I cannot get anybody to understand that the Declaration of Inddependence is a SILLY document beause it was written in the middle of a WAR.
There may have been a truly objective delaration of principles written inthe middle of a war by those in charge of fighting it, but I don’t know of any.
The Declaration began by declaring all men, euqal, which a French libeal might have taken seriously, but nobody else. It then went on to delcare “inalienable rights.” If they believed those rights were inalienable, there would have been no war.
Then they blamed everything onthe kind, not parliament. You would have to be a true ignoramus on British Government to bleieve THAT. TO have been a literate man who had lived his life under British Law, you would have had to be insane.
But nobody can understand ANY of this.
C.S. Lewis would get terribly upset when he woud hear what is spewed from every pulpit today: That Chrisitianity is good because it leads to a good society.
Lewish kept repeating, the ONLY question about Christianity is whether it is TRUE or not.
Preachers today talk about “Chrisitan” principles, by which they mean the Old Testament. Actually, Jesus repeated over and over and over that he came about NONE of that. When he criticized the rich, it was not for social revolution, it was because they were damning their own eternal souls. Compared to the loss of one soul, said Jesus, social justice is nothing.
The problem with this, of course, is htat it puts all your eggs in one basket. The preacher stops being a general social commentator and puts his entire life, his entire religion and, above all, his own livelihood on the bet that there is such a thing as eternal salvation.
In other words, those who do not believe him think he is a superstitious fool, and he can’t take it.
So they stake everything on one sentence Jesus uttered, that he came to fulfill the law, not to replace it.
Nobody pays the slightest bit of attnetion to the fact that the Declaration of Independence was written in the middle of a war. Nobody pays the slightest bit of attention to the fact that when Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s” he was avoiding a deadly trap set for him by hte peopl ehwo asked him the qiestion.
He didn’t even look them inthe eye. He was not procaliming truth. He wasnot defending Caesar’s rights. He kept drawing inthe sand for a reason.
But none of that matters. The fact that Jesus said he came to fulfill the law not to destroy it was the ONLY thing he could have said if he did want to be stoned on the spot. So every word of the Old Testament is as valid as every word Jesus spoke, and that’s good because the Old Testament is full of worldly wisdom rather than an obsession about salvation.
If you think Jesus always said exactly what he meant you have never lived in a totalitarian society.
Hell, you’ve never lived in THIS society!
So people keep prattling on to me about how salvation would be nice, but it’s all about Christian Principles leading to a Good World, THIS world.
That’s what ****I**** believe. Please stop twisting it.
#1 by Shari on 08/20/2006 - 6:11 pm
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It seems that Ceasar thinks that it is ALL his. And the churches pretty much do to. Well, you can render what little you can to God, privately, when you’re alone, or just think, but Ceasar wants to see to it that you are never alone,or if you manage it, to be isolated. Also, I another point about social justice. Some Englishman, can’t remember his name, wrote that when the word “social” is placed in front of another word, it negates the meaning of the word. For instance a “social” worker is not a worker etc.
#2 by mderpelding on 08/20/2006 - 11:47 pm
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Bob,
I would love to be able to accept Jefferson’s
love affair with French enlightenment poppycock
as political expediency.
Do his post revolution writings support this?
The preamble to our Constituition seems to refute the
universalist Declaration of Independence.
But our constituition was a compromise.
We were never one nation.
Nor a confederation.
Any ideas?
#3 by Pain on 08/21/2006 - 12:04 am
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“The Declaration began by declaring all men equal, which a French liberal might have taken seriously, but nobody else.”
At least it goaded the British mercantile Capitalists, who had loans with the Jews and who controlled Parliament, into losing a war with us Continentals. “How dare those monkeys believe they are OUR equals? The very impudence!”
And some of us went into battle barefoot. That really must have chaffed their hides.
#4 by Mark on 08/21/2006 - 12:26 pm
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“Then they blamed everything onthe kind, not parliament. You would have to be a true ignoramus on British Government to bleieve THAT.”
I assume you mean KING in stead of KIND.
Common people are, in my jaded opinion, almost all ignoramousai, regardless of time.
Trail of tears was blamed on Jackson. The depression was blamed on Hoover. High fuel prices
are blamed on Bush. Not that any of these men had clean hands. But society is made up of somewhat bright men and a lot of not-so-bright men who collectively end up blaming one man instead of the entire ruling class. It may be human nature, but doesnt it answer a lot of questions as to why
things are the way they are, or were?
#5 by Bob on 08/21/2006 - 7:15 pm
True, but the Fouding Fathers were NOT ordinary men.
#6 by Bob on 08/23/2006 - 1:50 pm
Thanks, Shari.
I did he old Memory Hole bit and deleted that paragraph.
Now let’s all repeat this a hundred times:
“That paragraph never existed. Bob never errs.”