Rooney– I completely agree with everything you have said. Spot on.

akaGaGa– I have more to say to you.

1) “I won’t speak for anybody else, but although it exists, it was not “conclusive evidence” that convinced me. It was the Holy Spirit convicting me of my sin, and God’s loving offer of forgiveness through the cross. Faith in things spiritual comes through the Spirit, not reason.”

First off, if you’ve got “conclusive evidence” I’d like to see it. I don’t think you have it or even anything that resembles it.
Secondly, I will address faith. Faith is believing without evidence. It is foolish, ludicrous and dangerous. Keep that wishful thinking and idiocy to yourself completely. Don’t spread that virus any further.

2) “Thank God they can’t! Again, critical analysis doesn’t lead to faith in things that must be spiritually discerned.”

This scares me. Intentional indoctrination is child abuse and here I see it being celebrated. The reason critical analysis doesn’t lead to faith is because thinking freely and critically will lead one to realize exactly how crazy supernatural beliefs are, Christian and otherwise.

3) “The problem with your method is that “situational observation” is reactionary, it can’t predict the future. And man’s “reasoning” leaves a lot to be desired, which a cursory look at history will prove.”

Rooney said that he would have us (and in fact, we do) rely on “situational observation” and reason to come to moral conclusions. He never said it was foolproof; no system seems to be. Even you think this way; this is how you conclude parts of the bible to be immoral (like selling your daughter to be a sex slave for example (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)). If you don’t think THAT is immoral then I hope you don’t have any daughters. Or children for that matter. The point is that YOU are using YOUR judgment to determine what is good an what is bad even within the bible itself. You are better than your religion.

Mr. Mulligan– I have a few things to say in response to you as well.

1) “However, the born again Christian does not live in fear of eternal punishment. And why? Because he has trusted in Jesus, who took the punishment that all mankind deserves upon Himself. The penalty had to be served; but God cares enough about us, even though we don’t deserve it, chose to come to earth in human form and take it Himself, so that we could be spared.”

There are so many things wrong with this. If this god existed, he (I use he for the sake of sentence structure) wouldn’t exactly be all-loving. In fact, he would be a capricious, cruel, bully; a straight up ******. God was created in the image of man. Thank goodness there is not a shred of evidence to suggest he(she? they?) exists.

2) “Another thing. People do not conduct their lives based upon facts that they perceive with their brains. Every action that we do is not first carefully weighed, scrutinized, and balanced by our intellects.”

Just because not everything that our brain does goes through our frontal lobes doesn’t mean it still isn’t our brain. You’re assuming that everything that our brains are capable of is confined to rational thought. However, our brains are HIGHLY complex and the more we learn about it the more connections we are able to make between our behavior/instinct and specific parts to of our brain. It is pathetic to use a god-of-the-gaps argument here and say that we need supernatural influence to make the most informed moral decisions possible. Moral reasoning facilities are equally available to you with or without your superstitions.

3) You state that you think Hitler was completely rational and nonreligious. His religiosity is debatable (he made many Christian references in his speeches though these may have been for public support. What is clear is that religion (or the absence of it) did not play a factor in his decision making). However, to say that he is the epitome of nonreligious reasoning is simply insulting. This indirect Ad Hominem argument is as poorly attempted as it is irrelevant.

I said this to akaGaGa and I say it to you: You are better than your religion.

For akaGaGa, I suggest you read some Sam Harris who addresses the danger of the idea that religious ideas and faith are to be treated with unwarranted respect.

For Mr. Mulligan, I suggest you read the chapter on morality in Richard Dawkin’s “God Delusion.”

Thanks for taking the time to go through this obnoxiously large post. Think freely and live happily my friends.

Kyle

I would like to address what I think is the idea behind Rodney’s response. I think it important to treat this subject, as it is fraught with errors which I observe are very prevalent in our society.

Rodney –
You seem to dislike religion in general, and Christianity in particular, because the motivation given by those religions for doing right and not doing wrong is based upon fear and intimidation. You say that Christianity, with its threat of eternal punishment, qualifies as one of those “intimidating” religions. In the stead of religion, therefore, you prefer a sort of secularist rationalism, because you would rather do good and not do evil for rational reasons, not because you are afraid of God.

Let me begin my response with an illustration. Suppose a man is contemplating murder — manslaughter of the first degree. But let us also suppose that in the nation where this man lives, there is the strictly-enforced law that the penalty for murder in the first degree is capital punishment, or, death. This law is designed to do two things: (1) to instill a healthy “fear and intimidation,” if you will, into those who contemplate breaking the law, and (2) to provide the standard of punishment for those who ignore that “fear” and who disregard the law.

With God’s law, it is no different. God, who is just, made everything. Therefore, He and no one else is qualified to decide just what is right and wrong. In the Bible, God says that all men have broken that law, and as such, are liable to the punishment due a criminal — eternal damnation and separation from Him. The reason why Hell is such an awful place is not because God is cruel. It is awful because neither God nor anything of Him is there. And only God is the Giver of anything good. If one is a “criminal” in God’s eyes, yes, he should be afraid; just as a murderer who has committed his crime should be afraid of the heavy hand of just law coming to repay his deed.

However, the born again Christian does not live in fear of eternal punishment. And why? Because he has trusted in Jesus, who took the punishment that all mankind deserves upon Himself. The penalty had to be served; but God cares enough about us, even though we don’t deserve it, chose to come to earth in human form and take it Himself, so that we could be spared.

No one can judge God of being cruel or unfair for this very reason. No one can accuse Him of being too harsh, or of being a capricious tyrant who wants a bunch of blind slaves. He suffered the fierce penalty that He Himself established, and He did it for us, His creation who didn’t care a mite for Him and His laws.

So the Christian is not moral because of fear. He is moral because He is grateful to God for saving Him. He wants to obey the great God that would have the heart to do what He did through Jesus.

Now I agree that unsaved people can do moral things. But let me point you again to the Romans passage (now just what do you mean by “it is not epiphany”? If it is spoken by God it holds great weight) — they are not doing it totally independent of God. Maybe He is not their conscious reason for doing it — but who gave them their reason? Who made the standards of right and wrong, which are so plainly evident to them. And furthermore, who made they themselves?

Another thing. People do not conduct their lives based upon facts that they perceive with their brains. Every action that we do is not first carefully weighed, scrutinized, and balanced by our intellects. Our intellect does have a place in how we live our lives, but we live life from what is in our hearts, not what is in our heads. To illustrate: do the basic principles of mathematics (an area dealing entirely with the intellect) profoundly influence your personal decisions? The principles of mathematics may help you decide how much you need to spend and save in a month, but it is your heart that decides what you will actually do with that knowledge.

Therefore, all reason-based morality (that does not acknowledge God, and His standards) is faulty because it does not deal with the “heart of the matter” — literally. Nor does it provide a stable or common basis for right and wrong. If it is up to man to decide right and wrong (especially in complex situations), even Hitler’s Holocaust could be justified. After all, he was merely defending the interests of his country; he was doing his patriotic duty. Isn’t that moral? “Our country, right or wrong” — is that moral? (BTW, Hitler was very rationalistic. His under-girding philosophy was socialistic Darwinism.)

Now, God gave us rational faculties so that we could appreciate His standards of right and wrong (outlined in the Ten Commandments). He does expect us to use our reason and to think things through. Our reason does serve a great purpose; but God never meant it to replace His authority. And think about it; reason is not an encyclopedia of truth. It is like a calculator; it can only work with the input given to it. It is not an oracle; it is a process by which we digest input. And if our morals are to be correct, we need God’s input. We cannot expect our solitary reason, and our very limited scope of knowledge (and how do we know that what we know is true?), can give us a reliable moral standard, any more than than we can expect a calculator lying on the desk to give us a solution to an equation.

This was a long response to your comment. Thanks for reading and taking the time to add your thoughts.

1) "People become convinced enough to believe in what they can't see when conclusive evidence is presented."

I won't speak for anybody else, but although it exists, it was not "conclusive evidence" that convinced me. It was the Holy Spirit convicting me of my sin, and God's loving offer of forgiveness through the cross. Faith in things spiritual comes through the Spirit, not reason.

2) Regarding your niece and nephew: "They're just reciprocating what their mentors train them to do because of brainwashing. It's not like a 4 or 6 year old has the capacity to critically analyze the plausibility of theology."

Thank God they can't! Again, critical analysis doesn't lead to faith in things that must be spiritually discerned.

3) "I noticed your question 'Can you please tell me how you can get a government of law without God?'
I think I answered it above… 'situational observation and reasoning.' …and as far as I knew, there's hardly a trace of religion in ours."

The problem with your method is that "situational observation" is reactionary, it can't predict the future. And man's "reasoning" leaves a lot to be desired, which a cursory look at history will prove.

(2)The argument in Franklin's letter to Paine is basically the same idea that Washington was saying, but yes, scalding and fear-instilling. The argument was to project fear of disapproval onto Paine so that he did not voice his opinion. We have an amendment that protects the freedom of speech, coincidentally is the same one that helps keep religion out of congress, and last I heard, silence is approval. Franklin's letter is testimony to the existence of dogmatic traditions of theists.

"Most world religions operate through fear or brainwashing to get people to be good and moral."
So does Christianity with it's threat of eternal punishment. Right now my 4 and 6 year old niece and nephew are programmatically nodding their heads for the love of Jesus. They're just reciprocating what their mentors train them to do because of brainwashing. It's not like a 4 or 6 year old has the capacity to critically analyze the plausibility of theology.

I noticed your question "Can you please tell me how you can get a government of law without God?"
I think I answered it above… "situational observation and reasoning." …and as far as I knew, there's hardly a trace of religion in ours.

Rodney

That’s a good point to make about the basis of our law; thanks for adding it. It’s impossible to keep our religion out of those laws, because it is the very worldview that made those laws possible!

Thanks for visiting and leaving your comment. I hope you plan to return again.

Best regards,
Hercules

Your “anonymous reader, on my FFQF post, John Adams on Moral Authority” said:

“As far as religion goes – keep your religion (by all means – it’s your freedom to enjoy), but also keep your religion out of my laws (it’s my country too).”

My response to this individual is simple: Trace western civil law back to its origin and you will discover the Ten Commandments. Moreover, your opportunity/right to freely and publicly post your views on a blog is protected by the Bill of Rights, a document based on God’s Moral Law.

As much as our secular culture attempts to separate itself from Judeo-Christianity, the more it will find that Western Civilization and the Christian Religion are inextricably united.

BTW, Herky, I enjoy your Founding Fathers blog.

Freely and Faithfully Yours,

Mt1618

I agree with your position that our government strayed from its foundation as much as 150 years ago. The road to perdition has been a little longer than many of us imagine, I’m sure.

AkaGaGa already explained her mention of Bush; but (not trying to turn a non-political discussion into a political one ) I argue that Bush, although supportive of laws that side with “Christian conservative family values” (respecting infant life, and marriage), did great MORAL damage to our country, simply by not keeping his oath of office, in which he swore in the presence of God to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the US. As you pointed, his administration is not the only one to do this; but he is one of the few examples of Presidents unashamedly and openly placing themselves above the law (he once told a reporter to stop shoving the Constitution in his face, and called it “just a ___ ___ piece of paper”), and retaining the respect and support of “Christian conservative leaders.”

So, this is a moral issue, not merely a political one (although I think both issues in general are inseparable).

I appreciate your comment. I’ve heard about the mission and values of our early elite education establishments from David Barton of Wallbuilders.com, from his film “Education and the Founding Fathers.” Is this the video series you are referring to? Or is there another one? I am interested in the series you refer to, because I am very interested in the subject matter you refer to. Could you give me the name of it?

Thank you.

“Herky”

If you’d like to see something VERY scary, check out the original mission/values of some of our oldest education institutions… espeically Harvard and Columbia. There we founded on overwhelmingly Christian values and have since wiped them away. I was watching a video series that tied this movement to 1859 when Blackstone’s teachings on law – based on the bible – were thrown out in favor of case study law.

Great response above, Herky.

Josh

I appreciate your time and comments.

God bless you this Sunday.

Herky