Religious Debate and Discussions
The Religion Commandments in the Constitution: A Primer
Posted by GeneGarman • 8/02/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS]
Topics: constitution, Government, history, law, politics, religion
New book available from amazon.com, a textbook for understanding the religion commandments in the Constitution. It promotes the constitutional principle of separation between religion and government:
"It is the religion commandments in the Constitution which should be hung on every court room wall, posted and taught in every American public school, and monumentalized throughout America, not the religion commandments of Moses or of any religion," p. 19.
User Comments
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Not comparable. The Constitution is a corporate document for the coercive maintenance of a government (though in this case the coercion is mostly directed towards the people who make government.) The Biblical Commandments, since the time of Christ in both Christian and Jewish religions, have been for the voluntary guidance of individuals, written upon hearts of men to lead Godly lives by their own volition. One is collective force guided by checks & balances, the other is individual altruism, honor and self-improvement guided by love of others, self, and God.-
Yeah, the 10 commandments say nothing about the separation of political power across 3 branches of government, the right to refuse to quarter soldiers in your house, etc.
The Constitution was inspired by Enlightenment philosophers, not Bronze Age clerics. -
The basic idea of the bible though would support a lot of consitutional ends, however. (The idea that freedom is so fundamentally improtant that God will tolerate a huge percentage of his beloved creation coming to nothing AND HIS SON BEING HUMILIATED AND DYING for it. The biblical view of humanity eventually leads to democracy or something like it on earth.)
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Jeremy, there won't be a democracy. We won't be voting in God's kingdom
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Count me out, then. I'm against despotism.
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@jflower36 & VK: misread: "The biblical view of humanity eventually leads to democracy or something like it on earth" I'm speaking of how human beings deal among themselves, on earth, not in heaven.
And anyways, God may not be a democrat VK, but he is most certainly a libertarian, complete with free will, voluntary acceptance of most policies, and the freedom to refuse any grace and fail in any manner you please! That's right, you can kill yourself at whatever speed you want! (You would also like how anti-hypocrisy he is. And since you're a physicist, you obviously enjoy his art.)
So no, he is most certainly not a "despot," he values human freedom more then anything, even sacrificing his own son for it, but democracy makes much less sense when you have a benevolent, omnipotent, pure at heart, omniscent, respectful, and self-sacrificing deity as Commander-in-Chief. -
There's not a democracy in hell either, by the way.
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You sure? John Adams might disagree with you:
"Oh God? Did we really deserve this? A flood, a fire, a plague of locusts I would accept with some despair, but good sir, you have sent us Congress! Was that really fair?" -1776 the Musical.
Anyways VK, democracy or not, God will respect your rights as he always has. He gave them to you. To him, tyranny is an abomination. -
There's no more "free will" once Judgment day is over, though. You either obey, or God kills you until you die from it. The disobedient will not inherit God's kingdom.
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@Anok: But what is God's will? Is it a totalitarian code of every action, breath, and move you make, or merely a set of rules and occasional interventions when situations get out of hand? And does it involve "mental labor?" And does the need for judgement end because we are unable to make another choice or because, as I know the Apostle Paul believed, the mind is expanded and enlightened to the point where sin becomes a laughable suggestion? IOW, it's not so much free will as faith and the need for belief that goes away.
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It doesn't matter what God's will is. It could be that everyone must learn to paint, or everyone must obey all 3,000 of his rules to the letter, or everyone must obey a few important rules, or everyone must wear pink on Saturdays.
The point is that if you don't follow his will - you will suffer eternal death, by his hand. There is no real choice to disobey once judgment day is over. You may choose eternal death during judgment day by choosing to disobey God's will - but once you've made the choice to obey - there is no going back on it. You MUST obey at that point.
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Anyways jflower, you really should reread my posts. I think you might have missed the point.
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I would agree with you Anok. The whole free will thing is blown way out of proportion. Jeremy I see I did misunderstood you a little. I thought you were speaking of heaven, but see now that you aren't.
I'm not too concerned about what John Adams thinks though. Now if you gave me something to substantiate your point from the bible then I would take more notice. But I'm 100% positive that you won't find anything in the bible about there ever being a democracy....lol
And honestly, there is so much in the bible that goes contrary to the theory of free will that it's not even funny. I'm not saying we don't have free will, because we do, but it's not exactly at the forefront of what the bible teaches.
I kind of chose not to go there before because it opens up another whole can of worms. -
[I'm not too concerned about what John Adams thinks though. Now if you gave me something to substantiate your point from the bible then I would take more notice.]
I'm not too concerned about what scripture says though. Now if you gave me something to substantiate your point from non-scriptural or scripture-derived sources then I would take more notice.
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LOL. What's your idea of a scripture-derived source?
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@jflower: It's a sarcastic joke, though you did kind of ask for it. Hell is hell, period. If democracy did exist there, it would be some kind of pecuiliar torment, much as it is in our society.
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@jflower:
"And honestly, there is so much in the bible that goes contrary to the theory of free will that it's not even funny. I'm not saying we don't have free will, because we do, but it's not exactly at the forefront of what the bible teaches."
Really? Tell me this. Why does God tolerate so much of his creation going to hell and being destroyed? But even greater then this, the BIBLE IS 1200 PAGES LONG! If God did not value freedom, he wouldn't enlighten us on that high of a level, or give that many rules. The bible would have one commandment: "Listen to your holy spirit" and that would be it. The two great commandments are entirely about shaping, rather then removing, free will. And that entire sermon that contains the parable of the talents, along with really, in the end, all of Jesus's parables are about using your free will wisely.
Actually jflower, if what you said about the talents was true, these lines would have been omitted:
24Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed:
25And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.
26His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed:
27Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury.
This servant is criticized most of all for not using his free will correctly. His master gave him no instructions. You take a very extreme and dangerous viewpoint that free-will can only exist in the absence of rules. -
Woah!
I never said anything about free will only existing in the absence of rules. I'm not sure how you came up with that.
As far as the parable of the talents, I agree that there is free will involved here, but that doesn't mean that this parable is about free will. It's clearly about talents, which is why it is called the parable of the talents. God has given us gifts/skills/possessions, etc. and we are responsible to serve Him. That's what it is about. Free will is a tool used, but it's not the moral of the story.
O.k., I really REALLY didn't want to go here...but since I'm put in the position of having to defend what I'm saying then I will give you some examples. Again, I am not saying we don't have free will. I agree that God has given us free will. But there is another side of the coin that you are overlooking.
Example #1
Jesus said that we didn't choose Him, but He choose us.
John 15:16
" You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.
Example #2
God hardens hearts and softens them, which changes what choices we make. That means that free will is compromised here.
The bible says that God hardened Pharoah's heart so that he continually made choices against the Israelites. Yes he still had free will but God hardened his heart, settling the decision.
Romans 9:18
Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
Exodus 9:12
And the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not listen to them, just as the LORD had spoken to Moses.
Example #3
God can change a heart and turn it wherever he wants. Sounds like free will might be compromised here.
Proverbs 21:1
The king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD;
He turns it wherever He wishes.
Example #4
God chose us before the foundation of the world
Ephesians 1:4
just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him In love
Example #5
Free will only exists in the confines of God drawing us first
John 6:44
"No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.
He said it again
John 6:65
And He was saying, "For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father."
Ephesians 1:4
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
Example #6
Justification happens after a calling from God....not to say that free will isn't involved, but the calling comes first.
Romans 8:30
And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
Example #7
God prepared good works for us to do in advance. If they were planned in advanced, where is the free will? Again, I'm not saying it doesn't exist but we can't overlook that God planned them ahead of time.
Ephesians 2:10
For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do
I could list more, but my sister is bugging me to go to the store with her, so I will leave it at 7 for now. -
@jflower: First, parables about many things. If they weren't, he would just say explicitly. My problem, jflower, is that you have decided to ignore an entire part of the parable, the conversation with the master, which clearly is ABOUT free-will.
As for your examples, there are other places in the bible where it says very explicitly that "It is God's will that EVERYONE be saved" and that Pharoah was given several opportunities to repent before that time. As for Pharoah's heart being hardened, I find that very questionable and wonder if it is not trying to describe something on a higher level about the basic nature of people. I also know that the book of Genesis seems to say the opposite in Cain & Abel. I wonder also if the actual words in Hebrew said something very different that could not be translated to English and have read a companion to the bible, "The Hebrew New Testament," that seems to indicate they did. As for "Good works prepared in Advance," God lives above time in the Eternal Present. As a fairly mundane experiment with light waves can show you, time is indeed a dimension. Saying that we are God's workmanship is a fairly mundane suggestion and obvious; the fact that we have free-will says something about God.
In any case, Hell, a Loving God, and Predestination in the sense of an absence of free-will are UNRECONCILABLE on any level. It is only in the acceptance that God time travels and sees ahead that those lines make any sense. Paul did not understand perfectly, as neither do I or you, but the development of Relativity and Relativistic philosophy (Time as a dimension) under Einstein & Saint Augustine shed considerable light here. -
To clarify my last point, I'm saying that what we know today makes it easier for us to understand then it was in Paul's time. I apologize if I sounded too catty in the last response.
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Back to the topic: "It is the religion commandments in the Constitution which should be hung on every court room wall, posted and taught in every American public school, and monumentalized throughout America, not the religion commandments of Moses or of any religion," p. 19, The Religion Commandments in the Constitution: A Primer.
In the USA, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and it contains three religion commandments: "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States (Art. 6.), "make no law respecting an establishment of religion," or "prohibiting the free exercise thereof (First Amendment)." The word "religion" includes the whole subject thereof. The point is: in the USA religion is to be voluntary. Government is the essence of coercion, thus, religion is not the business of government at any level. Nonetheless, the free exercise commandment is not a license for anarchy. Not one word of the Constitution authorizes anarchy.
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