Traditional “Christian” marriage is outlawed by the Bible
“Christian” marriage is outlawed by the Bible. I’m not exaggerating. You’ll find all of the stunning details, along with citations to the Bible, at Dwindling in Unbelief. How does the Bible outlaw traditional “Christian” marriages? Here are some of the Bible rules listed:
Image by isforinsects at Flickr (Creative Commons)
- The Bible says that Christians should not marry.
- But if a Christian man decides to get married (which he shouldn’t), he can have more than one wife.
- And if he doesn’t like one of his wives (like if she’s unclean or ugly or something), he can divorce her.
- If a Christian man gets married and then discovers on his wedding night that his new wife is not a virgin, then he and the other Christian men must stone her to death.
- Christians shouldn’t have sex (even if they are married, which they shouldn’t be).
- Christian parents must beat their children (which they shouldn’t have, since they shouldn’t get married or have sex).
- Good Christians must hate their families.
(If they abandon them for Jesus, he’ll give them a big reward.)
This list list only includes the first seven rules. Go to Dwindling in Unbelief for the details and the pinpoint citations. Don’t just trust me on these rules. Go read the Bible. These rules are all there, clearly stated.
Conclusion: We need to march to America’s heartland and start picketing traditional Christian marriage because it is clear that traditional Christian marriage contravenes the clear teachings of the Bible.
From my perspective and the amount of history I have studied, its quite clear that successful human societies are a combination of altruistic principles (positive behavioral quidelines) which are maintained through a struggle with each required antithesis. When an opposing group to a majority held altruism forces silence through media and legal intimidation, the cultures lifetime is limited. When this happens both internal and external forces will cause all manner of conflicts including culture and civil wars.
This happened once in US history regarding differing interpretations concerning slavery, but because the concept was not altruistic (in a positive behavioral sense) the appeal to human compassion (a positive behavioral altruism) enabled the north to see the struggle through because the positive behavioral altruism couldn’t be silenced in the hearts of christians and others who held similar perspectives.
Should an altruistic standard that is common to the majority of a culture be reversed, the culture will go through a series of consecutive ideological revolutions with neither side winning, both will loose.
You may debate what are the common altruistic values and behaviors of any specific society, but the one thing that they are not is a list of do’s and don’ts.
I have already said these altruisms are things there is no law against. The Bible calls them phrases like the fruit of the spirit.
These are a few, there are others: Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and self-control.
There are many instances in modern America right now where these altruistic character traits are set aside because those that claim to have a secular perspective can intimidate and silence others in the courts and in the media.
There is no guarantee that simply because a perspective is claimed to be secular, that the perspective is altruistic and “good” for a specific culture.
The only way sexual behavior could be considerd altruistic would be for the people who practice a specific behavior to also possess the altruistic characteristics (the fruit of the spirit) above mentioned.
Under these qualifications, some degree of the altruistic or non-secular must be associated with sexual behaviors for there to be no limitations upon it promotion.
Karl
I agree somewhat with the beginning of your hypothesis. Your comment regarding the dynamic between altruism and it’s antithesis is simply our ‘emergent societal behaviors’ resulting from evolution as a social species. Similar behaviors are observed in the societies of almost every social animal.
But I take umbrage at your comment
It was my understanding (and many reputable historical sources agree) that many of the most vociferous opponents to the repeal of slavery were predominantly Christians (with the notable exception of the Quakers and Moravians) who saw slavery as part of the ‘Natural Order” and quoted scripture and verse in support of their claims. They were strongly adamant that such repeal could only lead to the abandonment of god and the growth of “wanton secularism”.
From Wikipedia (which has many solid citations)
I also find I disagree with your conclusion that sexual behavior is predicated upon a dynamic between altruistic and non-altruistic (selfish) behaviors, and also disagree with your imputed claim in that last sentence that altruistic is non-secular!
You also make a spectacular claim that
Care to back that up with some facts - if there are such cases, surely you can direct us to some precedents?
Mindy: Good caveat about sublimation. It might be that a mind that becomes complex and energized has more energy for both culture AND beyond-the-norm sexual exploration. That is CERTAINLY the case for many artists.
I do suspect, though, that if you want to make most people intellectually unproductive, most of the time, give them easy pleasures. Give them lots of exquisite food, music, sex (both sex itself and sexually infused amusements, such as TV and movies), give them all kinds of opportunities to become sloth-like. Give them American suburbs (dare I say?).
Maybe I should have said that relatively free sex (and sexual imagery–our titillating TV and movies) is merely one of MANY amusements that are sapping the limited hours and energy of many Americans.
If modern Americans didn’t have all of their relatively mindless distractions and amusements, what would they do instead? Freud thinks (and I agree) that more of them would venture off to ponder the difficult intellectual exercises that tend to lead to technical marvels, medicines, books, hospitals, etc.
He pointed to redirected sexual energies as the engine of this sublimation. Geoffrey Miller points to sexual selection.
If children are raised to think that it’s OK to screw around, and that life is all about satisfying their cravings (sexual and otherwise), I think that it’s less likely that a child will redirect some of his/her animal energies into the cultural endeavors that we hold in high esteem.
This is an operating assumption in my mind, and I do find it to be compelling at times. It leads to dozens of other questions. I certainly don’t claim to know how it might affect any parent’s attempt to raise a particular child, for example.
Erich - I think perhaps you misspoke in your next-to-last paragraph? That children are more likely to redirect, or less likely?
I wholeheartedly agree with Tony’s response to Karl, on all fronts.
And I think you raise a very valid point, Erich, about what makes us sloth-like, and that some will slide to that if overly-tempted. I think the propensity toward sloth-dom runs along a continuum, as do most things in life, with some very likely to give in to the temptation, others, not so much. Self-control comes more naturally to some than others, and perhaps those to whom it does not are the ones who need religion to exert the control they themselves cannot.
Thanks for the correction, Mindy. I’ve made the change.
Perhaps ALL people who are widely viewed as successes are tightly controlled, but that control comes from different directions. Some of us feel constrained by external rules and norms and we are most comfortable with that external guidance. People like Karl, for example, make it clear that they trust that external guidance for ultimate guidance (even though, if they thought about it carefully, they’d recognize that the rules are made of words and words are highly plastic). Aristotle had much criticism about this mentality that external rules can tell us how to live our lives.
The rest of us trust in ourselves to make good decisions; we rely on our inner judgment as the final arbiter, though we often refer to the rules, because recognize that there is often wisdom in rules, especially those rules that have withstood the test of time.
Tony (and by extension Karl)
The Civil War is something I know a wee bit about, having done a rather onerous amount of research for a novel I have yet to start writing. To claim that Christian compassion prompted the freeing of the slaves is a gross oversimplification.
Yes, there were many good Christians who opposed slavery, and, Tony, who also saw it as somehow a “natural order” thing—not the slavery per se but the fact that whites were superior to blacks, making white “responsible” for them. There were also a great many Christians, good or otherwise, who opposed emancipation, seeing the justification for it in Biblical passages, mostly OT.
It was not compassion that set in motion the events leading to the Civil War, but politics. And whenever you have politics you have such a mixed bag that it becomes difficult if not impossible to tease apart motive.
When Lincoln said that if he could preserve the Union and maintain slavery, he meant it. But what he meant was a kind of backhanded concession to the Peculiar Institution, because he knew perfectly well that it could not be done. We had effectively two distinct economic systems, and the whole country was affected by their incompatibility.
To put it as simply as possible for brevitie’s sake, the North more and more found itself having to “carry” the South in international trade. Cotton was beginning to drop in value because new sources had opened up, undercutting the South. While it is true that King Cotton was still profitable in 1861, it is also true that in a very short time it wouldn’t be, for reasons that go all the way back to the Founding. (Check Jefferson’s concerns over plantation farming, which he labeled Manure Politics.) The South HAD to expand the plantation system because cotton agriculture is devastating to the soil—the only way they could survive was to keep moving. (Interestingly, you can follow the “path” of the plantations today by looking at the most impoverished areas of the South—the geography conforms almost exactly with the westward expansion of plantations. The soil is only now beginning to recover.) The North had a vested interest in keeping this system from spreading because the Southern States used a law known at the 3/5s act to vote “on behalf” of their slaves—each slave was valued at three-fifths of a man and the owner could vote them as a block. They had enough votes to undermine all manner of federal program—it was politically untenable to keep going this way, because the North needed to expand as well.
Slavery as an institution was beginning to fail economically. When the South seceded, there were many moves afoot to acquire new territory in Central America, Mexico, even some feelers put out to South America—expansion was essential. But the act of secession was what prompted the Civil War, the underlying causes were as much if not more economic as altruistic, and the Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves in those states that had already fallen to the North—Tennessee and Kentucky—and was used as an attempt to spark an uprising in the heart of the South.
Altruism? There was plenty, but not on the government’s behalf. It was a happy alignment of factors in that regard. Primarily, though, Lincoln saw clearly that the system could not long be sustained as it was.
Just for clarification.
Tony C states:
“It was my understanding (and many reputable historical sources agree) that many of the most vociferous opponents to the repeal of slavery were predominantly Christians (with the notable exception of the Quakers and Moravians) who saw slavery as part of the ‘Natural Order” and quoted scripture and verse in support of their claims. They were strongly adamant that such repeal could only lead to the abandonment of god and the growth of “wanton secularism”.”
I didn’t say it was the “southern flavor” of naturalism mixed in their interpretation of Christianity that had an altruistic view of man’s inhumanity to man. The leaders of many churches and local governments in the south obviously had secular ideas that had overshadowed the clear teaching of scripture.
If I didn’t make it clear it was the “altruistic” (whether Christian or humanistic) principles of compassion and the unversal brotherhhod of man that were the positive motivators in this struggle. The north gathered more support from their masses and their generals knew that the stuggle shifted to their favor when the governmental decrees combined altruistic principles with a compassionate appeal on behalf of those who were being oppressed.
I’m sure there were a fair share of ungodly secularism in the churches in the south because of the manner by which protestant missionaries found themselves having to compromise their own convictions to be given opportunity to be heard by those in the South who saw nothing innately evil about slavery.
Tony C stated:
“I also find I disagree with your conclusion that sexual behavior is predicated upon a dynamic between altruistic and non-altruistic (selfish) behaviors, and also disagree with your imputed claim in that last sentence that altruistic is non-secular!”
If altruistic principles of human compassion, self-control, love. faith, … etc. actually exist they are not secular in the sense that these values exist in a framework that is beyond a simply neutral commonness to all people.
The commonness to all people is both positive and negative thoughts, behaviors, activities and habits.
People have shown over and over again that they do not know to choose the best, especially when it involves a level of self-control that is required to overcome poor choices and the inclinations that these choices develope in the lives of people.
I have heard most everyone say here on DI that they acknowledge that people have the ability to make both positive and negative impacts upon their own lives and the lives of others by their choices and activities.
The actual physiological functioning of sexuality is obviously something that can to some extent be separated from an individuals persona, as witnessed by those who start out life with one orientation and then decide that they can be some other orientation or some other orientations as they decide.
When I say that people tend to make sexuality altruisitc, take the example of Mark who to some degree equates sex with the divine or the Almightly. The only way for sexuality to really be altruistic for people like this is to have whatever altruistic ideals that they hold to regarding relationships to also be present in matters relating to their sexual imaginations, activities, behaviors and habits.
As for how Tony C can doubt that there are secular militant endeavors to silence altruistic ideals, he really needs to focus upon his own tactics as well as those of the far left that would like nothing better than to force law cases or provide activist judges cases anywhere they choose.
Tony a couple of weeks ago was (and probably still is) convinced that I need to be investigated by the authorities for teaching science in an altruistic (as I see it) manner in a private Christian School.
hmmm
Sorry about the font issue in the blockquote - I’ll see if I can edit it
Tony: I’ve got your back on the ont-fay oblem-pray.
Karl writes:—”I’m sure there were a fair share of ungodly secularism in the churches in the south because of the manner by which protestant missionaries found themselves having to compromise their own convictions to be given opportunity to be heard by those in the South who saw nothing innately evil about slavery.”
That’s a cop out, Karl. People who overwhelming see the world through a lens of reliosity tend to see EVERYTHING through that lens and base all their decisions and ideas on what they perceive as religious truth. It may, in time, prove to be a false assumption, but to them in their head there is no secularism coloring anything. They found the biblical passages to justify their beliefs and compounded those passages with their own “take” on the natural order. You do not get to blame secularism for the fuck-upped worldviews of those who are so deeply entrenched in their own sanctimony. This was post-Enlightenment— there were plenty of well-reasoned SECULAR arguments against slavery, arguments at least as heartfelt as the views of the Quakers and other like-minded Christians.
The fact is, historically and otherwise, that people grasp an idea they perceive as divinely inspired and because they believe it is what god wants, if their so-called faith is strong enough, reason cannot move them, and it is that which many of us rail against. Because from their point of view—as with yours—there is no court of appeal greater than god and what they perceive as god’s will is final. So if they get it wrong, too bad for us poor, benighted secularist who may be more driven by altruism than anyone doing good out of fear of hellfire. After all, when we do good it’s only because we think it’s right, not because we think there will be browny points with the almighty.
I also believe that people create God in their own image and likeness.
then if I had a god it would be… gorgeous! (but a little too full of himself, if you know what I mean!)
Mark: ditto.
Here are some articles concerning what I referred to regarding secularization silencing public debate concerning values and ideologies.
Granted these are not sources anyone here would call their cup of tea, but the perspectives are still obviously impacting people with valuea and ideals that the secularists wish to silence.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09031002.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul148.html
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Jesus-Missing-From-Obamas-Georgetown-Speech.html
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/cardinal.urges.selfconfidence.and.courage.in.face.of.secularism/22743.htm
http://bashingsecularism.blogspot.com/2009/03/christianity-in-public-life.html
http://www.heythrop.ac.uk/index.php/content/view/867/409/
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1337335?eng=y
Karl
Thanks for taking the time to research and post your links.
You’re right - they are not what I would normally peruse in depth (for many reasons). But I’ll respond to each of them in turn
1) Your Australian Cardinal Pell objects that Christianity is not being provided a priviledged place in public life. I honestly don’t see the problem. The Christians have had a place of priviledge for the past few centuries, despite most countries declaring or recognizing themselves as secular. It’s not an attack on religion, it is simply a failure to ‘bend the knee’ to religion and religious doctrine.
2) Ah yes - the ‘Attack on Christmas’! I have no idea where this is coming from, but I, my friends, my colleagues, in fact everyone I know (even my Jewish and Moslem friends) celebrate the ’season’ of Christmas, and enjoy sharing gifts on Christmas day. My family and I say Merry Christmas to people I meet. For me, it has always been a secular holiday, with some (optional) trappings of religion - even as a practicing Catholic in Scotland. I have never seen this ‘Attack on Christmas’ first hand - only reported on Fox news and similar outlets. This surprises me! I travel over 100,000 miles a year on business, to all corners of the US. You’d think I would have noticed something as deeply rooted and as widespread as an ‘Attack on Christmas’.
3) The missing ‘Jesus’ is actually (if you read the article) stagecraft - this was not a religious speech, it was a secular speech by our president. The locale was full of iconography - the most visible was covered, simply to provide a consistent context for President Obama’s speech, similar to every other speech by the President. Stage-craft, not witch-craft.
4) this is a copy of (1) - provide links, but at least provide variety.
5) I have absolutely no idea what this person is trying to say (in terms of ‘bashing secularism’), but he doesn’t say it very well or clearly. The government response was very clear - if you take government money to provide services - you provide services to all who are eligible with no ‘religious means test’. The other commentary seemed to be no more than petulance (again, boiling down to a pouting “but we’re special!”)
6) this is a somewhat reasonable piece. Attacking through stereotypes is not, evidentially, something I (nor any of the authors here) do. It does, however, strike me as an example of the pot calling the kettle black: the most vociferous ‘labellers’ today are not the secularists, but the evangelical right. Equating the election of Obama as equivalent to the rise of the AntiChrist, and other such drivel. So close, but no banana.
7) I thought this a very strange note for you to incorporate. Essentially the report highlights occasions where religious leaders have ‘overstepped their bounds’ and chastised (in the form of a demand, in the case of the Pontiff) legislators and entire governments for failing to craft and enact policy in line with their narrow religious tenets. How a government with multi-cultural and multi-religious members, that by it’s constitution is required to be secular (no establishment) could possibly abide by the tenets of every religion represented in it’s chambers (never mind in it’s population) is insanely impossible. Or do you advocate that we should replace the constitution with the bible? the torah? the koran? the bhagavad gita, perhaps? I think we’re better off having legislators deal with their religion as a personal matter, and if it influences their vote - that is their privilege. As it is the privilege of their constituents to vote them out of office if they don’t like their voting record.
In none of these links do I see any instance of ’secularists’ trying to silence anyone. What I do see is an old and dying elite running scared. I see ‘the old order’ complaining about ‘these damn kids’, while forgetting their own youth, and their own time of ideas and idealism. I see narrow tribal loyalties forged by ignorance, being broken on the anvil of global education and tolerance. I see fear, uncertainty and doubt being sown by those with something to lose - not the people or the parishioners, but the gilded cardinals, the pastors and preachers, who fear a life with no influence.
With education comes understanding. With understanding comes tolerance. With tolerance comes acceptance. With acceptance comes independence of thought.
It is this last that the pastors cannot abide, methinks.
The faith of Christianity can survive and prove itself in even the worst of social conditions. What you call the elite running scared is your perspective.
This is why you don’t see the articles from any vantage point but your own.
There has been civil litigation in all of these areas;
The removal of Bible reading from Public Schools.
The denial of school teachers to talk openly during any classtime regarding their personal faith in Christianity. Everything else goes and is encouraged, but not Christianity.
The tenants of atheism/secularism are pushed as a viable alternative to any family values that individual teachers disagree with.
The removal of prayer from nearly every gathering of Public Schools. The “non-discrimination” factor is used to “protect” and “not offend” those with different ideologies.
The removal of the word “Christmas” from school settings, while all manner of other new holidays and other non-christians holidays are encouraged.
Attempts to remove the words in God we trust from coins and currency.
Attempts to remove “under God” from the pledge.
Attempts to remove posting of any “Judeo-Christian” phrases from Public view such as the Ten Commandments.
The approved tax dollar funding of secular public schools, while essentially fighting every step of the way to allow parents choice in where their children can go to school.
The list goes on.
BTW this has nearly all been done by the civil liberties Union who claim to protect everyone from the idea that their might be “values” that are important to teach in a context where the majority have a right to have their views expressed.
Many of these matters have been directed by atheistic teachers or parents, often the children as only used a case for litigation.
Karl this is so wrong on many grounds. I was tempted to delete it because of the factual inaccuracies and because this is ground we’ve been over repeatedly with you.
For example, any student is welcome to bring the bible into a public school. There has NEVER been any court decision preventing a private individual from studying the bible on their own in a public school. Lawsuits regarding religion and public schools prohibit the SCHOOLS from attempting to promote a particular religion.
“Secularism” (= not following a religion) is not a religion. I know that you disagree, but where is the supreme being in secularism? What are the sacred writings? If someone on the street told you to join their religion, you might ask about their religion. Imagine them saying “we don’t believe in a God and we don’t have any holy book, no revealed writings. We just try to be good to each other and relieve human suffering where possible.” You would think: “This is no religion at all.”
What is the word “God” doing on national currency in the first place? Is it even possible for you to imagine that a country that is bound by its highest founding papers to not promote religion shouldn’t be promoting “God” on its currency? Or does “God” not mean God, in your opinion?
Once again, you are trying to define not-religion as a type of religion. I don’t buy it. Nor is not-religion anti-religion (which is how you are construing not-religion). You would have a point about public schools if they were actively telling kids to NOT BELIEVE in religions. Imagine a teacher getting up and saying “Hey, kids, there is no God.” That would be prohibited by the Constitution too. That’s not what any of the 1st Amendment cases are about.
Karl,
Basically, you see faith in god as essential to everything. Fine.
But when religion was challenged in public forums, it was not faith in god that was challenged, but the indoctrinational practices of organized religion, which serve to form in-groups. Yes, this is sociology, and maybe you think it’s not important. But when I was in Lutheran school, I saw many a fight between our kids and those of the nearby Catholic school, who would come over to ours and wait till class ended so they could taunt us with epithets like blasphemer, pagan, antichrist, and so-forth. Which our kids would throw right back at them. It was an excuse to feel superior and an excuse to get into a fight and an excuse to form a clique, and it was HURTFUL and perfectly human.
You just don’t seem to get it how a kid’s life can be made miserable by not being part of the in-group. I doubt you were ever on the outside of much as a kid. If you’re the lone Jew or Muslim in a classroom full of “good Christians” and by school policy that difference is made prominent—through class prayer, which you can’t participate in—it’s an excuse for bullying, for intimidation, for the kind of behavior your Jesus would have abhorred but which nevertheless is done all the time in his name BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE CRUEL AND IF YOU GIVE THEM THE IDEA THAT GOD WANTS THEM TO BE THAT WAY THEY’LL GLADLY USE IT!
Christians feel picked on. Aw.
Let’s take that list of yours and see where it goes.
—”The removal of Bible reading from Public Schools.”
There is no reading of the Qu’ran, either. Nor of the Torah. Nor of the Bhagavad Gita or the Vedas or, I believe, of the I Ching. Why feel so special? Religious texts have no place in public school.
Now, to be fair, I think this is a little extreme. I’ve said before, I don’t know how you teach world history without some reference to religion—so much just doesn’t make sense. But on the other side, can you imagine the nonsense schools would have to go through if they started reading from any of those other religious texts and the “christian” parents started accusing them of teaching Satanism?
They keep it ALL out, Karl.
—”The denial of school teachers to talk openly during any classtime regarding their personal faith in Christianity. Everything else goes and is encouraged, but not Christianity.”
Nor, I think, can a teacher advocate about politics. Under what subject heading would their personal faith be appropriate? There would only be one—religion—and that is not a class in public schools. But, damn, how many times does it have to be said? That’s what your church is for. You can say anything you want there. The only reason to bellyache about its absence in public schools is because you think it should be EVERYWHERE, because the little urchins are getting a chance to find out about other things and not getting enough programming in the thing you think is important.
—”The tenants of atheism/secularism are pushed as a viable alternative to any family values that individual teachers disagree with.”
This assumes there are no valid family values that can be expressed without a religious gloss and that is simply nonsense. It assumes that values which you think are worthwhile can only be taught in a religious context.
It also presumes that the job of the school is to teach values, which is arguable.
—-”The removal of prayer from nearly every gathering of Public Schools. The “non-discrimination” factor is used to “protect” and “not offend” those with different ideologies.”
That means all prayer, not just Christian prayer. Again, religion is a powerful force in the creation of in-groups, of Us vs Them thinking, and would only serve to divide in a widely mixed gathering. Public arenas should be neutral ground. Is there something wrong with “not offending”? Oh, you’re offended because your pet philosophy is not vocally recognized and given special place. I would be offended at the idea that some Giant Spaghetti God would have anything to do with the issues at hand in a public forum.
—”The removal of the word “Christmas” from school settings, while all manner of other new holidays and other non-christians holidays are encouraged.”
Encouraged in what way? As far as I know, Christmas is still a recognized national holiday and kids get to stay home for it. Maybe schools aren’t putting on Christmas Pageants anymore, but so what? Again, that’s what your church is for. If other holidays are being recognized in the same manner, what’s the big deal? Kwanza gets folded into the Christmas vacation, etc. I don’t see schools putting on Pagan Pageants in lieu of—Wotan is not being worshiped or celebrated in school plays, nor is Zoroaster, Mithras, or Zeus. Again, something you think is important isn’t EVERYWHERE so you get bent out of shape about it.
—”Attempts to remove the words in God we trust from coins and currency.”
We went over that recently. The addition of the phrase happened very late in the history of the Republic—mid-Fifties—and was a Cold War measure to separate us from the “godless” commies. It was probably unConstitutional, but no one at the time had the balls to argue it on those grounds because we were still deep in the Red Scare and atheism was akin to communism. It was never seen as necessary before and might even have seemed odd. Removing it would return our currency to what it always had been, a human-made medium of exchange.
And frankly, I don’t trust in god, so it is not representative for me. Until people like you made it an issue, though, I could have cared less about it.
—”Attempts to remove “under God” from the pledge.”
The original pledge reads as follows: “I Pledge Allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.” written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Christian Socialist (something of an anachronism that). Note that this Christian had failed to mention anythign about god at all.
In 1923, the phrae “My Flag” was changed to “the Flag of the United States.” Again, the god part was not considered.
Interestingly, the Jehovah’s Witnessed were the cause of the Supreme Court deciding that compulsory pledging violated the first amendmant (the Witnesses believed pledging allegiance to be idolatry). This was in 1943, the year of profound godlessness in the country (that was sarcasm, in case you missed it).
The insertion of “under God” came in 1954 after much agitation from religious organs beginning with the Knights of Columbus.
So even that was a late addition.
I find it offensive because every nation claims special privilege in some way, most by claiming that god is on their side. German soldiers in both world wars had the phrase Gott Mit Unst on their belt buckles. To suggest a supreme being would give a rats ass for the feckless interests of nationalism ought to outrage any good Christian, so calling upon that deity to bless the workings of governments that must deal in dirt in order to function and use that blessing as a sop to public conscious in odious.
And what would it change anyway? It implies that we who have no god can also have no country. The idea impugns the very foundation of this country, which is the willing and voluntary adoption of certain POLITICAL principles. And if, as in many instances, the actions of our government violate religious sentiment, as in the instance of the Quakers? It should not be there.
—”Attempts to remove posting of any “Judeo-Christian” phrases from Public view such as the Ten Commandments.”
Now that’s just plain b.s. I live in Missouri and our roads are all but wallpapered with JESUS billboards. Public spaces are replete with church bulletin boards, roadside testimonials, cemeteries in public view, we don’t hide the churches. You’re talking about putting this stuff up in government facilities. That’s not the same as removing posting of any Judeo-Christian phrases from Public view—that would be a violation of your First Amendment rights. You can buy a billboard and put up the Ten Commandments if you like and the public can see it. In fact, the Public would have a hell of a time taking it down. So that’s just specious.
—”BTW this has nearly all been done by the civil liberties Union who claim to protect everyone from the idea that their might be “values” that are important to teach in a context where the majority have a right to have their views expressed.”
You have that reversed—the ACLU rarely initiates these cases. They merely provide the attorneys to citizens or citizen groups who press the cases.
And good for them! If an argument is sound, it will stand the case in court. But if it is not, it will eventually fall apart. This is just sour grapes because you don’t get your way.
—”Many of these matters have been directed by atheistic teachers or parents, often the children as only used a case for litigation.”
And of course an atheist can’t possibly act on behalf of his or her children, can’t possibly do this out of love, can’t possibly have a sound, ethical, even MORAL motive for any of it. That’s not possible because we all know that atheists are sadistic, soulless creatures who want merely to snuff the light from the world, who indulge all manner of evil practice behind the veil of reason. Atheists can’t be trusted because they fear no eternal damnation that would make them honest. They are ignorant of truth because they do not accept the predigested pabulum of received wisdom, they insist on asking questions that can’t be answered, and they want things to make sense. Can’t trust someone like that, they won’t tow the party line when the crunch comes. Atheists known nothing of love, all they want is sex—which is why most sex abuse scandals seem to erupt from the midst of religious communities, I suppose, because the “victims” must be atheists who have cleverly seduced otherwise good Christians into unsavory conduct.
It would never occur to you that believers might want their religion kept separate from their government, for sound reasons, would it? Must be a plot.
You know, given the track record of governments that ruled in conjunction with religion, it might not be a bad thing to give this experiment in secularism another century to play out before we condemn it. When you consider all the wars, the abuse, the dehumanizing psychological torment exacerbated by the faithful in the name of god, secularists so far have little to feel ashamed of.
Erich, you stated: Imagine a teacher getting up and saying “Hey, kids, there is no God.”
This is where it is obvious the perspective of atheism claiming to not be a religion is blind to its own doctrines and interpretations.
If the logic eludes you, let me state it.
Some may say,
I am an atheist, but I will teach in a way that allows my students every prerogative to believe that God exists.
There are innumerable examples of how college professors take students to task in science classes and intimidate and cajole until the student either quits or is beyond further attempted humiliation.
You can’t even believe there are people who want to keep on engaging you over and over again. How can you as an adult, who has a hard time resisting the edit button, not see that a teacher in a classroom has near complete “editing” ability.
I am an atheist but my values will not be on display while I am teaching.
I will grade you upon the logic in your thought process, not upon my belief in ________________.
You fill in the blank, evolution, global warming, socialism, Marxism, democratic liberalism, … take your pick.
I will let everyone do reports on topics of their choice.
I will allow any parent the opportunity to come and share from their perspective relevant material pertaining to matters in the curriculum.
Someone can not claim to be an atheist and not teach from an atheistic perspective.
There is no education accomplished in a void of values, as secular as it claims to be.