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To: billbears; wideawake
Oh I believe in God alright (there's an 'o' in the middle of the word) but freedom under Christ doesn't require me to live under the law as you would desire. You want to set up a nation of religious law. And there's nothing in the Bible, the Constitution, nor any of the Framers (even that worthless bum Hamilton) that would advocate that.

First of all, Alexander Hamilton was one of the Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution (which Jefferson was not). He was also the principal author of the Federalist Papers, without which the Constitution would probably have never been adopted at all. Naturally the people who opposed the adoption of the Constitution advocated "strict constructionism" once they lost that fight! And I note your refusal to come to terms with the fact that George Washington was a Hamiltonian Federalist?

Second, your ancestors would not have been Calvinists or chr*stians of any sort if at some point in the past some "trouble-making moralizers" hadn't told them that their traditional religious beliefs were objectively wrong and should be rejected in favor of what the missionaries saw as the true religion.

And third, your remarks about the law are so much nonsense. You yourself believe in law. John Calvin believed in the law. If you didnt' believe in G-d's Law, you wouldn't be opposed to "gay marriage." No, Calvinists believe in the Law and the obligation to live by it (John Calvin himself obligated even the "lost" to attend services, although he didn't permit them to participate in them); they just don't think it should have any bearing on what happens to you after you're dead. In essence you're bound by the law (as Calvinists conceive it) during life, after which you go are either saved or damned depending on whether or not you are among the elect. But you are certainly bound by G-d's Laws!

Abortion and "gay marriage" are wrong because they violate G-d's Laws, not because they are contrary to local custom! Do you think the British should have allowed hindus in nineteenth century India to burn widows after the death of their husbands? That was their local custom!

Unfortunately, "palaeos" seem to have the strange idea that they are anarchists and that "G-d's Law" is somehow the source of the perverse "morality" of Communists and liberals. It is not. That's like blaming Communism on millenarianism/messianism (you don't do that too, do you?). Liberals and Communists love law, all right, they just hate G-d, and therefore oppose His Laws. How can any conservative who believes in the almost unlimited human potential for evil believe that morality is a spontaneously developed "local custom" and that "law" can only coerce immorality?

The conservative coalition has some mighty disparate elements, but none so disparate as Fundamentalists and Civilizationists. And I have news for you--in the current South civilizationists are highly outnumbered by Fundamentalists, and I pray to G-d that will always be the case!

92 posted on 07/12/2007 9:54:04 AM PDT by Zionist Conspirator ("Ve`attah, hirgu khol-zakhar bataf; vekhol-'ishah yoda`at 'ish lemishkav zakhar harogu!")
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To: Zionist Conspirator; billbears
Thanks for pointing out that Hamilton's Federalists, defenders of the Constitution and of the new Federal government, as well as opponents of the French Revolution, were the original American conservatives.

And all attempts at Christian antinomianism founder on Paul's epistles.

97 posted on 07/12/2007 10:21:54 AM PDT by wideawake
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To: Zionist Conspirator

So...if you were the King of the United States, what parts of the Constitution would you keep, and what parts would you throw out?

That is essentially what this whole (weird) argument is about.


147 posted on 07/12/2007 1:26:13 PM PDT by Constantine XIII
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To: Zionist Conspirator
He was also the principal author of the Federalist Papers, without which the Constitution would probably have never been adopted at all.

Not in the same form, at least. I think it is very interesting to read Brutus's objections to the Constitution in the Anti-Federalist papers and see how stunningly accurate that the predictions are. Perhaps given the long-term short-comings of our present government, it might have been better had the anti-federalist prevailed. Obviously it's just pure speculation, but it's one worth thinking about given the failures of the Federalists' system.

175 posted on 07/12/2007 3:03:23 PM PDT by Publius Valerius
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