Ten Commandments Disallowed in Courthouses

[Brad]

Philip P:

The barbarian invasions brought down the Roman Empire in the West, and the Ottoman Turks brought down the Christian Empire in the East. It wasn’t a lack of explicit Christianity. My issue is with this whole “Christian nation” concept. I don’t agree that we ought to be an explicitly Christian nation. Nor do I think it is necessary to be Christian in order to be moral. I want to see an end to abortion and other forms of injustice, but I flat out disagree with making the explicit promotion of Christianity by the government a prerequisite for this.

How could the powerful Roman Empire that dominated the world be brought down by random barbarians? Read the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Countries and empires almost never fail from the outside in. They fail from the inside out. Moral corruption eats at the fabric of a nation so that they are parlyzed in their efforts to defend their self-consuming lifestyle. They are not disciplined enough nor do they have enough wisdom to identify, confront, and defeat evil. They crumble from within. Homosexual behavior was normalized and a sign of power within the Empire. They crumbled.

You may be able to be a good person by some standard if you are not a Christian but you will not be a good society that holds subjective changeable standards of morality based on self-desires. If there are no moral guideposts, people will fail, physically and spiritually. This is why evangelizing is critical. This is why being in a nation that promotes Christian principles is a blessing and living in on that opposes them is somewhat of a crisis.

I am not saying that the government needs to explicitly promote Christianity. I am arguing that the government needs to be guided by laws that agree with Christianity and that education should be grounded in values that agree with Christianity. This does not mean the schools need to require children to learn all doctrines of a particular faith and obey them. I am also arguing that displaying the 10 commandments and prayer in schools in no way requires people to become Christian, but forcing them out does dissuade people from becoming Christian - which is indeed the aim of the ACLU.

 

[Richardols]

Brad:

You have to take a breather and READ the post. I said many schools will not allow NON-government run Bible Studies.

“Not allowing…non-government” seems imply the converse - that schools should allow government-run Bible Studies.

Surely not.

 

[Richardols]

Brad:

I see. And you can see no parallel between developments in Canada and the United States? Do you think that homosexual propagandists do not work together between Canada and the United States? Here’s a hint: they do work together. We’re headed down the same road, if you care.

I can’t vote in Canada, my letters from America to Canadian legislators will carry no weight at all, and I can’t afford to go up there and campaign against their laws. So I repeat: Canadians should take care of their own problems.

 

[Richardols]

Brad:

Perhaps you should study up on what is happening in this country as a result of the movment to abolish God before you cast vigorous opinion against those that want to keep reminders of God around.

You’re bitching because I’m not familiar with every civil rights/religious freedom case in this country? Excuuuse me.

 

[condan]

No, I don’t. I want Christians to promote Christian values. Even Jesus Christ Himself didn’t ask the Roman government to promote His teachings. He wanted His individual followers to do so.

And he wanted the Romans to be his individual followers. He suffered and died for many.

 

[condan]

Richardols:

A bit off topic, but my sinning doesn’t excuse your committing the same sin.

No but it does preclude you from excoriating me and leaving yourself blameless. It also helps to focus on accuracy in history so we can all learn from it.

 

[Philip_P]

Brad:

How could the powerful Roman Empire that dominated the world be brought down by random barbarians? Read the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Countries and empires almost never fail from the outside in. They fail from the inside out. Moral corruption eats at the fabric of a nation so that they are parlyzed in their efforts to defend their self-consuming lifestyle. They are not disciplined enough nor do they have enough wisdom to identify, confront, and defeat evil. They crumble from within. Homosexual behavior was normalized and a sign of power within the Empire. They crumbled.

In which case the Roman Empire is a poor example for your argument. Christianity was the official religion after Constantine; if the state-sanctioned embrace of Christianity failed to stave moral corruption in the Roman Empire, what makes you think it’s the answer now?

 

[Philip_P]

BTW, it wasn’t “random barbarians,” but successive and sustained waves of non-Roman peoples over the course of a few centuries that were applying constant pressure on Rome’s borders. Rome was sacked several times before 476, the last time eveyone just decided to stop pretending it there was still an empire, or that it was particularly Roman.

 

[Brad]

Philip P:

BTW, it wasn’t “random barbarians,” but successive and sustained waves of non-Roman peoples over the course of a few centuries that were applying constant pressure on Rome’s borders. Rome was sacked several times before 476, the last time eveyone just decided to stop pretending it there was still an empire, or that it was particularly Roman.

Successie and sustained but by DIFFERENT non-Roman peoples and over a great period of time. Pretty random. The inability to confront rogue and unorganized groups as an empire indicates a breakdown and severe weakness from within.

 

[Brad]

Philip P:

In which case the Roman Empire is a poor example for your argument. Christianity was the official religion after Constantine; if the state-sanctioned embrace of Christianity failed to stave moral corruption in the Roman Empire, what makes you think it’s the answer now?

I’m not asking for a quasi state sanctioned official religion. I am asking that the government not declare war on Christianity by attempting to eliminate it’s values and tradition from our country’s heritage.

Obviously, the roman leaders didn’t embrace it all that much as they had far too many “parties” to attend.

 

[Brad]

“Not allowing…non-government” seems imply the converse - that schools should allow government-run Bible Studies.

Surely not.

I didn’t say they WOULD allow government-run studies. They will not allow studies at all, whether run by government, students, private organizations off hours etc. What is not allowed is studying the bible on public property - period.

Another example is not allowing boy scouts to meet on public property.

These are 2 of many problems of the government forcing its religion of secular humanism on the population at large by not allowing people to use buildings paid for by their tax dollars for religious purposes, but allowing the population to use the buildings for sports, lectures of any variety etc.

 

[Brad]

Richardols:

You’re bitching because I’m not familiar with every civil rights/religious freedom case in this country? Excuuuse me.

Just pointing out that you have an awful lot to say about Christian rights not being restriced when, in fact, they are.

 

[wabrams]

Brad:

Successie and sustained but by DIFFERENT non-Roman peoples and over a great period of time. Pretty random. The inability to confront rogue and unorganized groups as an empire indicates a breakdown and severe weakness from within.

No, sustained warfare is not good for the home country. It doesn’t matter how random or if by different groups, continual warfare will eventually ruin any country. Sun Tzu wrote about this at least a thousand years before Rome.

 

[Brad]

wabrams:

No, sustained warfare is not good for the home country. It doesn’t matter how random or if by different groups, continual warfare will eventually ruin any country. Sun Tzu wrote about this at least a thousand years before Rome.

I’d say there are a whole lot of countries that would engage in sustained attacks against the US today if they thought they could gain some success. But they don’t because they can’t. As the Roman Empire weakened within, they became targets.

You can see a parallel on a different scale with the 9/11 attacks. Our weak response to evil and terrorism in the 90s lead to a bold attack in the 21st century.

 

[Adonis33]

Brad:

I didn’t say they WOULD allow government-run studies. They will not allow studies at all, whether run by government, students, private organizations off hours etc. What is not allowed is studying the bible on public property - period.

Another example is not allowing boy scouts to meet on public property.

These are 2 of many problems of the government forcing its religion of secular humanism on the population at large by not allowing people to use buildings paid for by their tax dollars for religious purposes, but allowing the population to use the buildings for sports, lectures of any variety etc.

The school I teach at allows a group of teachers to say the rosary after school in one of the classrooms. In fact - a group of christian students pry around the American flag every Wed. morning.

I think the this issue will depend on where you live.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Brad:

What their display means is that a anyone in the court will treated in a just fashion based on the standards of God, not man. Having sinful man distributing justice is a very very bad thing. How’d anyone like to be tried in Sadaam Hussein or Adolph Hitler courts?

I don’t think Magna Carta, Habeas Corpus, or the Bill of Rights are Divinely inspired ​

The same objection could be made to Canon Law, which in the West is based on Roman Law - not on the Bible or the Decalogue. Who but “sinful man distribut[es] justice” ? Short of having a legal system staffed by angels, sinful man is what we are stuck with

Other countries & legal systems don’t base their laws on the Decalogue - and they seem to survive. God can perfectly well be acknowledged without part of a Bronze Age legal code being shown in public - it is what is in man’s heart, not what is on his walls, that decides how he acts. Faith does not need to be shown in public to be real and fruitful: which is why there can be Christians without public displays of the Decalogue. ##

The churches need to live the faith AND the government needs to acknowledge God. In fact, it is the same secularlists in the church that want the 10 commandments taken down. Same issue, same problem.

The Koran is not an issue because this country was not founded on it and only an extreme minority practice it. Of course that will changes as we chisel and erase our acknowledgment of God from everywhere.

This decision is typically ludicrous but expected from our high court judges. It shows what small minds they really have.