Please…
By
I received the following email today that really set me off… First the email and then below that are my thoughts…
I’ve found a new candidate for President…….care to see who this might be??
Read on……..This is great –
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Subject: Fw: America Needs a President like this!!!
AMEN!!!!!
America needs a President like this:
Prime Minister John Howard Australia
Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia , as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks.
Separately, Howard angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by saying he supported spy agencies monitoring the nation’s mosques.
Quote: ‘IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT. Take It Or Leave It. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali , we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians’.‘This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom’. ‘We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society . Learn the language!’
‘Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right wing, political push, but a fact, because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appr opriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.’
‘We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us.’
‘This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom,
‘THE RIGHT TO LEAVE’.’
‘If you aren’t happy here then LEAVE. We didn’t force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted.’
Maybe if we circulate this amongst ourselves, American citizens will find the backbone to start speaking and voicing the same truths.
If you agree, please SEND THIS ON.
For starters, the email is malarkey as noted off of snopes..
1. http://www.snopes.com/rumors/thisisamerica.asp
2. http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/c/costello.htm
Moreover, neither Australia nor The United States were founded as Christian nations, fundamentally on Christian principles (the seeming rationale for this “created out of whole cloth” email forward)- such myths are troublesome, dangerous, and do nothing to increase our freedom and liberty, or to secure it for our posterity… in fact, it results in the opposite.
What is documented, is that our founders were first and foremost men of the enlightenment operating on and espousing natural law – the philosophical foundations for which came from Aristotle, Locke, Smith (among others) – not the New Testament. America, the idea, was the political application of the enlightenment philosophy and at the time, and to this day, the first nation ever so conceived.
Moreover, the most important of the intellectuals responsible for the success of The Revolution were deists (Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Paine, Ethan Allen, et al), and not at all fundamentalist Christians. To assume otherwise is to illustrate the dark-ages side of Christianity.. and precisely what many, if not all, of our founders were rejecting – tyranny over the mind of man.
I firmly believe in one’s right to worship and believe as one wants to believe; a free mind and a free market are corollaries. But one would think we all would have learned something profound on the heels of 9-11, but clearly we have not. Nevertheless, to imply this country, or Australia, are something they were not and, hopefully, never will be – a haven for fundamentalist (add your flavor of religion here) indoctrination – is an abomination.
One of the key problems the GOP has is the incessant attachment by it’s leadership, and clearly the party’s foot soldiers, to in your face fundamentalist/evangelical Christianity. If you are not a fundamentalist Christian, if you do not wear your militant pro-life advocacy on your sleeve, you have no place in the GOP. This not only illustrates an incredibly myopic and irrational state of mind, but is stunningly dangerous in a world of fundamentalist nut jobs who kill under whatever flavor of religion they happen to espouse. The socialist/liberal pigs want economic controls by the state. The religious right, the conservatives running the show in America right now, want intellectual controls by the state. Between the two, we will soon have no freedom left at all.
Frankly, I am sick of both sides and is was why this 11th generation American, SAR, left the GOP. I will never return until and unless the GOP returns from the netherworld to this world.
No related posts.
Methinks someone is a bit testy after taking a look at his/her paystub and seeing how much of his/her hard-earned money is being extorted by the government.
Because of his/her post, I decided to do a search of our foundational documents for certain words. I wanted to find out how many times the word “enlightenment” is cited in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I believe “enlightenment” is an era—not a new discovery blooming from mankind being repressed. And the “dark ages” couldn’t have been so dark—after all, we did survive, didn’t we? The term “dark ages” is very subjective. What is that era compared to what? Our present time? Our present time of true darkness when human DNA is being mixed with animals to create chimeras? Now that’s dark. Will we survive THESE dark ages? That remains to be seen.
So back to my pondering. How many times does the word “God”, as in a Christian God, come up in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights? How many times does the “right to life” get specifically cited by our Founding Fathers? How many times does the term “enlightenment” get cited? After a cursory glance of these Divinely-inspired documents, this is what I came up with (any unintentional mistakes can be fully attributed to a disease only known to grandmas):
Declaration of Independence:
Mention of God in various forms—5
1. Laws of Nature
2. Nature’s God
3. Creator
4. Supreme Judge
5. Divine Providence
Unalienable “right to life”—1
Enlightenment—0
Constitution of the United States of America:
Mention of God in various forms—2
1. Blessings
2. Year of Our Lord
Life—1 Article III, Sec. 3
Enlightenment—0
Bill of Rights:
Mention of God in various forms—0
Right to Life—2
1. Amendment V—“life or limb”
2. Amendment XIV—“life, liberty, property”
Enlightment–0
Notice how “life” is always placed before any other “right.” Without the “right to life”, the rights to “liberty and the pursuit of happiness” mean nothing. So if I am a pro-life militant, I accept that honor based on the Foundational documents of this country and the men who wrote them, inspired by Divine Providence. On the other hand, there is no mention of the right to be “enlightened.”
If the foundation of this country was not Christian, by what authority are our laws based upon? If it’s not the Ten Commandments given by a Christian God, what is it? If anyone was enlightened, my question is By Whom were they enlightened? They were enlightened by the Supreme Judge, as our Creator, as cited in the Declaration of Independence.
By the by, as a pro-life militant, my dance card is completely empty of requests from the GOP. I supported Ron Paul from the beginning, but he is sticking with the Republican Party, which is a big disappointment. I’m voting for Dr. Alan Keyes now. Call me a rebel!
By what authority? Man’s rational mind – the simple recognition that man is a rational being who has the ability to understand fully the world in which he exists. It is real. The authority is you and me as individuals. The recognition that we, as individuals, do not exist as sacrificial animals for the pleasure of others – whomever they may be.
Morality is not the fundamental province of religion, that arguement was settled long ago – the idea that without God there cannot be right and wrong is not a legitimate position. Of course, this is not what is shoved down your throat in the church, but it should be rather obvious why…
But this is off topic, the words of some of the founders are not mine…. they thought all of this through as well and had to broach this whole matter very carefully.
Yet, here we have –
Thomas Jefferson: “Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man”
Benjamin Franklin: “Lighthouses are more useful than churches.”
A 1796 treaty signed by John Adams declares, “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”
Adams also said, “this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.”
Barry Goldwater threatened to fight fundamentalists “every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans.”
Do not skewer the messenger, but rather challenge the unproven. Subject religious fundamentalist indoctrination to the same standard that any other scientific theory is required to pass. Then, and only then, can an intelligent discussion ensue on this incredibly divisive matter.
While I appreciate your debunking of the e-mail presented, I continue to marvel at the hostility toward religion expressed on this site in general and your post in particular.
First of all, I agree that the e-mail in question is a hoax; it is not dissimilar from the alleged “Neil Bortz Commencement Speech” that was featured on this site last month.
But regarding the commentary on the fraudulent Prime Minister Howard piece:
While it is true that the founders considered “Natural Law” a fundamental building block of their concept of polity, you fail to mention the strongest and most influential thinker regarding this concept: St Thomas Aquinas (See “Summa Theologica”). Prior to Aquinas, the concept was discussed at length by St Augustine (“City of God”). And although some political philosophers find rudimentary elements of the concept in Sophocles’ play “Antigone,” it is widely accepted that attributions of Natural Law theory to Aristotle are decidedly due to the interpretations and adaptation of his work by Aquinas. Subsequent allusions to Natural Law in the works of Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, and others all derive from the work of St Thomas Aquinas.
And while I agree that most of the most influential intellectual founders of the revolution were “not at all fundamentalist Christians,” it is worth noting that most of them found religion a positive influence on society:
“As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of government to protect all conscientious protesters thereof, and I know of no other business government has to do therewith.” – Thomas Paine (Common Sense, 1776.)
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” –John Adams, October 11, 1798
“ God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured in the Sacred Writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this. I also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel” – Benjamin Franklin, Constitutional Convention of 1787 | original manuscript of this speech
“…reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle…” George Washington, Farwell Address
So while I agree that many recent GOP candidates have become too cozy with the so-called religious right, I don’t think its quite fair to suggest that “the conservatives running the show in America right now” want intellectual (read religious) controls by the state. Most religious people active in politics are concerned by the secular drift of government, and are looking to promote politicians who demonstrate some allegiance to a moral code that transcends fallible man-made law. That would be Natural Law, as developed and espoused by the Doctors of the Church Augustine and Aquinas.
By what Authority? By the same Authority that has imprinted on men’s reason that it is wrong and punishable by incarceration to drive drunk, hit and kill an innocent man, and violate probation. If it weren’t for a Higher Authority, the people behind federal prison walls would claim their reason is the ruling reason. And those who don’t drive drunk, who don’t hit and kill innocent people, should be in prison. So by what Authority is “right” reason determined? Did the men of the era of enlightenment wake up one morning and say Thou Shalt Not Kill—our “enlightenment” has shown us that murder is wrong. Could it be they might have heard that from some popular writing from about 3,000 years before? Maybe in all their scholarly reading the human minds of the era of enlightenment might have read that Commandment somewhere else?
Even if Benjamin Franklin and others were considered deists, those tolerant Christians had respect for deists amongst them–as a fledgling free country exercising freedom of religion should have had. The men who wrote the Declaration of Independence could have chosen to write the beginning of the Declaration of Independence as: 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 enlightened men and their reason entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separation. We hold these truths to be obvious by any reasonable man that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their enlightened reason with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
But they didn’t.
Instead, the majority of the men who were Divinely-inspired by a Christian God chose to call upon a Christian God for wisdom, reason and hope. And it doesn’t appear Benjamin Franklin objected to calling upon that Supreme Judge.
According to Sol Bloom and Lars Johnson who wrote “The Story of the Constitution”, 2nd edition, Page 50 “Religious Heritage” Constitutional Convention:
“It is also important to recognize that those who attended the Constitutional Convention shared a common religious heritage; they were products of America’s Christian culture. Were they themselves Christians? The answer to that question depends upon how the term Christian is defined. If the word is used to refer to someone who is “born again” or “redeemed,” it is difficult to say for sure how many of the delegates were truly Christian, since it was a time when men tended to be quite private about their spiritual condition. There is, therefore, not much written documentation from them about their religious faith.
If, on the other hand, the word Christian is used to refer to men who held orthodox Christian beliefs, then it is clear that the vast majority of delegates were Christians. Dr. M.E. Bradford, in his sketches of the lives of the framers of the United States Constitution, has discovered that, with few exceptions, the delegates were orthodox members of various Christian denominations. According to Dr. Bradford, there were “…approximately twenty-nine Anglicans, sixteen to eighteen Calvinists [Congregationalist, Presbyterian, or Dutch Reformed], two Methodists, two Lutherans, two Roman Catholics, [and] one lapsed Quaker and sometime-Anglican….”
According to Dr. Bradford, at the Convention there were very few real deists—those who believe in a God who is not actively involved in the affairs of men. Benjamin Franklin was the only open deist, and two others—James Wilson of Pennsylvania and Hugh Williamson of North Carolina—seemed to have deist sympathies. While others were rumored to be deists, there does not seem to be sufficient proof to substantiate such allegations, although some did tend to use terms for God that had been made fashionable by the deists.
It is interesting to note that those Dr. Bradford identified as deists were all raised in Christian homes, lived lives that were generally compatible with Christian morality, and seemed to have respect for organized Christianity. Benjamin Franklin even went so far as to write to his daughter Sarah in 1764 that she should “Go constantly to Church whoever preaches.” It was also Franklin who, on June 28, 1787, after observing that the Convention had made little progress, reminded the delegates “…that God governs in the Affairs of Men,” and suggested that “…Prayers, imploring the Assistance of Heaven and its Blessing on our Deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to Business….”
While the Framers of the Constitution did not come together to draft an explicitly Christian plan of government, it is also equally true that the United States Constitution was not written by a group of freethinkers and deists. The Constitution was written by men who were, for the most part, orthodox Christians, and who lived and worked within a culture that was profoundly influenced by Christianity.” (footnotes omitted)
Also, Sol Bloom and Lars Johnson state (Page 3) that “The noted eighteenth-century English jurist, Sir William Blackstone, had a critical influence on American legal thought. While a professor of law at Oxford, Blackstone published his Commentaries on the Laws of England. His commentaries became the primary source for information on English common law in America…” “Blackstone emphasized in his writings that all law was founded on God—both the law of nature and revealed law. He defined these laws in the following manner:
Laws of Nature. This will of his Maker is called the law of nature…. [God] laid down certain immutable laws of human nature, whereby that free will is in some degree regulated and restrained, and gave him also the faculty of reason to discover the purport of those laws….
…He has laid down only such laws as were founded in those relations of justice, that existed in the nature of things antecedent to any positive precept. These are the eternal, immutable laws of good and evil, to which the Creator Himself in all his Dispensations conforms; and which He has enabled human reason to discover, so far as they are necessary for the conduct of human actions.
This law of nature, being … dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this…”
Franklin is also cited by Bloom and Johnson as saying that in the early part of 1787, “he declared that the country was so prosperous that “thanksgiving should be offered.”
Sounds Christian to me!