Here in the US, we have recently been diverted by the spectacle of a state Supreme Court judge defying the orders of a federal court in order to violate the Constitution. The state judge refused to move a gigantic copy of the Ten Commandments from the courthouse, where its prominent placement and enormous size at least arguably amounted to “the [state] establishment of religion” in violation of the US Constitution. Now, this is just the sort of topic that seems to exert an irresistible compulsion on people to wander off into the tall grass of irrelevance, so I will leave aside the legalistic arguments about whether the placement of the Ten Commandments actually violated the First Amendment to the US Consitution as applied to the states via the doctrine of incorporation (and I beg the commenters to do likewise).
While there are subcultures in the US that could undoubtedly recite all ten, I daresay most US citizens could not, although they are widely held in a kind of iconic way to represent the root of law and morality. Indeed, the claim that they are an historical source of US law was made in the campaign to keep them in the courthouse. Christopher Hitchens takes a look at what the Commandments actually say, and concludes that they don’t have much to do with morality or modern law at all.
The first four of the commandments have little to do with either law or morality, and the first three suggest a terrific insecurity on the part of the person supposedly issuing them. I am the lord thy god and thou shalt have no other … no graven images … no taking of my name in vain: surely these could have been compressed into a more general injunction to show respect. The ensuing order to set aside a holy day is scarcely a moral or ethical one . . . .
There has never yet been any society, Confucian or Buddhist or Islamic, where the legal codes did not frown upon murder and theft. These offenses were certainly crimes in the Pharaonic Egypt from which the children of Israel had, if the story is to be believed, just escaped. So the middle-ranking commandments, of which the chief one has long been confusingly rendered “thou shalt not kill,” leave us none the wiser as to whether the almighty considers warfare to be murder, or taxation and confiscation to be theft.
In much the same way, few if any courts in any recorded society have approved the idea of perjury, so the idea that witnesses should tell the truth can scarcely have required a divine spark in order to take root. To how many of its original audience, I mean to say, can this have come with the force of revelation? Then it’s a swift wrap-up with a condemnation of adultery (from which humans actually can refrain) and a prohibition upon covetousness (from which they cannot). To insist that people not annex their neighbor’s cattle or wife “or anything that is his” might be reasonable, even if it does place the wife in the same category as the cattle, and presumably to that extent diminishes the offense of adultery. But to demand “don’t even think about it” is absurd and totalitarian . . . .
It just goes to show that it never hurts to periodically reexamine first principles. With a little luck, I can probably get through the week without violating more than six (and no, it is none of your business which six).
Religion is utter junk, nasty fairy stories for morons. Religion has about as much ethical insight and divine guidence as an episode of Crossroads.
Now, now… be nice. Always respect another persons beliefs unless they attempt to force them on you.
Then you can shoot back.
For your information: the Ten Commandments tell you how to behave to members of your own tribe – not to humanity as a whole. As John Hartung pointed out in a pathbreaking essay in ‘The Skeptic’ some years ago, it’s all a matter of in-group versus out-group morality.
Here’s a long quotation (sorry, but it’s worth the read) from Hartung’s essay:
“In context, neighbor meant “the children of thy people,” “the sons of your own people,” “your countrymen” — in other words, fellow in-group members. Specific laws which follow from the love law can be better understood by keeping the in-group definition of neighbor in mind. Consider the proto-legal portion of The Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5:17-21; JPS ’17 & KJV):
Thou shalt not kill.
Neither shalt thou commit adultery.
Neither shalt thou steal.
Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Neither shall you covet your neighbor’s wife; and you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor’s.
And add the realization that the scrolls from which these words were translated have no periods, no commas, and no first-word capitalization. Decisions about where sentences and paragraphs begin and end are courtesy of the translator. Accordingly, instead of being written as five separate paragraphs of one sentence each, without changing any of the words, Deuteronomy 5:17-21 could be translated:
Thou shalt not kill, neither shalt thou commit adultery, neither shalt thou steal, neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour. Neither shall you covet your neighbor’s wife, and you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor’s.
Here the question, “Thou shalt not kill who?” is answered “Thou shalt not kill thy neighbor — the children of thy people, your countrymen, your fellow in-group member. ”
And to enlighten the adolescent ‘ladyboy’: religion may be junk from the scientific angle, but it’s great stuff if you’re a bit of DNA. And Islam, garbage though it may be, is – in evolutionary terms – a true instantiation of the survival of the fittest.
Source:
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/toexist/ltnhome.html
Charles, you say you want to enlighten me, but I can’t understand your point. You say that religion and Islam are junk and garbage but that it is survival of the fittest, what are you talking about?
George Carlin’s take on the 10 Commandments:
http://www.geocities.com/bobmelzer/gc10cx.html
Charles,
That’s dead interesting. The obvious question that follows is: did Moses claim that there were ten commendments or just some commandments? Did we enumerate them retrospectively?
hitchens nailed that one. he can be brilliant at times.
I have yet to see a brief, clear presentation of the basis for the federal court’s order that includes what statutory or constitutional provision required the removal of the monument.
The constitution’s mention of religion is limited to the first amendment and a prohibition against religious tests for holding public office.
The latter does not seem to apply here, so I look to the first amendment, and am unconvinced that it applies.
I am unconvinced that the monument has much of anything to do with “an establishment of religion” in any way I can reasonably interpret it.
Reasonable people may differ, of course – but I would like to know that the federal court had some basis for their order other than, essentially, “because we said so”.
I fear such a precedent rather more than I fear a tacky monument…
Ladyboy:
The point is this:
Dumb people who believe that Allah or the Lord gets real upset when you put a condom on your willy or make sure the chick is on the pill or has fitted a Dutch cap tend to produce more offspring than smartasses like you (or Richard Dawkins, or humanists or secularists in general, including myself) who focus on the recreational rather than the procreational angle of jiggy-jig, of putting the leg over, of slipping it in, of giving her the full kilo …..
The dumbos have more kids.
Ergo, great for their genes.
The brights have fewer, or none at all.
Thus died Ancient Greek civilisation, thus died pagan Rome — and now it’s our civilisation’s turn to push up the daisies.
Besides, Polybius said it all, way back in the second century BC:
“The fact is that the people of Hellas had entered the false path of ostentation, avarice and laziness, and were therefore becoming unwilling to marry, or, if they did marry, to bring up the children born to them; the majority were only willing to bring up at most one or two, in order to leave them wealthy and to spoil them in their childhood…”
(quoted from Itzkoff, ‘The Decline of Intelligence in America’, page 197).
Now extrapolate from the current Muslim global population to the year 2010, 2120, etc.
*******
Squander Two: thanks for expressing your interest — but I’m out of my depth as regards answering your question. Honest. Haven’t a clue. Though of course as far as a good Catholic is concerned, there are really only TWO commandments: thou shall not commit adultery; thou shalt not imagine you’re screwing your neighbour’s wife or Sandra Bullock when in fact you’re screwing your own wife (or sumthin like that) ….
Charles,
I think that you are unduly pessimistic about the future of Western civilization. You are, of course, correct in that the higher reproductive rates in the Islamic world constitute an advantage, and, were culture strictly genetic, you’d be right in the conclusion that we are doomed. However, this is not so, particularly with respect to American culture.
American culture, of course, is largely a descendent of English culture, however, English genes constitute a quite small proportion of American genes. The United States has, in the past, effectively inculturated populations with Polish, Italian, Greek, Japanese, Jewish, German, etc. etc. genetic constitutions. These days, of course, the largest slice of possibly-assimiatees are Hispanic (some combination of Spanish and Amerind genes). Of course, not everything is running exactly smoothly in this regard, but it never has. Success is not guaranteed, but I’m optimistic, despite the best efforts of the multicultis.
Bearing in mind that,
(1) Having kids at much more than the replacement rate is not the only way to perpetuate and expand the culture,
(2) Exponential growth in the Islamic world is not likely to last in the long-term, as there are only so many people who can be biologically supported, and
(3) Even ignoring immigration, American birthrates are sufficiently high that a large decay in the actual number of people here is unlikely,
I think it’s rather unwarranted to assume that we will lose the ‘civilization war’, which I do agree with you, is real, particularly if we can get a handle on the multicultis, who I perceive as the more severe of these two threats. The higher Islamic birthrate is an obstacle, but not an insuperable one.
Note: I’m American, so I know American dynamics the best. From my understanding, similar arguments apply, in varying degrees, to Canada and Australia as well, and possibly other nations.
“While there are subcultures in the US that could undoubtedly recite all ten, I daresay most US citizens could not.” Where are you from again? Most people where I live certainly can. When propositioned by a married man one ordinary response here is to say, can’t sorry that’s “Top Ten.” This phrase is common. I think you are being far too general with your assessment.
I understand why you don’t want to get into Lemmon (sp? haven’t looked at case since Con Law II in law school) et al. and won’t go there. However, as a general proposition, its much more frightening to me when people try and erase basic western history than when they acknowledge it.
I think Hitchens read this page on my site
http://biblequiz.freeservers.com/PgsTmb/Chs/ch20.html#ten.
If fundamentalists want to show how the Bible was used as the foundation of American society, perhaps they could cite some verses extolling democracy, liberty, freedom to practice any religion, constitutional limitations on government authority, etc. Unfortunately, there ain’t any. (Read the whole chapter: http://biblequiz.freeservers.com/PgsTmb/Chs/ch20.html#top
This was the most foolish and arrogant attempt at penning a perspective I’ve yet to see from the members of this weblog. I certainly hope this fellow is visiting on a green card but I’m afraid that the mention of the State of Wisconsin is a dead giveaway. Madison, WI I would assume. Not only did this putz entirely gloss over the Fist Amendment ramifications and fail to include a historical marker but he compares the debate to “wandering off into the tall grass of irrelevance”. This is what passes for Libertarian thinking in Wisconsin? I don’t think so. This is Leftism dusted off and fitted with a few new buzz words.
What is irrelevant is a Libertine Leftist’s opinion of the ten commandments. I sure wish these goofy internet infidels would do their homework before shooting off their mouth. But if this in fact the representative view of Libertarians here in the USA and abroad then I can guarantee you that what is good about Libertarianism will never see the light of day, not in the USA. I might be wrong about this, but if those principle don’t catch on here first they will not catch on anywhere else in the world. And that’s only the earthbound reason trashing God is the same as cutting your own throats. Laugh all you want Englishmen, but your attitude toward God these last several decades has a lot to do with the chains of State that bind you. We all have to serve somebody. It would seem to me you’ve chosen your Master.
Amelia:
I live in Wisconsin these days. I grew up in the Bible Belt (N. Texas). I would bet that, as a geographical matter, many people in the Bible Belt could recite all ten, but certainly in New England and the Left Coast many could not. Other areas would be mixed bags. I’m just guessing anyway – before I read the article, I could probably have hit 8 of the 10 off the top of my head.
I would suggest that any reference to the Ten Commandments as “Top Ten” would be an indication that you are in one of the religious subcultures.
NC3:
Chill, dude. I have read a number of threads on this topic that were nothing but arguments on incorporation and the establishment clause, and I thought a little different perspective might be in order. Post a link, write a comment, or submit a post to the Samzdatistas if you want more on the First and Fourteenth Amendments. For my purposes here, the legalistic arguments would be irrelevant; I wanted people to think a bit about what the Top Ten actually say and how relevant they really are to modern life.
FWIW, I tend to think that you have to do a bit more than park a big ol’copy of the “Top Ten” in the lobby to establish a religion. I was mostly amused at Hitchens’ take on the Ten Commandments. I frankly hadn’t given them much thought for years, and was somewhat surprised to be reminded that most of them don’t have anything at all to do with the law in the US, and would in fact be unconstitutional if anyone were to enact them into law.
There is undoubtedly lots to be said about the place of religious and nonreligious morality in a libertarian society. While I am not a Christian, I suspect that many of my social attitudes would surprise you, and I will punch you in the nose if you call me a Leftist to my face.
S. Weasel:
!
The Ten Comdmts. uproar could have been solved without recourse to the 1st Amdt.
The Judge didn’t follow procedure for getting the monument properly installed in the copurt house.
End of case.
The deciding it on 1st Amdt. grounds indicates some sort of political agenda.
RCD: Well, I am assuming that you don’t commit murder very often, and if we interpret “bearing false witness” in a strict legal sense, I suspect you don’t commit perjury on a regular basis either. Hopefully you don’t steal things very often either, although you probably take pens home from the office or something, so it probably depends on how strict we want to be. So that’s three. As for the fourth you break, the question is whether you commit adultery or dishonour your parents…. My very lefty parents probably think I dishonour them by writing for Samizdata……
” I wanted people to think a bit about what the Top Ten actually say and how relevant they really are to modern life.”
Bob,
I have to learn to chill no doubt but the above quote just shows me that you’re not the kind of person who can be trusted with preserving freedom. The Framers made that quite clear. The Ten Commandments are the ground rules for mans relationship to God and mans relationship to man. If you don’t understand that and can see how it is relevant to life today just as it was 5000 years ago then I’d say you’re a walking talking proof against Evolution Theory as are 99.999% of the theory’s proponents. Some people never learn.
Don’t take the Leftist comment too seriously but the fact is Libertines and Leftist have a lot in common and neither are fit to rule a free nation. And don’t tell me Libertarians wouldn’t rule if they got the chance.
As far as punching me in the nose…a noble and manly sentiment, but when was the last time you ever heard of a Wisconsin cheese eater opening a can of whup-ass on a Texan? And I don’t want to hear about Green Bay…they don’t count. HA!
Again, ignoring the legality of the situation, I think this is an interesting take on what the ten commandments mean with regards to US culture and ideologies.
Ron-
Admittedly I am in the deep South. However, first heard “Top Ten” while at a University which, while located in deep the South, was 45% Catholic, 45% Jewish and 10% other Protestant so not really representative of the bible belt. Most people I knew were Reform Jewish or really relaxed Catholics, but I wouldn’t call them secular. I went to boarding school in VA which still South but not Bible Belt at fairly high church Episcopalian school and if you managed to get through the four, count them FOUR- chapels a week without learning the ten commandments you would have to have been suffering from severe narcolepsy. I just don’t think that America’s historically or currently all that secular.
I understand the anger of the prior poster somewhat. To me trying to erase religion from the public square is intellectually dishonest. The Bible is part of Western Civ. period. In order to major in English lit at my college had to take the Bible I and II otherwise wouldn’t get the references in the texts. These classes BTW where taught by a wonderful man who used to smoke during class and then ash in his coffee cup, then drink it and yell at the class not to let him do that. BUT I am wondering off into the high grass here. With regard to C. Hitchen’s article, yes, of course, other religions had similar values, but if he thinks that there were many Hindus or Muslims running around the thirteen colonies he is suffering from a bad case of revisionism. And with regard to guy above who thinks that the bible has not affected modern American Law and/or history I suggest you read the works of the Rev. Martin Luther King for one.
What irks me most and some of the above posters seem to fall into this category is the attitude that if you believe that Judeo/Christian values are a part of Western Civilization you are some sort of fundamentalist weirdo. If you, shudder, actually believe in God you are mocked.
The above does not make much sense but have dinner date at very good steak restaurant and have no time to revise. Apologies.
Robert,
What I find interesting about the Top Ten debate is the enormous popular support Judge Moore enjoys. He was elected to his post exclusively on this issue. I’m not terribly religious, but the sight of grandmothers being literally dragged out of the Alabama courthouse in chains, broke my heart.
I favor freedom, and that includes religious freedom. If people want to engage in symbolic gestures of faith in the public square, I don’t think that oppresses anyone else.
It seems to me that America is periodically seized by a crisis of intolerance whereby the machinery of government is used to enforce conformity. The Salem witch trials, anti-Catholic laws at the turn of the century, anti-Communism laws in the 1950’s, are all examples of that.
Today, organizations like the inappropriately named ACLU are expending every effort to make atheism the official state religion–to strip people of the right to say things like “God bless you”. A military color guard was recently fired for saying “God bless you and all your family, and God bless the United States of America” when presenting the flag to a widow at a military funeral (the Cubbage case).
In American society, religion has become politically incorrect–it has become a byword for ignorance and intolerance. I think it is our duty to protect people of faith, and to stand for their right to express that faith publicly.
NC3,
Why don’t you just type “I’M A CHRISTIAN!” twenty times or so?
I think most people tend to fail to distinguish between religion per se and parts of the culture that have originated in or been propogated by religion but are not necessarily religious in themselves. The Ten Commandments are like that: they’re a part of our history and culture, regardless of which religion happened to come up with them. If Judaism and Christianity both had gone the way of the ancient Greek gods and were no more, the Ten Commandments would still be an important part of our culture.
Hitchens writes brilliantly as usual, but I think he misses a fundamental point (more likely, he’s well aware of this point but chooses not to mention it). The Commandments’ relevence lies not so much in what they actually command as in the way in which they command it: they established firm law by which a society should rule itself. We can trace the beginnnings of our legal system back to them. Yes, we can trace back even further than that, but the Ten Commandments, largely by dint of their sheer catchiness, occupy a special place in our consciousness. The Pharaohs may have had law, but they never gave it rhythm. It doesn’t matter whether it would be a good idea to enforce the Commandments by law today, any more than it matters whether everyone who travels to the USA uses the same form of transport as Columbus. What matters is the very idea of firm established rules that apply equally to everyone in our society, with no exceptions.
And I’m an atheist.
Abby, are you the same Abby as the delightful liar who posed as a seeker in our Yahoo atheist chatroom and then posted out-of-context quotes from a high-minded philosophical discussion to attempt to show that we were some sort of lowlifes?
If so, you failed, girl. We don’t hold it against you, though. We’re used to your sort of chicanery. All too used to it.
Speedwell,
I can assure you that I had no idea there was an athiest chatroom, on Yahoo or anywhere else.
If athiests want to get together and discuss their athieism, they are as welcome to do so as the religious are to go to church. I support both.
What I will not do is watch silently while one group of you fanatics oppresses the other. You and your athiest chaters cannot be allowed to persecute the religious for their faith, nor can they be allowed to harrass you for your unbelief.
That said, if you don’t want to be percieved as a low-life then don’t flail around making hysterical accusations at strangers.
I have come to expect astute, perceptive commentary from Mr. Hitchens and so was disappointed to see him issue such a superficial opinion. In the very first sentence he states that the first four commandments have little to do with law or morality. Beyond the obvious fact that they are one of the first codifications of law anywhere in the heritage of western civilization, they entail some of the most fundamental philosophical principles necessary to the formation, not only of a body of law, but also of a vibrant constitutional republic that hopes to grow toward its ideals of truth, liberty, and justice.
The very idea that the law is more than the king’s whim and sword say it is, the very idea that the people should be aspiring to something better than euchring their neighbors out of their property or liberty, the very idea that our hearts, minds and souls should be aimed at higher things than becoming the richest kid on the block, all of these find their first expression in the Ten Commandments.
Any intelligent atheist should be capable of recognizing that God, however hypothetical or invisible, is not a person, but a supernatural supreme being, not prone to human insecurity, or to petty foibles such as sarcasm or misplaced “ad hominem” ridicule. The basic idea, both requirement and invitation, expressed in the first four commandments is much more than “show respect.” It’s a little more like, “Quit blaming me when a donkey steps on your foot, quit giving me the credit when you murder your neighbor and take his cattle, quit barbecuing children in front of lumps of clay to get it to rain, take a day to lift your eyes from the goat turds that surround you, raise them and your mind to the heavens, shed your tails and begin the millenia long process of growing into people who are beautiful and dignified in my sight.” Morals and ethics are interwoven throughout the Ten Commandments, even the fourth. Taking a day off from working, partying, scheming, etc. to spend it worshipping, praying, thinking about and discussing God’s word and law is all about morals and ethics. If Chris can’t see that, then all he has convinced me of is that he’s a bit of a slow study.
Time and consideration for my host’s bandwidth keep me from going on at length. Suffice it to say, Chris, that your intelligence and education are not well reflected in your article. In order to conduct a civil discourse and a sound argument, you should try something a little more elegant than constructing a straw god and then kicking it to pieces.
I was sorry to see the kerfluffle over the Decalogue Monument obscure the efforts of Alabama Governor Riley to overhaul the state’s antiquated tax code and improve its legendarily bad schools, efforts that will be voted on by the voters this month.
I know it is out of place to mention this on a libertarian site, since it involves neither drugs nor sex, or even guns. But whether Riley is successful or not will make a tangible difference for good or ill in the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. No one anywhere has yet been able to point to a single tangible thing that keeping the Monument where it was or moving it elsewhere would accomplish.
This man used them for his own political means. As a Christian I am ashamed of him. The people who stood outside and protested the move are, to me, just short of an American Taliban. I have had this problem with certain members in my own church. I simply wish to let people live with the beliefs they want. As long as it does not hurt someone or keeps me from my beliefs, I say go for it. But keep it out of the gov.
Just to review, briefly, what Judge Roy Moore did;
He moved the Ten Commandments monument into the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court after hours in his capacity as a citizen, without the authority or consent of the Alabama Supreme Court or Legislature. Three ACLU attorneys (better attorneys, it appears, than Judge Raving Moonbat) rose to the bait, filing suit to have it removed. Testifying in this suit, Judge Real Moron avowed that the monument and his motive in placing it were both primarily religious rather than secular, thus making it a practical impossibility for the court to avoid ordering the removal of the monument. By remaing fatuously oblivious to the law on judicial procedure in constitutional cases, Judge Rollover More short-circuited his standing for any appeal. After, nevertheless, steadfastly exhausting the appeals process, Judge Royal Mountebank defied the lawful order of the court, virtually forcing the people who remove lunatics from public office in Alabama to begin misconduct hearings against him. I hope you’re proud of yourself, Yeronner.
Let’s see if I understand:
1) The first few Commandments have nothing to do with morality. For what reason he doesn’t care to say, but I suppose we’re to infer it from the fact that other ethical systems don’t include them.
2) Bans on murder, robbery, bearing false witness, and so on, are worthless because ethical systems always do include them, and they therefore don’t need to be singled out.
3) Rape, unlike murder, ought to be singled out for specific prohibition.
4) There are lots of other commandmends in the Mosaic law, including, he forgot to add, a specific prohibition on rape.
Charles Copeland, Squander Two;
I’m disappointed no one pointed out how incredibly ignorant the argument above is. It’s painfully obvious that not only did Hartung never study the Hebrew, he never even read it through in English.
Exodus 22:21; “Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
Leviticus 19:32-33; “And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.”
I believe that what Hartung missed was a very simple fact. Whether codified in the ten commandments, the law of hammurabi, or the sayings of buddha, without divine authority there is no morality. It would simply be one person’s opinion against another’s.
Most of the statements above were very eurudite and interesting. But they missed that very basic point. Without divine authority (whatever you hold that to be) there is no authority! Period!
Merlin;
It’s not so much divine authority as infallible or inerrent teaching on morality (which is, I admit, hardly conceivable apart from divine authority), because without it you can’t jump the is/ought divide. You can posit things like “you ought to be nice” or “you ought to follow rules that tend to establish the greatest good for the greatest number” or “everyone ought to have equal rights” or “you ought to respect others’ lives, liberties, and properties”. You just can’t give anyone proof they should agree.
(And, quibbling a little, if Hartung were erudite he would have known what he was talking about. He didn’t.)
“What irks me most and some of the above posters seem to fall into this category is the attitude that if you believe that Judeo/Christian values are a part of Western Civilization you are some sort of fundamentalist weirdo.”
I feel your irk. Undoubtedly Christianity had a vital part in the development of Western Civilisation, and Judaism is the father of Christianity. However, I’m not so sure that it’s Judeo-Christian values so much as Heleno-Christian values that really did the trick (including giving us modern forms of Judaism). We got where we are today through Christianity the democratised Greek mystery religion, not Christianity the millenarian Jewish sect.
The fundamentalist weirdos in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions all want the certainty of one variety or other of rigid desert monotheism. The syncretic and tolerant forms maintain a belief in one God but interpret their rulebooks broadly and partake of the spirit of the multi-national, riotously polythesitic, ancient empires.
Merlin,
> Whether codified in the ten commandments, the law of hammurabi, or the sayings of buddha, without divine authority there is no morality
So Christians keep telling us. Even if that were true (and it’s hardly as self-evidently obvious as Christians seem to think), it wouldn’t mean that we’d have to believe in God in order to be moral, any more than we have to believe in Prometheus in order to use fire.
And I take it you are aware that Buddhists don’t, as a rule, believe in a god?
> It would simply be one person’s opinion against another’s.
“One person’s opinion against another’s” is the rather brilliant mechanism by which the human race has achieved pretty much everything we’ve achieved. It got us to the Moon and back, and built these incredible microchip thingies we’re all using. When we know it can achieve such wonders, I don’t think it’s obvious that it can’t give us a simple moral code to live by. The onus is on you to prove it, not merely to assert it.
Incidentally, one of the great strengths of Christianity and Judaism is the inherent contradictions within the Bible. These contradictions have forced Judeo-Christian scholars to discuss morality at great length, honing and improving the moral code over a period of millennia. Modern Christian moral teaching, in other words, owes an awful lot to “one person’s word against another’s.”
Aaron,
> Bans on murder, robbery, bearing false witness, and so on, are worthless because ethical systems always do include them, and they therefore don’t need to be singled out.
Not what he said at all. He said that they’re perfectly good rules, but that they prohibit things that were already prohibited, and that history had demonstrated time and again that men are perfectly capable of coming up with these rules for themselves without a deity’s help. His point is that, if you’re going to get help from an omniscient omnipotent being, you’d think He could come up with something a bit more original than just “I disapprove of all that stuff you already disapprove of; I shall punish those whom you were going to punish anyway.” In other words, those Commandments aren’t particularly Christian, Jewish, or even religious. Now, if one of the Commandments had been “Thou shalt wash thy hands after thou go to the toilet and before every meal,” that would have been very impressive, and I’d be at least half convinced that some sort of divine revelation had taken place.
I normally like Christopher Hitchens, but sometimes the man just spews for the purpose of generating controversy and thereby name-recognition. This is one of those times, and a previous example was when he fisked Mother Theresa.
I am not saying this because I am religous: I am not. I’m saying it because he makes a bad argument.
Plus the gratuitous christian-bashing:
Create them sick, and then command them to be well? What a mad despot this is
even if it does place the wife in the same category as the cattle
But then, the same god frequently urged his followers to exterminate various forgotten enemy tribes down to the last infant, sparing only the virgins
If you are actually reading what the man says, and not just munching popcorn while enjoying the christians being thrown to the lions, then you must be realizing that Hitchens is essentially condemning the Bible simply for being from the same era as these attidudes and actions.
I don’t recall modern christians selling their wives like cattle or exterminating villages for their religous beliefs, do you? If Jesus lived in 1940, would Hitchens blame him for the use of firebombings and atomic weapons? How absurd.
And of course the final howler:
the true problem is our failure to recognize that religion is not just incongruent with morality but in essential ways incompatible with it.
Fine, then try and prove it, I’m listening. Oh wait, that’s the END of the essay? How suprising.
Hitchens’ article and Judge Moore’s stone tablet are in essence the same thing: a small-minded action undertaken for the sake sensationalism.
Complete with small-minded people who laud them simply because they bash the correct group.
Oh, and Squander Two:
One reason the Ten Commandments were more important than their secular law counterparts is they established a higher authority.
The reason that is signifigant is under the previous systems, if you broke the law, you could get away with it. Especially if you were rich or in tight with the local judge.
But a God, well that’s a bit different. You now have an incentive to not do those things even if you can get away with it here on earth. Of course, this only works if you actually believe.
Also, having a ‘higher authority’ helps if you want to enforce a principle over what the local King and Country are thinking at the time.
You know, sort of like: … that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…
You know, silly little things like that that are obviously essentially incompatible with morality.
Ryan,
You appear to be under the impression that you’re disagreeing with me. I’m not sure why.
Hitchens is wrong.
The first commandment that not to put anything above God implies that we are not God. Woodruff’s book on Reverence shows how this idea is in all cultures: the idea that no one is god, and no person, even a government, can exploit or kill or mistreat someone, because heaven (for athiest chinese) or Karma (for buddists) or fate will come back to punish those who do so.
The implication about images means not to treat a thing with the reverence and care that belongs to a person. God is not pleased with spending millions on statues, pictures, or churches, or monuments.
the third, keeping God’s name holy, implies again reverence. We do not trivialize the holy–we do not mock the great. We can politely criticize, but not demonize others as evil.
And the Sabbath is not about God but man. How many socieities including our own make a day off impossible? No, even God rested, so we need to allow a day off for ourselves, and our animals, with the idea that this is a day to stop and put things into a larger perspective, by going to worship or by walking in the woods or even by having time to read a novel or the NYTimes.
Ah, see, now that’s the conversation I was hoping to provoke. I knew these were deeper waters. Most of my posts, by the way, are put up mostly for the purpose seeing what the comments are.
Judge Moore is a demagogue and a fool. He is a judge, and has no business at all defying the orders of a higher court without first resigning his position.
I think its pretty incontrovertible at least half of the Top Ten would be unconstitutional if enacted into law in the US. Having said that, I think that having them in public buildings is not an establishment of religion.
The Founders drew a distinction between organized, institutional religion and belief. The prohibition on establishment of religion is an institutional one – it was aimed at preventing any particular organized religion (Catholicism, Lutheranism, whatever) from making any kind of formal alliance with the state. I don’t think it was directed at purging all religious belief from the public square at all. Unfortunately, the distinction between institution and belief has been lost in modern jurisprudence.
Kids these days must be a lot more religiously minded than I recall, or maybe I just hung out with a particularly depraved crowd back in the day, but I am genuinely surprised to learn that “Top Ten” is colloquial slang outside the Bible Belt. I do agree also that I found Hitch’s gratuitous religion-bashing to be, well, grating. There is a strain in Leftism that can’t coexist peacefully with religion, it seems – a blog for another day, perhaps.
Nancy,
Stop spouting total crap.
A) You can’t put anything above nothing, cos god doesn’t exist except in the minds of those who use it as a crutch. Fate/God or Karma hasn’t been shown to do anything, however agreived people have been shown to enact revenge/justice. Really your saying the first commandment is “thou shalt guilt trip the gullible”
B) You are speaking for your god here (“God is not pleased with spending millions …”), I thought that was disallowed. I have no reverence for the most damaging false idea in history. The “holy” is entirely mockable because frankly its such nonsense. I will describe others as evil.
C) Want to work less? Then take a pay cut/change jobs. I will take a day off WHEN I want to, and no religious nazi is going to force me to work more or less than I want. Unless they want to meet their maker (hahaha) faster.
The excuses for the control freakery of the religious just makes me sick. Take your invisible wizards and practise your mental illness with your own money and time.
Charles Copeland, it’s not Moslems who have more children than Christians, or stupid people who have more than clever people, or anything like that.
It is POOR people have more children than RICH people.
Now this may not affect your argument – which seems to be that we’re all doomed – but it does mean there’s nothing special about Moslems, except maybe that their religious beliefs have kept them poor throughout history.
For “religious beliefs” of course, read “the expressed religious beliefs of the rulers”. It’s about their power structures really. Ours work by making us rich and powerful; theirs work (or may yet turn out to work) by causing so many of them to exist that they become irresistible. That is the evolutionary point, I think.
No one addressed my earlier post – so I ask in a different way –
Why was this in any way a federal matter, rather than a matter for the State of Alabama?
Bob, What a great bunch of readers and thinkers you have! Very impressive Christian perspectives.
Parker:
Come on now. You’ve been reading Libertarians long enough to know that the 10th Amendment only applies to sex, drugs and Rock & Roll. But in any case I don’t think I’d want the states interpreting the 1st. Any damage done to the Constitution was dome on the federal level and that’s where it must be fixed.
Rob Read:
Statement: I will take a day off WHEN I want to, and no religious nazi is going to force me to work more or less than I want. Unless they want to meet their maker (hahaha) faster.
Christian Employer Answers: You’re fired loser!
(hahaha)
Communist Employer Answers: You’re dead loser!
( hohoho)
Sorry Nancy, I couldn’t resist.
Andrew Duffin writes:
Charles Copeland, it’s not Moslems who have more children than Christians ..
You’re wrong. Check out the fertility data at Nationmaster.com:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-B/peo_tot_fer_rat&int=-1
The only Moslem country with a relatively ‘stable’ fertility rate is Iran (average of 2.01 children per female). Otherwise, Islamic countries (along with Sub-Saharan countries) win all the prizes.
Squander Two;
So Christians keep telling us. Even if that were true (and it’s hardly as self-evidently obvious as Christians seem to think), it wouldn’t mean that we’d have to believe in God in order to be moral, any more than we have to believe in Prometheus in order to use fire.
That you can be moral without believing in God doesn’t mean you can prove to someone else that he ought to be moral. You can prove the existence of fire, just start a fire. You can also prove the utility of fire by demonstration. But simply acting morally won’t really do the trick, will it? The idea isn’t to demonstrate that some particular pattern of bahavior exists, or even simply to follow it yourself (although acting morally is certainly a worthy goal), but to give others proof they should follow it even when it’s contrary to their own interests.
“One person’s opinion against another’s” is the rather brilliant mechanism by which the human race has achieved pretty much everything we’ve achieved. It got us to the Moon and back, and built these incredible microchip thingies we’re all using. When we know it can achieve such wonders, I don’t think it’s obvious that it can’t give us a simple moral code to live by. The onus is on you to prove it, not merely to assert it.
Are we seriously to believe that one person’s opinion against another’s got us to the moon? Really, how exactly does the mere contraposition of opinions do anything at all but use electrons, ink, or air? It doesn’t, of course. You’re using “one person’s opinion again another’s” as a synecdoche for the whole process of debate (which would include actually picking which engineering options you’ll use for the Apollo craft, ect.), while he uses it for simply what it is, the first stage of debate, or even the state of affairs before debate, when all you have is the opinions themselves without any reasons given why one is better than another. And the whole point is that without some way of jumping the is/ought divide, that’s you’ll ever have. In order to give an ought the factual status of an is, you need some authoritative source to utter on morality. Which, of course, makes moral debate different from other kinds of debate (since you necessarily start from an appeal to authority), but doesn’t place it outside debate altogether.
Not what he said at all. He said that they’re perfectly good rules, but that they prohibit things that were already prohibited, and that history had demonstrated time and again that men are perfectly capable of coming up with these rules for themselves without a deity’s help. His point is that, if you’re going to get help from an omniscient omnipotent being, you’d think He could come up with something a bit more original than just “I disapprove of all that stuff you already disapprove of; I shall punish those whom you were going to punish anyway.” In other words, those Commandments aren’t particularly Christian, Jewish, or even religious. Now, if one of the Commandments had been “Thou shalt wash thy hands after thou go to the toilet and before every meal,” that would have been very impressive, and I’d be at least half convinced that some sort of divine revelation had taken place.
As a matter of fact, there are plenty of public health commandments in the Mosaic law that weren’t obvious at the time. Mostly having to do with leprosy.
What you seem to ask for isn’t simply non-obvious commandments, but non-obvious commandments that you happen to agree with. Your perch to look down on them from the modern hights doesn’t make your position any more tenable. If it did have such a commandment about handwashing, 100 years from now people like you would demand to know why God didn’t simply give them anti-bacterial mists or whatever the current technology will be. And you can always ask why germs existed in the first place.
This is a Federal matter because a state has implied that it will create laws (by an official of the state law enforcement placing the religious documents of a particular brand of invisible wizard within a court of justice) that contradict the constitution of the United States.
The constitution of the USA has apart from being written on paper nothing to do with the selection of out of date ramblings called the bible.
Much more interesting should be what are the responsibilities of states and individuals.
To start off e.g.
1/ The State will strive to make it economically non-productive to unlawfully kill another person.
Aaron,
The problem with an appeal to authority as a necessary foundation for morality is that it works (as much as it ever does) only on those that believe in that authority.
If you point the ten commandments at someone who doesn’t believe in God, there is no compelling authority to convince him to obey those restrictions. You have failed to jump that is/ought chasm yourself.
And if you try to force that person (through whatever means) to adhere to those rules, you become no better than the other expressions of human rulership (kings, etc.) that you claim can be dismissed because they do not adhere to your moral authority.
If you cannot *prove* the existence of God (and that the rules that you espouse truly come from Him), then you have not proved to a non-believer that he should follow those rules, whether it’s contrary to his self interests or not.
Ultimately, it is just one more redirection of the alleged source of authority.
Saying that you *must* follow these strictures because God says so only works on believers. For a non believer, you still have nothing more than the assertion that they *ought* to behave accordingly.
There is nothing fundamentally wrong (or inadequate) about a set of moral values that are decided on solely by agreement within a society of human beings without including an appeal to any other authority.
The point of the Ten Commandments is that THEY WORK, regardless of who wrote them or extrapolated them. They also point to an authority higher than the State, and followers understand it becomes an INDIVIDUAL issue, not one mandated by the State. But the State often has an interest to prevent its constituents from thinking of anything beyond what the State can provide. Removing them from the public eye is tantamount to barring students from learning about the principles of democracy….and in the US, equal to erasing whole chapters of history describing how the American Revolution came about and why.
OH, wait….
that’s already happening.
*hhmmm*
I guess the State is Omnipotent afterall
Rod;
The problem with an appeal to authority as a necessary foundation for morality is that it works (as much as it ever does) only on those that believe in that authority.
Well, yeah. Once you realize the need for an authority, the next step is examining the reasons given for each authority, or giving reasons for the one you accept.
There is nothing fundamentally wrong (or inadequate) about a set of moral values that are decided on solely by agreement within a society of human beings without including an appeal to any other authority.
Here you face the same difficulty you say I do. If someone doesn’t agree, then there’s no agreement and no set of moral values. In your case, it’s insurmountable, since you can’t give reasons why they should agree to it unless you appeal to some other authority, since the agreement itself is the thing at issue and appealing to it would beg the question; but appeal to some other, higher authority is exactly what you’re saying we shouldn’t do. Since there are persons who will agree to nothing, however basic, your agreement is impossible.
If you mean the agreement of the majority of a town, a county, a state, a nation, or the world (pick one), or that existing in a place is an implicit agreement to whatever the majority or the government or the custom (pick one) says, and that this is the source of morality, then you’re saying that anything done by majority will or done by the government is by definition moral, and you’re committed to defend some pretty monstrous things.
Rob Read,
Could you kindly explain where in the Constitution the Federal government is empowered to regulate the exercise of religion in the States, whether by the people or by the state governments?
Thanks in advance
That you can be moral without believing in God doesn’t mean you can prove to someone else that he ought to be moral.
To be perfectly honest, the old reason for being moral even if you didn’t believe in God was because you didn’t want to be tortured or killed by a Christian.
Nowadays, after centuries of bloody enforcement, we just kind of accept that you shouldn’t do certain things without much explanation, because we were brought up that way.
Neither of the above require you to believe in God. Brutal, but true.
We as a nation have a unconscious system of morality that derives greatly from chivelry/christianity, when you compare us with many other nations.
For some proof, ask a European about our ‘hangups’ with sex (more strict) and violence (more lax) someday… especially in regard to movie ratings, which is essentially a system of judgement calls.
Guy:
I feel your irk. Undoubtedly Christianity had a vital part in the development of Western Civilisation, and Judaism is the father of Christianity. However, I’m not so sure that it’s Judeo-Christian values so much as Heleno-Christian values that really did the trick (including giving us modern forms of Judaism). We got where we are today through Christianity the democratised Greek mystery religion, not Christianity the millenarian Jewish sect.”
The fundamentalist weirdos in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions all want the certainty of one variety or other of rigid desert monotheism. The syncretic and tolerant forms maintain a belief in one God but interpret their rulebooks broadly and partake of the spirit of the multi-national, riotously polythesitic, ancient empires.
Interesting! Most definitely some of what I enjoy about my religion and culture are those things which have “pagan” roots. X-mas same time as the Saturnalia is wonderful, gift giving, food and drinks. Mardi Gras in NOLA is the closest thing modern American society gets to a Roman triumph, and I love the concept that you should get all your sinning over with in prep for lent. College football (I know the Brits could care less about this) to me is the American version of gladiatorial games with much less actual bloodshed. Halloween is my favorite holiday, I know that’s All Souls but it got to be pagan. Western Civilization did pretty good job of keeping some of the fun overall, but erasing some of the nastier aspects albeit over several centuries.
Life under fundamentalist regimes would probably not be fun especially as a girl. However, life in a world without any acknowledgment of a higher power sounds pretty miserable and really bland as well. Maybe I am simplistic. I promise to contemplate atheism really hard when I go to Savannah for St. Patrick’s Day next year. I would try and do it at Jazz Fest, but the gospel tent there is the absolute best and after a few beers and good fellowship I usually find my faith is restored. Providence watches over children, drunkards and fools afterall.
Aaron,
I essentially agree with you. The problem is that even if you invoke God, that is no more authoratative to a non believer than any other authority.
To go to the argument about a majority definition of morality, invoking God does not ameliorate the problem. Either a majority accepts the moral authority of God, and you use that as a basis, or a majority does not accept it, and you use something else as a basis. This would be true even if the moral imperatives in both groups are essentially the same.
I’m a believer, and I accept the moral authority of God, but I also realize that unless you’re willing to attempt to impose that belief structure on every single person, it is important to provide an authority structure that represents those affected by that structure in a way that doesn’t require an appeal to any other higher authority. You can *always* argue that there is a higher authority, no matter how high you reach (correctly or not).
There are always those who reject any authority over their actions, and will do as they please, and we generally call them criminals. Most people recognize the value of an ethical framework of behaviour, and it isn’t necessary to invoke an ultimate authority to enforce this.
As for the pathology of various forms of majority definition of morality, the truly heinous ones tend to be short lived, since they invariably do not have the best interests of the group in mind (at least in the long term).
Also, invoking God as a supreme moral authority is no panacea against mostrosity, considering some of what has occured in the name of God.
“Could you kindly explain where in the Constitution the Federal government is empowered to regulate the exercise of religion in the States, whether by the people or by the state governments?”
The First Amendment, which contains the Establishment Clause (“Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion”) applies only to Congress (and by extension to the federal government) as drafted.
There is something called the incorporation doctrine that states that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution applies the First Amendment (along with most, if not all, of the rest of the Bill of Rights) to the states, so that states may not do anything that is prohibited to the federal government by the Bill of Rights. That Amendment reads “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” In Gitlow v. New York, the US Supreme Court stated that the 14th Amendment, extended the protections of the Bill of Rights to state actions, in what I recall is a free speech context in the 1920s. The doctrine has been pretty consistently upheld ever since, although there is, as you might expect, an enormous body of learned discussion pro and con about the details.
The federal courts are empowered to enforce the Constitution against all comers, including state governments and state courts.
Greco-Roman. That is what our culture is in principle, not Christian. Christian Rome was the Rome of the Empire, while pagan Rome was the great Republic. Our system of government? Roman law was throughout its history(but for the serious exception of the Emperor and slavery) more just and final than most human beings could possibly imagine even in modern times. This is the law that we inherited. Our laws, our representative forms of government, our political institutions, our focus on individuality and and our rather selfish economic system – for capitalism is selfish, which is what I apreciate about it – follow Greco-Roman or pagan values. In Ancient Greece the thought of a direct tax was thought so revolting an infringement on personal sovereignty, that even the Athens of the Peloponesean war was reluctant to make use of it. The Roman Republic was the principal model and source that our Founding Fathers is used in creating our Republic. The sin of pride or the virtue of pride? The United States of Americais, in fact, a Christian nation, even if the Founding forthers did NOT mean for it to be so. That is a given, obvious because of the simple fact that most Americans are Christians and claim to live by Christian values. But the point is that we owe what we are, culturally, what we mean by “Western Civilization”, more to the Greco-Roman tradition than to the Judeo-Christian.
A second point would the one for moral sujectibvism. I read a few posters mention the argument of “Good, and by what standard?” and doubt that you could convince others to be moral without the argument for the existence of a Law Giving God. Nothing could be further from the truth. Besides the point that many of the most evil people in the world were believers (or claimed to be so) and that many of our greates, most virtuous men were unbelievers or at least skeptics, I find a more basic argument for the existence of an objective morality. How do we determine what is right? Well, how do we determine anything? Reason. Ladies and gents, that is all we have. And its worked damn well so far, inso far as we have made any use of it. I say that there is a more than adequate argument for an objective morality based on good old reason and common sense, and the fact that most people might not be aware of it or disagree doesn’t make it any diferent. Our Founding fathers were, overall, theists. They believed in the existence of a deity and atached morality to him. But I argue that morality is inherent in our nature as Men and the proper form of survival to a Man. Why don’t we argue that? I might have talked too much already.
Rod;
I essentially agree with you. The problem is that even if you invoke God, that is no more authoratative to a non believer than any other authority.
Sure. As you note yourself, some people won’t be willing to be persuaded regardless of what argument you use. But it does make a difference whether this is just as good as any other pattern of behavior, or they’re acting wrongly in spite of adequate reasons not to.
I’m a believer, and I accept the moral authority of God, but I also realize that unless you’re willing to attempt to impose that belief structure on every single person
I’m not willing to coerce anyone into confessing that Jesus is Lord, but I’m perfectly willing to coerce people into not harming another’s life, liberty, or property, because I have adequate reason to know that this is just.
As for the pathology of various forms of majority definition of morality, the truly heinous ones tend to be short lived, since they invariably do not have the best interests of the group in mind (at least in the long term).
The longevity doesn’t matter. If morality flows from agreement, anything flowing from agreement is be definition good. How can the source of morality do evil? So then if you soften the agreement from unanimity, which is impossible, to some form of majoritarianism, you’re still stuck defending monstrosities.
Also, invoking God as a supreme moral authority is no panacea against mostrosity, considering some of what has occured in the name of God.
The question here is, were those things actually the will of God, or were they done presumptuously? If they were presumptuous, in which case they have nothing to do with the will of God, which in fact, is against them. If they were the will of God, you have to ask if you really hold God as the highest authority. If you do, then they were good and right and there’s no problem.
AblueSilkworm;
Greco-Roman. That is what our culture is in principle, not Christian. Christian Rome was the Rome of the Empire, while pagan Rome was the great Republic. Our system of government?
And here I thought Augustus was the first emperor, when really it was Constantine.
A second point would the one for moral sujectibvism. I read a few posters mention the argument of “Good, and by what standard?” and doubt that you could convince others to be moral without the argument for the existence of a Law Giving God.
This, I think, is a reference to my arguments, but it should be clear that I certainly do uphold absolute morality.
How do we determine what is right? Well, how do we determine anything? Reason. Ladies and gents, that is all we have.
How, exactly, do you plan to derive a normative proposition from a factual proposition without that proposition being an infallible Being who says normative things?
But I argue that morality is inherent in our nature as Men and the proper form of survival to a Man. Why don’t we argue that?
There’s too little there too argue. Our nature as men how? What nature? Why, exactly, does anyone have good reason for following his nature as man? Are you against contraception, because the nature of sex is teleologically aimed at producing children? If not why not?
R C Dean,
Thanks, but isn’t there something else there in the First Amendment about prohibiting the free exercise of religion? Also, It looks to me like the Tenth Amendment is explicit about reserving those powers not delegated to Congress, nor prohibited to the States, to the States or the People. I just wondered how a line of reasoning based, perhaps a bit tenuously, on the Fourteenth Amendment came to supersede the clear and explicit language of the First and Tenth Amendments. Any constitutional experts who can help me out here?
For Aaron:
“… but I’m perfectly willing to coerce people into not harming another’s life, liberty, or property, because I have adequate reason to know that this is just”
One can have adequate reason to believe in the justness of such coercion, even if they don’t attribute that authority to God. Additionally, if you are using your contention of God’s ultimate authority as the basis for the above statement, you aren’t much different from the likes of Torquemada and Mather. By all accounts, they honestly believed that heresy and the like was as bad (or worse) than murder and they justified what they did based on their assertion of God’s ultimate authority.
A person or group of persons can do evil in the name of ANY authority. It is no less presumptive to impose the authority of God over all people, whether they believe or not.
Additionally, there IS a rational, secular basis for ethical behavior. It is predicated on the notion that every person should essentially be granted the same considerations that you would ask for yourself. As you would not wish to be killed or robbed, etc., it is rational to state that since that argument can be meaningfully applied to a group of people as a whole, that it then can be held as an authoratative root basis for a just set of laws to live by.
Franklin;
One can have adequate reason to believe in the justness of such coercion, even if they don’t attribute that authority to God.
I, obviously, disagree. As we see later, your own “rational, secular” argument fails the test I’ve been describing, you can’t make your ought anything but a preference, not grounded in any provable statements about the world. If you do use the only way around it, an authority, unless you base it on the Bible you’ve got the wrong authority. But at least that can be discussed rationally, with reasons for one authority or another, rather than proposing whatever you personally find most appealing as the ground of morality.
Additionally, if you are using your contention of God’s ultimate authority as the basis for the above statement, you aren’t much different from the likes of Torquemada and Mather.
You get points docked for not mentioning bin Laden, not mentioning that Stalin went to a seminary for a while, and not alleging that Hitler was a Christian. Overall, poorly done.
By all accounts, they honestly believed that heresy and the like was as bad (or worse) than murder and they justified what they did based on their assertion of God’s ultimate authority.
Honestly believing something, and having sound reasons for believing it, are not the same thing. Nor is the fact that someone drew a conclusion from a premise mean the conclusion actually follows.
A person or group of persons can do evil in the name of ANY authority.
“In the name of” doesn’t mean actually following, does it? I don’t think you’ll find any Christian who advocates handing authority to anyone claiming to act in God’s name. One of the reasons for having Scripture is freeing us from that. We can check.
It is no less presumptive to impose the authority of God over all people, whether they believe or not.
No less presemptive than what?
Additionally, there IS a rational, secular basis for ethical behavior. It is predicated on the notion that every person should essentially be granted the same considerations that you would ask for yourself. As you would not wish to be killed or robbed, etc., it is rational to state that since that argument can be meaningfully applied to a group of people as a whole, that it then can be held as an authoratative root basis for a just set of laws to live by.
So you’ll drop in a nice idea, found in different forms in most religions but probably taken directly from Christianity, and without any more basis than the fact that it can be applied to groups, just take it as authoritative. It looks like you see the need for something, and grabbed the closest thing at hand that looked like it would work. But you haven’t given an adequate reason for it
Sorry Aaron,
But you are failing one major point.
How do you propose to convince a non believer that he should accept the authority of God, apart from force or coercion?
From the standpoint of non belief, invoking the authority of God is no less arbitrary, and provides no additional moral strength than choosing the self interest argument I made above.
In that context, you have failed the is/ought issue, as well. Ultimately, there can be NO single authority that all people will agree on, so consensus and compromise become essential in the determination of ethical behavior.
And I hate to break it to you, but there are a substantial numbers of christians who *will* unquestioningly accept the doctrine of their chosen religious leader. I’ve personally witnessed it. You can argue that the leader isn’t really speaking for God, and that his followers are dishonest or misguided (and I would tend to agree), but the fact remains that these people do exist, and many of them honestly believe that they are following God’s word. And every single one of them will invoke God as the ultimate authority for their actions.
In the final analysis, there are some differences between law and morality. What is legal may not necessarily be moral in some given context, and what is considered moral in that context may not necessarily be legal. This, if for no other reason, is a compelling argument for the clause of non establishment. Laws are our social contract that we make to smooth the machinery of human interaction and to provide recourse in event of a violation. Morals are our contract with God, and ultimately, we are only answerable to Him where those morals are concerned.
That those moral imperatives have become part of the history of our social contract, I fully acknowledge, but unless you’re willing to use force, you cannot impose the source of those moral imperatives as an ultimate authority.
What YOU are missing, Franklin is the power of tradition. People bring up their children in a similar way to how they were brought up, and therefore attitudes are self-perpetuating.
So because we WERE a Christian nation, we as a nation STILL DO have a very Christian-like moral sense. Even many of us athiests.
Our system of government owes a great deal to ‘natural law’, the idea that we have innate rights that government may not trample on.
The wonderful thing about natural law is that you don’t need to believe in God to make good use of it. Its weakness is that it is awfully difficult to justify or prove… and ulitmately to impose upon a government… without religous conviction.
You can SAY that a human has innate rights, but how are you going to prove it short of saying ‘God gave them to us’? Its not quite as simple as proving that God gave us legs, or disproving that he gave us wings, you know.
Any person who is going to make the claim:
Is going to have to at least ADDRESS the role of natural law thought, either attempting to minimize its role, minimizing or substituting Christianity’s role in creating it, or some other method.
But Hitchens doesn’t even make the attempt. Its not a serious claim.
Aaron,
> Are we seriously to believe that one person’s opinion against another’s got us to the moon? Really, how exactly does the mere contraposition of opinions do anything at all but use electrons, ink, or air? It doesn’t, of course. You’re using “one person’s opinion again another’s” as a synecdoche for the whole process of debate (which would include actually picking which engineering options you’ll use for the Apollo craft, ect.), while he uses it for simply what it is, the first stage of debate, or even the state of affairs before debate, when all you have is the opinions themselves without any reasons given why one is better than another.
What you’re doing here is assuming that it’s possible for people to disgagree with each other without that disagreement leading directly and inevitably to a debate. This is true of 5-year-olds and idiots, yes, but, in general, intelligent people back their opinions up with argument. Like we’re doing here.
Anyway, what I was addressing was the idea that, without appeal to God, any moral code is merely one person’s opinions against another’s. The point I was making was that people’s pitting their opinions against each other leads to more than just an is-isn’t-is-isn’t shouting match. It often leads to intellectual brilliance. I believe it has done so in the Church, and said as much. Most modern Christian morality comes from Christians, not God.
> What you seem to ask for isn’t simply non-obvious commandments, but non-obvious commandments that you happen to agree with. Your perch to look down on them from the modern hights doesn’t make your position any more tenable.
Not at all. I’m not asking for anything. I’m making the point (as was Hitchens) that the Ten Commandments involved telling people stuff they already knew. I’m not really talking about the modern perspective (forget the hand-washing thing — it was beside the point); I’m talking about the contemporary perspective of the Children of Israel. Really, would the prohibitions against murder and theft have come as any great surprise to them? Of course not. The point is that, even if God did give those commandments to Moses, Moses could have thought them up himself. The nature of the Commandments is not such that it proves divine intervention.
I throw this into the conversation without any desire to follow it up.
When a hippopotamus dies, its fellow hippos will defend its carcass from predators, even very dangerous ones such as crocodiles. Hippos risk their lives to defend corpses. No-one knows why. It certainly doesn’t appear to benefit them.
Regardless of whether you believe in evolution, the hippos are doing something here that appears to resemble some aspects of human moral behaviour. They are doing it without recourse to either debate or (presumably) theism. So behaviour that the whole tribe follow that benefts no individual certainly is possible without appeal to higher authority.
Hmm.
I’ve explained why a divine authority making a list of rules is different from a secular government doing the same. The effects on society are different, and in this case more powerful.
Another difference is that moral systems tend to self-reinforce. If you have people in a given area all believing a system of morals, and most of their neighbors believe generally the same thing, that attitude will self-perpetuate over many generations.
Here is where cristianity’s successful spread by fire and sword, and bloody internal purges of public displays of unbelief, had its effect.
There is a difference between God commanding that you not lust after your neighbor’s wife, and your government commanding it. It is that even if no one sees, even if no one learns, that you do so, it still is wrong, and will be punished.
The all-pervasiveness of that attidude is an effective counter to if I get away with it, its OK. Even in nonbelievers, because the christian attitude of something being fundementally wrong, rather than wrong if caught, still spreads.
In the same way, ‘Natural Rights’ can survive on its own among nonbelievers, but it took christianity to spread it about and get people to unquestioningly accept the concept of being born with intangiable rights that no government may rightly broach.
These now-secular ideals, morality and natural rights, can survive on their own, but they lose coercive power when seperated from their parent. This has both positive and negative aspects.
Morality for morality’s sake is quite a lot to expect of morality, though it can indeed exist outside of religous influence.
Finally, I understand.
The placement of the monument in question established both a law and a religion at the same time! Hail its mighty power! Against it, even a tinfoil hat is rendered powerless!
By the same token, the statuary of bare breasted women to be found in our nation’s capital buildings (remember the screen put up, so Ashcroft didn’t have to speak to the press with a statue’s bare breast in the background?) has obviously established both a law and a religion that women in this country must go about bare breasted!
Join with me in pursuing the non-topless law breaking heathens! Women, peel down or face the fires of perdition!
My sincere thanks to all who helped me arrive at this flawlessly logical conclusion, and for opening my eyes to the truth.
Your reply is sarcastic, which can be all right, but it also nonsensical and foolish, which is not all right.
And you are the one who would accuse the religous of irrationality? Hahahaha!
Umm, Ryan?
It is not a reply to any of your comments.
It relates to the underlying constitutional questions.
Why on earth would you consider it sarcastic?
And why is nonsensical and foolish not all right?
Are rhetorical questions ok?
Also, FYI, I am not ‘the one who would accuse the religious of irrationality’ (although from your laughter, the thought of this at least allowed you to have some fun).
Sometimes, Ryan, it is not about you…it is about posting placement in a linear thread.
Thanks, but isn’t there something else there in the First Amendment about prohibiting the free exercise of religion?
Yeah, but I don’t think anyone reads it to apply to the posting of religious materials in government buildings. In any event, I believe that a court would rule that the “free exercise” of religion does not include the “establishment of religion.”
Also, It looks to me like the Tenth Amendment is explicit about reserving those powers not delegated to Congress, nor prohibited to the States, to the States or the People. I just wondered how a line of reasoning based, perhaps a bit tenuously, on the Fourteenth Amendment came to supersede the clear and explicit language of the First and Tenth Amendments.
This is really all covered by the discussions of the incorporation doctrine. Generally, later amendments have precedence over earlier amendments, so the quick and dirty answer is that, where the 1st and 10th contradict the 14th, the 14th wins. Thus, the 14th effectively amended the 1st so that it says “Congress, and the states, may not establish a religion”, and effectively amended the 10th to say that the states do not have the power reserved to them to violate the 1st Amendment.
What YOU are missing, Franklin is the power of tradition. People bring up their children in a similar way to how they were brought up, and therefore attitudes are self-perpetuating
Let me see. I was brought up Christian by strict religious parents, I went to Church every single Sunday from as early as I can remember until I was 17 (except when I had Appendicitis), my mother is still very active in her Church.
I’m pretty militantly agnostic and if my maths was better I’d probably be happy to be an atheist.
Religion is a meme, nothing more nothing less. It isn’t needed.
Franklin;
How do you propose to convince a non believer that he should accept the authority of God, apart from force or coercion?
Evangelize, give reasons for the hope that is within me. If they aren’t one of the sheep, or are but are intended to convert some other time, I still have adequate reasons for my system of morality.
I never said giving adequate reasons would persuade anyone — just show him proof. If you ask for more, no morality can ever be established.
In that context, you have failed the is/ought issue, as well. Ultimately, there can be NO single authority that all people will agree on, so consensus and compromise become essential in the determination of ethical behavior.
Only if truth, or at least moral truth, depends on everyone agreeing. But then it’s the agreement itself that creates morality, which is your earlier claim. You’re begging the question.
Beside the fact that you’ll never get everyone to agree on everything, morality-by-agreement cannot logically provide all morality, since it presupposes that you ought to follow your agreements. It won’t do any good to agree to follow your agreements, since the basis of that first agreement (the one to follow subsequent agreements) is what we’re looking for. It must be found in some other place. So morality-by-agreement is inherently a secondary morality, depending on a higher morality to make it authoritatively normative, or it’s nothing.
And I hate to break it to you, but there are a substantial numbers of christians who *will* unquestioningly accept the doctrine of their chosen religious leader. I’ve personally witnessed it. You can argue that the leader isn’t really speaking for God, and that his followers are dishonest or misguided (and I would tend to agree), but the fact remains that these people do exist, and many of them honestly believe that they are following God’s word. And every single one of them will invoke God as the ultimate authority for their actions.
And?
Either they have adequate reason to behave as they do, in which case the rest of us ought to do likewise, or they don’t. You could just as well point out that Muslims think Mohammed was a prophet.
Pointing out that you need an authority to tell you things about morality before you can know anything with certainty hardly means that one authority is as good as another. The next step is finding one. If it turns out there isn’t one (there is, of course, so that’s just a hypothetical), the only option is nihilism. In practice, that looks a lot like morality-by-agreement, since if it’s all the same you might as well follow convention and make things easy on yourself (which could mean sacrificing your firstborn to Moloch, but ex hypothesi there’s nothing wrong with killing your own children). Or you might as well try to overthrow society. Whatever floats your boat.
I might also point out the people who were pleased to consider secular reason their guide who, in all sincerity, created the Soviet Union. You can pile this stuff up all day and not prove anything except Total Depravity.
In the final analysis, there are some differences between law and morality. What is legal may not necessarily be moral in some given context, and what is considered moral in that context may not necessarily be legal. This, if for no other reason, is a compelling argument for the clause of non establishment.
In the first place, it’s not clear you have adequate grounds for considering anything having a moral aspect at all, or for saying what that aspect might be.
Secondly, I have not argued for laws against prostitution or whatever, nor are they required by Biblical morality.
Squander Two;
What you’re doing here is assuming that it’s possible for people to disgagree with each other without that disagreement leading directly and inevitably to a debate. This is true of 5-year-olds and idiots, yes, but, in general, intelligent people back their opinions up with argument. Like we’re doing here.
Well, I can see a host saying “let’s not have another argument about politics”, or something like that, but generally you’re right. But setting one opinion against another is what causes debate, not the debate itself, and without the debate it produces nothing.
Anyway, what I was addressing was the idea that, without appeal to God, any moral code is merely one person’s opinions against another’s. The point I was making was that people’s pitting their opinions against each other leads to more than just an is-isn’t-is-isn’t shouting match. It often leads to intellectual brilliance.
Without an appeal to authority, the reasons can never be tied to anything provable, and without the right authority they’re still inadequate. However brilliant it gets, it doesn’t prove anything, any more than simply stating opinions does.
When a hippopotamus dies, its fellow hippos will defend its carcass from predators, even very dangerous ones such as crocodiles. Hippos risk their lives to defend corpses. No-one knows why. It certainly doesn’t appear to benefit them. Regardless of whether you believe in evolution, the hippos are doing something here that appears to resemble some aspects of human moral behaviour. They are doing it without recourse to either debate or (presumably) theism. So behaviour that the whole tribe follow that benefts no individual certainly is possible without appeal to higher authority.
What we’re looking for here isn’t some people who act morally, but proof people should act morally, and for that matter adequate reasons for saying it is moral. You can hardly expect humans to just do things like a hippo would.
Dave O’Neill;
The concept of memes is a meme.
Let’s try to get this straight then. The 1st Amendment says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The 10th Amendment says the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. So far, then, it would appear that any State could put whatever religious display it wanted in its public buildings or, indeed, establish a religion.
Then, the 14th Amendment, which clarifies citizenship, apportionment of Representatives, election or appointment of rebels to Federal Office, validity of debts incurred in insurrection, and which prohibits the States from abridging privileges and immunities of citizens and which extends due process and equal protection requirements to the States, is somehow interpreted by the courts to prohibit religious displays in the public areas of the States? And any interpretation by the Supreme Court, no matter how tenuous or convoluted, of an unrelated amendment can have the effect of repeal of previous amendments?
So now, it’s OK to portray the Ten Commandments in the house of the US Supreme Court, but not in a State courthouse, and it’s OK to say “In God we trust” in our currency but not “under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance, and it’s OK to open Congress with a prayer but kids in high school can’t pray that nobody gets hurt in a football game. And this is all in the name of fair and uniform application of the law by learned and wise Justices?
Q: What do you call an attorney with an IQ of 70?
A: Your Honor.
Thales.
While I disagree strongly with the display of the comandments, I wil give you points on the issue of inconcistence (I conceed this, but can not see how it weakens my argument in any way). The main reason for it is proably simple disagreement. Absolutelly every single one of us seems to read the law differently, and no one chooses to bow to prior rulings, possibly thinking them stupid and wrong-headed. But I personally see little good comming out of this argument. There is no middle ground, or easy compromise. Either religion should be kept out of public life, or not. By the way, I once read somewhere -and I apologize for the vague quote – that the first president Bush, on an interview, mentioned that he did not consider atheists citizens. I’d really much prefer keeping the stuff private, if only because my tax dollars might pay for the next damn monument commanding me to hold the Desert God in my number one slot. Put up some Roman tablets instead.
AblueSilkworm,
If you read a little more closely, you might note that I am not arguing for the display of religious monuments in state buildings. I am arguing for a body of law, and its interpretation, which promotes the virtues of truth, justice and liberty and which is clear, unambiguous, understandable to people of ordinary intelligence, and as incorruptible as practicable. A body of law which will not only respect the differences of our citizens, but which will eventually promulgate those virtues into the world and the future. A body of law which is more than what “the king’s whim and sword say it is.”
I am arguing against usurpation of the political power of the people of the Republic, and of their duly elected representatives, and of the finest system of law and justice on Earth by people who are not elected, who cannot be called to account for their actions, and who cannot be removed. People who are clever, who have an agenda and enjoy their power. Namely, Idiotarians, who seem to think that a finely crafted collection of words is an excellent substitute for reality, or justice, or liberty, or the future of the Republic.
Ah, but the devil is in the details. The 1st and 10th Amendments are quite explicit, and they have never been repealed or amended, but they have effectively been abrogated, not by the Congress or the people, but by an unaccountable, unremovable panel of judges. Their action has resulted in an application of law which is not merely inconsistent, but ambiguous, capricious and without visible, rightfully constituted authority. The establishment/ religious monument issue is only one of many. For example, the 2nd amendment is clear and unambiguous, but it is still illegal for most people to own handguns or assault rifles in large areas of our country. In California today, illegal immigrants are receiving drivers licenses and taxpayer funded social welfare benefits. They are a political force today, and promise to become a larger one tomorrow. And I won’t do more than mention the abortion issue.
You may have noticed a certain antipathy to judges in my posts on this thread, and it is no accident. Judge Moore, hopelessly incompetent, is the least of the problem. The task of the Supreme Court is to adjudicate, not to legislate, to interpret the Constitution, not to rewrite it. Their power is inadequately delimited in the Constitution and they have seized the opportunity to enact political and social agendas which in many cases are shared by no more than five unrecallable arbiters of our moral future. Now, maybe if they produce a decision which, though it may be without clear Constitutional authority, produces some benefit to a person or faction, then those who benefit may be disinclined to protest. But if they continue to reconstruct the Constitution without accountability, they will eventually destroy it one clause at a time.
On the monument issue there is middle ground, compromise is available and, while reaching it may not be easy it is not insuperably difficult. (By the way, were you aware that there are other displays of the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Supreme Court?) That middle ground of compromise is reached through a process of discussion and legislation wherein the people and their representatives maintain respect for the differences and rights of others. The foundation of that process is circumscribed in the 10th Amendment, whereby the majority is prevented from bludgeoning the minority with its will.
Unfortunately, that middle ground has been abducted by the Supreme Court.
Sorry, I meant to say the 1st and 10th Amendments.
See, I try to keep this from turning into an argument over Privileges and Immunities and Incorporation, and it breaks out anyway. 😉
Sorry, I tried not to dwell on that issue (as well as atheists vs. bible thumpers) longer than necessary to get to the fundamental issue.
Thanks for the space in your forum.
“This book [speaking of the bible] is the secret of
England’s greatness.” Queen, Victoria Windsor
“My daily advisor and comfort is the impregnable rock
of the Holy Scriptures.” Gladstone, architech of
American law
“You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of
life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ.
These will make you a greater and happier people than
you are. Congress will do every thing they can to
assist you in this intention.” a message to the
Native American Indians, May, 12th, 1779 by, George
Washington, 1st US President
“Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not
only of republicanism and of all free government, but
of social felicity under all governments and in all
the combinations of human society.” John Adams, 2nd
US President
“I have always said, and will always say, that the
studious perusal of the sacred volume will make us
better citizens, better husbands, and better fathers.”
Thomas Jefferson, 3rd US President, 1st Washington
D.C. school board president
“Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil
Society, he must be considered as a subject of the
Governor of the Universe… Religion… is the basis
and foundation of government.” James Madison, 4th US
President, chief architect of the Constitution
“The Declaration of Independence first organized the
social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s
mission upon earth and laid the corner stone of human
government upon the first precepts of Christianity.”
John Quincy Adams, 6th US President
“The bible is the rock on which our Republic rest.”
Andrew Jackson, 7th US President
“I am profitably engaged in reading the Bible. Take
all of this upon reason that you can, and balance on
faith, and you will live and die a better man.”
Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President
“I am sorry for the men who do not read the Bible
daily. I wonder why they deprive themselves of the
strength and the pleasure. I should be afraid to go
forward if I did not believe that there lay at the
foundation of all schooling and all our thought this
imcomparable and unimpeachable Word of God.” Woodrow
Wilson, 28th US President
“Almost every man who has by his life work added to
the sum of human achievements of which the race is
proud – has based his life work largely upon the
teachings of the Bible.” Theodore Roosevelt, 32nd US
President
“Religion is the only solid basis of good morals;
therefore, education should teach the precepts of
religion, and the duties of man towards God.”
Gouveneur Morris, scribe / handwriter of the
Constitution
“Whoever is an avowed enemy of God, I scuple not to
call him an enemy to this country.” John
Whitherspoon, Continental Congress, Declaration of
Independence
“Providence has given to our people the choice of
their rulers, and it is the duty as well as the
privelege and interest of our Christian Nation to
select and prefer Christians for their rulers.” John
Jay, 1st Supreme Court Justice
“It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often
that this great nation was founded, not by
religionist, but by Christians, not on religions but
on the gospel of Jesus Christ! For this reason
peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum,
prosperity and freedom of worship here.” Patrick
Henry, Continental Congress
“…convincing proofs I see… that God governs in the
affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the
ground without His notice, is it probable that an
empire can rise without His aid?” Benjamin Franklin,
Constitutional Convention,
“Of all the dipositions and habits which lead to
political prosperity, religion and morality are
indispensable supports… . Reason and experience
both forbid us to expect that national morality can
prevail in exclusion of religious principles.”
Alexander Hamiltion, 1st Secretary of Treasurer
“The moral principles and precepts contained in the
Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil
constitutions and laws… . All the miseries and
evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition,
injustice, opppression, slavery, and war, proceed from
their despising or neglecting the precepts contained
in the Bible.” Noah Webster, American Revolutionist,
Constitutional Convention, Dictionary
“There is not a community which cannot be purified,
redeemed and improved by a better knowledge and larger
application of the Bible to daily life.” W.J. Bryan,
Democratic Orator and statesman, ran three times for
presidency and failed, nicknamed the Commoner
“I suspect that the future progress of the human race
will be determined by the circulation of the Bible.”
Dr. R.A. Millikan, 1923 Nobel prize winner in physics
“Our ways; through a Christian President, finally
outlawed slavery in America with the world soon
following its lead. The great freedoms we enjoy are
the direct result of the Christian faith of our
predecessors. No great civilization or religion from
the world did it; it was our Christian Forefathers and
Foremothers and their open faith in God through the
Jesus Christ that did.”
William M. Cooper
Kingsville, TX
coopr2000@yahoo.com
http://www.1stbooks.com/bookview/8857