We can only hope that the Unitarian fanatics are kept in check.
Beware the Unitarian Jihad!
Well, the blessings are coming from Liberty, but the Founding Fathers pretty clearly stated elsewhere that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these rights are life, and you know the rest of it. So the liberty comes from God, and the blessings come from the liberty.
But I can no more believe that Huckabee will get the nom than that Obama will get it from the other side. I mean, come on here - fun’s fun, but elections are serious.
Regards,
Shodan
But is it a god that you’d recognize as such? Jefferson wasn’t exactly a raving evangelist. Mistaking 18th-Century felicity of phrasing for heartfelt faith in the personal God of Christianity is an error.
You are conflating the men who signed the DoI with the men who wrote and ratified the Constitution. The latter document is the Supreme law of the land, not the former.
Not to mention that TJ was not a signatory to the Constitution.
Yes, but as you mentioned, the quote in question (about life, liberty, etc.) comes from the DoI.
Yes, but I think a lot of people assume that Jefferson was a signatory to the constitution, when he wasn’t. There is very little overlap between the signers of those two documents. In fact, if you look at all three founding documents (the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution), there was only one guy who signed them all. And he just so happens to be my 5-great-grandfather.
The point being, as you mention, the Declaration of Independence is one of the founding documents of the United States. That’s where the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God compel them to state their motives in founding the Republic.
It’s perfectly possible to simply assert that, just because they say that rights come from God is no reason to believe that they meant it, but that is merely hand-waving.
The Founding Fathers based their claim that the United States were, and ought to be, free and independent, on the idea that rights come from God. That’s what the DoI says, and that’s the document that Jefferson did not merely sign, he wrote it.
I don’t see anyone named Mace here.
LIAR!!!
Regards,
Shodan
Roger Sherman?
Your 5-great granddad’s name is “United States Historical Document Reproduction Company?”
Wow- his parents must have hated him.
But what nice penmanship. Almost… machinelike.
No matter. I think it is entirely plausible that most of the signers of the Constitution believed that rights derive from the “Creator” (not necessarily God, in the Judeo-Christian sense), but that is not supported by the text of the Constitution, nor by any significant overlap in the signers of that document and the DoI. However, the fact is we do not know.
Regardless, even if we take the DOI as instructive, if you judge by the bible Jefferson edited, it’s ferdamnsure that “Creator” is not synonymous with Jesus in any way, shape, or form.
Didn’t Huckabee introduce the government-sanctioned sacrament of “Covenant Marriage” in Arkansas? I agree, I’m not worried about him actually amending the Constitution, but what he would do with presidential power regardless of the Constitution, especially given that he openly regards “God’s laws” as trumping the supreme law of the land.
It’s times like these that make me wonder if the Jewish contingent of the neocon “Judeo-Christian” lobby start sweating a little bit. Judeo-Christian is all well and good when you’re shoulder to shoulder fighting the eeevil ACLU, atheists, and gays, but when an evangelical Christian starts talking about erasing SOCAS, no one can really think they will soft-pedal the Jesus stuff, right?
I’m not worried. He promised, on TV, to make Stephen Colbert his Veep. If he gets elected, I’m sure Colbert will have Jimmy wack him! If Jimmy won’t do it, the building manager will.
No, it’s supported by what it says in the Declaration of Independence, as I think I mentioned. And the DoI is the first of the foundational documents of the USA.
Those are the principles the country - not the government, the country - is founded on. Everything else comes later. In theory, you could found a different government structure on the same principles. That’s why we had to take two cracks at it, and why it is possible to amend the Constitution. But the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - those don’t change.
Because they come from God.
Regards,
Shodan
And I’m just noting that the God that Jefferson was thinking of when he wrote that may just not be the God you would recognize as the one you worship. So who’s right in that case, you with your personal Christian God or Jefferson with his impersonal Deistic watchmaker God?
Originally Posted by An Arky
This is why I am throwing my support to Huckabee for the Republican nomination. Who better embodies the spirit of the GOP’s rock-solid conservative values?
No messing around with people of suspect ideology like McCain or Giuliani, or cultists like Romney, let’s have someone who understands God like Huckabee. God’s gonna strike down all these sinful homos and athiests, and America, once again a God-fearing country, will stand strong and righteous with a man like him in the White House.
GOP Nominee Huckabee. Yeah, throw me in that briar patch…
That would be a match made in Heaven…It would be even more effective in getting the Democratic voters to galvanize than those panel vans with guys kissing that the Republicans put near polling places in '04 did for the fundies.
Too bad they didn’t write it into the constitution. But then, I suspect they had a very good reason not to.
There is only one God, Our conceptions and misconceptions about Him don’t change His nature.
Regards,
Shodan
Not to mention plenty of non-supernatural things. People use phrases like “the blessings of modern medicine” without meaning that “Medicine” is a sky god who rains down penicillin and insulin on the faithful.
God is just a delusion, which means that if those values were based on God they could change any time. The slaveowners of the Old South were enthusiastically Christian, and it didn’t give them the slightest impulse to respect the “principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” for their slaves; quite the opposite.
And there’s no more evidence for that than there is for God to exist at all.
I’d seen some religious remarks from him. They didn’t completely offend me, and they were no surprise to me as a Christian who has been exposed to some of that type of Christian thinking. I’m thinking about his opinions regarding homosexuality: hate the sin, love the sinner kinda deal. And his environmentalism as a reflection of his faith is pretty appealing.
But his latest remarks about the constitution make me think he would be dangerous. I don’t think he could have much or any influence on the constitution if elected. But his election would encourage others who feel the same way he does, and at the least this would make it difficult for Congress to conduct its business.