I was doing some more reading about Calvinism, Reformed theology, apologetics, presuppositionalism, and learned of a group who call themselves Christian Reconstructionists. I was astonished yet again at the ugliness that dogmatism can sometimes twist itself into. I find that I can even give the Calvinists a pass, when I compare them to this group, who are essentially Calvinistic, but whose priorities extend far out of the Ivory Tower of theological and philosophical thought and ultimately seek to supplant the ideals which founded this country and replace them with a legal system which would be in conformity with biblical, specifically Old Testament, laws.
For anyone who isn't exactly sure that this would be a bad thing, I encourage you to actually go and read the first five books of the Old Testament. I find it disturbing that anyone would even bother considering the OT as a moral book in any sense at all, after going through these texts, or as a proper resource for moral guidance; but to think that most Christians still regard those ancient writings as being the divinely inspired standard of what constitutes moral and ethical behavior is simply unacceptable. Education has never been more necessary. Apologists and inerrantists have labored for centuries in taking the ignorance and barbarism from those texts and rationalizing them away, but it's time for Christians to start thinking for themselves, to go into those books and investigate the contents therein, to evaluate what they are reading, carefully and obectively, without allowing themselves to be prejudiced by their their blinding fixation on the New Testament.
It's easy to ignore the Old Testament's ugliness when you are a member of a society which values individual freedom, human rights, and whose life is enriched by those concepts. People driving around in their Ford Explorers, yammering away on their cellphones, enjoying their hard-earned money and their liberty to enjoy the property which their money enables them to possess, are at a gigantic remove from the ignorant, tribal superstition that saturates the beloved book they imagine has actually brought this happy state of affairs about. The lie which has been propogated for centuries must be put to rest. The United States is not a Christian nation. The ideas put forth in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are not Judeo-Christian ideas, and have virtually nothing to do with the Bible, apart from a deliberately unspecified reference to a Creator, or God. The God in those documents was not the capricious, emotionally-driven tribal deity who wreaks havoc and mayhem all throughout the Old Testament.
Yes, some of the founding fathers were professed Christians, but some of them were also Deists, like Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. The philosophy which established the United States was based on Enlightenment ideas of individual rights, political autonomy and freedom. Freedom allows you to worship whichever God you please however you please, but it does not make it compulsory for you to worship a god of any kind. Freedom of religion actually does mean freedom from religion, at least for those who choose to have no part of any organized faith. This is a fact which needs to be recognized and protected from further obfuscation by people who depend on the ignorance of the masses to further their repugnant agendas.
Reconstrustionist Christians have no regard for the ideas of rights, autonomy or independence, in any real sense. God is your over-all authority, and that's that. You don't have to like it, but there's nothing you can do about it. And they don't mean God in any generic, touchy-feely sense, they mean the wrathful and veangeful Jehovah of ancient tribal mythology. These are people who believe that blasphemy is a crime which ought to be punishable by death. These are people who want you to be able to stand around and lob rocks at gay people, to hit them with those rocks, and to keep pummeling them with rocks until they die. And they want you to be able to feel good about doing it.
Oh, and yes, I did refer to the Jehovah of the Bible as a tribal deity. That's precisely what he is. He's a tribal deity, who looks out for his tribe and does it in a particularly nasty way. The benign Creator posited by the Deists is far more worthy of respect, though my personal belief is that for some, Deism was a ruse. It was dangerous thoughout history to make any claims to being an atheist. It could get you burned at the stake. It could ruin your career. I'm not a deist. I'm an atheist. If there is a Creator, then I would certainly think it in my best interest to get to know Him, and I am often genuinely moved by this prospect; but at the same time I am certain that the Scriptures are nothing if not a serious libel to this Creator, and in this respect I am in complete agreement with Thomas Paine, who needs to be read now more than ever, and who should be venerated by thinking people who wish to remain in and maintain a free society. I try, in my own way, to achieve communion with this mysterious Creator, my Maker. I doubt sincerely that such an entity exists, which is why I call myself an atheist, but I don't mind spending a great deal of time in the quiet contemplation of such an entity.
The Objectivists might call me irrational for doing so, but that's fine with me. Some of those folks have stepped rather smugly and even dangerously into the chill of dogmatism themselves, calling for an all-out war against Islam and the middle-east, showing a callous lack of feeling for the millions of civilians who would perish in such a war (I do strongly believe in our right to defend ourselves, and in our government's obligation to defend us in the event of an attack; but I don't believe that the initiation of force is ever warranted. War is an evil that should be avoided as long as it is feasible to do so, and it is still feasible to do so).
But I'm digressing. Go to that page I linked to and do some reading. These Reconstructionists are no dummies, no ignorant rednecks with bedsheets over their heads. They are highly educated, extremely eloquent, and motivated. Their philosophy, bolstered by respected and revered theologians like Van Til, and the relatively new Transcendental Argument for the existence of God (TAG), is very pursuasive, even ingenious, though deceptively so. I believe that the Reformed movement itself will grow demonstrably, due to the power of the Internet, and the Reconstructionist movement will also grow. These are not your garden variety hicks or nut-jobs carrying signs down the street in front of your local theater or abortion clinic. These are personable, likeable, articulate, well-educated people, people who happen to have an agenda which I consider to be evil. Disciplined, highly intelligent, motivated, orderly, and evil.
For anyone who isn't exactly sure that this would be a bad thing, I encourage you to actually go and read the first five books of the Old Testament. I find it disturbing that anyone would even bother considering the OT as a moral book in any sense at all, after going through these texts, or as a proper resource for moral guidance; but to think that most Christians still regard those ancient writings as being the divinely inspired standard of what constitutes moral and ethical behavior is simply unacceptable. Education has never been more necessary. Apologists and inerrantists have labored for centuries in taking the ignorance and barbarism from those texts and rationalizing them away, but it's time for Christians to start thinking for themselves, to go into those books and investigate the contents therein, to evaluate what they are reading, carefully and obectively, without allowing themselves to be prejudiced by their their blinding fixation on the New Testament.
It's easy to ignore the Old Testament's ugliness when you are a member of a society which values individual freedom, human rights, and whose life is enriched by those concepts. People driving around in their Ford Explorers, yammering away on their cellphones, enjoying their hard-earned money and their liberty to enjoy the property which their money enables them to possess, are at a gigantic remove from the ignorant, tribal superstition that saturates the beloved book they imagine has actually brought this happy state of affairs about. The lie which has been propogated for centuries must be put to rest. The United States is not a Christian nation. The ideas put forth in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are not Judeo-Christian ideas, and have virtually nothing to do with the Bible, apart from a deliberately unspecified reference to a Creator, or God. The God in those documents was not the capricious, emotionally-driven tribal deity who wreaks havoc and mayhem all throughout the Old Testament.
Yes, some of the founding fathers were professed Christians, but some of them were also Deists, like Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. The philosophy which established the United States was based on Enlightenment ideas of individual rights, political autonomy and freedom. Freedom allows you to worship whichever God you please however you please, but it does not make it compulsory for you to worship a god of any kind. Freedom of religion actually does mean freedom from religion, at least for those who choose to have no part of any organized faith. This is a fact which needs to be recognized and protected from further obfuscation by people who depend on the ignorance of the masses to further their repugnant agendas.
Reconstrustionist Christians have no regard for the ideas of rights, autonomy or independence, in any real sense. God is your over-all authority, and that's that. You don't have to like it, but there's nothing you can do about it. And they don't mean God in any generic, touchy-feely sense, they mean the wrathful and veangeful Jehovah of ancient tribal mythology. These are people who believe that blasphemy is a crime which ought to be punishable by death. These are people who want you to be able to stand around and lob rocks at gay people, to hit them with those rocks, and to keep pummeling them with rocks until they die. And they want you to be able to feel good about doing it.
Oh, and yes, I did refer to the Jehovah of the Bible as a tribal deity. That's precisely what he is. He's a tribal deity, who looks out for his tribe and does it in a particularly nasty way. The benign Creator posited by the Deists is far more worthy of respect, though my personal belief is that for some, Deism was a ruse. It was dangerous thoughout history to make any claims to being an atheist. It could get you burned at the stake. It could ruin your career. I'm not a deist. I'm an atheist. If there is a Creator, then I would certainly think it in my best interest to get to know Him, and I am often genuinely moved by this prospect; but at the same time I am certain that the Scriptures are nothing if not a serious libel to this Creator, and in this respect I am in complete agreement with Thomas Paine, who needs to be read now more than ever, and who should be venerated by thinking people who wish to remain in and maintain a free society. I try, in my own way, to achieve communion with this mysterious Creator, my Maker. I doubt sincerely that such an entity exists, which is why I call myself an atheist, but I don't mind spending a great deal of time in the quiet contemplation of such an entity.
The Objectivists might call me irrational for doing so, but that's fine with me. Some of those folks have stepped rather smugly and even dangerously into the chill of dogmatism themselves, calling for an all-out war against Islam and the middle-east, showing a callous lack of feeling for the millions of civilians who would perish in such a war (I do strongly believe in our right to defend ourselves, and in our government's obligation to defend us in the event of an attack; but I don't believe that the initiation of force is ever warranted. War is an evil that should be avoided as long as it is feasible to do so, and it is still feasible to do so).
But I'm digressing. Go to that page I linked to and do some reading. These Reconstructionists are no dummies, no ignorant rednecks with bedsheets over their heads. They are highly educated, extremely eloquent, and motivated. Their philosophy, bolstered by respected and revered theologians like Van Til, and the relatively new Transcendental Argument for the existence of God (TAG), is very pursuasive, even ingenious, though deceptively so. I believe that the Reformed movement itself will grow demonstrably, due to the power of the Internet, and the Reconstructionist movement will also grow. These are not your garden variety hicks or nut-jobs carrying signs down the street in front of your local theater or abortion clinic. These are personable, likeable, articulate, well-educated people, people who happen to have an agenda which I consider to be evil. Disciplined, highly intelligent, motivated, orderly, and evil.
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