Posted on 08/29/2006 6:51:14 AM PDT by headsonpikes
We all know the basic alternatives that form the familiar "spectrum" of American politics and culture.
If a young person is turned off by religion or attracted by the achievements of science, and he wants to embrace a secular outlook, he is told--by both sides of the debate--that his place is with the collectivists and social subjectivists of the left. On the other hand, if he admires the free market and wants America to have a bold, independent national defense, then he is told--again, by both sides--that his natural home is with the religious right.
But what if all of this is terribly wrong? What if it's possible to hold some of the key convictions associated with the right, being pro-free-market and supporting the war, and even to do so more strongly and consistently than most on the right--but still to be secular? What if it's possible to reject the socialism subjectivism of the left and believe in the importance of morality, but without believing in God? ....
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
I'm guessing you don't even understand the concept of holiness.
Of course, I'm not naming any names.
Why not? Calling people a-holes without the courage to name them to their faces?
well, unlike you, I favor empiricism, so, yes, I do know where I stand.
Robert A. Heinlein, noted science fiction writer and authority on the definition of sin.
Your experiences are not a religion I ascribe to.
He certainly was ahead of some folks (including some here on FR).
He was adamantly opposed to slavery.
Do you have any objection to what I quoted other than that he wrote science fiction?
Robert Heinlein is no more an authority on what is sin and what isn't than you or I.
I have nothing against him whatsoever.
His comments regarding slavery directly contradict those in the Bible.
What is your opinion on this?
Morality and all of its associated ideals are rooted entirely in the presupposition some higher power defines what is correct for human behavior.
But, since we are all properly obeying the * modern interpretation * of the First Amendment, good & evil isn't the question... Good & bad, right & wrong, etc., etc., ad nausea; are all inherently religious ideals.
The modern interpretation of the First Amendment (according to the liberaltarians) says government must exorcise all traces of religion and theism from itself. Therefore, government must never consider issues of morality and right and wrong...
So, it becomes a question of benefits versus costs. Fetus killing has its benefits to society, especially if you like to sleep late on Saturdays. But it also has its costs as well. Society (by which I mean, whoever manages to seize power) needs to evaluate these costs and decide accordingly.
The mythical rights of men and women are also meaningless. The very concept of rights is also founded in religion. Since the enlightened person is freed from any superstitions about some "God," they are free from having to worry about "rights." Only raw power counts and humans are just meat puppets for the powerful...
I am not an ecumenical atheist, nor am I an orthodox atheist - - THERE ARE NO SUCH THINGS!
I would add an aside however, I have seen lots of people put their own interpretations on what they say bible says on any number of subjects.
In studying the bible myself, I have run across countless passages that turn out not to mean anything like what I originally thought they meant.
Unclear who you are attributing this so called interpretation to.
What about devout christians who are secular when it comes to government because, while we enjoy the majority culture now (that being judeo-christian), there will come a time in America when we won't. And why would we want to set precedents that could later be used against us?
I would say I am a devout Christian secular rightist.
Heinlein was adamantly opposed to slavery. Check Time Enough for Love (1973).
Was he also fervently in favor of anarchy? What was his opinion of employers having employees? Would he consider this "slavery," too?
IMO the conservative ideal recognizes proper authority. On what basis does a secular conservative arrive at any concept of authority other than his own feelings and opinions?
But, since we are all properly obeying the * modern interpretation * of the First Amendment, good & evil isn't the question... Good & bad, right & wrong, etc., etc., ad nausea; are all inherently religious ideals.
The modern interpretation of the First Amendment (according to the liberaltarians) says government must exorcise all traces of religion and theism from itself. Therefore, government must never consider issues of morality and right and wrong...
So, it becomes a question of benefits versus costs. Fetus killing has its benefits to society, especially if you like to sleep late on Saturdays. But it also has its costs as well. Society (by which I mean, whoever manages to seize power) needs to evaluate these costs and decide accordingly.
The mythical rights of men and women are also meaningless. The very concept of rights is also founded in religion. Since the enlightened person is freed from any superstitions about some "God," they are free from having to worry about "rights." Only raw power counts and humans are just meat puppets for the powerful...
It is no coincidence Islamic pagans hate Israel, Jews, Christians and Western Civilization. The entire basis of Western Civilization is Mosaic Law, something both the Neo-Pagan Left and the pagan Islamic thugs cannot abide and wish to destroy.
The very idea that human beings have individual rights not subject to the whims of an earthly monarch, but subject to the laws of Yahweh, is directly from Moses.
Historically, this is proven over and over again with the successive conflicts between the forces of paganism and the Judaic culture. (This includes the idolatry of cultural Marxist paganism.)
A greater number of "atheists" and "pagans" adopt the same hackneyed tenets of a faux Judaic-Christian ideal (golden calf). They also subscribe to the Judaic fetishism of "sin," but will fight to their death in denial of it. Most of them are so wrapped up in their own polemics that they have become nothing more than pathetic anti-Christians with the same false hypocritical philosophy.
They just slap a new label on it hoping nobody will notice - - they replace the idea of "avoiding sin" with "morals."
Morality and all of its associated ideals are rooted entirely in the presupposition some higher power defines what is correct for human behavior.
Today, "morals" are a religious pagan philosophy of esoteric hobgoblins. Transfiguration is a pantheon of fantasies as the medium of infinitization. Others get derision for having an unwavering Judaic belief in Yahweh or Yeshua, although their critics and enemies will evangelize insertion of phantasmagoric fetishisms into secular law.
Mosaic Law (of which the Ten Commandments is just a part) is the foundation of Western Civilization.
Genesis is the primary focus of the Declaration of Independence, from where our Constitutional rights are derived. The Ten Commandments are the foundation of our judicial system.
No man may become a law unto himself under the guise of freedom of religion.
Some of these liberal-tarians forget, it is THEY who advocate “separation of church and state.” Let's cram it right back down their throats...
It was landmark U.S. Supreme Court precedent Reynolds v. United States in 1878 that made “separation of church and state” a dubiously legitimate point of case law, but more importantly; it confirmed the Constitutionality in statutory regulation of marriage practices.
Now, it ain't so palatable to them, is it? They are the ones here bashing the religious folks, now they want to claim some mercurial, ever changing definition of freedom of religion? I'm not going to live in their hell...
If I cannot yell “fire” in a crowded theater, I don't think someone should be able to light one with a U.S. flag and call it “free speech.”
Of course, a lot of these traitors to the United States would also whine if we wanted an Amendment to ban homosexual marriage or flag burning, wouldn't they?
There are doctrinaire, myopic cultural Marxists whose only purpose here on FreeRepublic is their polemic need to do anything contrary to the Christians. You will find most of them on the homosexual issue threads, the evolution threads, drug threads, genetic engineering threads or any other issue involving a perversion of, or attack on the Judaic book of Genesis.
Some of the Bozos out there can't get past that word “God,” so they would just piss the entire country away and join the enemies of America; all because they have this polemic need to bash the Christians and do everything in contravention to them. I say screw them and the filthy practices they want to live by. My children are not going to inherit their squalor if I can help it.
Of course, what a lot of the leftists and misguided, myopic liberal-tarians don't want to admit is that Christianity (and they do hate Christians) is just their politically correct proxy for their war against what is written in the book of Genesis.
Watch how they will jump up and down and snivel about the Ten Commandments and Christians; but the reminders that Moses was not a Christian, that Genesis, Exodus and Deuteronomy are Jewish literature really sticks in their craw. It exposes them...
P.S. Ayn Rand was a Russian Jew...
nice rant!
THE logic. It is not from any one person. If you wish to know where it came from, it came from God. But even if you don't believe in God, it still works.
"liberaltarians"
Aw, that's so cute. In the stead of argument, you have wordplay.
"Morality and all of its associated ideals are rooted entirely in the presupposition some higher power defines what is correct for human behavior."
Over a hundred years ago, idealists, that is, those that thought that reality was fundamentally spiritual, easily outnumbered the dualists and materialists.
However, there was what David Stove (he the best thinker of the 20th century hands down, and a conservative) called the problem of product differentiation-- what is the difference between sandstone-thought-by-the-absolute and sandstone not so blessed?
The same point applies with morality. A person may have the virtues of temperance, frugality, industry, order, cleanliness, kindness and so forth "rooted in a higher power," whatever that may mean, and some people may merely have these virtues without the divine blessing. The virtuous are virtuous in anycase, so the importance of postulating a 'higher power' is superfluous to the concerns of worldly morality.
What you really is ethical relativism with a theological underpinning-- what is right is whatever commanded by a god. But this is counter-intuitive, given it is conceivable that a god can command an action that inappropriately violates ethical principles.
D'oh! Fill in the necessary words above where I typed ahead of myself.
From where are the rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution derived?
"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and 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,..."
"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..."
"We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions,..."
"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence,..."
Clue: They took a page right out of Mosaic Law...
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