Is Social Justice A Religious Agenda?

[GeorgeW]

Dutch,

 

I think you make a strong case.

 

George

[Neon Genesis]

 

 

My argument has little or nothing to with the religious beliefs of the Framers or with whether atheists can be moral. France is a secular state but the US is not. The US is also not a Christian or religious state. But it was created in a context which uses God language. This language doesn't demand any particular religious identity from those who used it. The use of God language doesn't even insist that the writers believe in God. The point is that the writers of the Declaration of Independence thought it meant something to use the following phrases:

• the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them,
  
• that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,
  
• with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence
  

Again - this language does not define the writers so much as point to the context in which they found themselves. The event cannot be separated from the context and the US Constitution cannot be separated from four billion year old bacteria or anything in between, whether it is the evolution of democracy in Greece or the theological conversations in the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament.

 

Take Care

 

Dutch

1)That comes from Declaration of Independence, not the constitution. 2)The creator being referenced there is Nature's god, or the god of deism, not the god of Christianity. An impersonal god that just sets up the universe and then leaves it alone is about as far away from religion you can get without going all the way to atheism. 3) The first amendment of the constitution is completely contrary to the first five commandments of the Ten Commandments. The first amendment permits freedom of religion. The first five commandments ban religious freedom, so I don't see how you can claim the constitution is a religious document based on the Ten Commandments, unless you're also going to claim the constitution says we should arrest everyone who bows down to a god other than Jehovah. 4) Read what John Adams says about separation of church and state and divine providence

The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.

-- John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" (1787-88), from Adrienne Koch, ed, The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society (1965) p. 258, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church"

 

"The founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents who had thus far been elected [Washington; Adams; Jefferson; Madison; Monroe; Adams; Jackson] not a one had professed a belief in Christianity....

"Among all our presidents from Washington downward, not one was a professor of religion, at least not of more than Unitarianism."

-- The Reverend Doctor Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister in Albany, New York, in a sermon preached in October, 1831. One might expect a modern defender of the Evangelical to play with the meaning of "Christianity," making it refer only to a specific brand of orthodoxy, first sentence quoted in John E Remsberg, Six Historic Americans, second sentence quoted in Paul F Boller, George Washington & Religion, pp. 14-15

 

"As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims] ... it is declared ... that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever product an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries....

"The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation."

-- Treaty of Tripoli (1797), carried unanimously by the Senate and signed into law by John Adams (the original language is by Joel Barlow, US Consul)

Again, show me where in the constitution, the constitution, not the Declaration of Independence, where it says anything about Jesus or the bible.

[GeorgeW]

The first five commandments ban religious freedom, so I don't see how you can claim the constitution is a religious document based on the Ten Commandments . . .

 

I would not presume to speak for Dutch, but with all due respect, he has not made this claim or argument. Please go back and carefully read what he has written and then respond. You are countering an argument that he has not made.

 

George

[Mike]

NeonGenesis,

 

I believe the point that is being made here is that our current secular philosophies are did not arise in a metaphysical vacuum. You are reifying both religion and secularism. The fact is that these have no unambiguous meaning and have not developed independently one of the other. We do not live in a blank-slate world. Even Richard Rorty, atheist philosopher, understands that by his endorsement of modern liberal values he is in essence "freeloading" (his words), because apart from the requisite foundations there is no way to simply derive the values we presently endorse from some set of universal first principles.

 

The Declaration reads as follows:

 

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

 

I don't see how religious belief is not dripping from these words. It doesn't make any difference whether Jefferson was a traditional Christian or not; that misses the present point. He had his metaphysics, just as we all do. The secularization of religious values has been a great thing -- unless it comes to the point of clouding where those values have come from. In my opinion we stand at great risk today because the secular -- while endorsing the highest moral values -- has a tendency to undermine the very rationale for the morality it endorses. Why this tendency? Because of a metaphysics of nihilism. Nihilism and morality make awkward bedfellows. Not that secularism necessarily entails nihilism. Just that we live at a time when the metaphysics most closely under girding secular movements are nihilistic. How many secular people today would have written anything like what Jefferson wrote? From what metaphysical basis would they derive their course of action against oppressors? Whence the narrative of the good and evil?

 

This isn't to say that "religion" creates values. That is an abstraction. Our present values come from our religio-cultural heritage, but ultimately I think our values come from the same place as religion -- from metaphysical convictions, from beliefs, and philosophical concerns. More concretely, they come from a deep affirmation about the nature of our existence and the existence of all beings -- their intrinsic meaning and worth. These are not mere empirical or scientific categories. It's not that "atheists can't be moral". It's that any account of morality is going to have a lot of work to do before providing a rational, ontological basis for the existence of right and wrong. And if this is finally accomplished, one is probably going to sound pretty religious.

 

Peace,

Mike

[JenellYB]

"While such phrases as "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights" resonates with me, and the idea of human rights is part of my core values in practice, these things are certainly as has been indoctrinated and conditioned into me from my birth by the culture and society I was born into.

 

However, I've had to conclude it is nonsense. Any "human rights" conferred upon humans can only have orginated from within and be conferred by human society itself. If God had endowed people with inalienable rights, then they'd be inalienable and as inviolable as the natural laws of Creation. And they obviously are not. People are treated as without rights all the time, and always have been. And there is no swift and sure punishment from God upon those that do so.

 

I've heard it suggested by some, even some serious students of ethics and social trends, that humanity is entering a transitional stage in consciousness and thinking about individual human rights, and the centuries long trend away from collectivsm and toward individualism. And that this is a natural reponse to global condtions, related both to the increasing extent to which the environment can be adversely affected in major ways, that affect people far from the source of the activity, such as in pollution, global warming, and even global financial impacts, and the growing threats of overpopulation. That frankly, these conditions are "cheapening" the value of human life in general and of any and all indivuduals in particular. That both the overwhelming logistics of even trying to effectively deal with these far reaching impacts, and their sources, and of a natural tendency for the value of particular individuals to be less relevant to the collectives at any level.

 

There is no doubt that when surrounded by, faced by, suffering of overwhelming masses of people, there is a natural, and self-defensive, "numbing" effect on care and compassion and incentive to react, respond. A sense of helplessness sets in. Its as a popular little story goes, about the little boy finding tens of thousands of starfish stranded on a beach after a storm, and sets about throwing individual starfish back into the sea, one by one...and someone comes along and asks, "Why bother? There are so many, you can't possibly save them all, or even most of them..so what does it matter how many you throw back?" And the boy answers, "well, it matters a lot to this one," as he hurls it back into the sea. The reality is, the second person's reaction is more typical of and consistent with human nature. We are paralyzed by overwhelm and defend ourselves by shutting down, ceasing to care, to feel, to try, to act.

 

In a small community, every one matters. In anonymous masses, no one matters.

 

Some even see this as an inevitable "balancing of nature."

 

Jenell

[glintofpewter]

Neon, we are talking past each other. I have not claimed that the Constitution is a religious document. I am arguing that it was constructed in the context of all that has gone before which includes religion.

 

Take Care

 

Dutch

[Neon Genesis]

I believe the point that is being made here is that our current secular philosophies are did not arise in a metaphysical vacuum. You are reifying both religion and secularism. The fact is that these have no unambiguous meaning and have not developed independently one of the other. We do not live in a blank-slate world. Even Richard Rorty, atheist philosopher, understands that by his endorsement of modern liberal values he is in essence "freeloading" (his words), because apart from the requisite foundations there is no way to simply derive the values we presently endorse from some set of universal first principles.

But if you say everything influences everything else, like saying a bacteria from 4,000 years ago infleunces me the same way my best friend does, then you render the use of the word influence utterly useless and the U.S. constitution would be influenced by child sacrifice as much as it is positive religious aspects.

 

 

 

I don't see how religious belief is not dripping from these words. It doesn't make any difference whether Jefferson was a traditional Christian or not; that misses the present point. He had his metaphysics, just as we all do. The secularization of religious values has been a great thing -- unless it comes to the point of clouding where those values have come from. In my opinion we stand at great risk today because the secular -- while endorsing the highest moral values -- has a tendency to undermine the very rationale for the morality it endorses. Why this tendency? Because of a metaphysics of nihilism. Nihilism and morality make awkward bedfellows. Not that secularism necessarily entails nihilism. Just that we live at a time when the metaphysics most closely under girding secular movements are nihilistic. How many secular people today would have written anything like what Jefferson wrote? From what metaphysical basis would they derive their course of action against oppressors? Whence the narrative of the good and evil?

1) If it doesn't matter that the author of the Decleration was a Christian or not, then it shouldn't matter whether the people who signed the Declaration are Christians or not. It seems like you're cherry picking when the religious beliefs of the Framers matter if it reinforces your religion. 2) The Declearation of Indepdence is NOT the U.S. Consiitution. I have asked repeatedly for where in the U.S. CONSTITUTION does it say anything about Jesus or the bible. 3) The U.S constitution says

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

. Note it says "We the People" have formed a more perfect union, not Jehovah, Jesus, or the bible. 4) What evidence do you have that secularists today are undermining morality or that secular movements are nihilistic? The only people I see behaving nihilistic are religious fanatics cheering on Newt Gingrich defending his infidelity while they boo a gay soldier serving openly in the military. 5). Read The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris. 6)Where does God get his morals from?

 

This isn't to say that "religion" creates values. That is an abstraction. Our present values come from our religio-cultural heritage, but ultimately I think our values come from the same place as religion -- from metaphysical convictions, from beliefs, and philosophical concerns. More concretely, they come from a deep affirmation about the nature of our existence and the existence of all beings -- their intrinsic meaning and worth. These are not mere empirical or scientific categories. It's not that "atheists can't be moral". It's that any account of morality is going to have a lot of work to do before providing a rational, ontological basis for the existence of right and wrong. And if this is finally accomplished, one is probably going to sound pretty religious.

Peace,

Mike

This just sounds like another way of saying atheists can't be moral without religion in a roundabout "love the sinner hate the sin" kind of way.

[glintofpewter]

But if you say everything influences everything else, like saying a bacteria from 4,000 4 billion years ago infleunces me the same way my best friend renders the use of the word influence utterly useless and the U.S. constitution would be influenced by child sacrifice as much as it is positive religious aspects.

I am not saying that everything influences everything else. The influence I am pointing to is exactly that of relationship - like your relationship with your best friend. The urge or need for relationship profoundly undergirds all of creation. If those bacteria did not have the need for relationship you wouldn't have a best friend and we wouldn't have a Constitution.

 

4 billion years of evolution weaving relationship into every layer of creation, giving rise to prosocial behavior which was often supported by religious and cultural practices. 4 Billion years of learning how to play well with others. You can't ignore this evolution and pretend that in 1688 at the begining of the Enlightenment there was a blank slate for ideas about values, morals, government, laws, for - well, for anything.

 

 

Take Care

 

Dutch

[Mike]

Neon,

 

It appears to me that you are not differentiating between religious/philosophical claims. You're trying to fit other's arguments into a box they do not fit, and respond to them as such. There are extreme positions in religion and non-religion. The truth usually lies somewhere in the middle, and therefore requires more subtle categories. By consistently responding to posts as if I (and others) are fundamentalists, it gives me the distinct impression that you don't understand what "my religion" is. I'm not impressed with the works of any of the new atheists, but that doesn't mean I'm impressed with evangelical and fundamentalist doctrines.

 

Peace,

Mike

[Neon Genesis]

I am not saying that everything influences everything else. The influence I am pointing to is exactly that of relationship - like your relationship with your best friend. The urge or need for relationship profoundly undergirds all of creation. If those bacteria did not have the need for relationship you wouldn't have a best friend and we wouldn't have a Constitution.

 

4 billion years of evolution weaving relationship into every layer of creation, giving rise to prosocial behavior which was often supported by religious and cultural practices. 4 Billion years of learning how to play well with others. You can't ignore this evolution and pretend that in 1688 at the begining of the Enlightenment there was a blank slate for ideas about values, morals, government, laws, for - well, for anything.

 

 

Take Care

 

Dutch

Why do you seem to think the only two options are either 1)The Founding Fathers were inspired by religion or 2)everything was a blank state?

[glintofpewter]

Neon,

 

I feel your arguments are all over the place. I am not even sure who you are arguing with. This once I will respond to this list.

 

1)That comes from Declaration of Independence, not the constitution.

Men who wrote the Declaration helped draft the Constitution. Use of God language in the declaration doesn't mean they believed in a particular kind of God or any God at all. But it does reveal what they thought their context was.

2)The creator being referenced there is Nature's god, or the god of deism, not the god of Christianity. An impersonal god that just sets up the universe and then leaves it alone is about as far away from religion you can get without going all the way to atheism.

And what is your point? Have you read our discussions on the nature of God here?

3) The first amendment of the constitution is completely contrary to the first five commandments of the Ten Commandments. The first amendment permits freedom of religion. The first five commandments ban religious freedom, so I don't see how you can claim the constitution is a religious document based on the Ten Commandments, unless you're also going to claim the constitution says we should arrest everyone who bows down to a god other than Jehovah.

Many fundamentalists of both Christian and Atheist persuasion make this mistake. The call to Holiness in the first 4 comandments makes no claim about what others should do. It is a call to individual spiritual discipline. Also, when the Ten Commandments were given the Israelites were not monotheistic so the argument you present here doesn't make sense. Jehovah was their God. There were other Gods in the area. You do need to slow down and read the commandments. Only the first could remotely fit your argument.

4) Read what John Adams says about separation of church and state and divine providence

or maybe in a paragraph you could tell me which would be simpler and more to the point.

Again, show me where in the constitution, the constitution, not the Declaration of Independence, where it says anything about Jesus or the bible.

I have never ever made this claim so I am not sure who you are having this debate with.

 

Take Care

 

Dutch

[glintofpewter]

Why do you seem to think the only two options are either 1)The Founding Fathers were inspired by religion or 2)everything was a blank state?

I did not mean to set up an either or situation. What do you think the options are?

[Neon Genesis]

Neon,

 

I feel your arguments are all over the place. I am not even sure who you are arguing with. This once I will respond to this list.

 

 

Men who wrote the Declaration helped draft the Constitution. Use of God language in the declaration doesn't mean they believed in a particular kind of God or any God at all. But it does reveal what they thought their context was.

And the context from the other writings of the Founding Fathers on the subject is that it was ceremonial deism for poetic purposes, not a metaphysical statement.

 

 

 

Many fundamentalists of both Christian and Atheist persuasion make this mistake. The call to Holiness in the first 4 comandments makes no claim about what others should do. It is a call to individual spiritual discipline. Also, when the Ten Commandments were given the Israelites were not monotheistic so the argument you present here doesn't make sense. Jehovah was their God. There were other Gods in the area. You do need to slow down and read the commandments. Only the first could remotely fit your argument.

The Israelites were neither polytheistic nor monotheistic when they wrote the Ten Commandments. They were henotheists who believed other gods existed but the only god worth worshiping was Yahweh. The Ten Commandments are only a small part of the larger Holiness Code of the OT which were often accompanied by punishments of death for failure to follow them correctly. Like children who disobeyed their parents could be sentenced to death and there are numerous times throughout the OT where God commands the Israelites to slaughter all the pagan infidels, such as in the infamous Deut chapter 13.

[glintofpewter]

accompanied by punishments of death for failure to follow them correctly.

Yes, this part of the discussion that is in the Old Testament

 

but the only god worth worshiping was Yahweh.

I think better wording was that Yahweh was the God of the Israelites. They didn't exactly test several out and choose one. they evolved from polytheistic beliefs to monaltry to monotheism

 

And the context from the other writings of the Founding Fathers on the subject is that it was ceremonial deism for poetic purposes, not a metaphysical statement.

That's my point exactly when I talked about the Declaration. I have no problem with it being rhetorical. They still used God language to back up a claim to inalienable rights.

 

Dutch

[glintofpewter]

I am not claiming that the Constitution was inspired or influenced by the Ten Commandments. I am arguing that the Ten Commandments are part of the genealogy of the Constitution.

 

I did not search the whole list here and some that I looked at did not use the words God or Creator but here are a few that do.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/constpap.asp

• Magna Carta, 1215
  
• English Bill of Rights, 1689
  
• Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms : July 6, 1775
  
• Constitution of South Carolina - March 26, 1776
  
• Virginia Declaration of Rights; June 12, 1776
  
• Constitution of New Jersey; July 2, 1776
  
• Declaration of Independence; July 4, 1776
  
• Constitution of Delaware; September 10, 1776
  

• " I, A B. do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration."

• Constitution of Pennsylvania - September 28, 1776
  
• Constitution of North Carolina; December 18, 1776
  

Context: The drafting of the Constitution took place in a generally accepted world view that necessitated an appeal to God as the authority for inalienable rights. This makes no claims about the personal beliefs of any individual.

 

 

And, yes, another element in the genealogy of the Constitution were people like John Locke who some fundamentalist Christians blame for the lack of a religious test in Article VI section 3

 

3. The senators and representatives before-mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

 

This does not counter my argument for context.

[glintofpewter]

The Constitution is about governance, not about the crimes we commit, but the understanding of Westminster Confession of the fifth commandment does apply.

 

Q. 124. Who are meant by father and mother in the fifth commandment?

 

A. By father and mother, in the fifth commandment, are meant, not only natural parents,[649] but all superiors in age[650] and gifts;[651] and especially such as, by God’s ordinance, are over us in place of authority, whether in family,[652] church,[653] or commonwealth.[654]

 

The fifth commandment applies to ideas about the body politic

Q. 126. What is the general scope of the fifth commandment?

 

A. The general scope of the fifth commandment is, the performance of those duties which we mutually owe in our several relations, as inferiors, superiors, or equals.[657]

 

Treason

Q. 128. What are the sins of inferiors against their superiors?

 

A. The sins of inferiors against their superiors are, all neglect of the duties required toward them;[670] envying at,[671] contempt of,[672] and rebellion[673] against, their persons[674] and places,[675] in their lawful counsels,[676] commands, and corrections;[677] cursing, mocking[678] and all such refractory and scandalous carriage, as proves a shame and dishonour to them and their government.[679]

 

 

Suffrage

 

Q. 131. What are the duties of equals?

 

A. The duties of equals are, to regard the dignity and worth of each other,[710] in giving honour to go one before another;[711] and to rejoice in each others’ gifts and advancement, as their own.[712]

 

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

Q. 133. What is the reason annexed to the fifth commandment, the more to enforce it?

 

A. The reason annexed to the fifth commandment, in these words, That thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee,[718] is an express promise of long life and prosperity, as far as it shall serve for God’s glory and their own good, to all such as keep this commandment.[719]

 

Dutch

[glintofpewter]

Yes, my mind is buzzing.

 

The great insight of the Axial Age (800-600 BCE) is that the individual must take responsibility for their own spiritual walk and that a measure of that walk is how they treat other people. Karen Armstrong says that to the extent that we fall back on ritual and dogma we fall to a lower state.

 

Individual responsibility and how we treat each other - this does not seem like too many evolutionary steps away from "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union . . ."

[glintofpewter]

Neon,

 

I think the challenge for you is to account for

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

Those who wrote this then went on to write the Constitution to protect these rights, rights whose authority is the Creator. If you have read other threads here you know that not all of us would base human rights in the authority of the Divine.

 

Take Care

 

Dutch

[Neon Genesis]

And I think the challenge for you would be to address this quote by John Adams which has so far been ignored in this thread:

The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.

-- John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" (1787-88), from Adrienne Koch, ed, The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society (1965) p. 258, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church"

[GeorgeW]

Neon,

 

To argue with Dutch (and others who have commented in this thread) you need to demonstrate that Christianity had no influence on worldview of the framers of the Constitution. Is that your argument? If so, please address this, not whether they intended that this to be an official Christian nation.

 

George

[Neon Genesis]

I am not claiming that the Constitution was inspired or influenced by the Ten Commandments. I am arguing that the Ten Commandments are part of the genealogy of the Constitution.

 

I did not search the whole list here and some that I looked at did not use the words God or Creator but here are a few that do.

http://avalon.law.ya...us/constpap.asp

• Magna Carta, 1215
  
• English Bill of Rights, 1689
  
• Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms : July 6, 1775
  
• Constitution of South Carolina - March 26, 1776
  
• Virginia Declaration of Rights; June 12, 1776
  
• Constitution of New Jersey; July 2, 1776
  
• Declaration of Independence; July 4, 1776
  
• Constitution of Delaware; September 10, 1776
  
• 
  
• Constitution of Pennsylvania - September 28, 1776
  
• Constitution of North Carolina; December 18, 1776
  

 

This does not counter my argument for context.

"I'm sorry but the Princess is in another castle." The state constitutions are not the same thing as the U.S. constitution as the federal constitution overrides any of the state constitutions. This is why North Carolina couldn't ban Cecil Bothwell from serving public office just because he's an atheist, even though their state constitution forbids atheists from serving office, because the first amendment of the U.S. constitution overrides the states' constitutions.

 

The Constitution is about governance, not about the crimes we commit, but the understanding of Westminster Confession of the fifth commandment does apply.

I'm curious to know what role does this passage from the bible have to play in the genealogy of the Constitution?

If prophets or those who divine by dreams appear among you and promise you omens or portents, and the omens or the portents declared by them take place, and they say, ‘Let us follow other gods’ (whom you have not known) ‘and let us serve them’, you must not heed the words of those prophets or those who divine by dreams; for the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you indeed love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul. The Lord your God you shall follow, him alone you shall fear, his commandments you shall keep, his voice you shall obey, him you shall serve, and to him you shall hold fast. But those prophets or those who divine by dreams shall be put to death for having spoken treason against the Lord your God—who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery—to turn you from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

If anyone secretly entices you—even if it is your brother, your father’s son or your mother’s son, or your own son or daughter, or the wife you embrace, or your most intimate friend—saying, ‘Let us go and worship other gods’, whom neither you nor your ancestors have known, any of the gods of the peoples that are around you, whether near you or far away from you, from one end of the earth to the other, you must not yield to or heed any such persons. Show them no pity or compassion and do not shield them. But you shall surely kill them; your own hand shall be first against them to execute them, and afterwards the hand of all the people. Stone them to death for trying to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Then all Israel shall hear and be afraid, and never again do any such wickedness.

If you hear it said about one of the towns that the Lord your God is giving you to live in, that scoundrels from among you have gone out and led the inhabitants of the town astray, saying, ‘Let us go and worship other gods’, whom you have not known, then you shall inquire and make a thorough investigation. If the charge is established that such an abhorrent thing has been done among you, you shall put the inhabitants of that town to the sword, utterly destroying it and everything in it—even putting its livestock to the sword. All of its spoil you shall gather into its public square; then burn the town and all its spoil with fire, as a whole burnt-offering to the Lord your God. It shall remain a perpetual ruin, never to be rebuilt. Do not let anything devoted to destruction stick to your hand, so that the Lord may turn from his fierce anger and show you compassion, and in his compassion multiply you, as he swore to your ancestors, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God by keeping all his commandments that I am commanding you today, doing what is right in the sight of the Lord your God.

[glintofpewter]

The state constitutions are not the same thing as the U.S. constitution as the federal constitution overrides any of the state constitutions. This is why North Carolina couldn't ban Cecil Bothwell from serving public office just because he's an atheist, even though their state constitution forbids atheists from serving office, because the first amendment of the U.S. constitution overrides the states' constitutions.

Another example of the evolution of an idea. It does not seem to be the intent of the Framers that 1st amendment apply to the states. They were separate until

the middle to late twentieth century that the Supreme Court began to interpret the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses in such a manner as to restrict the promotion of religion by the states.

I'm curious to know what role does this passage from the bible have to play in the genealogy of the Constitution?

To have a collection of works including the Constitution to compare to the Bible you would have include laws from medival times which valued property more than life and also accounts of the massacres and genocides of Native American Indians. If you put all that into one tome then we could compare apples to apples.

 

But back to the OP

From whence do we derive our inalienable rights?

[Mike]

The founders, inasmuch as they imbibed the mythos of Reason (with a capital 'R'), were men of their time, as we all ultimately are. Reason per se is generic and cannot furnish universals -- or anything for that matter without presupposed, unproven premises or existential qualifiers. There's a reason why enlightenment deism has since fallen out of favor with the scientific- and secular-minded, and that's because it still dabbles in a metaphysics of natural religion. It was a distinct intellectual climate that in retrospect we can see did not develop independently of its broader cultural heritage. Looking back I can also say I am grateful that reason got a more honored productive role in society. But, again, reason is not the type of thing to function autonomously without its assumptions, stated or unstated. Since the divine right of kings was overturned -- we began to look for that divine right elsewhere. But without that sense of divinity -- and an ethos of equal standing before that divinity -- there would be no derivation of individual rights or the rights of man in the first place.

 

Peace,

Mike

[glintofpewter]

The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture;it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.

-- John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" (1787-88), from Adrienne Koch, ed, The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society (1965) p. 258, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner,

I am not sure what the excitement is. I have no problem with this.

 

From whence does John Adams think that our human rights derive?

 

Dutch

[Neon Genesis]

But without that sense of divinity -- and an ethos of equal standing before that divinity -- there would be no derivation of individual rights or the rights of man in the first place.

 

Peace,

Mike

If you can't have individual rights without "divinity" (whatever that means), please explain why gay marriage is still banned in the majority of the bible belt states and why the Christian Right is still fighting to erode individual rights in the name of "freedom of religiion." The courts recently passed a ruling allowing religions to get away with discriminating against disabled people and you don't even have the right to sue them anymore in the name of religion. Why is it that in Muslim nations women are still fighting for the right to drive a car of all things if you can't have rights without religion? I see little evidence of any correlation between religion and individual rights expcet in the other way around in that it seems like the only people trying to ban individual rights are the most religious people.

 

From whence does John Adams think that our human rights derive?

From the quote

it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.