March 20, 2008
Trial of the Witnesses of the Ressurection of Jesus.
Thomas Sherlock wrote a great book. Here's an excerpt.
"The alterations which have happened in the doctrines and practices of churches, since the Christian religion was settled by those who had an authentick commission to settle it, are quite out of the question, when the inquiry is about the truth of the Christian religion.
Christ and his Apostles did not vouch for the truth of all that should be taught in the church in future times; nay, they foretold and fore warned the world against such corrupt teachers.
It is therefore absurd to challenge the religion of Christ, because of the corruptions which have spread among Christians. The gospel has no more concern with them, and ought no more to be charged with them, than with the doctrines of the Alcoran."
Posted by Carl at 11:38 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 18, 2007
America is not a democracy.
NPR and one of Sotheby's vice presidents, David Redding, get it wrong: America is not a democracy; no matter what wikipedia might say. (Sotheby's also here.)
"There are new laws and then there are old ones, really old ones: say, the Magna Carta, for example...It's considered one of the most important legal documents in the history of democracy."
(Host, NPR, "All things Considered," December 18, 2007.)
So far, so good. But then:
"In return for their allegiance, the king ceded to the barons various rights. All kinds of ideas in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution owe a debt to the Magna Carta."
(Margot Adler--or here; Show: IBID.)
Hmmm...Maybe that's how Americans gained freedom! We ceded our allegiance in return for rights.
David Redding continues:
"I still believe the most important thing about Magna Carta is it's mythic significance: we can point to a time, we can say this is where freedom and liberty began, this is the antecedent, the progenitor of the great documents of freedom of our country."
(Redding; Show: IBID.)
Let's hope that, considering his accent, NPR merely took what he said out of context; as they do with so many other things. Let's hope Mr. Redding meant "this is where British freedom began." What Mr. Redding said? It agrees not with our own Declaration.
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
(Text here)
Our "separate and equal station," our being "created equal," our "unalienable rights"; , we are given entitlement to these, and they all are derived from"the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God."
He said so himself.
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
(Gen 1:1.)
"God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."
(Gen. 1:27.)
Even the "atheist" Thomas Paine understood that the "rights" of mankind originally came from God, declaring that we were "originally equals in the order of creation." (Paine, Common Sense, 1776.)
But the Constitution itself denies the lie of democracy, declaring:
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government..."
Can someone please explain for me, then, why these people, and so many other learned people, persist in referring to America as a democracy?
It just ain't so.
Posted by Carl at 09:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 18, 2007
THESE THINGS I BELIEVE, Part I.
The fun of this blog is that I can post whatever I want. If I am annoyed by some idiot, I can say so. If there is a political issue that I want to address, I can. If some frivolity suddenly strikes me, with this blog I have the liberty to express myself on a world-wide platform. Of course I realize that on this platform, I am situated somewhere behind the curtain, and just underneath the trap-door. But this doesn’t always bother me. I really do enjoy attempting to communicate with my fellow human beings. And in keeping with that attempt, the next few posts which I shall make will pertain to things that I believe.
Continue reading "THESE THINGS I BELIEVE, Part I."
Posted by Carl at 01:43 AM | TrackBack