http://www.atheists.org/action/alert-13-mar-2006.htmlDEFEAT CONGRESSIONAL MOVE TO END LEGAL FEES FOR FIRST AMENDMENT LITIGATION!Public Expression of Religion Act threatens separation, encourages government prayer bullying! In Washington, House Republicans have launched a campaign to fast-track several bills affecting our constitutional separation of church and state. The “American Values Agenda” includes measure to protect unborn children, ban cloning and penalize legal challenges to violations of the First Amendments establishment clause. A bill introduced by Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN) would amend a section of the United States Code and eliminate attorney fees in legal cases where government violated the constitutional separation of church and state. H.R. 2679, disingenuously titled the Public Expression of Religion Act claims that attorneys working organizations that defend the First Amendment and challenge unconstitutional governmental practices in respect to religion are enriching themselves and even violating the rights of believers. The American Legion has launched a national campaign to support PERA, and is calling for a ground swell of public demand on lawmakers to pass the bill immediately. A guide to PERA issued by this group states: There simply is no reasonable basis to support the profiteering in attorney fee awards ordered by judges in these (Establishment Clause) cases. The very threat of such fees has made elected bodies, large and small, surrender to demands to secularly cleanse the public square. The House Judiciary Committee recently held a little-publicized, one-day hearing on the Public Expression of Religion Act. Only one of the four experts invited to give testimony spoke out against the legislation. American Atheists expects the committee to vote shortly on PERA. The measure could then move to the full House for a floor vote within the next two to three weeks. Congressional representatives need to hear from us now regarding this dangerous, unconstitutional measure! Pera is About Government Promotion of Religion, Not EXPRESSION OF RELIGION
Thanks, I truly appreciate that. I am new here and have, I’m sure, missed out on a lot.
You did an admirable job of summing up some of the more profound arguments against Christianity and I hope I can answer with as much clarity and intelligence. Again, volumes of books have been written on these subjects, so it will be hard to answer them comprehensively here.
And that’s why I find myself in a bit of a pickle. I have responded to spanders post and have saved it on my computer, but I fear posting it because it is a bit lengthy (500 + words) and don’t want to be kicked out. The guidelines state it is okay to dissent but to not get preachy. A little vague for my taste. Spanders, if I post this will it get summarily deleted? You seem to be a regular here.
If its okay I’ll post it as promptly as possible.
Matthew,
You can be fairly comfotable that anything you post will not be summairly deleted. We recently had one of the most obnoxious individuals preaching to us for several weeks. Most of his posts were abusive, illogical and just plain provocative and inflamatory. A few of the worst personal insults were moderated, but he was still permitted to post.
If your comments are thoughtful and reasonable you will be welcomed irrespective of you theological position.
A discussion is pretty pointless if everyone essentially holds the same opinion.
Wow, really appreciate that. I just didn’t want to be seen as an obnoxious newcomer but I still want to defend my opinions with as much vigor and intelligence as possible. Will post soon.
This is in response to Spanders? comment that Christian morality is null and void because the Bible contradicts itself and at times Christians tend to live conflicting lifestyles to what they say they believe. I hope my opinion is expressed with as much proficiency and competence as the other posts here.
When God, in Exodus 20, gave Moses and the Israelites the Ten Commandments He did indeed say, Thou shall not murder. The Hebrew word used for murder is ratsach. It needs to be defined as the unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice. With that in mind I would like to make three basic points concerning the people God commanded for the Israelites to kill. 1) The Canaanites and the other tribes settled in Palestine were far from innocent. They practiced barbaric crimes including cannibalism and child sacrifice. 2) God had given them ample time to seek forgiveness for their wicked ways, most scholars say about four hundred years (reference Gen. 15:16). Basically, God did not destroy them until their sins warranted their destruction. 3) Joshua and his people were under direct orders from God, they were not doing this on their own initiative. The army of Israel was the instrument of judgment upon the sins of these people by the righteous Judge (God) of all the earth.
For these reasons I do not believe these passages contradict themselves. Now I?m sure you will give another example of what you believe is another contradiction in the Bible. I do not believe the Bible contradicts itself, but I also don?t want to spend the rest of my life defending this point. I did enough of that in my theology courses. So can we just agree to disagree on this point. There are ample authors (Matthew Henry, Norman Geisler, Josh McDowell, Wayne Grudem) who you can access easily enough who can help clear up any other confusion on the matter.
As for your second point, ?factious groups of religions cannot even agree among themselves what is moral and what is not (Baptists during Civil War condemning each other to hell over slavery). That moral baseline is therefore void as there is no agreement. Further factious groups of religions cannot even agree among themselves what is moral and what is not (Baptists during Civil War condemning each other to hell over slavery). That moral baseline is therefore void as there is no agreement.? There is not agreement among atheists either, but I?m sure you would not accept that as evidence that your line of thinking is wrong. Stalin murdered more civilians than Hitler, and Communism is certainly an atheist type of government. I?m sure you disagree with what he did though and that would by your line of reasoning (i.e. no agreement on the moral baseline) void your argument. Yet I?m sure you would say Stalin was corrupted and did not practice that type of government (an atheist one, or godless one) correctly. By the same token not all Christians have practiced their faith correctly (i.e. Southern Baptists in the Civil War). It is interesting to note, though, that while Southern Baptists have publicly apologized for their past sins and are now actively engaged in numerous charities to help African-Americans, there has been no such apology from the Communist camp for their multiple atrocities.
I’m not trying to ignore spanders question about the “pragmatic implications” of my view on the separation of the church and state. Before we moved on though I wanted to at least attempt to answer his previous statement. I do want to emphatically state that I do not want a theocracy in any shape or form. I simply believe the 1st Amendment was not meant to keep the public square free from all religions all the time.
Matthew:
Well, you seem pleasant enough. Quite a bit of material.
1st off, Washington had no hand in developing the unique documents we founded this country on. He was a Founder, no doubt, an admirable man to say the least, but my amateur impression of him was that he tried to stay out of the political scene to some extent.
NW Ordinance article 3 in it’s entirety reads:
“Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and in their property, rights, and liberty they never shall be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars authorized by Congress; but laws founded in justice and humanity shall from time to time be made for preventing wrongs being done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship with them.”
I note no mention of church in that paragraph.
If you quote, please stay w/in context.
Other items:
KIngs & Chronicles. Solomon fell to the worship of Molech. I’ve read most of the dreck that McDowell spews, & I don’t believe it for 2 seconds.
Realspeak: justification for mass genocide, the high priests wanted turf.
Ahem. You do know this is an atheist site, right?
Personally, I’m not going to take the word of a bunch of iron/bronze age savages, who couldn’t even get their biology right.
Wasn’t it joshua where the sun stood still? Or was that Jeremiah.
I’m to assume you were prepped for dealing w/the ‘secular world’ arguments?
You might want to drop McDowell. He’s definitely on my list as world’s worst apologist. He violates every known tenet of logic, & twists his syllogisms till they scream.
You may find that most of us here are actually well versed in the bible, to different degrees.
“Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.” – Isaac Asimov.
P.S, spanders is an xtian as well.
Matthew:
Oh, & 1 more thing:
Hitler was NOT an atheist. I don’t know if you were inferring that, if you were, don’t, if you weren’t, sorry.
Washington was definitely more of a warrior then anything else, that is easily granted, but he served admirably as our first president before stepping down. I don’t think the country would have so readily accepted our constitution and then so overwhelmingly elect a president who opposed its first amendment (he ran unopposed both times I think). That was my point.
As far as my NW Ordinance quote, I included the part you highlighted, and I really don’t think I took anything out of context. I only included that brief excerpt, because it was the only portion relevant to the conversation. There is no mention of the church in that but there is mention of religion. Churches are merely the institutions of religion.
Of course, I know this is an atheist site, that’s why I assumed spanders was an atheist. I hope my assumption did not offend him. The question was concerning whether the Bible contradicted itself, not whether it is the truth or not. In order to answer that question the Biblical point of view must be understood properly. That’s what I attempted to do, though I’m sure countless others have done it better than that before. For the moment, at least, I was not trying to convince you to take “the word of a bunch of iron/bronze age savages”, just trying to explain why I don’t believe the Bible contradicts itself ever, but specifically the example spanders listed.
Thanks for your thoughts though. I hope I’m explaining myself thoroughly and clearly. Sometimes my thoughts jump ahead of my slow typing capabilities and I fail to explain something correctly.
If I did infer Hitler was an atheist I did not mean to. I meant to infer Stalin as an atheist.
Matthew:
Wait: what? Washington opposed the 1st amendment? Which part? That’s news to me. I know B. Rush objected to the freedom of religion thing, but GW?
Got link?
So you did. My bad.
My point being, that would’ve been spelled out.
My impression is that he doesn’t offend easily.
But if it did the former, it would cast shadows on the latter, would it not?
It does contradict itself, on numerous points. But this isn’t the proper thread for that discourse (not that that’s stopped any of us in the past, hehehehe).
Whew, that’s a relief. Seriously. You got no idea how many times we get lumped in w/that cat, via association. We get lumped in w/, lessee, last count?
Nazis, satanists, pedophiles, moral reconstructionists, communists, name your reprehensible characters, we get tagged w/it. We really should compile a list.
& xtians say they get persecuted.
Sorry, where were we? Oh, yeah.
Well, you’re modest & humble. A refreshing change of pace.
You’d be shocked at what some people say & do in this blog. Hint:
They’re NOT atheists.
Anyways, welcome. Be forewarned: we’re for the most part cynics, so buckle your seat belt, & develop a thick skin.
We’ve been bombarded w/bad press & horrible posters lately from your side of the fence, so tempers are a little frayed as of late.
A bit o’ advice is all.
Well, thanks for the advice Reluctant (is that what I should call you?). I am definitely not conceding you the point that the Bible contradicts itself…I firmly believe that it does not.
Christians do get persecuted (historically and in other countries) but not really here in America (mild persecution at best). That’s what makes our country so great (religious freedom and that whole bit).
I don’t think I explained my whole point with Washington. He did not oppose the First Amendment. I used those quotes before though to try to show that he interpreted the 1st Amendment closer to the way that us, “radical right wing fundamentlists” do than this web site does. That’s all. Again, my communication skills can be found lacking at times.
Also, how do you guys paste the previous quotes in those boxes?
Jesus>babies
what percentage of the pop.belonged
to religious groups during the first
century of our nation.i ask this because it seems like religion has really grown in the last 50 years or so.
forgive me for being stupid but why call the south and midwest the bible belt they are not the only regions that have churches,televagalist’s. most states have the same morality laws.it seems like liberal bias not facts for this.
Matthew:
You can call me RA, if it’s easier for you. Worship is strictly voluntary in my temple (kiddin’!).
& I can firmly prove that it does.
Well, the historical persecution isn’t quite what it’s been hyped to have been.
http://www.geo_cities.com/paulntobin/xtianpersecute.html
(take out the _ in the link)
Hey, you’re retracting the ‘oppose’ thing, no big whoop.
You gotta be a little more careful.
Yeah, well the “radical right wing fundamentlists” are trying to take over.
The SOCAS is bidirectional, it covers everyone, not just xtians.
Well, outline select sentence/paragraph, right-click, copy. Or hit Ctrl-C.
Its because that area, generally (or at least sterotypically) has a greater concentration of the more extremist xtians.
Matthew: Welcome. You express yourself quite well, and it is appreciated.
To put text into the boxes, use {blockquote} but use less-than and greater-than in place of { and } respectively.
Regarding biblical contradictions, I just have one point to make:
vs
RA, forgive my ignorance but I do not know what SOCAS means or stands for. I appreciated our dialogue today though and am hopeful for more of the same in the future.
Symok, thanks for your warm welcome. I am definitely impressed by your knowledge of what is a rather obscure passage in the Bible. It is important to understand that there are several passages of genealogy in the Bible. Not all such passages hit every single generation of descendants. Several of them hit just the highlights and some do go over every single generation. Joshua 7:1 shows Achan’s father, grandfather and great-grandfather back to Zerah. Joshua 7:24 merely shows that he belongs to the family of Zerah. It is not meant to read that Achan was literally the son of Zerah, but his descendant. I hope this was helpful. I believe you will find several Bible scholars to back this up.
And reason, of course all regions have simialr churches and such, but in the South and Midwest there is a much higher ratio of churches per capita.
And guys, please call me Matt.
I am loathe to say that, more and more each day, it’s looking like they’re putting our backs to the wall.
When even a rabbit is cornered it will attack. I am no rabbit.
Matt:
Sorry.
Separation of Church And State = SOCAS.
Matt: Yes, I actually noticed that after I posted. I do not actually have a great knowledge of the bible. I went to http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/ and took a passage from the “contradictions” section. ~_~;;
There are a great deal in there, after all. Many of which are much more glaring than what I pasted earlier.
Matt,
as reluctant said, I’m a christian.
A “No True Scottsman” argument is to say that there are people who claim the same moniker of a group, but have ideas that do not conform 100% to the understanding that aligns with yours or my understanding, then they just don’t believe correctly and therefor are not a true representation of the belief. They are not acting as “true” christians.
Now, if we focus on slavery as found in the Bible, we can get a sense of where Southern Baptists were getting some of their ideas
NLT=New Living Translation
http://www.biblegateway.com/versions/?action=getVersionInfo&vid=51
NAB New American Bible
http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/
Just wanted to give some of my sources. I really cut my teeth on the NIV Bible and should really get the text from there.
It is difficult to deny that slavery is not decried in Bible. Now, as a culture we know that slavery is wrong, but the Bible doesn’t seem as clear. It took us 1865 years after the birth of Christ (okay 1861 if we believe that Christ was actually born in September of 4 c.e.) to recognize what the Bible was really saying. Can you see how that’s a little difficult for atheists to accept?
I actually didn’t say that Christian morality was null and void. I was suggesting that the argument has been that the moral baseline was null and void, so it’s really a nuance of the word baseline, not morality. What I was saying was that Christians are a difficult group to get a read on as we are extremely varied in our beliefs and we point at each other and say “no true scottsman”. This is an issue in context of the discussion about the convergence of church and state and regulation of christian morality. When we begin to parse the meaning of ratshad or doctrine of original sin and defining “innocence”, you can see where that baseline would become important. In a pluralistic democracy (okay, representative republic) questions certainly come up when considering the overlapping religion and government.
A biblical inerrantist interpretation of the bible combined with political power may result in an attempt to overcome a perceived moral lassitude. At that point, are we in fact a theocracy? Is it simply a matter of degree that would seperate us from the taliban?
A lot there spanders.
Real briefly though.
1) Slavery that was practiced in the times of Exodus was vastly different than how slavery was practiced in the Americas.
2) Countless Christians decried slavery long before the American Civil War. In England it was outlawed without a violent conflict years before the practice was banned here and the charge was led by mostly Christians (ie. William Wilberforce).
3) There are countless other ways to Biblically decry slavery (as you alluded to) but mostly the Southern Baptists were trying to find ways to justify their sin. They did this by twisting and taking out of context several such passages.
I know, I know. I’m getting to “the pragmatic implications” of the first amendment the way I interpret it. But taking the worst form of a religious type of government (ie. the Taliban) is not a good argument against religion being involved in government. I could say that having no God/religion in government is only separated by “a matter of degree” from Stalin’s brutal regime in the former USSR.
And spanders, thanks for the comments posted on my site. Appreciated it.
Matt
So then does it really come down to the nuance of methodology? In other words, if slavery were practiced precisely like it was in the time of Exodus, would it then be Biblically correct and acceptable?
Good stuff. So is it a question of them understanding the bible correctly while those who engage in slavery and practiced their faith incorrectly not understanding or was it more of a change in the moral climate of the time? George Washington had slaves and many of the founding fathers did and they were also christian. Do we look back to christian founding fathers who practiced slavery by twisting and taking out of context several such passages to justify their sin?
Here’s the distinction for me; The USSR enforced their vision of government by force, fear and intimidation and claim the right to rule by those means. The Taliban uses fear, intimidation and violence and claim the right to rule by divine right and they are doing the will of god.
In a pluralistic democracy, the right to govern is derived from the will of the people. If we allow an infusion of religion into government, how does the will of people matter if it is opposed to the will of god (atheists want to work on the sabbath and maybe some christians do too)? Who interprets the will of god? How can a democracy that relies on the will of the people coexist with a theocracy that derives its power from god?
Matt, no problem! Congrats again. Please remember that for me, much of this is an exploration of rhetoric for me and not a personal attack. The goal for me is to better understand what I think and believe and throw myself into the crucible of debate, questioning and crisis. To question one’s faith and dogma that comes with it is a sign of strength for me.
Matt, Matt, Matt:
This is so old.
It was James Madison, who also recognized SOCAS, by saying “There is a line of Separation between Church & State”, also he said, “The purer the 2 institutions will remain, the less they’re mixed together” (paraphrased).”
I don’t want religion to make choices in my life. Or have any say.
I certainly don’t want my tax $ to go to anything they espouse.
Since you want to use ‘original intent’, here ya go:
“An equal application of law to every condition of man is fundamental. — Thomas Jefferson, to George Hay, 1807. ME 11:341″
“The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens.
– Thomas Jefferson, note in Destutt de Tracy, “Political Economy,” 1816. ME 14:465″
“Good constitutions are formed upon a comparison of the liberty of the individual with the strength of government: If the tone of either be too high, the other will be weakened too much. It is the happiest possible mode of conciliating these objects, to institute one branch peculiarly endowed with sensibility, another with knowledge and firmness. Through the opposition and mutual control of these bodies, the government will reach, in its regular operations, the perfect balance between liberty and power. – Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, June 25, 1788″
a pet peeve- coming from a slave owning family it irks me how the churches now condem slavery but in the past they accepted our money.most masters obeyed the laws of church and state.they were called goodmen then but now they are called sinners.what hypocrisy!