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Here's the opinion - read it for yourself. America is now in the time of the Book of Judges. Why America Must be "Under God" - under the One True God of the Judeo-Christian Bible Most of us respond from the gut when we think about the 9th Circuit's decision. Some knowledgeable people, like the folks at Wallbuilders, can demonstrate from the actual writings of America's Founding Fathers that almost all of them were profoundly Christian and established our nation's government on Christian principles. More knowledgeable people can trace the growth of freedom and prosperity in the West to the steady growth in influence of Judeo-Christian ideas in Western political and economic thought in the time from Magna Carta (1215) to the American Founding (1776). But what about logic? Are there logical reasons why the freedoms that characterize our nation depend on a majority of citizens agreeing with and obeying the moral rules of the Judeo-Christian Bible? About the best we get from Rush Limbaugh, O'Reilly, the Fox News Channel, etc. is that "God" in the Pledge doesn't refer to any God - so insert your own. If your god says kill Christians and Jews, as allah, the god of Islam does, fine. If your god says don't step on bugs, as buddha does, or that some people are spiritually unclean and untouchable, as the thousands of gods of Hinduism do, that's fine too. Clearly, the O'Reilly position cannot be right. You do not get "all men are created equal" under Hinduism, nor do you get even a right to life under Islam if you are a non-Muslim without paying a tax called "Jizya," required by Surah 9:29 in the Koran. If "under God" means insert whatever you think is right or wrong, all we get is conflict, not a basis on which to establish law and government. In fact, there are logical reasons why our freedoms depend on the moral rules in the Bible. Freedom is defined by rights. Rights are simply conduct that the law will protect. For example, when we lock our doors at night, we are engaging in the conduct of excluding others from our homes - we are exercising a "right to property" in our homes. If someone tries to break into your home, you can call the police, who will defend your right to keep others out of your property. Rights, in turn, come from the prohibitions of moral rules. You can not have a right to property unless a majority of your fellow citizens believe it is wrong to steal. Moral rules - what people think is right or wrong - always come from their worldview - how they answer three questions: 1) Does God exist and, if so, what is his nature? For example, if there is no God or if He does not hold us accountable in eternity for our actions in this life, there is no reason to follow any particular set of moral rules - you can do whatever you have the power to get away with. If I don't like you and can kill you, there is no logical basis for me not to. The fact that I may be punished simply means someone else, with more power than me, can impose THEIR views of right and wrong on me. In the same way, if man is by nature good, there is no logical basis to punish anybody, in this life, for their actions. After all, they are basically good, so if they do something wrong, it must be the fault of some circumstance, some thing in their environment that forced them to go against their nature. If the purpose of life is not to love and serve our Creator, then again there is no logical basis to follow any set of moral rules. We can insert any purpose we want - accumulating the most property, getting high as much as possible, you name it. If God has not given our lives a purpose, then the only logical purpose is doing whatever we want to do. But you may be saying, wait a minute, I can prove that cooperating with others is good. If you don't kill and don't steal, everybody can be productive and we can all have more goods to consume. Do you see that what you are really saying is that there is some set of moral rules - like don't kill and don't steal - that tend to our benefit? If that is the case, then the logical response is to examine the various sets of moral rules that different ideologies - or religions - offer, to determine which set, if any, consistently produces the best possible results. (But remember, you're definition of "good" or "best" is going to be colored by your moral beliefs in making this assessment. That is why order must always be imposed by force, because there are always some who disagree, even with what everyone else thinks is good.) The fact is that all sets of moral ideas usually have many points in common. For example, although Islam allows non-Muslims to be killed, it prohibits killing other Muslims. Communism allows the individuals who hold the power of the state to kill whom they want but prohibits ordinary citizens from exercising this power. But there is only one set of moral beliefs that contains all of the rules necessary to produce prosperity, human happiness, and peace - AND - makes these rules apply to everybody equally. That set of moral rules is the set of Judeo-Christian rules in the Bible. If you would like, I can give you an in-depth explanation of how and why these rules work, just email me. But to keep this article short, consider, the richest, most free nations in the world are those of the West, and they have one thing in common. All of them trace their founding principles, more or less, to the Bible. If we say, as O'Reilly does, insert your personal god in the Pledge, what we are really saying is insert your own ideas of right and wrong as the basis of law and government. That is a formula for anarchy. The Bible describes a time in the history of the Jews when people did this, in the Book of Judges. It led to so many problems that the Jews had to resort to an absolute ruler - a king - to defend them from internal and external agressors. Insert your own god is a formula for losing freedom, not for keeping it. America's freedom and prosperity are the direct result of following the moral rules of the Judeo-Christian God. If we throw Him out, we also throw out His rules, and with them, the basis of all the rights American fighting men and women have died to protect.  Did You Know? Facts about the Pledge of Allegiance In 1954, Congressed passed a law to add "under God" to the Pledge. Army general and then President Dwight Eisenhower suggested this addition. The rules manual for both the House and the Senate requires that each day be opened first with prayer and then by reciting the Pledge. |
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