22 thoughts on “The Presbyterian Church On Israel”
If you are evil how do you make civilization fall? Directly confronting it doesn’t work (See Hitler) so you do it in the shadows.
Step 1 Infiltrate and corrupt the institutions that hold the civilization together.
Step 2. Corrupt the values of the civilization
Step 3. Corrupt the youth by disassociating them from their elders
Step 4. Use the excuse of compassion to create a slave class
Step 5. Create or allow to happen an event that creates fear. With the institutions and values corrupted the people will be lost.
Step 6. Become the savior of the people by providing security and safety in exchange for absolute obedience and worship.
My fantasy: The Israeli Left and Center comes up with a new party, called “The American Way”, and they campaign on a simple platform: We’re going to be like Americans now. Once they get voted in, they create a written constitution modeled on our constitution, including the 1st amendment, but with an even more clear separation between Church and State. They annex the West Bank and declare everyone within the occupied territories to be citizens, and give every citizen a choice: follow the law, and have an opportunity to prosper, or face the justice system. Anyone who is worried about the demographics problem can keep on having as much procreative sex as possible. Naturally, the American Way party splits into Democrats and Evil Racists, because, hey, that’s democracy, but the Democrats prevail due to the other party’s internal divisions, just like here.
Our Constitution does a great job of separating church from state. It is you and liberal judges that willfully refuse to believe that words actually mean things, so you try to impose your fantasy reality on the rest of us, with disastrous results.
Oh wait, sorry, your side only looks at intentions, not results.
What are you talking about? And how would what you are talking about help either the United States or Israel (or, preferably, both)?
I’m not guilty of refusing to believe that words mean things — I think that the US Constitution, as written, doesn’t go far enough to separate Church and State in a hypothetical one-state solution for a peaceful secular Israel that would be as good place to live the Zionist dream of a safe place for Jews in the land of Israel, so I was suggesting stricter separation. I also think the Constitution doesn’t go far enough in the United States, and I would suggest changing the Constitution except that we have much more pressing concerns that are far more deserving of our attention. If “sharia law” was actually a problem, I’d suggest changing the Constitution right away, but fortunately, as Governor Christie colorfully explained, “This Sharia Law business is crap. It’s just crazy, and I’m tired of dealing with the crazies.”
I also think the Constitution doesn’t go far enough in the United States, and I would suggest changing the Constitution except that we have much more pressing concerns that are far more deserving of our attention
You do realize our Constitution was written not to empower the federal government, it was written to limit the federal government. Exactly how would you re-write the 1st amendment to separate church and the federal government even further?
So, my answer is about the USA, not Israel.
Pull a coin out of your pocket: the Federal Government claims that In God We Trust. I’m completely part of that “we” — being American is an extremely important part of my identity, but I believe that God is a fictitious character, I believe that the Federal Government should stay silent on the matter, and of course I believe God has no business being part of our national motto.
I’m happy to pledge my pledge of allegiance to the United States, since that’s where my allegiance is, but I’m not allegiant to a nation under a fictitious character.
And there are more examples like that: I believe that the legitimacy of the courts and rule of law is the foundation of our nation, and so I’m alienated when references to God show up in the court room, and so on.
Why is this happening? Because the 1st Amendment bans the establishment of a particular religion, but doesn’t separate religion and government. I’d like that to change. I don’t know exactly what words should be used in an amendment, but I would want to be very careful to not limit people’s religious freedom when they are not acting as representatives of the government.
In general: when someone representing the federal government is making a pronouncement in an official capacity, I’d like it to be unconstitutional for the pronouncement to be religious in nature.
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Federalism is another aspect of the issue that confuses me. Coins and the pledge and presidential proclamations not withstanding, the issue usually comes up in local affairs — village halls and school districts.
I’m not clear on why the US constitution is even relevant. Why isn’t this a matteer for the the New York constitution? (I’m not saying I know better, I’m just acknowledging that I don’t understand how it all works.) In any case, I would like to see a nation-wide separation of church and state.
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Fortunately, this isn’t a dire problem in the US. In Israel, it is a dire problem, and I think they could use a whole lot more separation of church and state.
Nevermind the fate of the occupied territories – they need it because of the sizable non-Jewish population citizenry, and because of the Jewish but non-religious majority.
That pesky religion. I really hate the part of the Declaration that states our rights come from a Creator rather than the State. If it weren’t for that, then our rights could be removed merely by the stroke of law. Terrible, really.
Then there is that annoying bit of history where the abolitionists used religion (gasp!) to advocate the elimination of slavery in the South.
Your second point, about abolitionists, makes no sense to me. Religion has lots of good qualities! Just as libertarians believe that charitable giving is good but shouldn’t be a role for the government, I believe religion is good, but shouldn’t be a role for the government.
Your first point, about the Declaration of Independence, is just wrong. The Declaration has no force of law, and our rights can indeed be legally removed. That’s not a commentary on your religious belief that people are endowed with inalienable rights by their creator, if that is your belief. It is just a fact that the Constitution can be amended, and there is nothing in the law to prevent the repeal of the bill of rights if the right votes were cast and the right procedures were followed.
Don’t see many internal divisions on the right.
This is just another facet of the Left’s “long march through the institutions.” Thing is, the Left expected that, once a given institution was marched through, it would continue to work more or less as before, just for Leftist ends. What they didn’t count on was that Leftist control of an institution, once achieved, had the same bracing effect as a heaping dose of arsenic, thallium or polonium. Institutions captured by the Left sicken and die. The Left took over the Mainstream Media. Mainstream Media are dying – especially newspapers. The Left took over academe. The value of most college degrees is now widely questioned, especially in light of growing tuition costs and student loan indebtedness driven by yeast-like growth of adminstrative positions, particularly those with “diversity” in their job titles. Higher education is a bubble beginning to pop. The Left took over primary education, rendered it completely dysfunctional in our largest cities and spawned charter school and voucher movements in response. The Left took over Detroit… well, you get the point. Whatever Leftism touches, it poisons and kills.
A luck escape for Obama! He would have never won a 2nd term if the centrist Obama administration had been poisoned and killed by Leftism.
I wonder how the Unitarians survive?
Seriously: People, individually, get old, and they start to get weaker, and sicker. It is very sad, and I hope that there is a suite of cures for aging soon. But I wonder if this process colors your perception. You see things around you changing, and you’re slowly or not-so-slowly falling apart, and you feel that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, but really it is just you slowly dying while the world changes. Newspapers: journalism will evolve and I have faith in marketplace to recreate what was best about old-style journalism while creating something even better. Higher Education: it is good when bubbles pop! Prices need to reflect value. Primary Education: I don’t think the problem of the inner cities is education, I believe education reflects the problems of the inner cities. But voucher movements and charter schools can be a force for good. Detroit: I have no idea. Why does Chicago do so well while Detroit falls apart? Anyway, I’m sorry we’re all getting older, but cheer up – the world will be fine!
Obama would have never won a 2nd term if the centrist Obama administration had been poisoned and killed by Leftism.
The only place from which the Obama administration might appear to be “centrist” is someplace in the Maoist or Trotskyite fever swamps of the Left. Can’t say I’m particularly surprised to find you standing there.
As usual, reading comprehension also seems to be an issue here. The Obama administration is the Left – the poison – in this scenario. The United States is the unfortunate institution taken over and being poisoned. We’re almost six years into Great Depression 2.0. Our foreign enemies are everywhere emboldened and aggressive. Obama hasn’t any clue what to do about any of this since none of it is supposed to be possible according to his faculty lounge lizard worldview that the U.S. is the fount of all evil in the modern world.
I wonder how the Unitarians survive?
They survive like most extremophiles, by huddling together in the limited environmental ranges which are favorable to their peculiarities. Wikipedia says the Unitarian Universalist percentage of the population is largest in Massachusetts and Vermont. Big surprise. Also, I wouldn’t say the UU’s are necessarily in radiant good health. Their total numbers are in the low six figures, have been stuck at roughly that level for decades and nearly all are in the United States. Not very “universal” I’d say. My point was that the so-called “mainstream” Protestant denominations used to count many more adherents before their leaderships were taken over by people to whom Marx is a more significant object of worship than Jesus.
I’m touched by your solicitude for my inevitable decrepitude. One of the advantages of being old enough to be “getting on in years” though, is that one is also old enough to remember when things were objectively better in many ways in these United States. It’s not the fact that I have a dodgy lower back, say, that makes me merely imagine things were a lot easier for young people starting out in life when I was their age relative to the cluster-fuck the current generation of young people has been served up. Given that none of the Millenials is a doddering Struldbrug like myself, I wonder how you explain their entirely correct perception that everything is not exactly skittles and beer since The Lightworker took office?
Again, reading comprehension. I didn’t say that journalism is in trouble, per se, I said the Mainstream Media are in trouble. They are. Because they’ve been taken over long since by Leftists who have rendered them increasingly less valuable as institutions. Sure journalism will survive. James O’Keefe and many others are doing increasingly well by operating outside of the Mainstream Media in largely on-line venues. As someone once observed, the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. Leftists in the MSM still try to be “gatekeepers” filtering what they perceive to be politically incorrect bad news out of their feeds, but it just makes them look increasingly like “Baghdad Bob” or the 1945 PR operation of the Japanese Imperial Navy.
Whether bubbles bursting is good or bad is beside the point; bubbles do burst. The fact that higher education is so bubblicious now is entirely due to its domination by the Left. Before that happened, higher ed displayed no bubbly tendencies.
Agree that inner cities have more problems than just education. But education is a problem and it’s due almost entirely to its having been in Leftist hands since the 60’s and 70’s in the places where things are worst. The rest of the inner city problems that have become endemic over the same interval are simply due to malignant Leftist influence being exercised in many other areas of civic life in addition to education.
But voucher movements and charter schools can be a force for good.
True. But they are also subject to capture by elements of the established Leftist power structure in education and worked for the same bad ends as old-style public schools. It’s not clear the Left is going to succeed in subverting charters and vouchers, but that’s definitely one of the Left’s current projects.
Detroit: I have no idea.
I’m sure you don’t. Looking squarely at Detroit seems to induce hysterical blindness in most committed Leftists. Detroit has been run entirely on Leftist principles and it’s a hellhole.
Why does Chicago do so well while Detroit falls apart?
Why would you suggest Chicago is doing so well? Since 1950, Detroit has lost roughly 3/5 of it’s population. Chicago has lost a bit over 1/4 of its population over the same interval – nearly a million people. Do you think the rampant crime and corruption under uninterrupted Democratic mayoral administrations dating back decades maybe has something to do with this? Silly me; I don’t know why I bother to ask.
the world will be fine!
When you and yours have turned all of it into Detroit and Chicago I suppose.
Thank you for such a nice answer. I was worried that I had gone well over the line, and I’m glad I didn’t offend.
Chicago’s health vs Detroit’s health is something we can objectively measure and talk about. I look forward to it!
Your first point, about the Declaration of Independence, is just wrong. The Declaration has no force of law, and our rights can indeed be legally removed.
No, it is not wrong. That’s the point. They are beyond the scope of the government. They are self-evident, endowed by our Creator. You should know this. It should have been taught in your civics class.
Your second point, about abolitionists, makes no sense to me.
Also, one of the great songs of the Civil War was, “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Christianity had everything to do with abolition.
Erh, mind explaining how Christianity and slavery managed to coexist for upwards of a millennium and a half then (often in countries that were explicitly Christian)? I suppose you think the slave owners in America were all nasty evil pagans and atheists and didn’t associate with Christianity? I guess all those cross burnings had something to do with really disliking Christianity huh.
My understanding is that slavery didn’t see a decline due to philosophical disagreement until the Enlightenment. That some Christians adopted those more secular philosophies (evolving their own religion to be something very different from the Christianity of previous generations) and became abolitionists is not evidence that Christianity was the cause behind abolition. They just wised up and rode the wave of the Enlightenment, good for them, but they weren’t the cause.
Er, a millennium and a half is a long time. You need to be very explicit where you say slavery existed in Christian countries. It could never be justified with Christian principles. Er, slavery ended under Constantine.
Er, I have a number of Wiccan friends who like to go out and worship under a full moon. Just because some douchebag decides to sacrifice a cat under a full moon doesn’t make them Wiccan. In other words, practicing an act under the name of a religion does not make it religious. So burning a cross does not make it Christian. HUH.
That some Christians adopted those more secular philosophies (evolving their own religion to be something very different from the Christianity of previous generations) and became abolitionists is not evidence that Christianity was the cause behind abolition. They just wised up and rode the wave of the Enlightenment, good for them, but they weren’t the cause.
You haven’t read the history books. Christianity was the philosophical basis for abolition.
Federalism is another aspect of the issue that confuses me. Coins and the pledge and presidential proclamations not withstanding, the issue usually comes up in local affairs — village halls and school districts.
Federalism is the cornerstone of our political system. I strongly recommend reading The Federalist Papers. You should also get a copy of Democracy in America. De Toqueville noticed that it was our pulpits that gave us strength. But there are also other elements in American culture that were different from Europe.
I’m not clear on why the US constitution is even relevant. Why isn’t this a matteer for the the New York constitution?
If you are evil how do you make civilization fall? Directly confronting it doesn’t work (See Hitler) so you do it in the shadows.
Step 1 Infiltrate and corrupt the institutions that hold the civilization together.
Step 2. Corrupt the values of the civilization
Step 3. Corrupt the youth by disassociating them from their elders
Step 4. Use the excuse of compassion to create a slave class
Step 5. Create or allow to happen an event that creates fear. With the institutions and values corrupted the people will be lost.
Step 6. Become the savior of the people by providing security and safety in exchange for absolute obedience and worship.
My fantasy: The Israeli Left and Center comes up with a new party, called “The American Way”, and they campaign on a simple platform: We’re going to be like Americans now. Once they get voted in, they create a written constitution modeled on our constitution, including the 1st amendment, but with an even more clear separation between Church and State. They annex the West Bank and declare everyone within the occupied territories to be citizens, and give every citizen a choice: follow the law, and have an opportunity to prosper, or face the justice system. Anyone who is worried about the demographics problem can keep on having as much procreative sex as possible. Naturally, the American Way party splits into Democrats and Evil Racists, because, hey, that’s democracy, but the Democrats prevail due to the other party’s internal divisions, just like here.
Our Constitution does a great job of separating church from state. It is you and liberal judges that willfully refuse to believe that words actually mean things, so you try to impose your fantasy reality on the rest of us, with disastrous results.
Oh wait, sorry, your side only looks at intentions, not results.
What are you talking about? And how would what you are talking about help either the United States or Israel (or, preferably, both)?
I’m not guilty of refusing to believe that words mean things — I think that the US Constitution, as written, doesn’t go far enough to separate Church and State in a hypothetical one-state solution for a peaceful secular Israel that would be as good place to live the Zionist dream of a safe place for Jews in the land of Israel, so I was suggesting stricter separation. I also think the Constitution doesn’t go far enough in the United States, and I would suggest changing the Constitution except that we have much more pressing concerns that are far more deserving of our attention. If “sharia law” was actually a problem, I’d suggest changing the Constitution right away, but fortunately, as Governor Christie colorfully explained, “This Sharia Law business is crap. It’s just crazy, and I’m tired of dealing with the crazies.”
I also think the Constitution doesn’t go far enough in the United States, and I would suggest changing the Constitution except that we have much more pressing concerns that are far more deserving of our attention
You do realize our Constitution was written not to empower the federal government, it was written to limit the federal government. Exactly how would you re-write the 1st amendment to separate church and the federal government even further?
So, my answer is about the USA, not Israel.
Pull a coin out of your pocket: the Federal Government claims that In God We Trust. I’m completely part of that “we” — being American is an extremely important part of my identity, but I believe that God is a fictitious character, I believe that the Federal Government should stay silent on the matter, and of course I believe God has no business being part of our national motto.
(Note that the saying has been on coins since the 1860s but only became our national motto in 1956 – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_national_motto )
I’m happy to pledge my pledge of allegiance to the United States, since that’s where my allegiance is, but I’m not allegiant to a nation under a fictitious character.
And there are more examples like that: I believe that the legitimacy of the courts and rule of law is the foundation of our nation, and so I’m alienated when references to God show up in the court room, and so on.
Why is this happening? Because the 1st Amendment bans the establishment of a particular religion, but doesn’t separate religion and government. I’d like that to change. I don’t know exactly what words should be used in an amendment, but I would want to be very careful to not limit people’s religious freedom when they are not acting as representatives of the government.
In general: when someone representing the federal government is making a pronouncement in an official capacity, I’d like it to be unconstitutional for the pronouncement to be religious in nature.
—
Federalism is another aspect of the issue that confuses me. Coins and the pledge and presidential proclamations not withstanding, the issue usually comes up in local affairs — village halls and school districts.
The following decision really bugs me, to the extent that the issue bugs me at all: http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/town-of-greece-v-galloway/
I’m not clear on why the US constitution is even relevant. Why isn’t this a matteer for the the New York constitution? (I’m not saying I know better, I’m just acknowledging that I don’t understand how it all works.) In any case, I would like to see a nation-wide separation of church and state.
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Fortunately, this isn’t a dire problem in the US. In Israel, it is a dire problem, and I think they could use a whole lot more separation of church and state.
Nevermind the fate of the occupied territories – they need it because of the sizable non-Jewish population citizenry, and because of the Jewish but non-religious majority.
That pesky religion. I really hate the part of the Declaration that states our rights come from a Creator rather than the State. If it weren’t for that, then our rights could be removed merely by the stroke of law. Terrible, really.
Then there is that annoying bit of history where the abolitionists used religion (gasp!) to advocate the elimination of slavery in the South.
Your second point, about abolitionists, makes no sense to me. Religion has lots of good qualities! Just as libertarians believe that charitable giving is good but shouldn’t be a role for the government, I believe religion is good, but shouldn’t be a role for the government.
Your first point, about the Declaration of Independence, is just wrong. The Declaration has no force of law, and our rights can indeed be legally removed. That’s not a commentary on your religious belief that people are endowed with inalienable rights by their creator, if that is your belief. It is just a fact that the Constitution can be amended, and there is nothing in the law to prevent the repeal of the bill of rights if the right votes were cast and the right procedures were followed.
Don’t see many internal divisions on the right.
This is just another facet of the Left’s “long march through the institutions.” Thing is, the Left expected that, once a given institution was marched through, it would continue to work more or less as before, just for Leftist ends. What they didn’t count on was that Leftist control of an institution, once achieved, had the same bracing effect as a heaping dose of arsenic, thallium or polonium. Institutions captured by the Left sicken and die. The Left took over the Mainstream Media. Mainstream Media are dying – especially newspapers. The Left took over academe. The value of most college degrees is now widely questioned, especially in light of growing tuition costs and student loan indebtedness driven by yeast-like growth of adminstrative positions, particularly those with “diversity” in their job titles. Higher education is a bubble beginning to pop. The Left took over primary education, rendered it completely dysfunctional in our largest cities and spawned charter school and voucher movements in response. The Left took over Detroit… well, you get the point. Whatever Leftism touches, it poisons and kills.
A luck escape for Obama! He would have never won a 2nd term if the centrist Obama administration had been poisoned and killed by Leftism.
I wonder how the Unitarians survive?
Seriously: People, individually, get old, and they start to get weaker, and sicker. It is very sad, and I hope that there is a suite of cures for aging soon. But I wonder if this process colors your perception. You see things around you changing, and you’re slowly or not-so-slowly falling apart, and you feel that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, but really it is just you slowly dying while the world changes. Newspapers: journalism will evolve and I have faith in marketplace to recreate what was best about old-style journalism while creating something even better. Higher Education: it is good when bubbles pop! Prices need to reflect value. Primary Education: I don’t think the problem of the inner cities is education, I believe education reflects the problems of the inner cities. But voucher movements and charter schools can be a force for good. Detroit: I have no idea. Why does Chicago do so well while Detroit falls apart? Anyway, I’m sorry we’re all getting older, but cheer up – the world will be fine!
Obama would have never won a 2nd term if the centrist Obama administration had been poisoned and killed by Leftism.
The only place from which the Obama administration might appear to be “centrist” is someplace in the Maoist or Trotskyite fever swamps of the Left. Can’t say I’m particularly surprised to find you standing there.
As usual, reading comprehension also seems to be an issue here. The Obama administration is the Left – the poison – in this scenario. The United States is the unfortunate institution taken over and being poisoned. We’re almost six years into Great Depression 2.0. Our foreign enemies are everywhere emboldened and aggressive. Obama hasn’t any clue what to do about any of this since none of it is supposed to be possible according to his faculty lounge lizard worldview that the U.S. is the fount of all evil in the modern world.
I wonder how the Unitarians survive?
They survive like most extremophiles, by huddling together in the limited environmental ranges which are favorable to their peculiarities. Wikipedia says the Unitarian Universalist percentage of the population is largest in Massachusetts and Vermont. Big surprise. Also, I wouldn’t say the UU’s are necessarily in radiant good health. Their total numbers are in the low six figures, have been stuck at roughly that level for decades and nearly all are in the United States. Not very “universal” I’d say. My point was that the so-called “mainstream” Protestant denominations used to count many more adherents before their leaderships were taken over by people to whom Marx is a more significant object of worship than Jesus.
I’m touched by your solicitude for my inevitable decrepitude. One of the advantages of being old enough to be “getting on in years” though, is that one is also old enough to remember when things were objectively better in many ways in these United States. It’s not the fact that I have a dodgy lower back, say, that makes me merely imagine things were a lot easier for young people starting out in life when I was their age relative to the cluster-fuck the current generation of young people has been served up. Given that none of the Millenials is a doddering Struldbrug like myself, I wonder how you explain their entirely correct perception that everything is not exactly skittles and beer since The Lightworker took office?
Again, reading comprehension. I didn’t say that journalism is in trouble, per se, I said the Mainstream Media are in trouble. They are. Because they’ve been taken over long since by Leftists who have rendered them increasingly less valuable as institutions. Sure journalism will survive. James O’Keefe and many others are doing increasingly well by operating outside of the Mainstream Media in largely on-line venues. As someone once observed, the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. Leftists in the MSM still try to be “gatekeepers” filtering what they perceive to be politically incorrect bad news out of their feeds, but it just makes them look increasingly like “Baghdad Bob” or the 1945 PR operation of the Japanese Imperial Navy.
Whether bubbles bursting is good or bad is beside the point; bubbles do burst. The fact that higher education is so bubblicious now is entirely due to its domination by the Left. Before that happened, higher ed displayed no bubbly tendencies.
Agree that inner cities have more problems than just education. But education is a problem and it’s due almost entirely to its having been in Leftist hands since the 60’s and 70’s in the places where things are worst. The rest of the inner city problems that have become endemic over the same interval are simply due to malignant Leftist influence being exercised in many other areas of civic life in addition to education.
But voucher movements and charter schools can be a force for good.
True. But they are also subject to capture by elements of the established Leftist power structure in education and worked for the same bad ends as old-style public schools. It’s not clear the Left is going to succeed in subverting charters and vouchers, but that’s definitely one of the Left’s current projects.
Detroit: I have no idea.
I’m sure you don’t. Looking squarely at Detroit seems to induce hysterical blindness in most committed Leftists. Detroit has been run entirely on Leftist principles and it’s a hellhole.
Why does Chicago do so well while Detroit falls apart?
Why would you suggest Chicago is doing so well? Since 1950, Detroit has lost roughly 3/5 of it’s population. Chicago has lost a bit over 1/4 of its population over the same interval – nearly a million people. Do you think the rampant crime and corruption under uninterrupted Democratic mayoral administrations dating back decades maybe has something to do with this? Silly me; I don’t know why I bother to ask.
the world will be fine!
When you and yours have turned all of it into Detroit and Chicago I suppose.
Thank you for such a nice answer. I was worried that I had gone well over the line, and I’m glad I didn’t offend.
Chicago’s health vs Detroit’s health is something we can objectively measure and talk about. I look forward to it!
Your first point, about the Declaration of Independence, is just wrong. The Declaration has no force of law, and our rights can indeed be legally removed.
No, it is not wrong. That’s the point. They are beyond the scope of the government. They are self-evident, endowed by our Creator. You should know this. It should have been taught in your civics class.
Your second point, about abolitionists, makes no sense to me.
Also, one of the great songs of the Civil War was, “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Christianity had everything to do with abolition.
Erh, mind explaining how Christianity and slavery managed to coexist for upwards of a millennium and a half then (often in countries that were explicitly Christian)? I suppose you think the slave owners in America were all nasty evil pagans and atheists and didn’t associate with Christianity? I guess all those cross burnings had something to do with really disliking Christianity huh.
My understanding is that slavery didn’t see a decline due to philosophical disagreement until the Enlightenment. That some Christians adopted those more secular philosophies (evolving their own religion to be something very different from the Christianity of previous generations) and became abolitionists is not evidence that Christianity was the cause behind abolition. They just wised up and rode the wave of the Enlightenment, good for them, but they weren’t the cause.
Er, a millennium and a half is a long time. You need to be very explicit where you say slavery existed in Christian countries. It could never be justified with Christian principles. Er, slavery ended under Constantine.
Er, I have a number of Wiccan friends who like to go out and worship under a full moon. Just because some douchebag decides to sacrifice a cat under a full moon doesn’t make them Wiccan. In other words, practicing an act under the name of a religion does not make it religious. So burning a cross does not make it Christian. HUH.
That some Christians adopted those more secular philosophies (evolving their own religion to be something very different from the Christianity of previous generations) and became abolitionists is not evidence that Christianity was the cause behind abolition. They just wised up and rode the wave of the Enlightenment, good for them, but they weren’t the cause.
You haven’t read the history books. Christianity was the philosophical basis for abolition.
Federalism is another aspect of the issue that confuses me. Coins and the pledge and presidential proclamations not withstanding, the issue usually comes up in local affairs — village halls and school districts.
Federalism is the cornerstone of our political system. I strongly recommend reading The Federalist Papers. You should also get a copy of Democracy in America. De Toqueville noticed that it was our pulpits that gave us strength. But there are also other elements in American culture that were different from Europe.
I’m not clear on why the US constitution is even relevant. Why isn’t this a matteer for the the New York constitution?
That’s what Federalism is all about.
It isn’t cut-and-dried. Here you go: http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/08/can-u-s-states-have-official-religions/
Yes, North Carolina can have a state religion. At least, it is supposed to. The 10th amendment allows it.
Then answer my question: why do you think the 1st amendment applies to the New York case instead of the New York constitution?
Certain powers are enumerated in the Constitution. Those that are not are decided by the state. The New York case is a Constitutional issue.