Do you consider the declaration of a government that that nation believes in God, and that it trusts in that God, to be a merely aesthetic decision?
I ask because that’s not what’s born out by your quotes. To the contrary, the quotes you cite from Washington, Adams and Lincoln suggest they would consider a merely aesthetic decision to be entirely inappropriate and not worshipful enough. If anything, they would seem to be in agreement with those systems in England at the time to have an established religion.
That’s inaccurate. There are plenty of divine beings, or otherwise objective-law-setting-beings, who could be the source of such inalienable rights. Or the concept could merely be rules built into the universe without a god - and there could even be gods who act against those rights, who would prefer those rights not to be inalienable.
Monarchs, in those days, claimed their rights not simply from their person, but from divine right acting through them. Their whims were equally declared the result of divine influence. If the founders of your nation desired to follow God, then surely they would have continued acting in the name of their rightful King. Unless, I suppose, they felt that the notion of declaring divine providence was inherently not certain.
Kali! (Grabs strangling cord and pick-axe and goes out to murder strangers at truck stops…)
Trinopus (or…maybe not)
A silly argument. For one thing, just because some imaginary (or even real) god says something is a right doesn’t make it so. And second, since “God” is indistinguishable from being nonexistent, it’s less of a firm foundation than the whim of a monarch. At least if a monarch offers his protection, he can try to enforce it.
Since “God” isn’t going to actually show up and make his opinion known, claiming that something is the “will of God” is just giving a divine label to your own unsupported whim*. Nor has historically “God” been a supporter of inalienable rights; on the contrary, “God” is usually used as an excuse as to why we have to trample on the rights of people. So your idea fails even on the most practical of levels; it just doesn’t work the way you say it does.
- Which is why I’ve been using “God” in quotes; in this context “God” is just a fancy label for the particular agenda of whoever is invoking the name, not an entity.
Assuming you are talking of the Christian Bible, It depends on which books you read. In the Old Testament, you should clearly arm yourself with whatever the most effective weapon is to pound the shit out of the hethens, and also make sure that your leader keeps his arms up. As for tax reform, there isn’t much guidance as long as you are paying suitable tithe and not engaging in idoltry. For the New Testament, you should only pound the hell out of moneylenders and [del]Romans[/del] Mohammedans, and render to Caeser what has Caeser’s image upon it while still making sure that God’s anointed mouthpieces are well-fed and appointed.
The Jewish Yahweh, on the other hand, doesn’t make a lot of restrictions on weapons or cash, although he is rather concerned about what you are eating and how you eat it.
The god of the Muslims just wants you to convert everyone else to Islam or otherwise kick the living shit out of them.
Those Hindu gods, I don’t really know what they’re all about, but they sure have a lot of arms and seem to be having a lot of fun (except for Dhumavati).
Stranger
Fox News commentators were delighted that Congress reaffirmed America’s God-trusting status but (and I do agree with them on this) thought it shameful that such a resolution was “necessary.”
(No, I don’t actually watch Faux News. I get a synopsis of their reports from one of America’s better real news shows – Jon Stewart.)
I e’d my Congressman (for whom I voted) and asked him to explain to me please just who this “we” is who trusts in God.
If only because is there really any doubt that if the folks responsible for adding God to all things American wouldn’t even let the question “Umm, is this “god” your talking about Jesus’s dad or…” be completed before answering. The whole Ceremonial Deism “this is all merely ritual and non-religious reference to what ever you want God to mean exactly…” is retconning of the most obvious, and insulting to the retconee’s intelligence, kind.
Really take “(G)god(s)” away and exactly where do those inalienable rights come from then?
This, We hold these truths to be self-evident, is where unalienable rights come from. “Laws of Nature”, “Nature’s God” and “their Creator” are simply an attempt to move the endower of those unalienable rights from the God of the Bible to the God of The Enlightenment. When no divine endower of things self-evident is required.
It matters not at all where self-evident unalienable rights come from, what matters is that the governed agree on what their limits are,
and that governments both recognize and protect them.
I’d argue that those individuals were reminding folks that the “divine right of kings” was a fiction,
and that the, divine or not, rights of the governed trump all others.
It’s really interesting to read the DoI followed by English Bill of Rights. I think it’s very arguable that there’s a whole lot more subtext in the DoI than text (I.E. when governments, including kings, act in ways that do not enjoy the consent of the governed, it turns out it really ain’t that “good to be the “king””).
CMC fnord!
Baby Jesus threw up a little in his mouth what that bill passed.
If you act to establish something, you’ve created an establishment. It’s the literal interpretation of the letter of the Constitution. And unlike the bit about “a well-regulated militia” in the 2nd Amendment, the stuff you referred to isn’t mentioned at all.
And of course there is a sectarian rather than aesthetic intent behind religious slogans on government buildings. Quoting George Washington on Almighty God and then minimizing this stuff as “aesthetic” smacks of weaseling.
So certain vulnerable populations learned the hard way that they couldn’t trust in God.
Actually, the purpose of my point there was to pre-empt any argument the God acts primarily through the work of religious people rather than by using actual supernatural power.
Beat me to it. In fact, read my mind. The God of the Bible is faith-based, not self-evident.
To put it another way, these days we take our rights for granted and argue about whether God exists. In those days they took God for granted and argued about whether the people or the king got rights.
Please define “the public sphere”.
Maybe not in the States, where people still seem to have problems understanding the concept of income tax, or the non-cohabitation of dinosaurs and cavemen, but at least over here, Separation of Church and State precisely means God doesnt exist in the public sphere.
I will just say this, to all of the folks trying to strip every trace of religion out of every conceivable thing: keep at it if you want Republicans to keep getting elected. You are just giving your enemies more fuel against you. Like it or not, the majority of America does believe in God and does not have a problem with whatever religious things you are objecting to, no matter how much it upsets you. Every time you attack what they hold sacred, it backfires against you.
People don’t understand how good they’ve got it. Nobody’s being forced to believe in a religion or else lose their citizenship or legal status; nobody’s being forced to ride in the back of the bus here. Nobody’s being deprived of their rights, arrested, beaten, or executed based on their religion. At the very most, this is something that annoys you.
I don;t want to copy and past it. It is too long:
No it isn’t. That phrase is a hortative, with a meaning rougly equivalent to “…And may God help me keep this vow.”
Wasn’t “Rock You Like a Hurricane” sung by the German rock band the Scorpions?
Maybe you are thinking of “Jack and Diane” or something.