OT: Chiff & Fipple: Fair & Balanced

Celtoid · Post by **Celtoid** » Wed Aug 27, 2003 7:30 pm

Amen Badge! And I don't say amen often, trust me

Walden · Post by **Walden** » Wed Aug 27, 2003 9:07 pm

Lorenzo wrote:Go read the New Revised Standard Version, and discover the 15-16 entire texts left out of the NT, including most of 1 Jn.5:7,8, and a couple dozen
1/2 verses completely missing. And in the New King James Version, see
how the footnotes parallel with the missing verses in the NRSV. I was
dumb founded when I first noticed that, for instance, the chapters will go
from v. 14 right to v. 16, with no hint of number 15 anywhere. If this
doesn't startle you as well, then all I can say is your way of looking at
things are probably best for you in what you need to maintain. But it is
important to me, being victim to the scholars who also realize that the
NRSV is the most reliable source of biblical information taken from the
original manuscripts.

You'd rather just read the Lost Books of Enoch anyway.

Lorenzo · Post by **Lorenzo** » Wed Aug 27, 2003 10:10 pm

I'd rather be a guest speaker at your campmeeting next summer.
I could bring my band with me and we could play "Amazing Grass" if you'd like.

The only real benefit I ever got out of the "found" books of Enoch (as you
well know Waldo) was putting the puzzle together on why the Apostle Paul
said women should wear a covering on their heads, "for the angels sake."

Enoch blurts out the truth about it all...it's to confuse the angels so they
won't know what gender the women are, to protect them from what
happened like in Genesis 6, where the angels came down and made love
to the daughters of men and produced giants, not unlike yourselves.

Post by **Nanohedron** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 12:08 pm

Lorenzo wrote:Enoch blurts out the truth about it all...it's to confuse the angels so they won't know what gender the women are...

???

If we bumbling mortals can tell the difference anyway, what are we to think of angels? To imagine heavenly blockheads with such powers...no, it looks like a patriarchal ruse to me.

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:55 pm

still struggling with this one.

I managed to get through most of these events without
seeing a photo of the monument. I pictured it on
the basis of descriptions in the court ruling and elsewhere.
I've now seen some photos and I confess I'm getting
increasingly confused--maybe I don't really have
the right picture in my mind yet.

I pictured something twelve feet high and oozing sacrality.
What I'm seeing doesn't seem such a big deal.
It looks like a large, but not humungous, representation
of the tablets of the ten commandments, portrayed in
a reverential way. Also, the representation might fairly be said to
express reverence for God the Law Giver.

I honestly don't see this as the establishment of a
state religion. I' suggested earlier that the Courts
seem not to have a principled way of deciding
establishment clause cases. (The test the Court applied
here would take out the pledge of allegiance,
as a federal court indeed tried to do last year, I believe.)
So I suppose finally one's gut reaction matters.

A lot has been said about Moore's intentions,
yet there is a certain oddness about deciding the
case on those grounds. Suppose a court building
is built with a copy of the commandments like the
one on the Supreme Court building, and the express
intention is to represent the beginning of our
judicial history. That's constitutional. Another state

builds a duplicate building, with a duplicate ten commandments,
and expresses the intention
of honoring God. Is the duplicate ten commandments unconstitutional?

Or suppose Moore was a vaguely religous fellow who thought
some sort of monument would be a nice gift to the
state and was offered
this one readymade on the cheap.
Now would it be constitutional?

There's something to be said for finally just looking
at the thing itself, and there I've yet to find anything
which seems such a big deal..I think the court may be overreaching
when it calls the monument 'proselytzing.'
Maybe I need more photos.

As a member of a non-western religion who has never been
a Christian, I confess it would never occur to me that
I couldn't get a fair shake in the Alabama courts--after
all, they've got this monument. Nor would I have any
problem pleading a case there if I were a lawyer;
the idea wouldn't occur to me. The Moslem attorney we
mentioned earlier would probably have no difficulty with the
ten commandments, accepting them as an important part of her faith.

I believe there are statues of greek gods on some
of the court buildings in Washington.

I have this image, not that it's true, that outside
the court building in Delhi, there's a large statue of
Vishnu, the Indian god who preserves order and appears
in human form (e.g. krishna, the buddha) to preach the appropriate ordering of things. And I'm going in there to contest a traffic ticket
thinking--oh, no, I'm in trouble here. I don't believe
in Vishnu! Or imagine my being offended.

I can understand people not liking
religion or the Judaoe-Christian tradition,
and not wanting the monument--maybe not wanting
a permanent display of reverence. But what still isn't clear
to me is why this shoudn't be left to the people
of Alabama to decide. Best

The Weekenders · Post by **The Weekenders** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 7:01 pm

It's not religious, but on the same day as the stone was moved, a new memorial was installed on State property in Sacramento. Its a Veteran's memorial for Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual and Transgendered Veterans in the Capitol Square park behind the Capitol building. Gray Davis is still buffing his...image...

Don't you feel more inclusive now? Those annoying Judeo-Christians are having all references to their creed eliminated on state property to make room for, well, references to other beliefs and lifestyles. I know its not a perfect comparison...

Since it was technically illegal to be at least homosexual ( I don't even know about transgendered) in the military for all the wars and actions until recently, a person has to wonder just how many vets of that description there are (certainly must have been closeted ones). Maybe its a memorial in advance. Did Christine Jorgensen serve before or after, heck, I can;t even remember.

Hey, I just report these things.....Don't flame me..

chas · Post by **chas** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 7:34 pm

Hey, I'm an equal-opportunity monument (and special day/month) basher. Why does every little interest group get its own monument or day/week/month? It seems that every week or two (sometimes more frequently) I'm barraged at work with something-or-other week. Hey, I'm from a historically persecuted group (Hugenots); my forebears were boat people before it was popular (the 16th century, and for a couple of generations at that), can't we have our week? Or a monumentt?

As far as I'm concerned I'm American with no hyphens, and it doesn't matter where my family was 50 or 500 years ago, what color, sex, or orientation I am or anybody else is.

Jerry Freeman · Post by **Jerry Freeman** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 8:26 pm

Jim,

I think the point is, the monument was the centerpiece of a systematic, highly publicized campaign to "put God back into our legal system."

The monument itself contains not only the Ten Commandments, but a collection of sayings about God from various government sources ("In God We Trust," "One Nation Under God," etc.). This makes the monument about God, and not just about the Ten Commandments and their role in our country's cherished institutions.

To me, it seems clear that what Judge Moore tried to do was exactly what the Constitution prohibits -- to establish a government sanctioned religion.

The addition of all the other statements about God, to the Ten Commandments monument pushes the monument itself, if you want to look at it in isolation, over the line of simply commorating an important source of our moral and legal code. On top of that, the public campaigning to "put God back ... " made it clearly an attempt to use the power of government to advance a religion.

Best wishes,
Jerry

Lorenzo · Post by **Lorenzo** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 10:26 pm

http://www.athensnewspapers.com/stories ... 6083.shtml

The strangest thing still, about this whole ten commandments
debate, is that Judge Moore would feel so deeply committed to
them, and wear them at his court building, yet apparently have no
skill or knowledge in how to honor them in any kind of educated
way, particularly the old Jewish Sabbath so clearly defined in the
4th commandment that he boast on public display.

He's a member of the First Baptist Church, and apparently a Sunday
school teacher as well. Another fine example of sincerity without
knowledge I guess.
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/NEW ... REAPJW.htm

Chuck_Clark · Post by **Chuck_Clark** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 10:53 pm

Everyone seems to be assuming that Moore is doing all this crap from some devout belief. What about the possibility that he's just another cynical, opportunistic and self-serving politico out to further his own image and position with the help of all those he's suckered into helping his game?

And speaking of all those "devout" though perhaps not too enlightened folks, does anyone else besides me get the idea that for some of them the monument itself has become the god - sort of like the Israelites and their golden calf? Seems to me that before I escaped, I recall something about graven images.

Lorenzo · Post by **Lorenzo** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 11:06 pm

Yea, that's partly what I mean..."no (en)graven images.."

That
may also be why the Catholic church removed such language from their
version of the ten commandments.

Walden · Post by **Walden** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 11:09 pm

Lorenzo wrote:The strangest thing still, about this whole ten commandments
debate, is that Judge Moore would feel so deeply committed to
them, and wear them at his court building, yet apparently have no
skill or knowledge in how to honor them in any kind of educated
way, particularly the old Jewish Sabbath so clearly defined in the
4th commandment that he boast on public display.

He's a member of the First Baptist Church, and apparently a Sunday
school teacher as well. Another fine example of sincerity without
knowledge I guess.
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/NEW ... REAPJW.htm

Obviously the Southern Baptists hold to the interpretation that the Sabbath is to be interpreted in New Testament light. See "The Baptist Faith and Message," and the New Hampshire Confession of Faith, and other statements of mainstream Baptist faith.

Lorenzo · Post by **Lorenzo** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 11:24 pm

huh?? Suppose your birthday is on the 29th but after you're gone, some
distant generation chooses to celebrate it on the 30th. Doesn't change
your birthday, no matter how traditional the 30th becomes, and doesn't
change the birthday of the world either. Even your precious Jesus knew
which day was which. (no offense intended...just doing simple math)

Maybe the higher court, instead of removing the monument, should have
dropped them in Moore's presence, and like Moses with the Israelites,
showed him how HE was the one who broke them.

Caj · Post by **Caj** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 6:39 am

jim stone wrote: 1 is a little confusing–to violate 1 must a practice have no important secular purpose? In that case Moore's monument passes 1, for, as Moore maintains, an underlying purpose of the monument is to imbue the courts with justice and assist them in dispensing justice, which is a valid secular purpose.

I wonder how they think this monument either imbues the courts with justice or assists in dispensing justice? Are they going to drop the thing on people as a form of capital punishment? Does the top swing open to provide storage space for office supplies?

Caj

Caj · Post by **Caj** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 6:46 am

The Weekenders wrote:It's not religious, but on the same day as the stone was moved, a new memorial was installed on State property in Sacramento. Its a Veteran's memorial for Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual and Transgendered Veterans in the Capitol Square park behind the Capitol building. Gray Davis is still buffing his...image...

Don't you feel more inclusive now? Those annoying Judeo-Christians are having all references to their creed eliminated on state property to make room for, well, references to other beliefs and lifestyles. I know its not a perfect comparison...

It's not even a religion. There is nothing even slightly unconstitutional about a monument to gays and lesbians, or a general reference to a belief or lifestyle.

I'm guessing that Gov. Davis chose this day to erect that monument, however, knowing that it would make the news by doing so.

Caj