To say that the bible is not the basis of our legal system is a bit naive. I think it played a big role in the lives and morality of all the
lawmakers that have contributed to it. I don't think I need to elaborate
on that one.
I guess my point is that because laws are not required to be in accordance
with the bible does not mean we should forget that most lawmakers
throughout history have been christian or at least have pretended to be
and that christianity has a huge impact on legislature both past and
present and not always in matters of separation of church and state. It
is the determining factor in what is right and wrong for an enormous
portion of the voting population not excluding the politicians themselves. Pretending otherwise just seems naive to me - no offense - nothing is ever simple.
but samuel, what you're defending, by allowing that a government can determine what's legal based on one religion, sounds like a theocracy. and bush is not our pope, bishop, deacon, rabbi, priest, minister, shaman, yogi, abbot, mother superior, kaliph, mystic, saint, mullah, vicar, prelate, or cure. he's an elected public servant.
our founding fathers, as daniel pointed out, didn't intend any particular church's god to be the basis for this country and its institutions, even though they did include the idea of god, the principle of a 'supreme mind' (as jefferson called it), a 'higher power'. they were products of the enlightenment, with neo-classical furnishings, and their references on laws and governance and statehood were ancient greeks like polybius, not biblical beings like moses.
it's true that many people today often confuse the two -- the idea of god as a higher power with the image of a particular church's god. they confuse -- and equate -- a general principle with a specific institution. and we have national expressions like 'in god we trust' or 'one nation under god' which many people assume is a judeo-christian god. but the plain fact is that the founding fathers did not endorse or enforce any particular church or bible or religious institution for our government or its citizens. what they did embrace was the idea of a higher power, a supreme authority higher than kings', and they said so in the declaration of independence (man is endowed by their creator with unalienable rights; it becomes necessary for one people to assume the station to which the laws of nature and of nature's god entitle them). this principle of god, this 'creator' or 'nature's god' was not of any particular organized religion or embodied in a monarch, and they saw institutions like governments as man-made (not royal, not divine) constructs (to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men) -- of the people, by the people, for the people, as lincoln later put it.
even the constitution ensures that "we the people" are making this man-made institution called a government, and that, as a man-made construct, it will always need to be worked on, in order to "form a more perfect union." in addition, this government makes no provision for a monarchy, and, further, ensures meanwhile that people are free to worship however they please, without being required to do so to be a citizen.
it's a pretty amazing accomplishment, what the founding fathers crafted: a man-made institution that can continue to be amended and perfected, that acknowledges an authority higher than kings, and yet which does not impose a monarchy or membership in any organized religion.
however... now we have a president who tells the citizens who elected him that "our nation must defend the sanctity of marriage" and we have appointed judges who want to display the judeo-christian 10 commandments in courts of law and we have high schoolers who want to lead public christian prayers before football games. in short, we have a vocal religious faction claiming they want to participate in the public square while insisting that they own it. and none of this was the intention of the founders of this country. for anyone to now argue that the christian bible is the way it is for "an enormous portion of the voting population not excluding the politicians" and that "nothing is ever simple" and that one need not "elaborate on that" is to commit and perpetuate a misguided and negligent -- and yes, naive -- travesty of the american meaning of god, country, and citizenship.
(phew. usually I post silly. this is harder, being all serious, like. but so is trying to be a citizen, I guess!)
......... laserbeam [aka ray]
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