He was duping superstitious Greeks, for no Jew, neither Jesus, not Jeremiah, would ever say that God's everlasting covenant with Israel will become obsolete.

What Jeremiah says is that instead of having to learn it, God will put his law in their hearts. he doesn't say the Old Covenant will become obsolete.

And Jeremiah makes it very clear the Covenant, whether old or new, is for the House of Judah and the House of Israel — in other words for the Jews, and Jews only.

You are preaching Paul to me. I am sorry I don't share your convictions.

Your normative ethical relativism makes it impossible for you to critize any other culture, past or present with a different Zeitgeist and Weltanschauung, or even your own culture

Sure it is. I can dislike it. And you can criticize any other culture based on what? Paul? Why because you believe it? I guess that makes it true, right? Try again.

That question is based on a caricature of what the New Testament says on the subject.

I didn' ask for your judgment but an answer.

Prove it...As He says also in Hosea: "I will call them My people, who were not My people, And her beloved, who was not beloved...Roman 9:24-26

Paul (otra vez)! Of course he is preaching to pagan Romans who know not the Old Testament and quotes from Hoseas 2:23 out of context because any bloke who bothered to read Hosea would immediately know that he's talking about restoration of Israel (not Greeks or Romans) who decided to worship Baal and in doing so were no longer God's people but became the Gentiles (unbelievers).

The problem is that the NT writers, especially Paul and the author of Hebrews, twist the Old Testament verses by cutting and pasting for the desired effect in creating their doctrine with out of context verses.

[Alamo-Girl]

The values, not the dogma.

Precisely so, dear brother in Christ, thank you for your outstanding posts!