[ExI] Religions and violence.

[John Clark]

On Aug 7, 2010, at 10:53 PM, Jebadiah Moore wrote:

> I don't mean protected from criticism.  (Almost) nothing ought to be protected from criticism, in my opinion.  (I say almost because I can think of some times when it's better not to criticize people, at least until later.)

I too think there are times when it may not be a very good idea to criticize something (such as denouncing Naziism in the middle of a Nazi rally), but I also think that, although I may not like it, people should be free to criticize what I just said.

> I don't mean that *all* possible communities should be built and protected, just as I don't think that all possible humans or all possible machines or all possible anythings, really, should be built or protected.  Obviously.

I can only respond to what you say not what you meant. 

>> That is not true, not if natural ethics means things most people feel are right. 


> That's not what "natural ethics" means.  The term for the things people feel are right is "moral intuition".  

You're beating a dead horse. Perhaps at one time the distinction between natural ethics and moral intuition was a big deal but not anymore, certainly not with "self-avowed atheists, rationalists, and general non-believers" you talk about. Nobody on this list expects the scientists at CERN to discover with their accelerator the fundamental quantum particle of morality, the Moron. 

> Slow down with the anti-religious zealotry for a minute

Why? It's not like the other side hasn't had their say! Nobody seems to be able to make the case that what I'm saying is untrue, they only can say it's bad public relations.

> People are right when they say that the United States is an inherently Christian nation, since the idea of unalienable rights ("endowed by their Creator") is built directly into the source.

The source is the Constitution, you're quoting from the Declaration of Independence.
I found some interesting quotations from some of the founding fathers of the USA on the subject,

THOMAS JEFFERSON (author of the Declaration of Independence):

*Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law.

*History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government.

*In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.

*The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.

BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN:

*Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.

*I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. 

*Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies. 

*The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason 

JOHN ADAMS:

*The Cross, consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!

*Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1,500 years.

*What havoc has been made of books through every century of the Christian era.

JAMES MADISON:

*Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind.

*What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient allies. 

*The civil government … functions with complete success … by the total separation of the Church from the State.

Not a founding father but still interesting,

ABRAHAM LINCOLN:

*The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession.

*My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures, have become clearer and stronger with advancing years and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them.

  John K Clark




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