Conservative views driving young people away from organized religion: 'They have no reason to go'

[zaangalewa]

Deuteronomy 22:29

Don't use the bible to lie - this is not good for you. The lie is in this very concrete context not to give the full information. You quote only the exception which had been possible to save the life of the man and to force him to overtake the longlife social care for the woman. But the rule is written in the verses 25-27 - and for laws of the bronce age such laws are really very astonishing:
-----
But if in the open country a man meets a young woman who is betrothed, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. But you shall do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no offense punishable by death. For this case is like that of a man attacking and murdering his neighbor, because he met her in the open country, and though the betrothed young woman cried for help there was no one to rescue her.
-----

 

[metalwolf]

Anti-Semite?

No.

The bible also says you can't eat pork, can't eat shrimp,can't have tattoos, says that divorce and remarrying is wrong in the eyes of god, says you shouldn't consult a fortuneteller.

 

[zaangalewa]

No.

Hmm ... To be honest: I doubt this very much. The clichee to call Jews Nazis or to call in generel victims of a genocide murderers is a wide spread Nazi-racist-attitude in the modern world.

The bible also says you can't eat pork, can't eat shrimp,can't have tattoos, says that divorce and remarrying is wrong in the eyes of god, says you shouldn't consult a fortuneteller.

And what is your problem except that you don't [like to] understand the lifestyle of Jews from the bronce age and the life style of Christians in the 21st century?

And "the bible" says for example not "you can't eat pork". I yet said it but you did not listen: the message of Jesus is very clear in this direction!

 

[surada]

Don't use the bible to lie - this is not good for you. The lie is in this very concrete context not to give the full information. You quote only the exception which had been possible to save the life of the man and to force him to overtake the longlife social care for the woman. But the rule is written in the verses 25-27 - and for laws of the bronce age such laws are really very astonishing:
-----
But if in the open country a man meets a young woman who is betrothed, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. But you shall do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no offense punishable by death. For this case is like that of a man attacking and murdering his neighbor, because he met her in the open country, and though the betrothed young woman cried for help there was no one to rescue her.
-----

If she is betrothed and if she is doesn't cry out...

 

[zaangalewa]

If she is betrothed and if she is doesn't cry out...

Fact is the judges here made clear that a woman has to be everywhere free - or with other words: it existed not any "no-go area" for a woman - and such an area exists also not for the law, which takes care that every man has to die who rapes a woman - even when she is without protection from her own family and/or clan. Or with other words: A woman has to be save everywhere (="freedom") - also without an own bodyguard.

And this laws were much more wise because they opened also a way where no one had to die but the woman got longlife security and social welfare. And we do not speak in this context here by the way about romantic marriages in our understanding. "Betrothed" was in this time of history perhaps someone before he had been born. And a man had often more than "only" one woman. And the alternative of "to cry out" = "to say no" is also clear. This formula means nothing else than "against the will of the woman". And other formulas as for example "to lie by her" show perhaps also something what we call today "protection of victims".

I am on my own astonished about the high quality and humanity of this laws during such a rough time of mankind.

 

[Esdraelon]

It's time for the churches to get with the times.

Then they'd be fulfilling the word of God:

2 Timothy 4:3 - Bible Gateway

www.biblegateway.com

Those who look at such admonitions and call them HATE are simply unlearned in the gift of salvation through grace. ALL of these sins are removed from the account of any person who sees they are in error and asks Christ for forgiveness and a willingness to change course. That does not require any church membership.

Unfortunately, most today simply will scoff and use the excuse that the doctrines are "hateful". That is their choice. We all get to make that choice but then we account for it on the day of judgment. Believe, reject, either way, it's a personal choice. If the majority today refuse sound doctrine and refuse to be part of the plan of salvation then I pity them but I'd never demand any of them believe other than as they choose.

 

[Mashmont]

Don't use the bible to lie - this is not good for you. The lie is in this very concrete context not to give the full information. You quote only the exception which had been possible to save the life of the man and to force him to overtake the longlife social care for the woman. But the rule is written in the verses 25-27 - and for laws of the bronce age such laws are really very astonishing:
-----
But if in the open country a man meets a young woman who is betrothed, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. But you shall do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no offense punishable by death. For this case is like that of a man attacking and murdering his neighbor, because he met her in the open country, and though the betrothed young woman cried for help there was no one to rescue her.
-----

Conservative views are exactly what is driving people to join the Catholic Church and other conservative denominations. People want that rock of steadiness in a time when society says anything goes. It's the liberal churches that are hemorrhaging members. Like the Methodists, splitting over the gay issue. People don't want that stuff. They want steadiness. That's why the Baptists and Catholics are doing great.

 

[Ringtone]

Any time Christians try to run things it's not long before people start getting burned at the stake for their beliefs. Christianity is incompatible with personal liberty.

Piffle! The sociopolitical essence of Christianity is the classical liberalism of individual liberty and republican government. The Anglo-American tradition of natural law is predicated on Christianity. The construct of inherent, inalienable rights is derived from Christianity.

You foolishly conflate relativism and liberty. Moral relativism is the stuff of depravity, atrocity, and tyranny, indeed, the bane of liberty. You're just another brainwashed product of the state schools.

Excerpt from an an article I wrote recently:

John Locke (1632 – 1704) was a devout Christian raised in the Puritantradition who wrote, arguably, history’s most famous defense of the faith, The Reasonableness of Christianity. He was a British physician and history’s chief empiricist philosopher of the tabula-rosa episteme. The impact of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding on the development of scientific methodology eclipsed the work of Aristotle, the progenitor of the episteme, and that of Francis Bacon, the progenitor of the scientific method itself. (Of course, this was before Darwin crawled out from his rancid puddle of primordial slime and wreaked havoc on virtually all but the hard sciences of mathematics.) If that were all Locke had achieved in life, his historic notability would have been established, but he didn’t stop there.​

​

His contribution to the social contract theory of republicanism eclipsed his contribution to scientific methodology. He’s not only regarded as the Father of Classical Liberalism, which is not to be confused with the pablum of postmodernity but the preeminent authority on republicanism itself, so much so that republicanism is often referred to as simply Lockean natural law, meaning that his exposition of it is history’s most widely received. Like any other historically influential thinker, Locke has his detractors—not so much within the ranks of republicanism as without, meaning that his critics are of the Marxist persuasion. Commies. More than any other’s thought on republicanism, his informed the Blackstonian reforms of British law in the 18th Century19 and the political philosophy of America’s Founders.​

​

Locke even influenced Rousseau, insofar as the idea of social contract theory in and of itself goes, but, of course, Rousseau went his own way after that, into the land of Oz of singing and dancing Munchkins and other magical creatures, imagining that government could perfect humanity.20​

​

How important is Locke in the scheme of things?​

​

Up until the first half of the 19th Century, the works at the top of the required reading lists of almost all of America’s leading universities and colleges were the Bible, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, Locke, Montesquieu, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Homer, Dante, Milton, Pope, Aristotle, Plato, Kepler, Newton, Bacon, Aquinas, Augustine, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Hobbes, Hume, Berkeley, Smith, Mill, Polybius, Cicero, Livy, Tacitus, Tocqueville, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Virgil, Horace, Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, and later, Hugo, Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Dickens. That’s right. Even as late as the 1950s, it was still generally believed—despite the mounting clamor of progressive academicians—that one couldn’t rightly understand Western civilization and America’s place in it without reading at least certain parts of the Bible and the essentials of the constitutional canon, moreover, in the light of the pertinent wisdom of Locke and Montesquieu.​

​

As for today, “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”21​

​

While watching “The American Experiment video” of The Truth Project, I anticipated the moment Dr. Tackett would discuss Locke’s biblically informed influence on the Founders’ political thought, but he never did. Ordinarily, to call that an oversight would be an understatement. But Tackett merely chose to concentrate on the Founders’ expressions of faith and their reliance on Providence. In that regard, his video is superb. I’m sure he knows who Locke is. One cannot have his knowledge about the American Experiment without encountering Locke’s works, and more than once he echoed the sentiments of Lockean theory. That’s especially true about his video on labor. My observation strictly comes from a place of profound gratitude for Locke’s obedience to God for reasons that will become manifest.​

​

The Declaration of Independence is the sociopolitical expression of Lockean natural law 101. Except for the list of specific grievances and the Thomistic construct of inalienable rights itself, every single idea of political philosophy in that document drafted by Jefferson is Locke’s. Every single one of them! But, tragically, comparatively few American students know who Locke is today precisely because the Deweyan public education system doesn’t want them to study his ideas. His Christian philosophy of government is anathema to Dewey’s cultural naturalism of the Darwinian paradigm and his democratic collectivism.​

​

Locke’s political theory consists of his social contract theory and theory of labor, the bulk of which is expounded in his Two Treatises of Civil Government (1689), arguably the most outstanding work of political theory in history. But then again, Locke regarded himself as nothing more than God’s attentive mouthpiece. As virtually all of the ontological and epistemological justifications for his arguments are predicated on biblical imperatives, the Treatises are steeped in scriptural citations. Locke acknowledges Aquinas’ epiphany regarding the standard of human rights befitting the dignity of the Imago Dei, but he argues his thesis from Christ’s summation of Mosaic law:​

​

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets (Matthew 22:37–40, KJV).​

​

Locke held that any other foundation for liberty than the above, commonly referred to as the Christian iteration of the Golden Rule, is either faulty or incomplete. He also averred from the above that government is not only the servant of God but that of the people. While the people are obliged to obey the law of the land (Romans 13:1–7), the government is equally obliged to observe the terms of the social contract established by the people. The people are to reverently serve only one master, and that Master is not the state. Thusly, the sociopolitical implications of Christ’s imperatives immediately follow and are parallelly twofold.​

​

(1) God is the Source and Guarantor of human rights, and because He endows them, they’re inalienable. These rights cannot be granted, taken away, or transferred to another by the state. The state can only illegitimately suppress their outward expressions in violation of the social contract, thereby creating a state of war between it and the people. In the face of gross governmental criminality (tyranny), it’s the duty of the people to overthrow the government in the name of God—for His sake and the sake of His creatures. Why? Because such a state evinces the audacity to establish a cult of injustice in defiance of God’s authority. (2) The citizens of the body politic are obliged to observe the inherent rights of their fellow citizens (neighbors) and may lawfully use force, up to and including deadly force, if necessary, against social renegades (criminals).​

​

Allow for the following summary:​

• The principle of inalienable human rights, Aquinas’ insight reiterated by Locke
• The principle that the state is the servant of God and the people
• The principle of the consent of the governed (or as Abraham Lincoln put it in his Gettysburg Address: “the government of the people, by the people, for the people”)
• The principle that the state solely exists at the behest of God to protect and promote the inherent rights of the people
• The inherent right of the people to keep and bear arms for self-defense against criminals and criminal regimes
• Specifically, the inherent right of revolt
• The regulatory principle of civil justice per the limited range of governmental power
• The regulatory principle of social justice per the legitimate range of human action

What are the fundamental rights within the legitimate range of free exercise? Locke’s triadic construct of natural rights answers that question: the rights of life, liberty, and private property.​

​

A deeper analysis of the range of legitimacy divulges the latter two principles listed in the bullet summary above, which are latently inherent to the Christian Golden Rule. Locke draws an inverse correlation between Christ’s positive summation of natural law and Paul’s negative exegesis of natural law (Romans 1:18–25). Positive: as long as one exercises one’s natural rights within the range of legitimacy, one’s actions cannot be criminal, so the government shouldn’t infringe on them. That goes to the principle of limited government, i.e., the regulatory principle of civil justice between the state and the people. Negative: human beings know what the legitimate range of free exercise is. Everybody knows that it’s wrong to murder, oppress or rob, precisely because they would not wish that others murder, oppress or rob them. That goes to the regulatory principle of social justice in criminal law between the people of the social contract. The corollary in civil law holds that the range of the free exercise of one’s rights ends where those of others begin.​

​

Does any of the above sound familiar?​

​

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, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence, 1776 ​

​

As for the pursuit of Happiness, that was a phrase of art commonly voiced by the British and American proponents of Lockean natural law in the 17th and 18th Centuries. The expression doesn’t originate with Jefferson at all, as so many mistakenly believe:​

​

The necessity of pursuing happiness is the foundation of liberty. As therefore the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness; so the care of ourselves, that we mistake not imaginary for real happiness, is the necessary foundation of our liberty. The stronger ties we have to an unalterable pursuit of happiness in general, which is our greatest good, and which, as such, our desires always follow, the more are we free from any necessary determination of our will to any particular action, and from a necessary compliance with our desire, set upon any particular, and then appearing preferable good, till we have duly examined whether it has a tendency to, or be inconsistent with, our real happiness: and therefore, till we are as much informed upon this inquiry as the weight of the matter, and the nature of the case demands, we are, by the necessity of preferring and pursuing true happiness as our greatest good, obliged to suspend the satisfaction of our desires in particular cases [emphasis added]. —John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1689 ​

​

The phrase pertains to Locke’s construct of private property as premised on his theory of labor, which entails the sentiment in the above excerpt from his Essay and is clarified by him in his Treatises.22​

​

Locke held that the discovery of “true and solid happiness” is realized by the process of an intellectually careful examination of things in the pursuit of it. This process is “the foundation of liberty” because it frees one from enslavement to the base desires of false or “imaginary” happiness. Throwing off the fleshly inclinations of immediate gratification is the path of spiritual wisdom toward “our greatest good, and which, as such, our desires always follow.” Here Locke is echoing Christ: “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31–32, KJV).​

​

In the Treatises, Locke asserts the natural right of the ownership of one's labor and the natural right of human beings to acquire the ownership of nature’s common property by exerting their labor on it to create and build and produce. What the people create and build and produce are the fruits of their labor, which they may sell or trade. Unfettered by the state, the people are free to apply their skills to improve the resources of nature's bounty as their consciences lead them under God. In their daily pursuit of happiness, God provides for their material, intellectual and spiritual needs proportionally to their efforts and their fidelity to the truth.​

​

Thus, we have the overarching theme of Locke’s theory of natural law: the inherent right of individuals to peacefully pursue their self-interests within the framework of the social contract of consent, free of undue governmental interference.​

​

 

[occupied]

Piffle! The sociopolitical essence of Christianity is the classical liberalism of individual liberty and republican government. The Anglo-American tradition of natural law is predicated on Christianity. The construct of inherent, inalienable rights is derived from Christianity.

You foolishly conflate relativism and liberty. Moral relativism is the stuff of depravity, atrocity, and tyranny, indeed, the bane of liberty. You're just another brainwashed product of the state schools.

Excerpt from an an article I wrote recently:

John Locke (1632 – 1704) was a devout Christian raised in the Puritantradition who wrote, arguably, history’s most famous defense of the faith, The Reasonableness of Christianity. He was a British physician and history’s chief empiricist philosopher of the tabula-rosa episteme. The impact of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding on the development of scientific methodology eclipsed the work of Aristotle, the progenitor of the episteme, and that of Francis Bacon, the progenitor of the scientific method itself. (Of course, this was before Darwin crawled out from his rancid puddle of primordial slime and wreaked havoc on virtually all but the hard sciences of mathematics.) If that were all Locke had achieved in life, his historic notability would have been established, but he didn’t stop there.​

​

His contribution to the social contract theory of republicanism eclipsed his contribution to scientific methodology. He’s not only regarded as the Father of Classical Liberalism, which is not to be confused with the pablum of postmodernity but the preeminent authority on republicanism itself, so much so that republicanism is often referred to as simply Lockean natural law, meaning that his exposition of it is history’s most widely received. Like any other historically influential thinker, Locke has his detractors—not so much within the ranks of republicanism as without, meaning that his critics are of the Marxist persuasion. Commies. More than any other’s thought on republicanism, his informed the Blackstonian reforms of British law in the 18th Century19 and the political philosophy of America’s Founders.​

​

Locke even influenced Rousseau, insofar as the idea of social contract theory in and of itself goes, but, of course, Rousseau went his own way after that, into the land of Oz of singing and dancing Munchkins and other magical creatures, imagining that government could perfect humanity.20​

​

How important is Locke in the scheme of things?​

​

Up until the first half of the 19th Century, the works at the top of the required reading lists of almost all of America’s leading universities and colleges were the Bible, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, Locke, Montesquieu, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Homer, Dante, Milton, Pope, Aristotle, Plato, Kepler, Newton, Bacon, Aquinas, Augustine, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Hobbes, Hume, Berkeley, Smith, Mill, Polybius, Cicero, Livy, Tacitus, Tocqueville, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Virgil, Horace, Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, and later, Hugo, Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Dickens. That’s right. Even as late as the 1950s, it was still generally believed—despite the mounting clamor of progressive academicians—that one couldn’t rightly understand Western civilization and America’s place in it without reading at least certain parts of the Bible and the essentials of the constitutional canon, moreover, in the light of the pertinent wisdom of Locke and Montesquieu.​

​

As for today, “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”21​

​

While watching “The American Experiment video” of The Truth Project, I anticipated the moment Dr. Tackett would discuss Locke’s biblically informed influence on the Founders’ political thought, but he never did. Ordinarily, to call that an oversight would be an understatement. But Tackett merely chose to concentrate on the Founders’ expressions of faith and their reliance on Providence. In that regard, his video is superb. I’m sure he knows who Locke is. One cannot have his knowledge about the American Experiment without encountering Locke’s works, and more than once he echoed the sentiments of Lockean theory. That’s especially true about his video on labor. My observation strictly comes from a place of profound gratitude for Locke’s obedience to God for reasons that will become manifest.​

​

The Declaration of Independence is the sociopolitical expression of Lockean natural law 101. Except for the list of specific grievances and the Thomistic construct of inalienable rights itself, every single idea of political philosophy in that document drafted by Jefferson is Locke’s. Every single one of them! But, tragically, comparatively few American students know who Locke is today precisely because the Deweyan public education system doesn’t want them to study his ideas. His Christian philosophy of government is anathema to Dewey’s cultural naturalism of the Darwinian paradigm and his democratic collectivism.​

​

Locke’s political theory consists of his social contract theory and theory of labor, the bulk of which is expounded in his Two Treatises of Civil Government (1689), arguably the most outstanding work of political theory in history. But then again, Locke regarded himself as nothing more than God’s attentive mouthpiece. As virtually all of the ontological and epistemological justifications for his arguments are predicated on biblical imperatives, the Treatises are steeped in scriptural citations. Locke acknowledges Aquinas’ epiphany regarding the standard of human rights befitting the dignity of the Imago Dei, but he argues his thesis from Christ’s summation of Mosaic law:​

​

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets (Matthew 22:37–40, KJV).​

​

Locke held that any other foundation for liberty than the above, commonly referred to as the Christian iteration of the Golden Rule, is either faulty or incomplete. He also averred from the above that government is not only the servant of God but that of the people. While the people are obliged to obey the law of the land (Romans 13:1–7), the government is equally obliged to observe the terms of the social contract established by the people. The people are to reverently serve only one master, and that Master is not the state. Thusly, the sociopolitical implications of Christ’s imperatives immediately follow and are parallelly twofold.​

​

(1) God is the Source and Guarantor of human rights, and because He endows them, they’re inalienable. These rights cannot be granted, taken away, or transferred to another by the state. The state can only illegitimately suppress their outward expressions in violation of the social contract, thereby creating a state of war between it and the people. In the face of gross governmental criminality (tyranny), it’s the duty of the people to overthrow the government in the name of God—for His sake and the sake of His creatures. Why? Because such a state evinces the audacity to establish a cult of injustice in defiance of God’s authority. (2) The citizens of the body politic are obliged to observe the inherent rights of their fellow citizens (neighbors) and may lawfully use force, up to and including deadly force, if necessary, against social renegades (criminals).​

​

Allow for the following summary:​

• The principle of inalienable human rights, Aquinas’ insight reiterated by Locke
• The principle that the state is the servant of God and the people
• The principle of the consent of the governed (or as Abraham Lincoln put it in his Gettysburg Address: “the government of the people, by the people, for the people”)
• The principle that the state solely exists at the behest of God to protect and promote the inherent rights of the people
• The inherent right of the people to keep and bear arms for self-defense against criminals and criminal regimes
• Specifically, the inherent right of revolt
• The regulatory principle of civil justice per the limited range of governmental power
• The regulatory principle of social justice per the legitimate range of human action

What are the fundamental rights within the legitimate range of free exercise? Locke’s triadic construct of natural rights answers that question: the rights of life, liberty, and private property.​

​

A deeper analysis of the range of legitimacy divulges the latter two principles listed in the bullet summary above, which are latently inherent to the Christian Golden Rule. Locke draws an inverse correlation between Christ’s positive summation of natural law and Paul’s negative exegesis of natural law (Romans 1:18–25). Positive: as long as one exercises one’s natural rights within the range of legitimacy, one’s actions cannot be criminal, so the government shouldn’t infringe on them. That goes to the principle of limited government, i.e., the regulatory principle of civil justice between the state and the people. Negative: human beings know what the legitimate range of free exercise is. Everybody knows that it’s wrong to murder, oppress or rob, precisely because they would not wish that others murder, oppress or rob them. That goes to the regulatory principle of social justice in criminal law between the people of the social contract. The corollary in civil law holds that the range of the free exercise of one’s rights ends where those of others begin.​

​

Does any of the above sound familiar?​

​

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, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence, 1776 ​

​

As for the pursuit of Happiness, that was a phrase of art commonly voiced by the British and American proponents of Lockean natural law in the 17th and 18th Centuries. The expression doesn’t originate with Jefferson at all, as so many mistakenly believe:​

​

The necessity of pursuing happiness is the foundation of liberty. As therefore the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness; so the care of ourselves, that we mistake not imaginary for real happiness, is the necessary foundation of our liberty. The stronger ties we have to an unalterable pursuit of happiness in general, which is our greatest good, and which, as such, our desires always follow, the more are we free from any necessary determination of our will to any particular action, and from a necessary compliance with our desire, set upon any particular, and then appearing preferable good, till we have duly examined whether it has a tendency to, or be inconsistent with, our real happiness: and therefore, till we are as much informed upon this inquiry as the weight of the matter, and the nature of the case demands, we are, by the necessity of preferring and pursuing true happiness as our greatest good, obliged to suspend the satisfaction of our desires in particular cases [emphasis added]. —John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1689 ​

​

The phrase pertains to Locke’s construct of private property as premised on his theory of labor, which entails the sentiment in the above excerpt from his Essay and is clarified by him in his Treatises.22​

​

Locke held that the discovery of “true and solid happiness” is realized by the process of an intellectually careful examination of things in the pursuit of it. This process is “the foundation of liberty” because it frees one from enslavement to the base desires of false or “imaginary” happiness. Throwing off the fleshly inclinations of immediate gratification is the path of spiritual wisdom toward “our greatest good, and which, as such, our desires always follow.” Here Locke is echoing Christ: “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31–32, KJV).​

​

In the Treatises, Locke asserts the natural right of the ownership of one's labor and the natural right of human beings to acquire the ownership of nature’s common property by exerting their labor on it to create and build and produce. What the people create and build and produce are the fruits of their labor, which they may sell or trade. Unfettered by the state, the people are free to apply their skills to improve the resources of nature's bounty as their consciences lead them under God. In their daily pursuit of happiness, God provides for their material, intellectual and spiritual needs proportionally to their efforts and their fidelity to the truth.​

​

Thus, we have the overarching theme of Locke’s theory of natural law: the inherent right of individuals to peacefully pursue their self-interests within the framework of the social contract of consent, free of undue governmental interference.​

​

Christianity has more blood on it's hands than any other human construct in history. Our founders knew this. That's why they decided to be the first western nation without a state church. Preachers don't care about rights. Their first impulse is to ban "sin" putting the lie to the free will argument.

 

[Correll]

Christianity has more blood on it's hands than any other human construct in history. Our founders knew this. That's why they decided to be the first western nation without a state church. Preachers don't care about rights. Their first impulse is to ban "sin" putting the lie to the free will argument.

What about the human construct of Trade? If not for trade, diseases that became pandemics killing millions would have remained localized, killing thousands, or even less.


Or, what about the human construct of Solider? Every person killed by a formal solider could be counted as killed a single construct and lumped together, if you wanted to, you know, make some cool numbers.

 

[Ringtone]

Christianity has more blood on it's hands than any other human construct in history. Our founders knew this. That's why they decided to be the first western nation without a state church. Preachers don't care about rights. Their first impulse is to ban "sin" putting the lie to the free will argument.

You are a fool.

 

[Maxnovax]

Majority rule is actually wrong a lot of the times.

At one time it was the Majority who were for denying women their rights(suffrage), It was the majority who were for denying people of color their equal rights and majority supporting jim crow.

Jim Crow didn’t even see the black deaths we see every weekend in democrat run cities.. why not talk about today sufferance?

 

[Ringtone]

Christianity has more blood on it's hands than any other human construct in history. Our founders knew this. That's why they decided to be the first western nation without a state church. Preachers don't care about rights. Their first impulse is to ban "sin" putting the lie to the free will argument.

Another excerpt:

With the religiopolitical background of natural law established, I want to make several critical observations regarding the most prominent Deists of Great Britain and America before concentrating on the historical development of the Anglo-American tradition.​

​

To the best of my knowledge, all of them, except David Hume and Thomas Paine, ardently embraced the moral teachings of Judeo- Christianity, especially their sociopolitical implications. Hume was a Scottish philosopher and historian whose philosophy had no significant impact on American culture until the 20th Century.6 Paine (1737 – 1809) excoriated the doctrines of Christian eschatology and soteriology. He regarded them and, particularly, the doctrines of the Trinity and Christ’s virginally immaculate conception as superstitious hokum. He hated the Bible with a passion, but then he hated the formal trappings and doctrines of all religions, so much so that many mistakenly believed he was an atheist.​

​

He wasn’t. He was a Deist.​

​

Despite his undeniable rhetorical skills, which he wielded to fire up Americans’ desire for independence like no other, Paine was a fool who assailed the fundamental requirement of a body politic fit for a republican form of government. In his work The Age of Reason (published in three parts from 1794 to 1804), Paine opined that all religions are “human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind,” which is akin to the Marxian view that “religion is the opiate of the masses” (the expression’s earliest translation).7 Ironically, the atheist Marx looked on religion less disdainfully than Paine. While Marx held that religious sentiment was the stuff of false consciousness, he deemed religion to be the instinctive expression of human distress in a pitiless world. Still, for all his apatheism, Marx was a drama queen.​

​

The other prominent Deists among the American Revolutionists were Ethan Allen, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson. George Washington’s Christianity was quasi-Deistic, while John Adams was a Unitarian. The Anglo-American Unitarianism of the Enlightenment has been described as Christian Deism, religious Deism, or ethical monotheism. Except for the Deism of Hume and Paine, these terms may be applied to the Deism of all of the above.​

​

They regarded God’s hand in human affairs and believed in the power of prayer. Most of them attended church regularly as religious fellowship refreshed them. They deemed it a necessary good for the body politic and their civic duty to set an example of religious observance. While some confided their reservations about Christianity’s mystical teachings in letters to friends, they did so respectfully. They revered the Bible’s incomparable store of wisdom and emphasized its moral imperatives relative to private conduct and the conduct of the affairs of the state. Like their Christian countrymen, they held that an irreligious people couldn’t maintain the Republic for long, let alone defend it against its enemies. (The very best article I’ve read on that point is What America’s Founders Really Thought About the Bible (thegospelcoalition.org). I saved a copy of it to my files a few years ago.)​

​

In his widely read pamphlet Common Sense (1776), in which he feigned a biblical justification for independence,8 Paine recommended a democratic form of government akin to that of the erratically unstable and short- lived Greek city-states of classical paganism. In matters of political philosophy and governance, Paine was a mediocrity of common nonsense. John Adams became especially exasperated with Paine’s jejune understanding of things and publicly denounced it as being “so democratical, without any restraint or even an attempt at any equilibrium or counterpoise, that it must produce confusion and every evil work.”9 ​

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On the Internet, one may encounter the revisionist nonsense that Adams, Washington, and others openly criticized Paine to disassociate themselves from a man with whom they secretly agreed. In other words, they supposedly pandered to public sentiment.​

​

That’s risible.​

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In the first place, these men didn’t pander to anyone. In the second place, they criticized Paine at the height of his popularity. They understood that democracies were mobocracies. Further, it was never Paine’s discrete political convictions that endeared him to Americans in general, but his stance against monarchism and his passionate advocacy of American independence.​

​

Though a naturally gifted writer, Paine was not comparatively well versed in the history of ideas and events, and was seemingly bereft of the political instincts of self-preservation. At a glance, the Founders understood this about him from his opinions on matters of government, but they didn’t hold it against him. Instead, they admired his natural talent, his passion, and his initial contributions to the cause. They supported his efforts and coaxed him to consider the formative works of republicanism—to read Locke, Montesquieu, Cicero, and others.​

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In a letter to Jefferson, Adams allowed that Paine’s prose was that of a virtuoso despite the shortcomings of his political thought. He expected that in due time Paine would grow, politically, under their mentorship. But Paine’s political thought never matured. Over the years, it became all the more radically democratic and collectivistic. His forte was strictly that of a skilled communicator. The simplicity and quiet eloquence of his prose made it readily accessible to the common man. He was a master of the polemic—often vehemently pejorative but always magically clever. He was at his best when he inspired. In that case, his style was the hushed expectancy of wondrous things to come.​

​

In the first pamphlet of The American Crisis series, written on December 23, 1776, during the early months of the Revolutionary War, on the heels of a string of devastating setbacks for the Continental Army—Paine penned the most famous and, arguably, the most stirring passage of his career. Its warmth and persuasive confidence, its lyrical resonance, attests to his literary genius:​

​

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.​

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Initially, Washington was especially fond of Paine and grateful for his unwavering support during a bleak period in the New York and New Jersey campaigns of 1776. From the onset of the war to the third week of December, Washington lost the Battle of Long Island (August 27), the Battle of White Plains (October 28), and the Battle of Fort Washington (November 16). During that same period, he lost all but one of the minor skirmishes, which was of little consolation as his one victory was the result of a deft maneuver that enabled him to withdraw to Pennsylvania to avoid the capture or annihilation of his beleaguered army. While others harshly criticized him—groused about his inexperience, his indecisiveness—Paine extolled the general’s pragmatism, his physical courage, and his steadfast resolve.​

​

Paine’s confidence in Washington’s abilities was vindicated even sooner than he expected. From the first winter encampment at Valley Forge, the general led his troops across the Delaware River and destroyed a formidable garrison of Hessian mercenaries at Trenton on December 26. Knowing that General William Howe would counter with a greater force, Washington withdrew with a bounty of Hessian munitions in tow, but only to spring another surprise just eight days later. In a ruse to lure the bulk of Howe’s army south, Washington ordered a contingent of his forces to make a series of feints at the Trenton garrison and then quickly withdraw when Howe countered. Meanwhile, he executed a daring night march to capture Princeton. He destroyed a significant contingent of British regulars and seized their stockpile of munitions (January 3). After that, Howe had to withdraw from New Jersey altogether and fall back to his fortifications in New York. These feats silenced the voices demanding that Washington be relieved of command.​

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Washington routinely read Paine’s rousing pamphlets to his troops to bolster morale, and the unlikely pair remained close friends throughout the war. But later, after the war, Paine sailed back and forth across the English Channel to advise and help organize cells of working-class revolutionaries. He openly aligned himself with the increasingly notorious London Corresponding Society. In 1792, Paine published his two-volume manifesto entitled The Rights of Man, which, in part, was an apologia of the French Revolution. He dignified the hyper-democratic egalitarianism of its misguided assault on the principle of private property itself. He mitigated the implacable vindictiveness of its Reign of Terror. He gratuitously lambasted the British Crown, which embraced inherent rights and their attending reforms.​

​

He even dedicated his manifesto to President Washington.​

​

The House of Lords impelled the Royal Bench to issue an indictment against Paine on the charge of seditious libel, a hanging offense. Paine fled to France, where he received a hero's welcome. He was awarded French citizenship and elected to the National Convention of the French parliament.​

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Washington had to distance himself from Paine as the latter’s dedication complicated diplomatic relations with Great Britain. It also emboldened the foreign minister of the newly minted French Republic to demand that the United States accede to a formal alliance, an expectation the administration had adroitly rebuffed for months. Besides, Washington had already wearied of the incessant notoriety of Paine’s political activities abroad, of his ongoing crusade to promote antimonarchist rebellions everywhere he traveled. Worse, Paine obtusely assumed to have the president’s full support, as if the fledgling Republic’s position amid the ongoing hostilities between the leading powers of Europe was not already precarious enough. On the president’s behalf, members of his administration pleaded with Paine to cool it, telling him that he had gone too far, that his activism was causing severe problems for the president in his conduct of foreign relations. Paine called them reactionaries, insisting that he needn’t regard the opinions of other men. With that, Washington closed the door on his affections for Paine and ignored his letters. He would no longer humor Paine’s grandiose schemes.​

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Moreover, Washington had his hands full with the Whiskey Rebellion at home. Farmers were all het up over the federal government’s first excise tax. They were accustomed to distilling their surplus rye, barley, corn, wheat, and fermented grain mixtures to make whiskey. They believed the government had unfairly targeted them, insisting that duties and imports, not excises, were levied to provide for the nation’s general welfare. In other words, the revenue collected via excises, they argued, was to be used to provide for the infrastructural needs of the regions taxed.​

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Further, large producers could pay the lower annual rate and benefit from the additional tax breaks based on production volume. Most farmers were small producers. They relied on the western frontier’s barter system but were still required to pay the total rate per gallon in cash. In the beginning, the latter merely refused to pay; however, as the months passed, as the protest spread, as the ranks of the protesters swelled—they became increasingly belligerent. They began using intimidation and violence against the farmers willing to pay the tax and the federal agents tasked to collect it. Matters came to a head when riots and several armed skirmishes erupted in Allegany County, Pennsylvania, the movement’s epicenter.​

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Washington believed that the ideas of French radicalism had stirred up the otherwise tractable citizens of the region. Similar rumblings of discontent were heard in Kentucky and throughout the Northwest Territories. The protest seemed to be spiraling into the madness of a full-blown civil war. Determined to nip it in the bud, Washington himself led the force of 14,000 militiamen called up to quail the rash of violence. The fomenters of the insurgency had managed to rally the support of nearly 7,000 protesters. Armed with muskets, pitchforks, and scythes, they marched down the streets of Pittsburg—vowing to tar and feather federal agents, threatening secession. It was as if they’d materialized from the pages of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities at the behest of Madame Defarge herself. However, the news of Washington’s impending arrival, the superior strength of his forces, and his willingness to crack heads to safeguard the stability of the Republic sobered them. The leaders of the disturbance skipped town. The mob scattered. The uprising collapsed before he arrived.​

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After the first two parts of The Age of Reason were published, Adams called Paine a “blackguard” whose vile contempt for biblical religion “arose from the depths of a malignant heart.”10 And in a letter to Benjamin Waterhouse, Adams roared:​

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There can be no severer satyr on the age. For such a mongrel between pig and puppy, begotten by a wild boar on a bitch wolf, never before in any age of the world was suffered by the poltroonery of mankind, to run through such a career of mischief.11​

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Oh, snap!​

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While Paine’s Age of Reason was well received in continental Europe and caused a minor stir in America, which briefly revitalized interest in Deism, it was widely scorned in Great Britain. Also, it ultimately destroyed Paine’s reputation in America. After its publication, his influence precipitously declined, and Washington hammered the nails into its coffin.12​

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Washington’s Farewell Address (1796) and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (1863) are the classic presidential proclamations of the American ethos. Washington’s was a warning against the dangers of foreign entanglements and assaults on religious observance, by which he meant assaults on the observance of Christian ethics. Washington castigated Paine without mentioning him by name, but everyone knew to whom Washington referred. Washington was deeply concerned about the adverse influence Paine’s harebrained politics and antireligious tirades might have on the body politic.​

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The Founders had their foibles. They weren’t above political ploys when, right or wrong, they deemed them necessary for the sake of the Republic. But they were genuinely furious with Paine. They and many others had shed blood, sweat, and tears to establish the Republic—the religiopolitical foundation of which Paine heedlessly undermined as the indispensable prerequisite of republicanism flew right over his head.​

​

Why the dramatic difference in religiopolitical outlook between the Deists of continental Europe and the Deists of Great Britain and America? Well, it’s due to a complex web of cultural and political influences on the development of their respective nations’ histories, but I can succinctly summarize the matter.​

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It ultimately comes down to the fact that, as a general rule, the people of Great Britain were always more biblically Christian than the people of continental Europe. Though there were significant Protestant communities in Southern France, Holland, and parts of Germany, the people of continental Europe never fully extricated themselves from the mire of paganism, and the earliest American colonies were predominantly settled by devout British Protestants and, to a lesser extent, by devout Dutch and German Protestants. The Catholic Church pretty much wiped out the Protestants of Southern France during the Inquisition.​

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The other primary reason was political but obtained for religious reasons as well. Because the British monarchy was always more biblically Christian than the others of Europe, it was more open to sharing power early on. The British monarchy established the Royal Bench, accepted the Magna Carta of Rights, eventually ceded the practical authority of governance to the British Parliament, and embraced Blackstonian jurisprudence. Of course, the British monarchy also saw the writing on the wall in the age of revolutionary natural law. British monarchs had always been comparatively wiser than their continental counterparts.​

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In contrast, the monarchies of continental Europe, especially that of France, were corrupt and under the thumb of the Roman Catholic Church. Whereas British commoners generally extolled their monarchy, French commoners bitterly seethed under theirs. Also, the French intelligentsia of revolutionary sentiment was generally derisive of Christianity and loathed Catholicism most especially. Ironically, they were paternalistic in their political thought. They didn’t so much have a problem with control freaks as they had a problem with being the controlled.​

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American leftists tend to make a big deal out of the fact that some of the most prominent Founders were Deists. Their wont is to downplay Christianity’s influence on the exemplar of the Anglo-American tradition. They only show their ignorance. Unfortunately, some Christians counter this foolishness by insisting that these luminaries, who were indeed Deists, were Christians. Both of these views stem from a fundamental misapprehension of things.​

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As for the supposed influence of Deism, this is a mountain of rubbish made out of a molehill of a distinction that makes no difference. The philosophical and governing principles of the Anglo-American tradition are not predicated on the mystical teachings of Christianity (i.e., those of its eschatology and soteriology). They’re predicated on the moral teachings of Christianity. In other words, it’s the sociopolitical implications of Christianity’s ethical system of thought that matter. In that regard, the Christians and Deists of the Anglo-American tradition were of one accord. Deists like Franklin, Adams, and others routinely quoted the Bible as the justification for their sociopolitical values and even encouraged the propagation of the Gospel; while they didn’t believe that Jesus was divine, they believed that His moral teachings were divinely inspired. Ours is a secular government, not a theocracy. The sense in which America is a Christian nation goes to its founding culture, its sociopolitical philosophy, and its governing principles. Deism doesn’t espouse any ethical system as such. It simply holds that the laws of morality are apprehensible.​

 

[occupied]

What about the human construct of Trade? If not for trade, diseases that became pandemics killing millions would have remained localized, killing thousands, or even less.


Or, what about the human construct of Solider? Every person killed by a formal solider could be counted as killed a single construct and lumped together, if you wanted to, you know, make some cool numbers.

What about the crusades and most of the other European wars for 2000 years? Christianity combined with political power has a habit of putting heretics and unbelievers to the sword. Our founders wisely built a wall between the preachers and the politicians to the extreme disappointment of those who think the bible ought to be a secular law book.

 

[zaangalewa]

Conservative views are exactly what is driving people to join the Catholic Church and other conservative denominations. ...

Many Catholics are politically progressive and not conservative. This is not any criterion for Catholics. As far as I heard in the last elections the Catholics of the USA voted like all other US-Americans. I would be surprised if any Catholic had voted for president Biden because he is a Catholic. Perhaps some voted for him because he is for an ecumenical Christianity. We love "bridge builders".

 

[zaangalewa]

What about the crusades and most of the other European wars for 2000 years? Christianity combined with political power has a habit of putting heretics and unbelievers to the sword.
Our founders wisely built a wall between the preachers and the politicians to the extreme disappointment of those who think the bible ought to be a secular law book.

Example: In the war in Korea about 40,000 US-Americans died - and about 4 million civilists died. It was a war between the ideologies Communism and Capitalism - also between Atheism and not-Atheism or 'freedom of religion'. And compared with McCarthy the inquisition was totally harmless. They needed years for to judge only one person. And I guess the politicians and lawyers of the USA executed and tortured much more people than all clerics of the church since it exists.

So what do you think is better now? The wars in the 19th, 20th and 21st century? The nuclear war between Russia+China and USA+Europe which will soon come - if no one will find a better way for the totally stupid unreal problems of the governments of all this super-stupid countries?

 

[Mashmont]

Christianity has more blood on it's hands than any other human construct in history. Our founders knew this. That's why they decided to be the first western nation without a state church. Preachers don't care about rights. Their first impulse is to ban "sin" putting the lie to the free will argument.

Have you forgotten about the atheist regimes that murdered over 100 million in the last century? That's more than all religions combined in the history of the world.

 

[Mashmont]

Many Catholics are politically progressive and not conservative. This is not any criterion for Catholics. As far as I heard in the last elections the Catholics of the USA voted like all other US-Americans. I would be surprised if any Catholic had voted for president Biden because he is a Catholic. Perhaps some voted for him because he is for an ecumenical Christianity. We love "bridge builders".

No such thing as a liberal practicing Catholic. If you supported Biden, you aren't a practicing Catholic because of his active support of abortion law. Most of the "Catholics" who supported Biden merely checked the Catholic box. Few of them attend weekly Mass.

 

[Correll]

What about the crusades and most of the other European wars for 2000 years? Christianity combined with political power has a habit of putting heretics and unbelievers to the sword. Our founders wisely built a wall between the preachers and the politicians to the extreme disappointment of those who think the bible ought to be a secular law book.

Yes, what about them? Where they any more numerous or bloody than before Christianity became teh dominate religion in those areas?

That you take ALL the warfare of a time period of different nations and peoples, and assign it to ONE factor, ie Christianity,


is just you showing that you want to gin up a big number and assign it to something you are bigoted against.

 

[Blues Man]

No such thing as a liberal practicing Catholic. If you supported Biden, you aren't a practicing Catholic because of his active support of abortion law. Most of the "Catholics" who supported Biden merely checked the Catholic box. Few of them attend weekly Mass.

Yeah OK how many divorced people still call themselves Catholic?
How many women who use birth control still call themselves Catholic?

Catholics are just as prone to hypocrisy as anyone.