1. Much of what you say makes sense, Ms Morgan. The one thing that jars for me is the reference to "Christian values." There are many of us who do not embrace those values, yet still hold capitalism and freedom to be of supreme value and importance. Perhaps the error that has been made by Republicans and Conservatives is assuming that all supporters are necessarily also supporters of your chosen belief system. Religion ought to be put to the side; it is after all, a private matter, not one that ought to be center-stage in a political discussion. Just food for thought.

   Comment by AMAI | June 28, 2008

2. AMAI,
   The reference is to a world outside the beltway. The suggestion is that it contrasts starkly with the world of the politicians and pundits, and that one of those differences is that outside the beltway Christian (the author should have noted Judeo/Christian) values mean something.

   Judeo/Christian values are shared by most everyone in this country, Christian or not. One doesn't have to embrace Christianity to appreciate its values.

   Government may not have a religion, but people do, and thus it is a "part" of the people. Government is the people. Governmnt serves the people. Thus it can't very well overlook its own or its peoples' values anymore than it can overlook that we all sleep and eat.

   It all works out pretty well, because the most important Christian values have been turned into law, incorporated into our various constitutions or otherwise codified.

   The government is the people. When it does not embrace the predominant values of the people, then it ceases to be "of" and "by" or "for" the people.

   A lot of people get hung up on separation of church and state. They don't seem to realize there is no mandate and no sense to government divorcing itself from religious people.

   Not only has this country never ignored the Judeo/Christian values of its people, it was founded on them, and as we apprach the celbration of our freedom it is appropridate to note: "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…"

   The signing and ratification of the Declaration of Independence would have been impossible if our leaders either did not share Judeo/Christian values, did not embrace them, or at least did not respect them.

   You do not need to "embrace" the values upon which the country was founded, just respect them and understand that they are the predominant values of America - then and now - and that they are the foundation of the capitalism (market freedom) and freedom (liberty) you find of "supreme value and importance."

   These rights and others are self evident and come from the creator, so say we, the people of the United States -signed, sealed and delivered to the king.

   I suppose it could have been different, and America could have been founded on secular or atheistic opinions/constructs, but it wasn't, so what is an argument for behaving as if we had been but an exercise in fantasy?

   Comment by nick adams | June 29, 2008

3. Well said, Nick.

   One additional comment. One cannot point to any principle of law, cultural practice, or relious precept that requires the privacy of religious expression. the insistence that religious expression be kept private is an artificial construct of those who hate religion/god and wish to silence those who take religion/god seriously.

   Comment by Mountain Man | June 29, 2008

4. Mountain Man - Well, actually, I can point to one: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%206:5-7;&version=31;

   But a lot of people don't find that authority convincing, anyway.

   Comment by Raymond Ingles | June 30, 2008

5. Very Good, Mr. Ingles. However, this passage refers to prayer, and not religious practice generally.

   And it refers to a specific kind of prayer. Otherwise, how could Scripture also say, "And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests." Ephesians 6:18, or "Be joyful always; pray continually…" 1 Thes 5:17? Is ALL prayer to be done in the closet? Of course not.

   If we're going to do "dueling Scriptures," it would help for you to dispense with the sarcasm and approach the issue with some sort of intellectual honesty.

   Comment by Mountain Man | June 30, 2008

6. "The ones who claim that 'truth' is relative yet insist that their version is the only acceptable truth."

   Actually, they are right. What they mean is truth is relative to how they feel. Implicit in this self-righteousness is the idea that human knowledge is now complete.

   Caesar said that Gall was divided into three parts, but he never met anyone who lived inside the Beltway. The most pretentious are those who have lived their entire lives in the ivory towers inside the narrow strip between Boston and Washington, D.C., inclusive, and claim to know what all of society’s current standards of decency are, as though decency had anything to do with the law.

   Comment by sedonaman | June 30, 2008

7. Raymond,

   Considering the effort you must have expended to try and find a verse to cherry pick from Google, I'd have expected better. I take it that was as close as you could get to anything actually related to the point you were trying to refute? If that was all you could find, I wouldn't have even bothered. Then again, I've actually read the Bible before, so I have the benefit of actually knowing what the verse is referring to. You may benefit from reading a couple of the preceding and proceeding text. Although it still wouldn't still make the verse you've cited any more relevant to the public expression of religion (at all, let alone in a free secular society which expressly protects religious expression).

   Comment by Patrick Mulligan | July 1, 2008

8. Mountain Man chastised me for putting items like "um" in my prose, so I figured he'd be even more irritated by a ":->". Yes, it was a joke. (Oh, and Mr. Mulligan - four years of Catholic high school. I, too, have "actually read the Bible before". :-> )

   I don't think that people need to hide their religious beliefs or practices. But I do agree with Mencken's quote, "We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart." In other words, no need whatsoever to be rude or go out of the way to disabuse people of notions you disagree with, but basing policy on such notions needs a bit more substantiation.

   Comment by Raymond Ingles | July 1, 2008

9. Mr. Ingles,

   I am only irritated by those who think they know something but really don't, but are nevertheless impressed by their own intellectual superiority.

   This is not to say that I would place you in such company. But I find that many, if not most, of those who criticize faith display an appalling ignorance of it.

   "…but basing policy on such notions…" suggests that attempts at governance based on Christian tenants or morality has been found wanting. Quite the contrary, it is man in his natural state of ignorance, evil, and selfishness that has been revealed in the light of the pursuit of holiness.

   Unfortunately for atheists, Christianity works.

   Comment by Mountain Man | July 1, 2008

10. And now, on the actual topic of the article:

    I'd like to know where all these good ol' boy, "outside the beltway", red meat eating, capitalism-loving, free-at-heart Americans are when it comes election time. Neither candidate currently in the running for the office of president could possibly have gotten through the primary system if these were the kind of people who were voting. Likewise, even many presidential "red states" have significantly democratic legislatures and federal representatives. If by "outside the beltway" you mean "non participating", then this group has willfully relegated itself to a silent majority by rejecting the democratic process. I really wish there were a majority of people with the common sense and political outlook the author describes, but if there are, they don't appear to vote!

    Comment by Patrick Mulligan | July 1, 2008

11. It seems my last post was hung up or something - I attempted to post it at the same time I posted the other one. I don't want to veer further off topic, but I will anyway I guess…

    Mr. Ingles,

    That's an even worse verse with which to make your point (however sarcastically) if you've read the contextual accompaniment. Your sarcasm wasn't lost on me, but it was clearly intended to make a real point.

    To say that public policy shouldn't be based on Judeo/Christian principles (or religious principles in general) is absurd. Shall we overturn our prohibitions on murder and theft because they are based on prohibitions featured in the Jewish and Christian Bible (not to mention the Koran and other religious texts) for the last several thousand years? Religion and morality are inseparable, and since the law is there to enforce moral judgments, it is unavoidable for religious principles and concepts to overlap with public laws and policies. Religious totalitarianism is hardly a danger in this country.

    Comment by Patrick Mulligan | July 1, 2008

12. Christianity has been very useful in encouraging cooperation and group activity - that's one of the prime benefits of any successful religion. In terms of advocating specific policies, though, it's been of rather less use. Christians argued both sides of the slavery issue, for example, claiming scriptural support for their positions.

    I would say, rather, that our Constitution works, rather little of its specific policies owing much to Christianity: http://www.waxwingwebs.com/thedoge/christian_nation.html

    Comment by Raymond Ingles | July 1, 2008

13. Please make distinction between those who profess faith (or actually, use it for an excuse for what they were going to do anyway), and what the faith actually teaches. Anyone can claim any number of things based on their "interpretation."

    Our Constitution has ceased working, ever since it bacame a document subject to the whims of pop culture and the Supreme court. It is worth remembering that the Constitution is a document that creates, restrains, and limits our government. It is not about religious precepts.

    I had to chuckle at the link to waxwingwebs. No one has taken him up on his "challenge," which he attributes to the inability to refute him. However, it is rather more likely that no one has bothered to deal with his junior high school-level presentation. "Proving" that the Constitution is a non-religious document is irrelevant.

    But even then there are those pesky references to God and faith, like the Preamble, "…secure the Blessings of Liberty." Then there is the First Amendment. And finally, the ratification, which reads, "…in the Year of our Lord…"

    Comment by Mountain Man | July 1, 2008

14. Mr. Mulligan - The only reason you don't murder is because it's written in the Bible that you shouldn't? And that's the only basis on which people might think that a law against it was a good idea?

    Say, can you elaborate on the difference between "religious principles and concepts… overlap[ping] with public laws and policies" and "Religious totalitarianism"? What's the difference between them, and can you provide some examples?

    Comment by Raymond Ingles | July 1, 2008

15. Mountain Man - The problem is, it's hard for those on the outside to tell what the "true" religion is. "My sect is right, but those other guys are a bunch of heretics." Which are the "real" Muslims - Sunni or Shi'ite? Is Saivism, Vaishnavism or Shaktism the "true" Hinduism? Is "sola scriptura" a defining feature of Christianity (as some Protestants would have it) or not?

    BTW - That "challenge" has been around for a long time; since at least 1994: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.christnet/msg/e04433dac30a2a15

    There are backhand "references" to religion in the Constitution, of course, but that doesn't make it a religious document, right? As to the First Amendment, there are plenty of good secular reasons to allow freedom of religion. Indeed, part of that challenge you dismiss is finding scriptural justification for freedom of religion…

    Comment by Raymond Ingles | July 1, 2008

16. Mr. Ingles,

    Finding out what "true" religion is is a smokescreen and an excuse. As I said, the issue is not what people do and say regarding their religion.

    Anyone with an IQ above room temperature can read religious books and ascertain their plain meaning. It isn't a lack of understanding regarding religion, in reality it is not liking what they do understand. Religion speaks to the evil of man, and people don't to be told they need to change.

    That "challenge" is foolish and easy to deal with. It too is a smoke screen that allows faithless people to avoid dealling with the issue of their own moral inadequacy.

    Maybe their are good secular reasons to defend religious freedom, but that is not the subject. And is there were a single Amendment that is twisted, reinvented, and reinterpreted more than any other, it would have to be the Establishment clause. Most religion-haters cannot abide by that statement of freedom.

    Comment by Mountain Man | July 1, 2008

17. Mr. Ingles,
    You dreamt a dream, and it it, things did not come to be as they did, but rather, as you would bid.

    As I stated earlier, yours is an exercise in atheistic fantasy, and if you truly believe it, evidence that non-believers have every bit the capacity for faith as the religiously faithful.

    It makes perfect sense to argue where you think we ought to be heading, but to urinate on our legs and tell us it is raining isn't going to pass for much.

    The argument that religion has nothing or little to do with our founding, laws, policies and common practices neither persuades or flatters the teller of this tired tale.

    Is rewritting history as you would have it essential to your argument? If so, is there much point in going on?

    The United States exists because we the people declared our rights to life and liberty come from the Creator, not a king - not any man.

    In three days we will celebrate that declaration of independence, which of course was the foundation of a new nation, and the foundation of that new nation's laws and protections, ever evolving as they are, but always evolving from that foundation.

    Comment by nick adams | July 1, 2008

18. Raymond,

    "Mr. Mulligan - The only reason you don't murder is because it's written in the Bible that you shouldn't? And that's the only basis on which people might think that a law against it was a good idea?"

    That isn't what I said, is it? I know you posses the ability to read, so I'm not going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Kindly leave your red herrings in the stream where you found them. You're the one who brought this completely irrelevant topic up in the first place, the least you can do is stick with it.

    What I said is that Judeo/Christian principles have influenced our laws and public policy since the inception of our government, and that to abolish all laws and public policies that are influenced by religious concepts is ridiculous. If we were to do so, we would necessarily have to abolish our prohibitions on such things as murder and theft since they overlap from the religious to the secular, with the religious text far predating the secular law.

    "Say, can you elaborate on the difference between "religious principles and concepts… overlap[ping] with public laws and policies" and "Religious totalitarianism"? What's the difference between them, and can you provide some examples?"

    Certainly! The Bible instructs people not to murder each other or steal each other's things. This is a religious policy that overlaps with our secular laws that prohibit the exact same things. Religious and non-religious people would probably both agree that it is a good idea to prevent people from murdering and robbing each other, regardless of whether the source of the concept is of a religious or secular nature. That is a religious principle or concept overlapping with laws and public policy. On the other hand, the Koran instructs women to be clothed from head to toe in public, establishes a precedent for honor murder, and proscribes death as a punishment for homosexuality. In many Muslim countries, all of these laws are rigorously enforced officially by the government in the name of Islam. That is religious totalitarianism. If you cannot conceptualize the difference mentally, perhaps visit, say, Saudi Arabia for a few weeks and carefully observe the application of the law as compared to the United States. That should provide you with a more practical idea.

    Comment by Patrick Mulligan | July 1, 2008

19. Mr. Mulligan - Again, so long as we're parsing statements carefully, I didn't suggest that we "abolish all laws and public policies that are influenced by religious concepts". That is, indeed, ridiculous. What I said was that a policy should not be based solely on such notions - that law or policy "needs a bit more substantiation" than that.

    And you agree with me - laws prohibiting murder and robbery can be agreed upon by both religious and secular people. But policies like the burqa, or death as a punishment for homosexuality - ones with purely religious background - well, they need "a bit more substantiation" before we make them the law of the land, no?

    So, we're basically in violent agreement. I'm quite aware of the major differences between Saudi and U.S. law and policy, and which one is better from my perspective. But the attemts to spread Saudi-style restrictions to the U.S. do point out some interesting parallels. Presumably we both agree that Lou Sheldon's being hypocritical, but I wonder which of his policies you support? The ones opposing Muslims following what they think their rules require, or the ones supporting Christians following theirs? http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008/07/the_endless_irony_of_lou_sheld.php

    Comment by Raymond Ingles | July 2, 2008

20. Raymond Ingles:

    "…laws prohibiting murder and robbery can be agreed upon by both religious and secular people."

    On what basis would the secularist agree to this?

    Comment by sedonaman | July 2, 2008

21. Mr. Adams - When did I say that "religion has nothing or little to do with our founding, laws, policies and common practices"? What I said was that the defining principles of the Constitution do not draw inspiration from Christianity. Many - almost certainly most - of the people who wrote the Constitution believed that "our rights to life and liberty come from the Creator" - but the document, as produced, makes no mention of that, and is a resolutely secular document. Explicitly so - for example, in places where religion could have been required, it was rejected by explicit debate. Whenever oaths are mentioned in the Constitution, they are always paired with purely secular affirmations, for example. (Well, okay, the 14th amendment doesn't include the "or affirmation" wording, but that wasn't the work of the original founders.)

    That doesn't mean that Christianity and Christian practice did not heavily influence the development of the United States. But the U.S. was practically alone in its determination to avoid entangling the government with sectarian policies. And avoiding such policies necessarily led to laws being primarily enacted on secular grounds. Tocqueville himself commented on this at the time: "In America religion is a distinct sphere, in which the priest is sovereign, but out of which he takes care never to go. Within its limits he is master of the mind; beyond them he leaves men to themselves and surrenders them to the independence and instability that belong to their nature and their age."

    Sadly, another nearby comment resonates, for its contrast with today: "All the American clergy know and respect the intellectual supremacy exercised by the majority; they never sustain any but necessary conflicts with it. They take no share in the altercations of parties, but they readily adopt the general opinions of their country and their age, and they allow themselves to be borne away without opposition in the current of feeling and opinion by which everything around them is carried along. They endeavor to amend their contemporaries, but they do not quit fellowship with them. Public opinion is therefore never hostile to them; it rather supports and protects them, and their belief owes its authority at the same time to the strength which is its own and to that which it borrows from the opinions of the majority."

    Or, as Steven Waldman put it, "Indeed, the one group that would almost certainly oppose the views of 21st-century evangelicals are the 18th-century evangelicals." - http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0604.waldman.html

    Comment by Raymond Ingles | July 2, 2008

22. Sedonaman - Apparently this will come as some sort of surprise to you, but secularists don't want to be murdered or robbed, either.

    Comment by Raymond Ingles | July 2, 2008

23. Mountain Man - If you were to explain the "plain meaning" of, say, the Bible, are you sure that everyone else here would agree with you?

    Comment by Raymond Ingles | July 2, 2008

24. The central teachings of the Bible are beyond dispute. I did not suggest that I would explain them to your or anyone else's satisfaction. I asserted that anyone who read the Bible could understand its plain meaning.

    Is everyone able to completely comprehend every part of the Bible without variations in understanding? That is an unreasonable standard. Who would impose such a standard unless the intent was to excuse themselves from being accountable to the cursory understanding they do possess?

    Comment by Mountain Man | July 2, 2008

25. Mr. Ingles,
    You either did or did not need examples of regligious concepts and principles overlapping laws. Which is it?

    You are difficult to follow at times.

    I chose to address your challenge by pointing out the "religious concept" that the people of America come from a creator and that their rights come from that creator. What is more foundational to this country?

    This declaration was written, ratified and delivered to a king, wholike you, preferred that the rights of men come from men. Illegal as our Declariation of Independence may have been to the king, it was a legal act and binding as far as our founding fathers were concerned, and they knew they would have to enforce the act with blood.

    You might declare that murder is wrong because you don't want to die or from what you might consider good sense. The founding fathers agreed that murder is wrong not because men like you (or kings) said it is, but because God said it is.

    Again, that life and liberty is God-given is foundational to this country. And every law comes from this foundation.

    Our Constitution thus is not a religious documents, but a promise to our people to protect them from government, which may not interfere or unjustly take what is theirs by God. It is the logical and expected followup to the Declaration of Independence.

    Despite your wrangling, you don't have any choice but to concede that this country was founded on the belief that "all men were created" and that the "creator" granted us certain rights. This is central; this is at our core.

    Our laws and rights and restrictions on government, come from this foundational belief.

    Also, note that the "The Law" predates Christianity.

    Comment by nick adams | July 2, 2008

26. Mr. Adams - George III did not prefer "that the rights of men come from men". He was, rather, "king by the grace of God" - 'divine right' and all that. He, too, thought rights came from the Creator - he just didn't think they were apportioned equally.

    The fact that people can disagree so completely about that notion and its implications shows that it, by itself, is not foundational. It's certainly a foundation - and I didn't dispute that - but the way it played out here owed just as much to Enlightenment ideals as it does to theology.

    Comment by Raymond Ingles | July 2, 2008

27. "…secularists don't want to be murdered or robbed, either."

    So? That is just their personal preference. Why should we write laws based on personal preferences?

    Comment by sedonaman | July 2, 2008

28. Mr. Ingles,
    You continue to wet on our trousers. If it is your intent to redifine the meaning of monarchy to mean rule by devine right rather than birthright or heridity, your thesis should be more detailed.

    As for your contention that the Declaration of Independence and its recognition of unaleienable rights granted us by a creator is not "foundational" but is "a" foundation, it is not clear what distinction you are trying to make.

    It is "the" foundation of our case for independence and independence marks the beginning of self rule. That makes it foundational to the United States, no?

    As I stated earlier, you really have no choice but to accept that the U.S. was founded on the belief that man is the product of a creator and that he is endowed with certain unalienable rights from that creator.

    It is a simple recognition of fact that I accept my country declared that Raymond Ingles has a creator and that his most basic rights come from that creator.

    You don't have to agree with our famous case to the king, but you are bound by intellectual honesty to accept that it happened. As for you apparent attempt to devalue it (a foundation but not foundational), it strikes me as desperate.

    And speaking of foundational, looking deeper into the past, we all know the earliest laws are contained in scripture and/or are attributed to the creator, so what is the case that something more foundational exists?

    Comment by nick adams | July 2, 2008

29. I'm new to this site and evidently very ideologically dissimilar. Apparently less versed as well…

    Never the less, I feel I may be able to add to the discussion. As a very devout secularist, I can assure sedonaman that I do not kill or rob or generally run rampant simply because I prefer not to.
    You are making the mistake of assuming that without god there is no morality. Good parenting is to thank for that, as well as my own sense of civic responsibility. The implication that anyone follows the provisions of the 10 Commandments simply because they are the 10 commandments frightens me.
    In the grand scheme of this article (or rather the discussion following it) that is neither here nor there.
    The fact is that it doesn't really matter how much religious wording was used in the Constitution. Governments the world over have codified moral codes into law and few people will argue with that. The United States is no different, but as I alluded to earlier: Morality is not the same thing as Religion. If most of us think that homosexuality is wrong, then we can act against it. With a growing trend of acceptance, homosexuals with soon enjoy the same status as heterosexuals. The Founders may or may not have been in favor of whatever particular religion/non-religion issue is at hand. However, the beliefs of the Founders become irrelevant when they die and stop voting.

    Comment by happpig | July 2, 2008

30. Happpig,

    You are quite welcome here, regardless of your ideology. Those of us who come here to have honest, thoughtful discussion often find areas of agreement and disagreement, yet value the variety of perspective.

    But be prepared to defend you case. Unsupported assertions will be challenged here. "Morality is not the same thing as religion" is that kind of statment. You will probably find some (Mr. Ingles, for example) who would tend to agree with you, but others, like me, do not.

    Morality, by definition, is a code of conduct and personal conviction. It can only be valued when measured against a an unchanging standard. Otherwise, it simply is one person's idea, and has no value or utility beyond the individual who conceived it.

    Religion is the singular source of that unchanging standard. I can compare my behavior and thinking only against that yardstick. Anything else is subject to the whims of the moment. That's in no way any sort of morality.

    Comment by Mountain Man | July 2, 2008

31. I appreciate the welcome and I stand ready to defend my values.

    While your definition with morality is spot-on, your qualification that it must be measured by an unchanging standard is wrong.
    Consider this hypothetical- an isolate segment of humanity on an island. In the beginning of their existence, they forbade shaving. Don't worry about the reason, its just arbitrary at this point. So in Year One, only one person from this society shaved and accepted it as moral right. At that point, his actions are immoral to society as a whole.
    Gradually someone else starts to shave. And someone else. A handful start to think that its okay to shave, even if they don't themselves. Over time, the ethical barometer for the society changes.
    Granted, this isn't a real scenario but I think you can apply this to the world we live in. Racial Slavery, Dietary restrictions, sacrifices….all things that have been endorsed through religious doctrine and subsequently faded away.

    Comment by happpig | July 2, 2008

32. Mr. Adams - I'm not the one 'redefining monarchy'. If you want a 'detailed thesis', it's not like they're hard to find; http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GLOSSARY/DIVRIGHT.HTM is a good example, though there's always Wikipedia. The rejection of divine right had started in England a century before (look up the 'glorious revolution'), but it reached its full expression in the U.S.

    As Jefferson put it, "The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God." (In passing, note what he attributes this change to. It's not Christianity, or even religion.)

    As to 'accepting' the notion that the U.S. was founded on the idea that people were "endowed with certain unalienable rights from that creator" - I haven't denied that. What I have pointed out is that that idea, by itself, does not a form of government dictate. The decision to make a democratic republic, not a straight democracy, for example, isn't dictated by that. Nor the separation of powers, nor the freedom of religion, nor the freedom from self-incrimination, etc.

    Chemistry came about because alchemists were trying to make gold. Astronomy was birthed from the astrological attempts to predict the future. I don't have to deny the historical importance of an idea to suggest that it may have had consequences not inherent to the idea itself.

    Comment by Raymond Ingles | July 3, 2008

33. happpig:

    “I do not kill or rob or generally run rampant simply because I prefer not to.”

    You misunderstood Mr. Ingles’ statement. He said, “…secularists don't want to be murdered or robbed, either.

    “Governments the world over have codified moral codes into law and few people will argue with that.”

    I disagree that “few people will argue with that.” Secularists on this board have consistently held that there are no religious origins to our laws.

    “…the beliefs of the Founders become irrelevant when they die and stop voting.”

    This is an interesting comment in view of the Supreme Court’s recent reliance on what the Founding Fathers meant by such words as “keep” and “bear” when they wrote the Second Amendment. They also noted that the right was pre-existing; so where did it come from?

    “In the beginning of their existence, they forbade shaving. Don't worry about the reason, its just arbitrary at this point.”

    As far as a religion is concerned, not shaving would not be a dogma but a discipline.

    Comment by sedonaman | July 3, 2008

34. Sedonaman - Not being murdered and robbed is a pretty common preference, though, and we're a democratic republic after all.

    Comment by Raymond Ingles | July 3, 2008

35. “Not being murdered and robbed is a pretty common preference, though, and we're a democratic republic after all.”

    Suppose my preference is to rob and murder you. Why should my minority position prevent me from exercising my preferences?

    Comment by sedonaman | July 3, 2008

36. Happpig,

    You made my point for me. A changing standard by definition is not morality. A moral code carries with it the implicit assumption that it is something to aspire to, conform to, and adhere to. We change, not morality.

    If by consensus or by gradual metamorphasis the standard changes, we are no longer talking about morality. We are talking about personal preference, pop culture, or something else.

    Racial slavery has never been moral. Dietary restrictions and sacrifices are not morality, they are tenants or sacraments of certain religions.

    Your example of shaving is a cultural convention, not a morality. Morals are not determined by majority vote. That's why the unchanging standard is required.

    Comment by Mountain Man | July 3, 2008

37. Sedonaman - You can lobby and vote to change the laws, of course. That's legal, for good reasons we've agreed upon. But if you act against the laws, well, the majority of us who've selected enlightened self-interest (as opposed to crude and short-horizoned self-interest) will defend ourselves. (Look up 'evolutionarily stable strategy' if you're so inclined. Or, to put in terms a four-year-old can follow, "What if everyone did that?")

    Re: unchanging standards - As I've pointed out before, human nature hasn't changed significantly in the last 100,000 years or so. Neither have the laws of physics.

    Comment by Raymond Ingles | July 3, 2008

38. Mr. Ingles,
    Your thesis is that King George III believed his power to rule came from God.

    Refering me to instances in history when the question of whether a king had devine rights does not validate your one-line thesis.

    A king rules because his father gives him the chair. No matter how much a monarch believes God favors him (or whether the monarch is even religious) matters not if pop wasn't king before him. I also suspect your average monarch isn't going to admit he's powerless if it should turn out there is no God.

    The question of devine rights are the result of "certain" kings and political hacks who proclaimed them at their own risk. King Charles, for example, made the claim and ended up paying with his head.

    King George III may have been dabbling in madness in anticipation of the fate that awaited him, but he never claimed (as far as I know) a devine right to rule over his subjects in America. If you have an instance of him making the claim, please forward it along.

    Even Henry VIII, bold as he was, worked mightily to secure permission from the pope for an annulment. Had he devine rights, he wouldn't have needed the pope. If he had proclaimed such a right, the break with Rome would have come much sooner.

    There has always been a balance between King and church in Western monarchies. That balance tips on whether the king knows his place and whehter the church knows its.

    As to my point about belief in a creator and our right via the creator being foundational, it appears the difference between you and me is you don't have the same respect for the principle of our founding. Thankfulness (or at least true and respectful thankfulness which conservatives value highly) may be lacking.

    That is not surprising. The beliefs and notions that inspired us to "be," do not conform to yours. So they are downplayed, and not seen as central. Indeed, you even equate them with an accidental discovery.

    Your analogy falls flat. Our freedom, liberty and self rule did not come about by accident. The United States of America is an example of an alchemist setting out to make gold and succeeding.

    We have been resolute and on track (falling, but always managing to fall forward) ever since. Our achievements and unprecedented run as a free society, and our victories against forces that do not respect our liberties, have come from a strength you would prefer to ignore, or at the very least you believe could be replaced with something more logical.

    You are wrong.

    Try to shake a man loose from his government's "moral strategies" and you will find it takes far less effort than parting a man from his faith. Faith, sir, is how we were founded, and is how we survived the worst of times these more than 200 years. Except in a theory, you would not be here without it.

    Like many, I have seen you make what amounts to an appeal to throw away the training wheels of faith and move on to something more "logical." You have suggested that we could construct "moral strategies," for example that would replace traditional religious moral concepts.

    God is dead, or should be? Whatever he did for us as a country was strictly psychologial and no longer needed? We're smarter now and don't need "magic." Logic and science is the new God.

    Maybe when the Pew survey of 35,000 (an exceptionally high sampling)shows a bit less than 92 percent of people in the U.S. believe in a God or a supreme being. By some accounts, that number is higher that it was at the time of our founding.

    If nothing else, faith has been and remains strategic to our survival. About as many people have some degree of it in this country as there are drinkers of water.

    During the worst times, when we find out the true value of moral strength, when people have had the choice to give up life, give in to anarchy, give all or give nothing, faith has always led us to the better choices.

    As a government that exists by the will of the people, the United States has always respected the faith that fuels that will (criticized as it is by a loud minority whenever it displays such respect).

    Another strength/fuel might do. Another foundation might serve. Logic and reason and game theory might have seen us through the struggle for independence, the Civil War and the two world wars.

    Nah!

    Happy Independence Day. Thank God for it, because He's why we have it. Says so in the first paragraph; and so said we the people through our chosen leaders.

    I'm out. Going to buy some sparklers.

    Comment by nick adams | July 3, 2008

39. Mr. Adams - I don't feel the need to write a paper on the beliefs of George III; any investigation into the history of the Tories will satisfy. And it was, in fact, on this very point that Henry VIII broke with the Catholic church - though whether he believed fully in what he proclaimed (or convinced himself of it) is another question.

    Oh, and can you point out exactly where I make "an appeal to throw away the training wheels of faith and move on to something more 'logical'"? All I have stated is that religion is not a necessary condition for morality to obtain. Even George Washington accepted that, though I suspect that "minds of a peculiar structure" (look up the quote) are more common than he supposed. (Oh, and just to preclude a potential cheap shot, Washington used it in the contemporaneous sense of 'special' or 'unusual'; the connotation 'odd' or 'strange' came a century later.)

    As David Sloan Wilson put it in "Evolution For Everyone" (a book I commend to your attention), it's not clear that we must depart from factual realism to obtain practical realism. That's an open question, and while I have my suspicions, I've not made a definitive statement on that - because I'm not sure. But I don't dismiss the idea out of hand. Literacy was once seen as requiring a mind of a 'peculiar structure', and universal literacy was considered an impractical, outlandish goal. Today, it's considered shameful to not be literate.

    Enjoy your Independence Day. It's certainly worth celebrating, and I'll be doing that as well with my family, whatever it's attributed to.

    Comment by Raymond Ingles | July 3, 2008

40. Mr. Ingles,
    Fair enough, but can't let you misrepresent England's break with Rome. When the pope did not approve Henry VIII's request, a new church authority was established that did. In essence, he went church shopping/building.

    Again, it is obvious from his need for one church or another, or one religious authority or another, that Henry did not have the "devine authority" to "get 'er done" without church approval.

    He understood what he could get away with and what he could not. He got what he wanted, but not without a Church to grant it. Kings with devine authority, and who are recognized as having that authority, would need no such approval.

    As for your previous posts, I will try to dredge something up. But I assumed you would not have suggested in earlier arguments that moral standards not based on religious concepts or scripture but rather, I assume, secualr committee-approved man-made "moral strategies," were supperior, or else you wouldn't have suggested them.

    If you are not an advocate of your own ideas, please shut me up by explaining yourself better. There is no sense in me refuting something you don't really believe in.

    Comment by nick adams | July 3, 2008

41. Mr. Adams - But the justification Henry VIII used to build the new church was, explicitly, the sovereignty he derived from his divine right as king. See this article about the preface to his version of the Bible: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article3040191.ece

    And I don't have to believe that a game-theory morality is superior in all areas to believe that it's superior in some areas. Religious-based morality is simple to explain, and some people find it psychologically satisfying, for example - game theory is less intuitive in some ways. Maybe it does take "minds of a peculiar structure" for it to work.

    To be practical, religious and secular moralities do tend to converge on similar points, not unlike convergent evolution seen in the biological world. Again, take a look at Wilson's "Evolution For Everyone" for a different take on religious utility - and the difference between "factual realism" and "practical realism".

    Comment by Raymond Ingles | July 3, 2008

42. Of course secular and religious morality converge. Secular morality has no meaning or context apart from religious morality. In fact, secular morality is derivative. That is the reason for the similarity.

    Comment by Mountain Man | July 3, 2008

43. Mr. Ingles
    A man with devine right doesn't need a devine authority apart from himself to do anything.

    Henry VIII asked the pope for an annulment, and kept trying. He did not, could not declare his own annulment which unquestionably defeats your assertion that he was or considered himself endowed with devine right.

    He may have wanted to declare his own annulment and claim it his devine right as God's chosen king, but he did not. End of story.

    And once again, you do not commit, so I have to guess. You have a peculiar (your quote, not mine) mind and if there were enough people with similar minds, your moral system would/could be employed and it would be supeior overall to religious morality?

    Mountain Man makes an obvious point. Western secularism, atheism and the like are examples of splinters from Judeo/Christian faiths. You may theorize the similarities are by chance and examples of crossing paths, but it is a bit like theorizing that white kids mimicking black youth culture, wearing the clothes,jewelry and rapping is a case of paths crossing by chance.

    The exposure to and heavy influence of religious precepts and moral law, particularly in earlier times when its authority was so powerful, not only cannot be seperated from any belief or non-belief system today, the weight of the evidence that this influence is at the root of modern western systems is too great to get around.

    As simple and intuitive as it may seem to you to be able to state that a moral system quite similar would have developped without these influences, the job of proving it is about as difficult of proving the white kids in my example would have developped rap music had black culture not done so.

    The attempts/theories are quite plausible, but usually rely on citing cases of isolated primitive cultures (which really is conterproductive, as the primitives invariably attribute their moral laws to a god or spirit of some kind).

    I could even argue my own example. I might state simple, repetitive rhythms and rhyming lyrics predate rap and even find examples of some early anglo music I identify as the missing rap, and theorize that Eminem would have put two and two together and would have been the first.

    But who would listen to my theory? Who but someone with a ideological motive would waste their time? A parallel path to modern western morality minus any influece from prevailing religious beliefs would have to be discovered (good luck with that) and atheists would have to prove their version of morality is the product of it.

    Be it sun or sky gods, Jesus, or Yewah, the instrutions for how man should live and behave are traced to sources on high. The legitimate source is another debate.

    Proponents of secualr or athiestic beliefs have to attribte there morality to religion. When they don't, their contentions amount to nothing more than a laughable, "We would have thought of that."

    Comment by nick adams | July 4, 2008

44. There is an old African proverb, “Never tear down a fence until you learn why it was put up.” Secularists and atheists have been busy for years tearing down “fences” without ever learning first why they were put up. This is due in part to their claim that some “fences” are arbitrary, like the rule against shaving in happpig’s hypothetical society. Jews have strict dietary rules that a secularist and/or atheist today would consider “arbitrary” as well as “old-fashioned” and “irrelevant”. But are they? A Jewish kid raised in an Orthodox family would be in a much better position to refuse a “free” sample of illegal drugs if he is concerned that something he consumes might be unclean. Same with Christians WRT fasting and abstaining from meat on certain days. The goal is for Christians to learn to control their passions and not let their passions control them. If happpig’s hypothetical society of non-shavers existed, its non-shaving rule would undoubtedly have a similar goal, but the shaver (the secular equivalent) would think the rule arbitrary and opt for the “freedom” to shave; but note that he would still enjoy the protection of the rule because others were following it. However, the primary reason a secularist and/or atheist chooses not to conform to a law is because his human pride has convinced him that only he should be the decider of truth.

    Mountain Man has stated that, “Secular morality has no meaning or context apart from religious morality.” This is absolutely true because a strictly secular law is the one that is arbitrary because it is only a matter of political power. So, the question becomes, which is better, to give political power to those who fear eternal damnation if they do evil, or those who do not fear it?

    happpig, “a very devout secularist,” at least acknowledges moral codes as origins for some laws. He states that “morality is not the same thing as religion.” A point often overlooked here by both sides is what I alluded to earlier: in a religion there are dogmas and disciplines. It appears to me that most of those who reject religion do so not because of the dogmas but because of the disciplines they deem “arbitrary.” happpig is also “frightened” by “the implication that anyone follows the provisions of the 10 Commandments simply because they are the 10 commandments.” This illustrates the lack of understanding of why the “fence” was put up. Unfortunately, not everyone is a theologian on the level of St. Thomas Aquinas, and a religion that is universal has to be understandable by everyone. But, why such a person presents a threat to happpig is beyond me. Besides, how does it even concern happpig that someone chooses to worship God, honor his father and mother, not lie, steal, murder, covet, etc.? Such a person should be desired, not feared, even if he knows not the purpose of the Commandments. Even Mr. Ingles recognizes that it is a good that people not rob or murder others. [happpig’s comment reminds me of the time Hillary Clinton went to Red China for a meeting of the world’s feminists to figure out new ways for them to extract more out of society; meanwhile, there was a gathering of the Promise Keepers in Seattle to remind men of their responsibilities to put more into society, and the big news in the media was how the Promise Keepers were the real threat. So much for secular morality.

    Mr. Ingles, our admitted atheist, on the other hand, has steadfastly denied religious origins for any laws. He said, “…secularists don't want to be murdered or robbed, either.” This statement ironically is nothing more than an appeal to the religious conviction that others treat him as they would want him to treat them. And any such appeal dooms his arguments. He is like the shaver in happpig’s hypothetical society: a free-rider who gets the benefits with none of the obligations. Not only that, but Mr. Ingles is not even a very good atheist. He sends his kids to get moral training from an institution (the Catholic Church) that neither he nor his wife thinks has any moral authority. However, I do agree with him that “human nature hasn't changed significantly in the last 100,000 years or so,” and is the reason I believe, contrary to liberal Leftists, that basic laws should not change. [And calling a bad behavior by a nice-sounding name doesn’t make the bad behavior good. For example, my robbing Mr. Ingles of his lawful property is not “a more equitable distribution of wealth.”]

    Well, it’s the Fourth of July, and I’ve already spent way to much time not changing any minds.

    P.S. for Mr. Ingles: I do not need a lecture on lobbying to change the law, nor one on the immutable laws of physics, whatever they have to do with the current discussion, other than possibly the Second Law of Thermodynamics which states that there is loss in every heat transfer, so there can not be more takers in society than contributors.

    Comment by sedonaman | July 4, 2008

45. Mr. Adams - The Catholic church would not grant Henry VIII an annulment, that's true. Heck, they'd already granted him a dispensation to marry Katherine in the first place. The Catholic church didn't grant an unlimited divine right to kings, since the church hierarchy was held to be separate and superior to 'temporal' authority. (Look up the 'neck verse' and such.) Whether the Catholic church's motives were purely doctrinal or had some element of the political can be debated, but they were also struggling with the Protestant Reformation at the time. By what authority could Henry declare his own (more compliant) church, or issue his own bible (the "Great Bible", whose preface I linked to before), besides his own divine right, though? I think we need look no further than his own words.

    You betray a certain confusion by comparing things like musical styles and cultural variations (which have been called 'frozen accidents' - things which might just as well have gone differently) with things like core moral principles such as the Golden Rule (or its variant, the Silver Rule) which appears in basically every human moral system. They are like 'forced moves' in a game, things which are necessary to even play at all. There are styles in chess strategy, too - 19th-century chess was quite different in many respects than 20th-century chess - but still, there are core concepts like material, position, threats, exchanges, opening, midgame, endgame, etc. Those are inevitable outcomes of what chess is.

    Similarly, moral structures have similar things in common. There's a lot of variation - just as there is in musical styles around the world - but core principles of cooperation, punishment, forgiveness, etc. obtain, because they must. There were a lot of different variants on Christianity early on, but the ones that survived did so because they provided a framework for a successful community. (Again, I recommend Wilson's book mentioned above.) Variations that don't work fall apart - or go even further astray, and you get Jim Jones or Heaven's Gate.

    'Rap' is not mandated from the fundamentals of music - rhythm, melody, harmony, etc. A musical style is like a species or perhaps a genus in biological terms; a lot of chance events along the way led to its development. As Nicholas Humphrey noted, if you were forced to alter history to prevent some work from having been created, and you had to choose from Newton's Principia, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Mozart's Don Giovanni, or the Eiffel Tower… you'd have to pick the Principia. If Newton hadn't written it, someone else would have written a very similar work soon enough. But the others had very particular and idiosyncratic histories that would have been vanishingly unlikely to have been duplicated. (I became aware of this thought experiment through Daniel Dennett's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea", another book I highly recommend.)

    Within the world of music, as well as the world of morality, there's room for a lot of variation, and there's a lot that's just historical accident. The principle of modesty is inevitable, given human sexuality… but the specifics of its application vary widely. Consider the progression from the clothes of Polynesian islanders, to American fashion, to the burqa. Despite vastly different and mutually incompatible cosmologies, primitive and modern religions still do work with these fundamental principles. Their expression is idiosyncratic, but you can still recognize them everywhere.

    Imagine going back in time and teaching chess to, say, the Aztecs. If it caught on, we can imagine a lot of chess theory being developed. There would be fashions and historical accidents along the way - given their culture, we might suppose they'd play fairly aggressively, for example - but can anyone really imagine that they would not discover the principles of material, position and space, pawn structure, and so forth?

    So yes, an American secular morality will take American religious morality as a stepping-off point, or at least a strong influence. It is, to that extent, derivative, just as blues grew off from both spirituals and African music; rock and roll was partially a fusion of blues and folk and jazz; and jazz, which had influences from ragtime, etc. Of course, unlike music, morality has more direct practical purposes and impacts, so a better analogy might be architecture.

    When a new building material is introduced (concrete, steel, what have you) new buildings tend to resemble older ones, even though their internal structure may be quite different. A steel-framed building is internally quite different from a stone-based one, though they can both be used to make cathedrals. Over time, though, architects experimenting with new materials learn new applications not available with the older materials, or learn ways to combine the new and the old for things neither could do alone.

    Secular morality uses different building blocks than religious ones, but it can still build structures that serve similar purposes. And yes, tearing down fences without understanding why the fences are there doesn't generally work out too well - no one need remind me of the Terror of the French Revolution. Engineers and architects tend to be conservative because they are humble, and recognize that new techniques and methods and principles need to be tested. But because of that, a secular morality would do well to learn from the religious traditions that have evolved to some successful points.

    Note, too, that physical laws haven't changed in longer than 100,000 years, but architecture has as new techniques and materials have become available. Architects tend to be a conservative lot - as well they should - but they still do learn and update. Even Sedonaman does not live as a Hebrew tribesman from 6,000 years ago. I'm sure he's worn a cotton/polyester blend at some point, despite the prohibitions in Leviticus.

    Architects like to play around, but there are still walls, roofs, doors, windows, floors. Given that they are making places for humans to be, they must have such things. As times goes on, they might switch from stairs to elevators, but all buildings will have floors until we're building space stations.

    Looked at in this light, Rap and Art Deco are styles, but while rap can barely be recognized as music, Art Deco buildings are unquestionably buildings - and therefore much more like moral systems than any musical style.

    Oh, and Sedonaman - I do hold on to the hope, despite our history, that someday you will read what I actually write and not what you suppose or imagine me to have written.

    Comment by Raymond Ingles | July 5, 2008

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