On 6/18/2020 6:05 PM, wrote:
On Thursday, June 18, 2020 at 9:58:05 AM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, June 18, 2020 at 8:35:20 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/17/2020 8:34 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, June 17, 2020 at 3:11:02 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/17/2020 2:48 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, June 17, 2020 at 10:57:18 AM UTC-7, wrote:

Was it recently as "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain in alienable rights."?

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever." - Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia?

"The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave." - Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists, 1772?

"God's hand was on me. God protected me and kept me through the battle." - George Washington

"In the Name of the most Holy and undivided Trinity." - Treaty of Paris (1783)

"With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly before God and the world Declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance, employ for the preservation of our liberties - being with one mind resolved to die FREEMEN rather than to live SLAVES." - Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, July 5, 1775

Jay, it does not appear that you could make a very strong argument in a court of law. After WW II there was such an upwelling of religion that my father-in-law founded 26 churches himself and every one of them is still running. You have never seen a bad day in your life, one in which you had to wonder what you would have to say upon meeting your creator, so you can pretend he doesn't exist until that day.


Yes, religion was big in the colonial US, but my point is that the founding fathers created a secular federal government. Jefferson, your first cited author, was a Deist and did not believe Jesus was the son of God. Jefferson was the guy pushing for separation of church and state and was even called an infidel.

Of course, there are various opinions about what Jefferson believed. You're correct about his thoughts on Jesus, but "Deist" currently implies some things he probably didn't accept. And then you have to account for his (like anyone's) changing beliefs over time.

I suppose the whole Sally Hemings thing wasn't too helpful for him either.

I doubt very much that we can ever understand what really went on there. Relationships are incredibly complex in modern times with modern mores. They were no less complex back then.

Your religious beliefs are no business of the government, and vice versa.

OK, something I don't quite understand: Among many other "sins," the government defines murder as being its business. But as I understand it, there are religious sects that have condoned murder, or at least killing of certain individuals; and not just in easy cases like self defense. This has been true in at least some situations for at least some Christian, Islamic, Hindu and other sects or sub-sects.

But of course, there's disagreement. Most religions do not condone murder. Some oppose even capital punishment.

So if our government says "You can't murder people," isn't that adopting a certain religious viewpoint and disregarding another?

We could ask (or could have asked) the same question regarding stores opening on Sunday, liquor sales, polygamy, some types of gambling, child marriage, homosexual acts and more.

Isn't "good" vs. "bad" often a judgment based on religious views?

Yes, but that's not establishing religion or dictating how we worship -- or what we worship, at least not in the First Amendment sense. ... Most criminal laws fit with secular moral/ethical codes.

I think you're sidestepping the question. What's the source of the
secular moral/ethical codes?


--
- Frank Krygowski

Sidestepping even further, what's the source of religion -- and what is the source of religious prohibitions?

In large part, religion is just the executive branch -- the enforcement mechanism for a lot of social norms, or even worse, the whims of those in power. Do you think Yahweh really gave hygiene tips to Moses? Yahweh had a thing about bodily discharges: http://web.mit.edu/jywang/www/cef/Bi...till%20evening

You know, if I were Yahweh, I'd be more of a big picture guy and maybe delegate the whole hygiene thing to one of my subordinates.

Worshiping another god will get you the death penalty (Exodus/Deuteronomy). That, I think, would present a constitutional problem. Imagine getting pulled over and hauled off for worshiping another god. Sales for Black Sabbath t-shirts would go down the toilet.

Anyway, secular laws may track religious prohibitions, but that doesn't make them religious. They represent a consensus opinion that existed long before any modern religion.

According to the wonderful world of WIKI, "One of the oldest-known prohibitions against murder appears in the Sumerian Code of Ur-Nammu written sometime between 2100 and 2050 BC. The code states, "If a man commits a murder, that man must be killed." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder...e%20killed.%22

-- Jay Beattie.

I think that the Jews had something like 622 religious laws. Jesus reduced these to just two - Remember thy lord thy God and Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That should be simple enough for even a lawyer to understand.



Loopholes. There are always loopholes.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971