The Source of Republicanism!

In my last article “The Soul of Republicanism” two items sparked controversy in the discussions the article spawned. One being some taking umbrage at my giving praise to David Barton at the end of my article.

Apparently, there is criticism aimed at Barton’s work, accusations of misrepresentation and lying. The criticism comes most often from those who hate the very idea of our nation having Christian origins.

I was unaware of these criticisms and I will investigate them for myself! I have read enough directly from the Founders themselves -- apart from Barton’s work -- to stand behind the Christian premise.

The other item was a statement I made within the text of the article:

"However, it does not follow that because we have religious freedom in America, all faiths are equally valid, or are equally useful in determining American morality or political thought."

I was asked in a thread to clarify this statement. Before I had the chance to respond, a reader did an excellent job of explaining it for me. Mark Pepin wrote:

“I'll take a stab at it and see if Hassan and I agree. It will also be added clarification for RHS: My understanding of that statement is that the founding of this nation, being dominated by Christian thought, was intended to support the morality of the Christian religion. Not all religions have morality systems that are equal to Christianity, and therefore, not all should be favored. The fact is, many of our laws come straight from the Bible, while others are derived from Biblical thought.”

I do indeed agree – Mark gave a very good explanation of my statement. I’m afraid I originally failed if my statement was not universally understood in the context Mark affirms, I thought it was clear cut. I will however go further than Mark’s clarification since the question affords me the opportunity to so.

Truth is, there is an exclusion of any other faith besides Christianity in the founding principles used in determining our system of government. (Note that I am saying “faith,” there were civil considerations. After all, the Founders did not invent republicanism).

If you assign equal validity to the world’s various faith traditions, you effectively invalidate them all. We can all be wrong, but as they all contradict each other, logically, we cannot all be right.

I have said this before in various discussions over the years, primarily with atheists. It is impossible for man to have created God. Man does not currently, nor has he ever had, the power to create ex nihilo “out of nothing”. Everything man has produced has a frame of reference. There could be no god concept apart from God having first revealed Himself to man.

If God revealed Himself to man it is prima facie that He did so in a particular way. It is the responsibility of man to determine the way. Creation itself is the only safe objective medium to use in determining which tradition is reliably the way God revealed Himself.

In other words, the tradition whose source makes the most accurate statements about the universe and reality is most likely the Creator of the universe. The source most adept at describing man’s nature objectively as opposed to the way man wishes to see himself, is the Creator of man.

The God of the Holy Bible expresses this in what amounts to a challenge to man and all who would espouse false beliefs. It is a recurring theme in the Holy Bible:

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.” Psalm 19:1

The Psalm goes on to describe the movement of the sun, declaring that only God could put such a thing in action.

“Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: “ Romans 1:19,20

The God of the Holy Bible is saying examine the world and compare it to what I have revealed to you. Many of history’s greatest scientists understood this and expressed as much.

In a beautiful letter to his wife Maria Christina, Nobel Laureate in Physics, Guglielmo Marconi wrote:

“I know how much you love and cherish the beautiful Nature - the expression of God’s Will - where one can find the ideal eternal values: the Truth, the Beauty and the Good (and you possess the three of them). The harmonious unity of causes and laws forms the Truth; the harmonious unity of lines, colors, sounds, and ideas forms the Beauty; while the harmony of emotions and the will forms the Good, which in being the ultimate expression of the Eternal and Supreme Creator brings man to completion and drives us to seek absolute perfection.”

He also stated:

“The more I work with the powers of Nature, the more I feel God’s benevolence to man; the closer I am to the great truth that everything is dependent on the Eternal Creator and Sustainer [Creatore e Reggitore Eterno]; the more I feel that the so-called ‘science’ I am occupied with is nothing but an expression of the Supreme Will, which aims at bringing people closer to each other in order to help them better understand and improve themselves.”

Physics Nobel Laureate Arno Penzias, in a statement to the New York Times on March 12, 1978 on the Big Bang Theory remarked:

“The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted, had I had nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole.”

Nobel Laureate in Physics, William Phillips in a letter to T. Dimitrov May 19th, 2002; in reply to several questions as to whether he believed in the existence of God:

“I believe in God. In fact, I believe in a personal God who acts in and interacts with the creation. I believe that the observations about the orderliness of the physical universe, and the apparently exceptional fine-tuning of the conditions of the universe for the development of life suggest that an intelligent Creator is responsible. …I believe in God because of a personal faith, a faith that is consistent with what I know about science.”

There can only be one truth and therefore only one good source to base our society on. The Founders understood that premise back in the 18th century. If one takes a practical look by eliminating the idealistic, when engaged in comparative theological study, you have to determine that there are many false religions in the world, but only one that lines up with reality.

Not all faiths can be equally valid because all faiths do not equally reflect reality. Why would God tell the Hebrews the earth is round and that it hangs in space, but then tell the Hindus the earth is flat and it sits on the backs of elephants standing on turtles? Why give one group the more accurate, demonstrable truth and lie to another group?

Why tell the Muslim the sun sets in a pool of mud and slime? If the Qur’an gets that wrong, if it is wrong on natural things, why should I believe what the Islamic god says about the supernatural. If Allah gives false reports about creation, and the tangible, how can I believe him when it comes to my soul and the intangible?

The wanton barbarity of those who follow the Qur’an strictly and the tragic state of affairs in Islamic nations, who base their laws on the Qur’an’s brand of morality, stand as a testament to this truth, particularly as it pertains to human rights.

Plainly, if you do not think it would be pleasant to live under Sharia, which is based on the faith of Islam, then Islam is not morally equal to the faith that served as the source of American republicanism.

If you chafe at the very idea of living under a caste system like the one India employs, inspired by the Vedas. A system where people starve under the feet of a fat, well fed, and I might add tasty and nutritious “sacred cow”, working out karmic destiny, then Hinduism is simply not an equally valid source to structure a society around.

Nor is a lack of religious conviction a good starting point for government. One merely has to look at societies founded upon humanism and secularism to see that an atheistic perspective can be down right deadly on a massive scale.

The horrors of the French revolution; the tens of millions slaughtered by atheistic socialism in Soviet Russia; Communist China; and sundry other socialist Asian states. Let’s not forget, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara’s nightmarish excesses. Even Hitler’s Nazism like the others, was based on naturalism at it’s core and the list goes on and on.

If there is a God, as it seems logical to assume, then as He says-there is also an adversary working against man. The Adversary, like man lacks the ability to create from nothing, but he is very good at inspiring man to do what is counter to man’s own well being.

It is the Adversary that inspires atheism and false religions and, therefore, the faulty human states including the ones our Founders fled.

I could site example after example! All those lands and others are hemorrhaging people and those people are coming where? Here! Whether you accept Christianity or not; whether you find David Barton an honest broker or not. The premise of “The Soul of Republicanism” is sound and worth remembering!

Digital Publius

The Truth Is Out There!

By Digital Publius Blogspot

The truth is indeed out there, if you are inclined towards it, it can be found. The problem is not that the truth is or is not knowable, but rather that it is so often ignored when it conflicts with ones deeply held ideologies. This is the case often, when you endeavor to hold civil discourse with those that lean more towards their ideologies than reality and who are committed to remaking the world into a reflection of those ideologies despite the truth. This is how I would define the average liberal.

Interestingly enough, not all Democrats are liberals. Many of the people who vote Democrat that I know, share the same conservative values that I proudly trumpet. Unfortunately; there is a disconnect, they can’t see that when they support the Democratic party for the social issues they may believe to be virtuous, you become a de facto liberal because you cannot support the party of affirmative action without supporting the unGodly party of abortion on demand and Gay marriage.

Where your average liberal is often favorably disposed towards irrational beliefs and doctrines of devils, your average Democrat is simply to lazy or racist to look into the truth as they have made up their minds based on those aforementioned ideologies. Democrats however can on occasion be reached, yours truly would be an example of that particular truth. Democrats when confronted with the proof they are often to lazy to look into themselves, will on occasion admit that they were making a grave error when supporting a character like Barney Franks. They even sometimes, like me, become Ex-Democrats. A liberal never ever sees beyond the unicorns President Obama promised him he would have to ride around the autonomous collectives we will all live and work on.

For the liberals out there I’m joking about the President promising literal unicorns, I wish I could say that his actions thus far hadn’t made the autonomous collectives look so likely though.

As for racism, without it there would be no Democratic party. Racism drives the democratic party. You have the liberal Democrat, (White or Black) who is perhaps the most racist human being on earth who is so convinced of the inferiority of the minorities in America (even when he is one) he is compelled to help them by lowering standards so they can compete with there betters. This of course ends when it comes to rubber meeting the road programs like school vouchers where it would put their little Suzy in direct contact with a child from a family really seeking to improve that child’s lot by allowing them to contend on an even playing field, can’t have that.

Then you have the Original Democrats, these are folks that know the origin of the Democratic party. They know that it was the Democrats who started the Klu Klux Klan, with the express purpose of terrorizing black voters and to keep them from voting for the party that freed them. The O.D.s are the ones that still remember it was the Democrats during the civil rights movement that turned on the fire hoses and loosed the dogs on the civil rights activists in the 50s and 60s. It was the Democrats that raised the Confederate battle flag over all the municiple buildings in the south.

The O.D.s know that the party simply changed tactics when they lost the civil rights struggle, instead of beating and lynching people, they began to implement programs that stemmed the tide of independent minority progress both socially and economically, while appearing to be the party of the black man. Since we began to vote en masse for the democrats can we as the black community honestly say we are better off? With 70 percent of our children now being born out of wedlock and the highest teen pregnancy rate in the country? With our young men disproportionately represented in the nations jails and prisons and killing themselves in violent criminal activity in staggering numbers? This was not the case during my parents time nor was it the case when I was a kid in the 70’s when the liberal programs were just getting started, we are only now really seeing the bitter harvests that those programs are yielding.

Then you have the Black Democrat who if he is an elected official just may fall under the liberal umbrella depending on the level of indoctrination he fell victim to, I think our President falls under this category. The other elected official category is the Black Democrat who knows these programs are no good for the black community but he has sold himself out to the O.D.s for special favors. These are the real house negroes in the black community and they are represented in large numbers.

The Black Democrats are ofttimes virulently racist as well, so racist in fact that they do not think themselves capable of racism. I have heard such nonsensical rhetoric as, it is impossible for the black man to be racist because we don’t have the power to impose our racism institutionally. Let that be a comfort to you white folks if your Beamer stalls out on the corner of Mack and Beewick in Detroit and you are not their buying drugs.

The Black Democrat votes for the party primarily because they believe the Republican party is the party of white folks. The Democratic party has worked tirelessly to foster that belief and the Republican party has done little to combat that perception, despite a rich history of being the true party of equality.

Democrats can sometimes be reached with facts, liberals are completely indifferent to them, unless of course in those rare occasions where those facts have the virtue of agreeing with their varying realities.

I wrote an article last election day entitled, “The Bush Economy and the Politics of Ignorance”, which illustrated the unfortunate propensity liberals and democrats have to ignore empiricism in favor of rhetoric, emotionalism and racism if you haven’t read it you may find it worthy of your attention, I do hope everyone who voted democrat in that election reads it, as well as an article I wrote called, “Rahm and Hegel Sittin’ in a Tree K.I.S.S.I.N.G.” which includes a timeline of President Bush’s statements in warning of the then coming financial crisis and his attempts to stave it off. These articles and the following C-Span video offer enough evidence of the culpability of the Democrats in the collapse of Fannie and Freddie which triggered this economic malaise that Obama’s policies are only deepening.

It is time to stop calling this financial crisis the Bush economy and place it at the feet of those who truly are responsible. Democratic voters wake up! Liberals, well, take another Percocet.

Behold, You desire truth in the inner being; make me therefore to know wisdom in my inmost heart. Psalm 51: 6