If there's no truth, then what we are seeking to do right now in promoting freedom for all across the globe is the height of naivety. Not the height of arrogance mind you. After all, we are the most powerful nation in the world. In a universe without truth, there is no such thing as arrogance for those who are more powerful, only the logical assertion of dominance.
It is naive because there is no universal human yearning for freedom, which President Bush and our very Constitution presupposes as a need that all have and long to realize. But, then again, a major irony here is that many liberals who call President Bush "evil" and the war in Iraq "unjust" are many of the same who people also would like to see faith and religion compartmentalized, which are the very approaches to life and civilization which give us our modern concepts of justice and equality, right and wrong, good and evil.
Which raises for me two worries regarding the efforts on the part of a small minority of Americans who hope to use activist judges to sterilize our society from anything which smacks of faith or religion, especially, of course, if it has to do with Christianity:
- The Soviet Union tried and failed to remove all religion and faith from their society. They rounded up people of faith and put them in jail. They closed churches, mosques, and temples. And they banned faith except where it pertained to "the state." Communism was and is an experiment in "anti-democracy". The result? A government which viewed and used people as cogs, as throwaway pieces on a chess board, good only to serve the needs of the state. Even now, 15 years after the fall of communism, it seems to me that they are still a people searching for their soul. THIS is what secularists want to do in this country, use government to tell those of us whose faith is central to our lives when, where, and how we can worship the God of the universe. I don't think so.
- My second worry is this; in their zeal to save us from our "ignorant superstitions," secularists are compromising the First Amendment, which was set up to act as a restraining order against the federal government on the part of the American people. And it was intended to work just like a restraining order in that it mandated that the federal government could not do any one of three things: 1) Respect or restrict any establishment of religion, 2)Restrict the rights of those who wish to assemble peacebly in the public square, and, 3) curtail or impinge upon the media. Here's the problem. The framers of the Constitution wrote all of the federal restrictions into the Constitution as ONE SENTENCE.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The First Amendment restrains the federal government from interfering with our freedom of expression. And this amendment sees freedom of the press, of peaceful assembly, and of religious expression as equally weighted. So here's the kicker; if we can now use the First Amendment as a mandate to push religion from the public square and from public institutions, we can also then use the First Amendment to push the press and our rights to peacefully assemble from the public square and our public institutions. The First Amendment was NOT constructed in such a way as to allow us to manipulate one form of expression without giving us the ability to then manipulate other protected forms of expression.
Why don't members of the MSM see this problem? Why aren't they attacking secularists for their desire to alter the basic tenets of the First Amendment, which undermines the very existence of a free press?
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - alethinos59
Your few is very black and white isn't it? There are millions of folks who believe in God who are adement that certain politician's views on religion and God not be shoved down our throats.
You need to realize that the "secularists" that you define so broadly have every reason to NOT trust the "Christian Right" any more than you supposedly have of trusting them!
While I agree the relativism is ludicrous and untenable you might want to understand that Plato reached the Truth without subscribing to ONE religious point-of-view. He did of course (as was very unique at the time) like Socrates believe in the One God, Unnamed, Above all others..
2 - Dave Nalle
You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the concepts of freedom of religion and separation of church and state. Wanting to keep religion out of government institutions and state run schools is not the same as wanting to keep religion out of society as a whole.
Comparing the efforts to make schools and government religiously neutral to the efforts to stop out religion alltogether in communist Russia is so wackily off-base that it makes no sense at all. Communism was like a religion stamping out all competing religions to create an atheocracy. What we have here in the US today is just a desire not to have our kids indoctrinated into any particular religion when they are at the mercy of the teachers in a government school.
As someone who is areligious do you know what my answer to that question was? I took my kids out of government schools so that they would not be exposed to relentless proselytizing (mostly humanist/socialist and fundamentalist christian) by teachers and fellow students in an environment ill-equipped to deal with the problem. Instead I put them in a parochial school. I figured if they're going to be religiously indoctrinated I'd prefer it be in a controlled environment where I know exactly what doctrine they're being taught.
Enough about that...
You also bring up the idea that knowledge of God is the only absolute truth and suggest that atheists have shifting values because they don't believe in God. Holding that belief suggests that you've abandonned reason completely.
To start off with I can tell you one absolute truth which atheists believe in and which never changes - they absolutely believe there is no god.
For those of us who don't choose to identify with the atheist religion or organized christianity there are other absolute truths which those who are ruled by reason will not waver from. It is an absolute truth that the natural state of man is freedom and that freedom is a fundamental right. Many other truths devolve from that one and are equally absolute, such as that slavery is wrong. It is an absolute truth that all men have a right to life. It is an absolute truth that all men have a right to property and the fruits of their labor. These aren't mutable principles. They're fundamental and unwavering.
It's supremely arrogant to think that only a belief in god can lead a person to a moral life. Morality exists entirely separate from faith. It is based on self-evident principles which are inherent in our very existence. We can all have different views of where our existence originates, but the principles remain the same. Many christians through the ages have understood this. In the cosmology of Dante's Inferno you see the first circle of Hell, which is a rather nice place, reserved for unbaptised infants and virtuous pagans - people who have fundamental rights and morality, but were never practicing christians.
Dave
3 - bhw
If there is no truth, then the terms "right" and "wrong" are arbitrary, based only on the way a society defines them. It means that we can accept slavery IF the society which supports this institution defines it as a societal good.
and
A diverse group of people who were members of various faiths, who understood that, if God created all people, then all people are indeed special, no matter their faith.
Well, some were more special than others, weren't they, because they were "given" more rights.
It's hilarious that you try to pin slavery on secularists or atheists when a) slavery is in the Bible and isn't condemned and b) slavery existed in the US and was defended to the death by "god fearing people" who believed that God made them superior by virtue of the color of their skin.
Seriously, David, your posts never cease to amaze me.
4 - David Flanagan
It's supremely arrogant to think that only a belief in god can lead a person to a moral life.
I don't think I ever stated such a thing in my post, but then, you may have just been making a point here regarding religion in general. Personally, I don't think that believing in God is the only way to be a "moral" person. Rather, what I'm saying is much more important; without God, there is no truth, there is no meaning, and there is NO reason why I should be EXPECTED to behave in a moral manner.
The fact is, if there is no God, I personally would likely not worry about whether my behaviour was "moral" or not. I would worry rather about what would best benefit my needs.
So, to underscore my point again, you don't have to believe in God to be moral, BUT, if there is no God, in my opinion, you'd be stupid to worry about being a moral person.
The Apostle Paul said it best:
"If the dead are not raised, 'Let us eat and drink,for tomorrow we die.'"
1 Corinthians 15:32
Thanks,
David
5 - Temple Stark
Truth is not just a collective event but an individual awakening.
No, David, there is truth in improving others' lifes. (or destroying many, sadly). You have waded into the subject, only to find yourself ankle deep.
6 - Temple Stark
>>there is no truth, there is no meaning, and there is NO reason why I should be EXPECTED to behave in a moral manner.
And yet so many still do who don't believe in God And the reverse is equally true - those who profess to believe in God can be the most evil people on the planet.
The absolute truth is long-term survival; how much people include that survival into protecting our home / our planet varies.
7 - David Flanagan
bhw,
You miss my point entirely. I'm not pinning slavery on secularism since, there were far fewer of those in those days even than today.
No, slavery, which persists in the world today, by the way, is an absolute evil, and America paid the price in the blood of hundreds of thousands of it's citizens during the Civil War. And any Christian who has ever justified slavery in the past or present was or is grossly in error.
As for slavery being in the Bible, thats kind of a strange thing to say. There are lots of things in the Bible, many of which God condemns. Slavery in the form of forced or indentured servitude existed before God made Israel into a nation, what God did, however, after he brought Israel out of it's own slavery in Egypt was to mandate proper treatment for servants and to limit terms of service for servants to a certain number of years.
That is what the Jubilee was all about. Every seven years every servant was to be set free and all debt cleared to avoid the creation of the kind of slave institutions that we saw in early American History.
Now, with all that said, I would appreciate it if you could take a look at my response to Dave and what I'm actually saying above.
Thanks,
David
8 - David Flanagan
Temple,
That is a very noble sentiment. I'm not so noble. :-)
I'm with the Apostle Paul. If there is no life after death, then I'm living for myself first and concentrating on having fun while I can.
If nothing really matters in this temporary universe, why in the world should I care about anyone else?
Thanks,
David
9 - Lisa McKay
So David, in the absence of an afterlife or eternal reward of some sort, you'd have no interest in improving society so that your children and their children might inherit a better world? My feeling is that this life is what we have, and it behooves all of us to live it richly and leave behind something worthwhile for our descendants.
10 - gonzo marx
/sigh
as soon as you put forward the Postulate that there can be no Truth without god you lost me..
i'm a bit of a Franklin style theist , personally...but still
physics is Truth..yes?..reproducible to the last decimal place..yet seemingly devoid of the divine intent(if not it would be a miracle and not "science" yes?)
removing any personal Gnosis and upon examining your baseline Postulate i just can't go along with the following Reasoning, if i may call it that...since the main weight bearing leg of your Argument is predicated on an unproven (disproven even) tenet as to where Truth stems from...
an Interesting read into the thinking behind the original Poster's mindset...
ah well...
Excelsior!
11 - bhw
David, all I did was follow your logical fallacy to its natural conclusion.
1. No God, no truth.
2. No truth, then right and wrong are arbitrary.
3. If right and wrong are arbitrary, then "we can accept slavery IF the society which supports this institution defines it as a societal good."
The result is the conclusion that slavery exists only when right and wrong are arbitrary, aka, when there is no God, aka: it's the secularists' fault.
Except that people who believed in God during the era of slavery in this country used so-called God's Truth to justify that slavery.
No, slavery, which persists in the world today, by the way, is an absolute evil,
But the bible doesn't say that. Is that a Truth? If it's not in the bible, how do you know it's immoral to own slaves?
I think it's immoral to own slaves, and I didn't need religion to tell me that.
And any Christian who has ever justified slavery in the past or present was or is grossly in error.
I don't see how they can/could be when the best the bible did was regulate slavery, not state that it was an absolute evil.
12 - JR
David Flanagan: A "truth" by definition is something that does not change. It's a perfect measure that always gives you the same result. One inch is always one inch, a mile is always a mile.
For you athiests, there are norms, certainly. But those exist only until they change; then you have new norms.
Those damn atheists and their confusing, morally relative metric system. It's downright... French.
13 - Dave Nalle
Seems to me a 'truth' is something which can be proven to be true. Maybe David should start by objectively proving the existence of God - a personal appearance at my house will do - and then we'll take his opinion of truth seriously.
Dave
14 - Steve S
If there is a stereotype for the religious man who means well, but is very ill-informed on the principles of this country, and a perfect example of that, which the extremists who are ruining this country are drawing their support/power from, we've found it.
(but to be fair, a lot of us already knew it).
15 - Dave Nalle
We need the ill-informed irrationally religious folks like David Flanagan to balance out the ill-informed irrationally anti-Bush leftists like BTP. It's all part of the cosmic balance.
They are miles apart in their beliefs, but so alike in their faith based world view.
Dave
16 - MDE
‘God’ has figured in more death and destruction than any other single factor in recorded history. What 'morality' is the author talking about?
Mark
17 - David Flanagan
So David, in the absence of an afterlife or eternal reward of some sort, you'd have no interest in improving society so that your children and their children might inherit a better world?
Nope! Next question!
David
18 - David Flanagan
gonzo,
Do we have scientific laws? Absolutely. I'm not talking "Law of Gravity," I'm' talking laws of humanity.
We know that gravity operates the same way every time when we run experiments in normal space/time, but what does that tell us about the meaning of life? As far as I've been able to discern, not a thing.
Thanks,
David
19 - Temple Stark
ill-informed irrationally religious
There we go with the names again - and this is someone you agree with on most everytihng else.
David - You can't just be so dismissive when earlier you said, if you didn't think there was a God you'd be all about yourself.
Which is it? Too many people named David try and play both sides of the same coin.
20 - Victor Plenty
Doesn't that put you just one crisis of faith away from becoming the sort of heartless thug who murders his own children and steals his company's pension fund so he can afford booze drugs and whores for the rest of his life in a sunny country with no extradition treaty?
Doesn't sound like a very solid basis for civilization to me.
21 - David Flanagan
bhw,
You might want to try reading the Bible. And, again, my point above is that, if there is no God, then slavery is OKAY, as long as the dominant society proclaims it to be okay.
So, perhaps you should argue that there must be no God because some Christians for a time in this country defined slavery as "okay." Try that angle.
Thanks,
David
22 - Dave Nalle
>>ill-informed irrationally religious
There we go with the names again <<
That was a repeat of something which Steve S said, so don't put the name-calling on me, thanks.
>>- and this is someone you agree with on most everytihng else.<<
You're sadly confused again. Sure, I agree with David F. on a few things, but certainly not on a bunch of core issues.
>>David - You can't just be so dismissive when earlier you said, if you didn't think there was a God you'd be all about yourself.<<
Ok, I didn't say that one - call me Dave and him David and it should all be clear.
Dave
23 - David Flanagan
Dave,
If you want to meet God, then ask him. I did, and I wasn't disappointed.
David
24 - David Flanagan
Steve,
How do you know that I "mean well?" Thats a fairly large assumption.
But thanks for assuming positive intent.
David
25 - Dave Nalle
>>If you want to meet God, then ask him. I did, and I wasn't disappointed.<<
Not presuming to have a direct line to God is one of the main tenets of my belief system.
Dave