Discussing Prayer: Muslim vs. Christian (and Much More)

CLICK TO SKIP INTRO!

INTRODUCTION TO ME
For my new readers

(This intro will make sense at the end)

Okay, this is just the beginning of a future discussion/post of a documentary; I have yet to watch it – it is called, “The 13th. I have some assumptions regarding what I know about the documentary so far due to years of that specific topic, or peripheral topics being read or discussed via talk radio. But I try to be even keeled – that being said, we all have our biases. Mine are driven by an online presence since the late 90’s “NET ZERO days” discussing religion and politics at SPACEBATTLE, then at MySpace, then a free blog at BLOGSPOT from 2006 to 2010. Then my .COM from 2010 to current time. I discuss or read the same on Twitter at times (joined 2010) as well as Facebook (joined 2008).

I have over 5,000 books and many documentaries… but do not think it is all lopsided to my view.  I have many hundreds, as an example, of books by evolutionary biologists, archaeologists, anthropologists, chemists, and the like either defending, explaining evolution; likewise, many of the same refuting Intelligent Design or Creationism.

  • Dawkins, K. Nielsen, D. Dennett, Sartre, Camus, Nietzsche, S. Harris, M. Martin, L. Wolpert, D. Barker, W. Provine, C. Hitchens, E. Mayr, S.J. Gould, J. Coyne, E.O. Wilson, C. Darwin, C. Zimmer, K. Miller, J. Loftus, B. Forrest and early A. Flew, etc., etc.,

I likewise have studies almost all the major world religions well. I have studied the cults as well and the occult. Topics I have read over the years include philosophy, economics, history, theology, comparative religion, cults (political and religious), apologetics, current affairs, etc.

Another quick example. Reading a commonly used quote theists used by an atheist philosopher when discussing war and religion. I wanted to see more context regarding the quote, so I purchased the book and read the entire chapter I knew the quote resided. In the end I used a slightly larger portion of the quote as it expanded the thought even further. (See the quote by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong HERE.)

  • Walter Sinnott-Armstrong is an American philosopher specializing in ethics, epistemology, neuroethics, the philosophy of law, and the philosophy of cognitive science. He is the Chauncey Stillman Professor of Practical Ethics in the Department of Philosophy and the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University.

In my media library I have many hundreds of debates between theists and atheists; naturalists and Intelligent Design theorists; Creationists and Evolutionists, etc.  I have 2,057 uploads to my YouTube, the first one dated Apr 6, 2007. (As well as a growing RUMBLE file.) I have 57,994 Files in my Microsoft Word – the bulk of which is writing, or cataloging of debates/discussions since the late 90s I have been involved in.

Very rarely have I come across a detractor of the Christian faith who has – at some point in their life – said,

  • “you know, maybe I should pick up a scholarly book or two by those that I am so passionate in my ‘matter of a fact’ statements against.”

Just one book on FAITH?

  • Is God Just a Human Invention? And Seventeen Other Questions Raised by the New Atheists
  • I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist
  • Why I Am a Christian: Leading Thinkers Explain Why They Believe

Or just one book on POLITICS?

  • The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy
  • Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation
  • The Road to Serfdom
  • What’s Race Got to Do with It?: Why It’s Time to Stop the Stupidest Argument in America

Never do these people think,  “I should know what I am rejecting.” Honest insight and knowledge about those whom you refute should be more common that it is. In a very old conversation I gave these examples:

I often bump into people that have watched some or most of the following “documentaries” I likewise own and have watched all on the following list (one should take note that some of these are shown in public school classrooms):

  • Bowling for Columbine
  • Roger and Me
  • Fahrenheit 9/11
  • Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
  • Sicko
  • An Inconvenient Truth
  • Loose Change
  • Zeitgeist
  • Religulouse
  • The God Who Wasn’t There
  • Super-Size Me

But rarely do I meet someone of the opposite persuasion from me that have watched any of the following (I own and have watched):

  • 11: The Temperature at Which the Brain Dies
  • FahrenHYPE 9/11
  • Michael & Me
  • Michael Moore Hates America
  • Bullshit! Fifth Season… (where they tear apart the Wal-Mart documentary)
  • Indoctrinate U
  • Mine Your Own Business
  • Screw Loose Change
  • 3-part response to Zeitgeist
  • Fat-Head
  • Privileged Planet
  • Unlocking the Mystery of Life

People do not search out clarity, only confirmation.

….OKAY. MOVING ON….

This will be just a cataloging of some statements and discussion followed by a refutation. The discussion on Facebook started over the SCOTUS decision about the Coach praying. Here is the set up:

  • The former Bremerton football coach sat down for an extended interview to discuss how he started praying on the field and what came of his decision to continue doing so.

The first challenge I wish to illuminate is one regarding “what is the coach had been a Muslim” (I respond sometimes in video as I drive for a living.)

MUSLIM

T.S. — Sean [me, RPT] so do you believe that this supreme Court would rule the same way if this coach was Muslim and brought prayer mats for all the students instead of taking a knee

RPT — that my friend is a non-sequitur

T.S. — agreed only to the point that no one could ever really know unless it happened. However, so far this court has shown more bias towards Christian beliefs, so I would speculate that they wouldn’t have ruled the same. I hope they prove me wrong in the future.

RPT — T.S. I can tell you if a Muslim went to the field, lifted his hands up and gave Allah thanks and prayed for both teams, the Court would rule the same. That is a more consistent analogy.

T.S. — So if Christians are the only ones that would walk out onto a field and pray, how is this ruling un-biased? If only Christians are those that would do something of this nature why should they be granted more rights than another religion? Or am I misinterpreting your video?

[The first of these two didn’t upload till later, but here I put it in order. in other the context is clearer for the reader vs. the flow of the original FB conversation]

[…..]

T.S. — Sean, back to your tangent, let’s say it was a Satanist that wanted to take a knee and praise the devil would that hold muster to your non-sequitur issue? Or should I be more personal and say a 3HO Sikh coach goes out and prays to Yogi Bhajan, would that be a more appropriate analogy?

I respond with a court case that makes it clear and expands upon what a religion is:

Clipped from my: The Cults, Language, Revelation, and Secularism (1999)

Here is a quote from the famous 1961 court case, Torcaso v. Watkins:

  • Among religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism and others.

See: Washington Ethical Society v. District of Columbia, 101 U.S.App.D.C. 371, 249 F.2d 127; Fellowship of Humanity v. County of Alameda, 153 Cal.App.2d 673, 315 P.2d 394; II Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 293; 4 Encyclopedia Britannica (1957 ed.) 325-327; 21 id. at 797; Archer, Faiths Men Live By (2d ed. revised by Purinton), 120-138, 254-313; 1961 World Almanac 695, 712; Year Book of American Churches for 1961, at 29, 47.

The Main points were made. HOWEVER, this great small commentary on the SCOTUS ruling of the coach is made by Matt Walsh

MATT WALSH

BOOM!

See more also at RED STATE.

COLIN KAEPERNICK +

Discussion withing the larger issue also got started on kneeling during the anthem. Two sub-topics in this strain were about Kaepernick’s reasoning for kneeling as well as differences between actions in the “break-room” versus a prayer on the field.

Private vs. Public

Referencing one of the videos I did, T.S. noted this:

T.S. — R.R., listen to Sean’s video as he states private company could fire somebody for talking religion and or politics so yes this teacher could have been fired because it was during school time.

RPT — someone cannot be fired for praying over their lunch T.S., They can be fired for aggressive proselytizing — but SCHOOL IS A GOVERNMENT institution. Not private.

RPT — So R.R., yes, listen to my video, well.

Reason for Kneeling

At the end of this conversation, to which I am adding to and bowing out of on Facebook per my response here, the motive for is “spite” of America, and the flag.” Nothing changes this fact. I will end with a CNN quote to make the point, after the following. (I also highlight the portion that was misstated I believe by T.S., or not known, and is the root of our disagreement):

T.S. — …. How is it disrespectful to kneel for the flag but is respectful to kneel for “God”?

RPT — T.S., Colin wasn’t kneeling for the flag (nor were others, they were kneeling to spite the flag)

T.S. — It was in protest but not against the flag. He was taking a knee because it was brought to his attention by a Green Beret that sitting was disrespecting the flag. I agree with the Green Beret that kneeling isn’t disrespectful, and it turns out so did Colin, but somehow he’s been demonized. Those that also seem to agree that kneeling is respectful is the supreme court, as long as it fits their belief systems.


RPT — honestly I don’t know where you get your ideas to support this and other claims. As usual, the facts (Kaepernicks own words) don’t fit your statement/opinion:

RPT — Dom and I are headed out… but the above was Larry Elder, he does a bang-up job dealing with the issue. But knowing how people react to “conservative libertarians” [irrationally] — even going so far as calling Larry “the black face of white supremacy” — here is another source I am sure you implicitly trust:

Free agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick revealed in a new interview that the 2015 shooting death of Mario Woods in San Francisco pushed him to protest police brutality and injustice, and led to his decision to kneel during the national anthem. The remarks were published online in the magazine Paper on Tuesday…..

(CBS NEWS)

Headed out. Love ya man.


T.S. — I didn’t go back and check my source, turns out he is a Green Beret not a Marine. (NPR: “The Veteran And NFL Player Who Advised Kaepernick To Take A Knee”)

Here is the non-Facebook addition to make my point and show that T.S. is off base a smidge.

As a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, Kaepernick sparked controversy when he sat, then knelt, during the National Anthem before several 2016 NFL preseason and regular-season games. He said he did so to protest police shootings of African-American men and other social injustices faced by black people in the United States.

“To me, this is something that has to change,” Kaepernick said in an August 2016 interview. “And when there’s significant change and I feel like that flag represents what it’s supposed to represent and this country is representing people the way that it’s supposed to, I’ll stand.”

Kaepernick also said he could not “show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.”

So it is “to spite the flag,” based on lies. (More on this in a bit) That is one. Continuing, Kaepernick went from sitting to kneeling because he was disrespecting those who and are serving:

After first, Kaepernick sat during the anthem. Later, he opted instead to kneel “to show more respect for men and women who fight for the country.” The change came at the suggestion of former NFL player and Green Beret Nate Boyer…..

(CNN)

Not to show respect for the flag.

Oppressed

RPT — everything Kaeper said was pretty much not true. So neither he nor the people he said police were oppressing (or the white supremacist and privileged society he espoused) have any connection to reality. So not only is he not oppressed, but neither are his “homiez”

T.S. — Sean I know you’re not saying that people of color have not been and still are being oppressed, or are we just cherry picking to try and discredit one person in hopes that it discredits an entire movement. Remember until we’ve walked in someone’s shoes we can’t know their truth.

RPT — T.S., how are black persons oppressed? … outside of government subsidizing fatherless homes

The oppression mentioned by T.S.? Driving while black:

T.S. — Sean until families of color don’t have to have the talk about driving while black there will always be a state of being subject to unjust treatment or control. Luckily you’ve never HAD to have that conversation. I’ve been on both sides of that talk and when it comes from a white person it’s about how you can get out of it without a ticket rather than with your life.

RPT — T.S.,  …….In Ferguson, Mo., after announcing a federal investigation into the cop-shooting death of an unarmed black teen, Holder said: “I am the attorney general of the United States. But I am also a black man. I can remember being stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike on two occasions and accused of speeding.I remember how humiliating that was and how angry I was and the impact it had on me.”

The New Jersey Turnpike? The long-believed claim of “racism” on that highway has been investigated — and debunked. Twice.

Numerous complaints of DWB — “Driving While Black” — were filed by blacks driving on the New Jersey Turnpike. So the state entered into a consent decree, agreed to federal monitoring and put their officers through, among other things, “sensitivity training.” New Jersey commissioned a study, checking motorists’ speed with laser guns and photographing drivers of vehicles going 15 mph or more over the speed limit.

The result? It turned out that more speeders were black than white, which explained why cops pulled over black motorists so often. The U.S. Justice Department, which requested the study, did not want the results released to the public. Instead they accused the researchers of using a “flawed methodology.” Why shelve a report that disproves racism? Isn’t it good news that Jersey troopers do not pull blacks over willy-nilly? Would this not improve race relations in New Jersey? No — the facts did not fit the script.

The next year, state police “stop data” showed that, on the southern part of the turnpike, 30 percent of the drivers pulled over were minority — almost twice the 16 percent rate of minority stops elsewhere on the turnpike. So amid new allegations that cops were targeting minorities, and to correct the “flawed methodology” of the previous researchers, New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey commissioned yet another study. The result? Again, it turned out a disproportionately higher percentage of drivers on that stretch of highway were black, and that blacks were more likely than non-blacks to drive 80 miles per hour or faster. Again, critics called the study’s methodology “flawed.”…..

(WASHINGTON EXAMINER)


RPT — T.S., Some of this and more is found discussed in depth in an upload of mine 7-years ago (50 minutes long: https://youtu.be/tujTPr0SpCM). But the racial break down in New York of the police force is about 1/3rd white, 1/3rd black, and about 1/3rd Hispanic. And ticketing and stops are still heavily black. Why?? Already explained above. 

T.S. — So the study showed that more black people drove on that stretch of highway therefore more were pulled over. It’s like the statistic that people are more likely to get into an accident the closer to home they are. It’s a flawed study if there isn’t an equal base line all ethnicities accounted for. Now that’s just a supposition as I haven’t read their base-line, but you should get the point. I can tell you there are more white people that speed from Ventura to Santa Barbara. Does that mean the CHP aren’t biased against black people because they are pulled over less in this area (sarcastically)? I’ve personally experienced vehicles being pulled over based on the drivers color of skin. Two instances they were driving my car in areas that I drove all the time past officers. The only difference was the color of the skin of the person behind the wheel. None of this has any bearing on their treatment while being pulled over. One instance the driver was pulled out of the car pushed against the police vehicle with hands restrained while being questioned all after respectfully addressing the officer and putting the keys on the dash and hands out the window. All of this was because I had a brake light out. Did they even come talk to me the owner of the vehicle, that’s right they didn’t. He was given a warning after the officers partner heard me calling racial bias. Was I given anything, again the answer was nothing, not even a fix-it ticket or a warning. To re-iterate he was being the respectful one in this situation while I and the officers were acting inappropriately. And yet again we have found ourselves way down a rabbit hole that has no bearing on my original question. How is it disrespectful to kneel for the flag but is respectful to kneel for “God”?

RPT — T.S., as well as they break the law (driving laws) more than other ethnicities:

…..Holder’s own department statistics show that African Americans, on average, violate speeding and other traffic laws at much greater rates than whites.

The Justice Department’s research arm, the National Institute of Justice, explains that differences in traffic stops can simply be attributed to “differences in offending.”……

(IBD)

This is where the INTRO comes into play and will hopefully lead to future conversation over the aforementioned documentary. A.Y. pops in with this:

A.Y. — [speaking to R.R.] the United States government is not Christian. Our country was founded on the concept of freedom of religion and separation of Church and state. Our court is not supposed to make decisions based on religious beliefs.

[….]

Sean, you should watch the documentary the 13th.

RPT — A.Y., Can you please explain where in the Constitution it says, “separation of church and state”? I carry a copy with me and will have time to look later. I have read it for years and miss it each time. The only time that phrase is used is in a letter by Thomas Jefferson (1803?) in response to a Baptist pastor who was worried about his state setting up a Christian denomination as a “state religion.” Jefferson responded that his Baptist denomination would not have to fear because the Constitution protected religion FROM THE STATE. Not the STATE FROM RELIGION. Today people thing the latter was meant. It was not.

I had a very short discussion with TED LEVINE (Silence of the Lambs, Heat, etc.) on the issue. I have noted the longer “paper” I link in the post to — above in Conversation.

In fact, I have read the Federalist Papers, the Articles of Confederation (I even have a modern English version), the Declaration of Independence, and the like. Maybe you can point it out?

Anyhew, off to work (late already). Got a busy day, been working 11-to-12 hours a day. Driving to Arizona on Saturday… so Monday may be my earliest to respond, well. At any rate, I always note the following to preface important conversation:

“By-the-by, for those reading this I will explain what is missing in this type of discussion due to the media used. Genuflecting, care, concern, one being upset (does not entail being “mad”), etc… are all not viewable because we are missing each other’s tone, facial expressions, and the like. I afford the other person I am dialoguing with the best of intentions and read his/her comments as if we were out having a talk over a beer at a bar or meeting a friend at Starbucks. (I say this because there seems to be a phenomenon of etiquette thrown out when talking through email or Face Book, lots more public cussing and gratuitous responses.) You will see that often times I USE CAPS — which in www lingo for YELLING. I am not using it this way, I use it to merely emphasize and often times say as much: *not said in yelling tone, but merely to emphasize*. So in all my discussions I afford the best of thought to the other person as I expect he or she would to me… even if dealing with tough subjects as the above. I have had more practice at this than most, and with half-hour pizza, one hour photo and email vs. ‘snail mail,’ know that important discussions take time to meditate on, inculcate, and to process. So be prepared for a good thought provoking discussion if you so choose one with me.”

RPT — If I watch the documentary, will you discuss some points of it? That is real question. You can message me in FB if you wish to be more private, or, my email is here

A.Y. — sure we may discuss on here or in messenger.

BRAVO. Very rarely do you find a person willing to commit to look at the facts… let us see if it holds true.

…BACK TO THE DISCUSSION BETWEEN T.S. AND MYSELF…

T.S. — Sean until families of color don’t have to have the talk about driving while black there will always be a state of being subject to unjust treatment or control. Luckily you’ve never HAD to have that conversation. I’ve been on both sides of that talk and when it comes from a white person it’s about how you can get out of it without a ticket rather than with your life.

RPT — …….In Ferguson, Mo., after announcing a federal investigation into the cop-shooting death of an unarmed black teen, Holder said: “I am the attorney general of the United States. But I am also a black man. I can remember being stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike on two occasions and accused of speeding. … I remember how humiliating that was and how angry I was and the impact it had on me.”
The New Jersey Turnpike? The long-believed claim of “racism” on that highway has been investigated — and debunked. Twice.

Numerous complaints of DWB — “Driving While Black” — were filed by blacks driving on the New Jersey Turnpike. So the state entered into a consent decree, agreed to federal monitoring and put their officers through, among other things, “sensitivity training.” New Jersey commissioned a study, checking motorists’ speed with laser guns and photographing drivers of vehicles going 15 mph or more over the speed limit.

The result? It turned out that more speeders were black than white, which explained why cops pulled over black motorists so often. The U.S. Justice Department, which requested the study, did not want the results released to the public. Instead they accused the researchers of using a “flawed methodology.” Why shelve a report that disproves racism? Isn’t it good news that Jersey troopers do not pull blacks over willy-nilly? Would this not improve race relations in New Jersey? No — the facts did not fit the script.

The next year, state police “stop data” showed that, on the southern part of the turnpike, 30 percent of the drivers pulled over were minority — almost twice the 16 percent rate of minority stops elsewhere on the turnpike. So amid new allegations that cops were targeting minorities, and to correct the “flawed methodology” of the previous researchers, New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey commissioned yet another study. The result? Again, it turned out a disproportionately higher percentage of drivers on that stretch of highway were black, and that blacks were more likely than non-blacks to drive 80 miles per hour or faster. Again, critics called the study’s methodology “flawed.”…..

(WASHINGTON EXAMINER)

[…]

Some of this and more is found discussed in depth in an upload of mine 7-years ago (50 minutes long). But the racial break down in New York of the police force is about 1/3rd white, 1/3rd black, and about 1/3rd Hispanic. And ticketing and stops are still heavily black. Why?? Already explained above.

T.S. — So the study showed that more black people drove on that stretch of highway therefore more were pulled over. It’s like the statistic that people are more likely to get into an accident the closer to home they are. It’s a flawed study if there isn’t an equal base line all ethnicities accounted for. Now that’s just a supposition as I haven’t read their base-line, but you should get the point. I can tell you there are more white people that speed from Ventura to Santa Barbara. Does that mean the CHP aren’t biased against black people because they are pulled over less in this area (sarcastically)? I’ve personally experienced vehicles being pulled over based on the drivers color of skin. Two instances they were driving my car in areas that I drove all the time past officers. The only difference was the color of the skin of the person behind the wheel. None of this has any bearing on their treatment while being pulled over. One instance the driver was pulled out of the car pushed against the police vehicle with hands restrained while being questioned all after respectfully addressing the officer and putting the keys on the dash and hands out the window. All of this was because I had a brake light out. Did they even come talk to me the owner of the vehicle, that’s right they didn’t. He was given a warning after the officers partner heard me calling racial bias. Was I given anything, again the answer was nothing, not even a fix-it ticket or a warning. To re-iterate he was being the respectful one in this situation while I and the officers were acting inappropriately. 


RPT — as well as they break the law (driving laws) more than other ethnicities:

    • …..Holder’s own department statistics show that African Americans, on average, violate speeding and other traffic laws at much greater rates than whites. The Justice Department’s research arm, the National Institute of Justice, explains that differences in traffic stops can simply be attributed to “differences in offending.”…… (IBD)

That is it for now, except that A.Y. did contact me with a meme…

…to which I updated and older post to respond to the part that wasn’t included in the original meme, here:

I have yet to see if she will acknowledge just how bad here meme was. And yes, darn those pesky facts.

 

A Tale of Two Revolutions

There is besides something special in this malady of the French Revolution that I feel without being able to describe it well or to analyze its causes. It is a virus of a new and unknown kind. There were violent revolutions in the world, but the immoderate, violent, radical, desperate, audacious, almost mad, and nonetheless powerful and effective character of these revolutionaries is without precedent, it seems to me, in the great social agitations of past centuries. From whence came this new race? What produced it? What made it so effective? What is perpetuating it? For we are still faced with the same men, although the circumstances are different, and they have founded a family in the whole civilized world. My mind is worn out with forming a clear notion of this object and with looking for ways of painting it well. Independent of every thing that is accounted for in the French Revolution, there is something unaccounted for in its spirit and its acts. I sense where the unknown object is, but try as I may, I cannot raise the veil that covers it. I feel this object as if through a strange body, preventing me from either touching it well or seeing it.

Alexis de Tocqueville, Selected Letters on Politics and Society, ed. Roger Boesche, trans. James Toupin and Roger Boesche (Berkeley, CA: The Regents of the University of California, 1985), 373 (SITE TO ACCESS)

This weekend we celebrate America’s birthday. But how many more will she have? We Christians will have to make some clear choices if the founders’ vision for America is to continue into the future. Discover the tale of two incompatible visions, on this week’s Truths That Transform.

Dialogue, debate, reasonableness… versus anarchy

Ezra Levant of TheRebel.media and Andrew Klavan, of the Daily Wire, compare the American and French Revolution. Not a “radical break with the past or history/tradition”

This following excerpt from Liberty’s Secrets is one that squarely displaces the typical secular attack on Jefferson being a man of faith to some degree. In this excerpt Thomas Paine’s position on Christianity and God is dealt with as an extra bonus, as well as some of the Founders predictions of the then young French Revolution. This is a really good read, and I highly recommend the book.

Before the excerpt, I want to share a favorite sentence that I think best defines the Founders accomplishments in the Constitution. Here it is:

  • The Constitution is the integration of ideals with reality, the ideal being human liberty, the reality being human nature. (p. 69)

If that isn’t the best definition in one sentence of the Constitution, I don’t know what is!

GOD AND THE HUMAN SOUL: THE EXISTENCE OF THE UNIVERSE AND MORALITY

Belief in God and the immortality of the human soul was universal among the Founders, which is incontrovertibly evident from the most cursory review of their writings. While not all of them were orthodox Christians, their thoughts on atheism ranged from extreme caution to outright disdain. For them, belief in God was natural to man because it was in accordance with his nature, and they agreed with Tocqueville when he noted (while describing the virtual absence of atheism in America) that “men cannot detach themselves from religious beliefs except by some wrong-headed thinking, and by a sort of moral violence inflicted upon their true nature Unbelief is an accident; faith is the only permanent state of mankind.”

They saw the fingerprints of God everywhere they looked, and their conclusion that He existed was not even necessarily dependent on the Bible or any specific set of religious dogma but on the very nature of the cosmos. Writing to his friend John Adams toward the end of his life, Jefferson explained his views:Josh Charles Liberty Secret Book 300

I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the Universe, in its parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consum­mate skill, and the indefinite power in every atom of its compositionWe see, too, evident proofs of the necessity of a superintending power to maintain the Universe in its course and order So irresistible are these evidences of an intelligent and powerful Agent that, of the infinite numbers of men who have existed through all time, they have believed, in the proportion of a million at least to unit, in the hypothesis of an eternal pre-existence of a creator, rather than in that of a self-existent Universe. Surely this unanimous sentiment renders this more probable than that of a few in the other hypothesis Even Thomas Paine, who in the second half of his life was an ardent opponent of orthodox Christianity (mostly Catholicism) and the clergy and did not believe the Bible was divinely inspired, wrote at the same time, “All the principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make or invent or contrive principles. He can only discover them, and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.”

Paine criticized any teaching of “natural philosophy” (i.e., science) that asserted that the universe was simply “an accomplishment” (i.e., self-existent). He also criticized those teachers who “labor with studied ingenuity to ascribe everything they behold to innate properties of matter and jump over all the rest by saying that matter is eternal” and thereby encouraged the “evil” of atheism. “Instead of looking through the works of creation to the Creator Himself, they stop short and employ the knowl­edge they acquire to create doubts of His existence,” he lamented. “When we examine an extraordinary piece of machinery, an astonishing pile of architecture, a well-executed statue, or a highly-finished paintingour ideas are naturally led to think of the extensive genius and talent of the artist. When we study the elements of geometry, we think of Euclid. When we speak of gravitation, we think of Newton. How, then, is it that when we study the works of God in creation, we stop short and do not think of God?”

For these reasons, among others, Jefferson rejected being an atheist, “which,” as he put it, “I can never be.” His friend John Adams noted, “I never heard of an irreligious character in Greek or Roman history, nor in any other history, nor have I known one in life who was not a rascal. Name one if you can, living or dead.”” Nor did the Founders see sci­ence and religion as opposed to one another, as is all too common today. Rather, as President Adams asserted in a letter to university students, they were not only mutually compatible, but mutually necessary for one another: “When you look up to me with confidence as the patron of science, liberty, and religion, you melt my heart. These are the choicest blessings of humanity; they have an inseparable union. Without their joint influence no society can be great, flourishing, or happy.”

Just as much as the existence of God was essential to their under­standing of the physical constitution of the universe, its combination with their belief in the immortality of the soul was crucial to their understanding of the moral constitution of the world, as it was the means by which God judged the good and evil acts committed in this life, whether noticed by man or not. Tocqueville ascribed a great deal of the accomplishments of the Puritans/Pilgrims and their progeny (the Founders) to this belief, which he described as so “indispensable to man’s greatness that its effects are striking,” for it kept him morally anchored, never able to escape ultimate justice. It was for this reason that the Founders considered belief in God as the cornerstone of all morality, but not because man could do no good apart from God commanding him to do so. Quite the contrary: part of their conception of the “law of nature and nature’s God” was the idea that all men had at least portions of this law inscribed into their very being, and that most men knew the basics of right and wrong because God had given them a conscience. The problem was that, because of their fallen nature, they did not obey their consciences as they should. Adams elaborated:

The law of nature would be sufficient for the government of men if they would consult their reason and obey their consciences. It is not the fault of the law of nature, but of themselves, that it is not obeyed; it is not the fault of the law of nature that men are obliged to have recourse to civil government at all, but of themselves; it is not the fault of the ten commandments, but of themselves, that Jews or Christians are ever known to steal, murder, covet, or blaspheme. But the legislator who should say the law of nature is enough, if you do not obey it, it will be your own fault, therefore no other government is necessary, would be thought to trifle.

This brings us to a very important fact that we must remember when it comes to the Founders: they did not believe that religion made men good, but rather that it provided the best encouragement and incentive to be good, for it taught them that their choices had consequences in eternity, not just in the moment. Even if consequences could be avoided in the now, God would exact justice in the hereafter.

This had been a Judeo-Christian teaching from time immemorial and was well known to the Founders. The problem was not that man had no knowledge of good and evil and therefore needed a religious commandment to tell him, but rather that human nature commonly bowed to the dictates of the passions, rather than reason, and thereby abandoned conscience and committed evil anyway. The Founders realized that our human nature could, and often did, pervert the plain dictates of conscience, allowing us to convince ourselves that right is wrong and wrong is right if it suits our own desires. As Adams noted, “Human reason and human conscience, though I believe there are such things, are not a match for human passions, human imaginations, and human enthusiasm.” Our passions would corrupt our minds, our minds would justify our passions, and in turn our passions would become even more corrupt, a deadly cycle with horrific consequences for indi­viduals and society. “Our passions, ambition, avarice, love, resentment, etc. possess so much metaphysical subtlety and so much overpowering eloquence that they insinuate themselves into the understanding and the conscience and convert both to their party,” Adams wrote. “And I may be deceived as much as any of them when I say that power must never be trusted without a check.”

That “check,” at least as far as voluntary self-restraint was concerned, was religion. The Founders understood that mankind’s capacity for self-delusion was boundless; therefore, moral obligations must be placed on a divine rather than a humanistic footing if anyone could assert any truth or notion of right and wrong at all. It was for this reason that religious commandments such as “do not murder,” “do not steal,” and “do not commit adultery” were necessary, not because man was completely incapable of avoiding these sins without God commanding him to, but because, since He had commanded them, man had no intellectual excuse for ever allowing his passions or personal desires to blind his judg­ment and excuse him of his moral obligations. Religion thus anchored the definition of morality on God and asserted its obligations on man by acting as a powerful regulator of the inherently negative aspects of human nature. James Madison explained the importance of this truth: “The belief in a God All Powerful wise and good, is so essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities to be impressed with it.”

Adams asserted the same thing and specifically acknowledged that Judaism, through the Bible, had bequeathed to the world what he con­sidered the most essential ingredient of human civilization:

I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations. If I were an atheist of the other sect, who believe or pretend to believe that all is ordered by chance, I should believe that chance had ordered the Jews to preserve and propagate to all mankind the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty sovereign of the universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization.

For the Founders, the most effective catalyst of virtue was religion, for it reminded man that he is not God and he therefore cannot shape morality according to his own selfish desires. It was the subversion of this principle that they identified as the cause behind the American and French Revolutions taking such radically different courses: it was ultimately a difference of theology.

GOD AND THE AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS

The Founders believed in the existence of a God, which they deemed the most rational basis for the existence of the universe, morality, and reason itself. The French Revolution was predicated on almost the exact opposite idea.

While many today assume that the notion of blind chance being the operative force in the universe’s creation and development arrived on the scene with Charles Darwin, this is not the case. In fact, it was a notion quite popular among many of the continental European intellectuals of the time, most of whom were French, and most of whom tended to be atheists and/or materialists (which were practically the same). They contended that the universe had not been created but had either existed eternally or was the result of inherent properties in matter itself. But among the French intelligentsia, the one who had the most profound effect on the Founders, Montesquieu, directly contradicted this position in his famous work, The Spirit of the Laws: “Those who have said that a blind fate has produced all the effects that we see in the world have said a great absurdity,” he wrote, “for what greater absurdity is there than a blind fate that could have produced intelligent beings?”

For Montesquieu and the Founders, the universe was simply too full of information, order, and harmony to ascribe it to blind chance. “What is chance?” asked Adams. “It is motion; it is action; it is event; it is phenomenon without cause. Chance is no cause at all; it is nothing.”

In addition to their denial, or at least extreme doubt of the exis­tence of a Creator, many of the French intellectuals in like manner either doubted or denied the existence and immortality of the human soul. They therefore denied the two theological pillars upon which the Founders based their ideas of virtue, and as such, it was no surprise that the French Revolution, which claimed to be the heir of the American Revolution, devolved into a bloodbath of violence and oppression unrestrained by any religious principle.

While both revolutions were similar in their assertion of human rights, they offered fundamentally different explanations of the origin of such rights. The American Revolution was premised on men being “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” while the French Revolution asserted man’s rights were based purely on reason, apart from any notions of divinity or religion. A statue of a deified “Reason” was erected in the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, and the revolution was predicated upon principles that were explicitly and directly opposed to religion, Christianity in particular. Adams noted the differences between the two revolutions when he wrote to his friend Richard Price that “Diderot and D’Alembert, Voltaire and Rousseau,” all French atheists and materialists, “have contributed to this great event more than Sidney, Locke, or Hoadly,” English political philosophers who explicitly asserted that the “laws of nature and nature’s God” were the foundation of man’s rights and moral obligations, and who had a profound impact on the American Revolution. The French, on the other hand, based man’s rights on the consensus of “the nation.” The rights of man were what man, through the nation, had decided they would be. For this reason, Adams admitted to Price as early as 1790, “I own to you, I know not what to make of a republic of thirty million atheists,” and he predicted there would be rampant violence and bloodshed.

But that was not all. Several of the Founders, Adams in particular, believed that the principles of the French Revolution not only directly undermined the basis of human rights and obligations but also destroyed the very idea of human liberty. If man was simply matter in motion, then his entire destiny had already been determined by physical laws and constants (today known as “determinism”), making liberty a mean­ingless idea. And yet, this was the view of many of the leading French intellectuals. “And what was their philosophy?” Adams inquired:

Atheism—pure, unadulterated atheism…. The universe was matter only, and eternal. Spirit was a word without a meaning. Liberty was a word without a meaning. There was no liberty in the universe; liberty was a word void of sense. Every thought, word, passion, sentiment, feeling, all motion and action was necessary [determinism]. All beings and attributes were of eternal necessity; conscience, morality, were all nothing but fate. This was their creed, and this was to perfect human nature, and convert the earth into a paradise of pleasureWhy, then, should we abhor the word “God,” and fall in love with the word “fate”? We know there exists energy and intellect enough to produce such a world as this, which is a sublime and beautiful one, and a very benevolent one, notwithstanding all our snarling; and a happy one, if it is not made otherwise by our own fault.

Alexander Hamilton, who described the French Revolution as “the most cruel, sanguinary, and violent that ever stained the annals of mankind,” also predicted its failure due to the fact that it was explicitly

opposed to Christianity, “a state of things which annihilates the foun­dations of social order and true liberty, confounds all moral distinc­tions and substitutes to the mild and beneficent religion of the Gospel a gloomy, persecuting, and desolating atheism:’

It was precisely because the French Revolution rejected the Judeo-Christian notion of the fallen nature of man in exchange for the idea that he could be perfected by reason that they engaged in the wanton violence and cruelty of the guillotine: it was all worth it because they were creating a new, ideal world that had to be purged of its impure elements.

The French Revolution was thereby founded on principles that fun­damentally contradicted the divine basis of the existence of the universe, man’s rights, his moral obligations, and his very liberty, upon which the Founders, partaking of both the classical and Judeo-Christian tradition, asserted them. With God removed, several of the Founders, Adams in particular, predicted the French Revolution would operate according to the bloody principles of “might makes right.” “A nation of atheists,” he had warned, would likely lead to “the destruction of a million of human beings.” Adams explained his prophecy of a forthcoming deluge of blood in biblical terms and ascribed it to the utter rejection of religion by the leaders of the French Revolution:

The temper and principles prevailing at present in that quarter of the world have a tendency to as general and total a destruction as ever befell Tyre and Sidon[,] Sodom and Gomorrah. If all religion and governments, all arts and sciences are destroyed, the trees will grow up, cities will molder into common earth, and a few human beings may be left naked to chase the wild beasts with bows and arrows…. I hope in all events that religion and learning will find an asylum in America.

In this, he disagreed (at the time) with Jefferson. But even Jefferson was forced to admit decades later, after the Reign of Terror, the Napoleonic Wars, and the other violent outbursts that came out of the French Revolution, that Adams had been completely right in his assessment, acknowledging, “Your prophecies proved truer than mine.” When Jefferson asked Adams why he had predicted what he did, Adams explained that the power of God had been replaced by the arrogant, usurping power of man, and conscience was thereby discon­nected from its transcendent anchors. Thus, those in power believed whatever they did was moral: “Power always sincerely, conscientiously, de tres bon foi [“in very good faith”], believes itself right. Power always thinks it has a great soul, and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak, and that it is doing God’s service, when it is violating all his laws.” It was for this reason that, as much as religion had been abused for centuries in European history, Adams argued it could not compare with the atrocities committed in the name of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” during the French Revolution: “It is a serious problem to resolve whether all the abuses of Christianity, even in the darkest ages when the Pope deposed princes and laid nations under his interdict, were ever so bloody and cruel, ever bore down the independence of the human mind with such terror and intolerance, or taught doctrines which required such implicit credulity to believe, as the present reign of pretended philosophy in France.”

As president, Adams had to deal directly with the revolutionary French government and easily noted the difference between an American society that assented to general religious principles and a French society that rejected them:

You may find the moral principles, sanctified and sanctioned by reli­gion, are the only bond of union, the only ground of confidence of the people in one another, of the people in the government, and the government in the people. Avarice, ambition, and pleasure, can never be the foundations of reformations or revolutions for the better. These passions have dictated the aim at universal domination, trampled on the rights of neutrality, despised the faith of solemn contracts, insulted ambassadors, and rejected offers of friendship.

For the Founders, the purpose of reason—which Adams referred to as “a revelation from its maker” and Jefferson as an “oracle given you by heaven”-was to better align human actions with the “law of nature and nature’s God” by the taming of human passions and the application of knowledge. The leaders of the French Revolution believed precisely the opposite, that God didn’t really exist (and if He did, He was largely irrelevant), and that reason was man’s alone, and thus his to utilize toward whatever ends he himself determined. Though the Founders knew perfection “falls not to the share of mortals,” the French believed that man could be perfected through reason, and therefore any bar­riers to creating the world of their dreams needed to be destroyed, for this was tantamount to obstructing man’s perfection. The differences between the two revolutions thus turned out to be theological at root, and for this reason, while on the surface they were superficially similar, they were in fact fundamentally different, as Adams prophesied, other Founders criticized, and the facts of history verified.

Joshua Charles, Liberty’s Secrets: The Lost Wisdom of America’s Founders (Washington, DC: WND Books, 2015), 82-91.

Dennis Prager interviews Ann Coulter in regards to her new book, Demonic.” Ann points out a fact I wasn’t aware of in regards to the mob mentality that set the standard for the French Revolution. Much like the misunderstanding in regards to the Crusades, the witch trials, and the like, numbers are not the forte of the left. Nor is putting into context meaning behind them.

Are America’s Founding Documents “Racist”? (Biden Admin. VS. History)

There is just no way to really get across the years of reading on this topic in an audio or video form to respond to the bigotry and rewriting of history found in the Biden Administration. But I try with this somewhat long video. FIRST however, an article I suggest one read if a fan of Thomas Sowell is this one in the only political journal of note, THE CITY JOURNAL:

  • THE NONCONFORMIST: Over a lifetime of scholarship and public engagement, economist Thomas Sowell has illuminated controversial topics such as race, poverty, and culture.

I likewise use video from WALLBUILDERS creations, as well as video from the following Thomas Sowell channels on YouTube:

This video likewise compliments my previous posts:

Quick Summations of the 1619 Project

The Architects of Woke series takes aim at far-left post-modernist and Marxist thinkers and activists responsible for the spread of identity politics from college campuses to society at large. “The 1619 Project’s Fake History”, covers the New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project. Directed by Nikole Hannah-Jones, the project attempts to reframe our understanding of American history by alleging the central event in the founding of the United States was the first importation of enslaved Africans to Virginia in 1619 and not the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The project has been notably criticized by esteemed historians for its factual errors. Despite this, schools across the nation have embedded the 1619 Project into their curriculums, perhaps endangering our nation’s understanding of its founding for generations to come…

Allen Guelzo joined The Buck Sexton Show shortly before the Pulitzer Prize Foundation announced that Nikole Hannah-Jones would be receiving the award for her 1619 essay. The NYT’s 1619 Project has been criticized by leading historians for its many factual inaccuracies.

Arthur Milikh joined the Ed Morrissey Show on Hot Air to debunk the myths outlined in the NYT’s 1619 Project and tell the true story about America’s founding.

Ted Cruz Whomps Pete Buttigieg Regarding Slavery

Ted Cruz explains the lack of historical knowledge in Pete Buttigieg’s indoctrinating response to kids (hat-tip to RIGHT SCOOP):

Here are other responses from Ted:

RIGHT SCOOP notes about the above:

  • And the list could go on and on. These men were brilliant, especially by today’s dumbed down standards. For Buttigieg to suggest they didn’t know that slavery was bad or that they didn’t respect civil rights is preposterous and it just shows how much of an idiot he really is.

PJ-MEDIA joins in the chorus of disappointment regarding our educational system:

  • If by some bizarre turn of events Pete Buttigieg becomes president of the United States, he would likely not be the first product of our shoddy, heavily politicized, and frankly anti-American educational system to enter the Oval Office without any understanding of or appreciation for the greatness of the office he now occupied, and its illustrious history. The first was Barack Hussein Obama. How many more such presidents can the free republic that Jefferson, Madison, and the rest bequeathed to us afford to have?

Were the Founders Religious? (Joshua Charles)

Very happy for my “cyber friend” to be in the Prager-U mix!

What did the Founding Fathers believe about religion? Were they Christians, or just deists? Did they believe in secularism, or did they want Americans to be religious? Joshua Charles, New York Times bestselling author and researcher at the Museum of the Bible, explains.

Adam Freedman ~ The Founders Were Not `Neutral`

THE FOUNDERS WEREN’T NEUTRAL

Nobody in 1791 expected any American government—state or federal—to be neutral as between religion and irreligion. The Founders did not have a take-it-or-leave-it attitude about religion; to the contrary, they generally agreed with John Adams’s admoni­tion, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.” The federal government was expected to promote and encourage religion in general because, as Madison had argued in Federalist No. 51, the security of “religious rights” depends upon a “multiplicity of sects.” A robust diversity of religions would be the best safeguard against the sort of religious oppression that Europe had witnessed. In short, the Founders hoped to encour­age sects, but not violence. To say this is not an attempt to guess at the secret intentions of the framers. Their support of religion is reflected in the text itself.

For one thing, the Constitution bars atheists from hold­ing public office. Article VI requires that all legislators, and all executive and judicial officers—on both the federal and state level—take an oath to support the Constitution. But under the law at the time, only those who believed in God and in an afterlife could swear an oath. Atheists could not, for example, serve as witnesses in court—to whom would they swear to tell the truth? As late as 1820, New York’s highest court observed, “It is fully and clearly settled, that infidels who do not believe in God, or if they do, do not think that he will either reward or punish them in the world to come, cannot be witnesses in any case… because an oath cannot possibly be any tie or obliga­tion upon them.

At the North Carolina ratifying convention, lawyer and fu­ture Supreme Court justice James Iredell explained that the oath requirement would ensure a basic level of religious belief among officeholders because an oath is a “solemn appeal to the Supreme Being, for the truth of what is said, by a person who believes in the existence of a Supreme Being and in a future state of rewards and punishments.” Madison acknowledged the religious nature of the oath in a letter of October 1787—just one month after the constitutional convention adjourned.

Although the Constitution requires a minimum level of religiosity for all officeholders, it does not favor any particular denomination—Article VI also prohibits any “religious Test” for holding federal office. As a whole, Article IV perfectly illustrates the framers’ vision of the federal government’s role in religion. The government could not, for example, require that all con­gressmen be Anglicans, or even Christians, but it does require that they be theists. Indeed, the framers were so scrupulous about the ecumenical nature of the oath that they specified that of­ficeholders could “swear or affirm” to uphold the Constitution—affirmation being the method for Quakers and other individuals who objected to “swearing.”

NEVER ON A SUNDAY

The early actions of the federal government also tend to debunk the neutrality canard. The very same Congress that approved the First Amendment also provided for paid chaplains in the House and Senate, and called upon President Washington to proclaim “a day of Public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by ac­knowledging, with grateful hearts, the many and signal favors of Almighty God.” That same Congress also reenacted the North­west Ordinance, which declares the government’s policy that the teaching of “religion, morality and knowledge” shall “forever be encouraged.”

The Court’s liberals respond to all this with a phony brand of originalism that recasts the framers as secular humanists.

Happy to ignore the text of the establishment clause, the neutral­ity crowd prefers to focus on things that the framers didn’t say. In Marsh v. Chambers, for example, Justice William Brennan found it highly significant that the framers “did not invoke the name of God” in the Constitution. Well, except that they did—in Article VII, which records the date of the document as “the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven” (emphasis added). Who, one won­ders, did Justice Brennan imagine “our Lord” to be?

Another provision that would be inexplicable to any pro­ponent of strict neutrality can be found in Article I, Section 7. When Congress passes a bill, that clause gives the president ten days to decide whether to veto it; that is, ten days, “Sundays ex­cepted.” Why exclude Sundays? Wait—don’t tell me—I know this one.

Adam Freedman, The Naked Constitution: What the Founders Said and Why It Still Matters (New York, NY: Broadside Books, 2012), 166-169.