Should God's Law be the Law of the Land?

[koshergrl]

Oh brother.

 

[Foxfyre]

I would hate to see a law that would fine you for failure to keep the Lord's day holy

As has been the case throughout the history of this great country, we get things wrong and we fix them. We started out as a brand new nation with a number of narrow minded, legalistic little theocracies firmly in place. But without anybody ever having to force the issue, every single one of those had dissolved by the end of the 18th Century, and despite religion being such an important part of Americana, no new ones developed.

As the nation changed, the very sensible policy of the head of the household voting on behalf of himself and his family gave way to necessary flexibility until every citizen of a certain age, male or female, had a vote.

Affirmative action was necessary to break down centuries of cultural taboos, and that battle was competently fought and won. (Unfortunately, as is too often the case when politics takes precedence over what is best for its citizens, in that case we didn't stop fighting the war after it was won and created new problems to replace the old.)

And blue laws requiring businesses to close and give their employees a day of rest on Sundays (i.e. the sabbath) were common in most of America for more than 150 years. And again, because the culture was changing, it required no coercion or legal pressure for that custom to simple disappear and now Sunday is just another regular day in America.

A free people must be free to form the sort of society they wish to have. Whenever government presumes to dictate the sort of society they will have, the people are no longer free.

Personally, I think we would be getting it a lot more right, if we would pay a lot closer attention to what God wants us to be.

 

[MaryL]

No. That simple. What God? What laws?

 

[hortysir]

God allows evil. Probably as a method of tempering us.

Your tiny brain will never be able to wrap around it. Do you maintain that everything you don't understand must not exist?

Kindly refrain from accusing others of your own failings.

I see a question mark.
And I'm curious as to the answer

 

[hortysir]

All except one. Live and let live. (Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.)

Live and Let Live is the same as treating others as you would like to be treated.
That means it's the same as loving your neighbor as yourself

Anyone who follows the first part of "Love your Lord thy God with all your heart" is going to be preying on their neighbors because that is what they are ordered to do by the bible in the name of "loving your neighbor as yourself".

So Live and Let Live is not the same thing as you quoted.

Support that.

 

[Foxfyre]

Live and Let Live is the same as treating others as you would like to be treated.
That means it's the same as loving your neighbor as yourself

Anyone who follows the first part of "Love your Lord thy God with all your heart" is going to be preying on their neighbors because that is what they are ordered to do by the bible in the name of "loving your neighbor as yourself".

So Live and Let Live is not the same thing as you quoted.

Support that.

Most especially when the ancient Aramaic and Greek texts, and even the Latin translation, make it as easy to translate it "Love yourself so that you can love your neighbor." But either way, the message is clear. Put God first in everything and treat others as you want them to treat you and you will obey all of God's Law.

 

[Derideo_Te]

Live and Let Live is the same as treating others as you would like to be treated.
That means it's the same as loving your neighbor as yourself

Anyone who follows the first part of "Love your Lord thy God with all your heart" is going to be preying on their neighbors because that is what they are ordered to do by the bible in the name of "loving your neighbor as yourself".

So Live and Let Live is not the same thing as you quoted.

Support that.

Matthew 28 NIV - Jesus Has Risen - After the Sabbath, at - Bible Gateway

Matthew 28

18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

 

[JakeStarkey]

_Te is correct in that the Great Commitment has been perverted by many Christians to seek worldly dominion.

 

[hortysir]

Anyone who follows the first part of "Love your Lord thy God with all your heart" is going to be preying on their neighbors because that is what they are ordered to do by the bible in the name of "loving your neighbor as yourself".

So Live and Let Live is not the same thing as you quoted.

Support that.

Matthew 28 NIV - Jesus Has Risen - After the Sabbath, at - Bible Gateway

Matthew 28

18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

How sad is it that you see bringing more people into a peaceful relationship with God as "preying" on others???

 

[JakeStarkey]

Some Christians might prey on others hiding using the Great Commitment as a screen.

 

[varelse]

Conversion by the sword...

 

[JakeStarkey]

a few do it, yes, a very few

 

[amrchaos]

Many who believe in the absolute truth of the Christian faith seem to believe that God's Laws should be the law or basis of the law in the US.

What think you?

If I say no, would that imply I think all Judeo-Christian laws should be struck out?

And If I say yes would that mean that I must support Judeo-Christian religios text as interpreted by some church.


To be honest, I am kind of in the middle here. I do not see a problem with accepting some laws like the criminaliaztion of theft, but other laws like the criminalization of gambling and the like I feel is going to far.

Maybe the best method is to suggest a law and use some measure(such as the citizens opinion) to judge wether it should be a law or not.....

Hey wait!! We do that already!! Why change what works?

 

[Foxfyre]

Many who believe in the absolute truth of the Christian faith seem to believe that God's Laws should be the law or basis of the law in the US.

What think you?

If I say no, would that imply I think all Judeo-Christian laws should be struck out?

And If I say yes would that mean that I must support Judeo-Christian religios text as interpreted by some church.


To be honest, I am kind of in the middle here. I do not see a problem with accepting some laws like the criminaliaztion of theft, but other laws like the criminalization of gambling and the like I feel is going to far.

Maybe the best method is to suggest a law and use some measure(such as the citizens opinion) to judge wether it should be a law or not.....

Hey wait!! We do that already!! Why change what works?

The dedicated anti-religionist does his or her damndest to demonize or deny the deep, mostly Christian religious faith of the Founders. And they do this because they so desperately need to believe that Atheism or almost anything is superior to religious faith, most especially Christianty.

But the fact is, those who hammered out the Constitution we have over years of discussion, careful thought, agonizing soul searching, intense discussion, and yes, prayer for guidance, all had their character and moral centers based in a JudeoChristian heritage and guided by the truths they knew from that same heritage.

You can no more separate their sense of good and evil, right and wrong, from that JudeoChristian heritage than we can exclude ourselves from any influence of the environment we have lived our lives in.

What the anti-religionists won't or can't see however, is that the principles and ideals can absolutely arise out of one's religious faith and sense of God, without any intent or effect of giving any human authority ability to control or direct the outcome. No pope nor monarch nor feudal lord nor any other authority was to have jurisdiction over the people or any power to force them into any sort of society they did not themselves select and put together.

It is our slow but sure deviation from that one principle that has created the messes we currently find ourselves in.

And God's laws of cause and effect, action and consequence, continue as reliably and consistently as they always have.

 

[amrchaos]

Now I know why you choose the name "Foxfyre"

your post has the same results of letting a couple of foxes with burning tails loose in a Freedom from Religion convention--alot of burnt up and pissed of non-believers are created!!

 

[Derideo_Te]

Many who believe in the absolute truth of the Christian faith seem to believe that God's Laws should be the law or basis of the law in the US.

What think you?

If I say no, would that imply I think all Judeo-Christian laws should be struck out?

And If I say yes would that mean that I must support Judeo-Christian religios text as interpreted by some church.


To be honest, I am kind of in the middle here. I do not see a problem with accepting some laws like the criminaliaztion of theft, but other laws like the criminalization of gambling and the like I feel is going to far.

Maybe the best method is to suggest a law and use some measure(such as the citizens opinion) to judge wether it should be a law or not.....

Hey wait!! We do that already!! Why change what works?

The dedicated anti-religionist does his or her damndest to demonize or deny the deep, mostly Christian religious faith of the Founders. And they do this because they so desperately need to believe that Atheism or almost anything is superior to religious faith, most especially Christianty.

With all due respect that is utterly absurd. Atheists have no desperate "need to believe" anything at all let alone that there is some bizarre hierarchy of religions.

But the fact is, those who hammered out the Constitution we have over years of discussion, careful thought, agonizing soul searching, intense discussion, and yes, prayer for guidance, all had their character and moral centers based in a JudeoChristian heritage and guided by the truths they knew from that same heritage.

You can no more separate their sense of good and evil, right and wrong, from that JudeoChristian heritage than we can exclude ourselves from any influence of the environment we have lived our lives in.

What the anti-religionists won't or can't see however, is that the principles and ideals can absolutely arise out of one's religious faith and sense of God, without any intent or effect of giving any human authority ability to control or direct the outcome.

No one is denying that principles and ideals can stem from religion.

However you appear to be denying that principles and ideals can originate without religion.

No pope nor monarch nor feudal lord nor any other authority was to have jurisdiction over the people or any power to force them into any sort of society they did not themselves select and put together.

It is our slow but sure deviation from that one principle that has created the messes we currently find ourselves in.

Nonsense. The past was just as corrupt as the present. Nothing has changed except our knowledge of ourselves.

And God's laws of cause and effect, action and consequence, continue as reliably and consistently as they always have.

Kindly explain " God's laws of cause and effect, action and consequence" in more detail. Sweeping generalizations are misleading. Please provide examples of the "laws of cause and effect" that you are referring to here.

 

[Foxfyre]

We'll just have to agree to disagree D.T. I am as convinced of the truth of my statements as you are convinced I'm all wet.

I base my convictions on my experience, what I see and read and hear with my own eyes and my own understanding. I note that for years now, whenever somebody starts a religious thread, the Atheists almost always descend upon it to inform us believers how delusional we are to believe and teach 'fairy tales' and such, how intolerant we are, how bigoted we are, how we are trying to force our religion on others, yadda yadda.

And I base my beliefs on the convictions of the Founders and corruption in government on reading, reading, and more reading as well as attendance in some damn good history courses. We have NEVER seen such corruption in government as has existed since politicians figured out how to use our money to advance themselves, something the Constitution was clearly intended to prevent.

You can see in recent posts here, that some simply cannot bear to hear this said even though they cannot rebut it with anything authoritative. So they attack me or somebody else making the case.

And so it goes. . .

And now I intend to go put the frosting on an excellent devil's food cake as that is what our local Christians ordered instead of angel food.

 

[onecut39]

It is my opinion that God's law IS the law of the land, and we break it at our peril. Our Founders however, almost all who were devoutly religious and believers in both Christianity and God's law, knew that manmade laws could not substitute for God's law and we create oppression whenever we presume to dictate to anybody what they may or may not do short of violating somebody's else's rights.

So our Founders deemed that the federal government should have no say whatsoever in religious law or any other matter that restricted the people's ability to form whatever sort of societies they wished to have and live their lives as they chose.

And they, almost to a man, were equally convinced that this did not in any way negate God's law as being supreme in the land.

The founders were not terribly religious, a many being deists.
They were extremely worried about "gods law" superseding that of man.
They made religious law subject to civil law.

Other than that some of what you say is true.

 

[Foxfyre]

It is my opinion that God's law IS the law of the land, and we break it at our peril. Our Founders however, almost all who were devoutly religious and believers in both Christianity and God's law, knew that manmade laws could not substitute for God's law and we create oppression whenever we presume to dictate to anybody what they may or may not do short of violating somebody's else's rights.

So our Founders deemed that the federal government should have no say whatsoever in religious law or any other matter that restricted the people's ability to form whatever sort of societies they wished to have and live their lives as they chose.

And they, almost to a man, were equally convinced that this did not in any way negate God's law as being supreme in the land.

The founders were not terribly religious, a many being deists.
They were extremely worried about "gods law" superseding that of man.
They made religious law subject to civil law.

Other than that some of what you say is true.

I know that is what the Atheists and other anti-relgiionists desperately want to believe and keep posting over and over and over. But if you read the honest history, most especially the documents they left for us, you will see that almost all of the Founders were devoutly religious and quite open about the importance of their Christian faith both to themselves personally and for the great nation they founded.

They intended no religious or secular authority at the federal level would have any ability to take away the unalienable right of the people to form whatever sort of society the people wanted to have, whether that be atheist, pagan, Christian, or whatever. They were just as convinced that the Constitution would work only for a religious and moral people.

And Christian influence permeated almost all of American society in its formative years. Without it, many of the first schools and court houses and legal systems and churches that had a unifying and steadying affect on the communities would never have been built.

It was Christians who built the first hospitals and most of the first universities. I just posted this on another thread but it is instructive on how important religion was and what it contributed to America in those formative years:

106 of the first 108 colleges were started on the Christian faith. By the close of 1860 there were 246 colleges in America. Seventeen of these were state institutions; almost every other one was founded by Christian denominations or by individuals who avowed a religious purpose.

Harvard College, 1636 - An Original Rule of Harvard College: "Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life, (John 17:3), and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning."

William and Mary, 1691 - The College of William and Mary was started mainly due to the efforts of Rev. James Blair in order, according to its charter of 1691, "that the Church of Virginia may be furnished with a seminary of ministers of the gospel, and that the youth may be piously educated in good letters and manners, and that the Christian religion may be propagated among the Western Indians to the glory of Almighty God."

Yale University, 1701 - Yale University was started by Congregational ministers in 1701,"for the liberal and religious education of suitable youth…to propagate in this wilderness, the blessed reformed Protestant religion…"

Princeton, 1746 - Associated with the Great Awakening, Princeton was founded by the Presbyterians in 1746. Rev. Jonathan Dickinson became its first president, declaring, "cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ."

University of Pennsylvania, 1751 - Ben Franklin had much to do with the beginning of the University of Pennsylvania. It was not started by a denomination, but its laws reflect its Christian character. Consider the first two Laws, relating to Moral Conduct (from 1801): "1. None of the students or scholars, belonging to this seminary, shall make use of any indecent or immoral language: whether it consist in immodest expressions; in cursing and swearing; or in exclamations which introduce the name of God, without reverence, and without necessity. "2. None of them shall, without a good and sufficient reason, be absent from school, or late in his attendance; more particularly at the time of prayers, and of the reading of the Holy Scriptures."

Some other colleges started before America's Independence include: Columbia founded in 1754 (called King's College up until 1784), Dartmouth ,1770; Brown started by the Baptists in 1764; Rutgers, 1766, by the Dutch Reformed Church; Washington and Lee, 1749; and Hampton-Sydney, 1776, by the Presbyterians.

History of America's Education #3 Universities, Textbooks and Our Founders

 

[Jimmy_Jam]

Are we discussing the religious beliefs of the founders again? How futile.

This is a subject that interests only those with theist and atheist agendas. In the real world it doesn't matter. Laws as they pertain to governance are human constructs to begin with. Laws as they are recognized in nature simply are what they are. God's Laws are simply up to individuals to apply to their own lives as they see fit. End of story. Besides, the Jews observe hundreds of laws, while Christians observe a much smaller list. Which sets of laws are we talking about?

Many of the founders were Christians. Some of them had deist leanings as influenced the The Enlightenment. Who the fuck cares?