Saturday, November 05, 2011

To Preserve Liberty We Must Destroy Liberty



Theocrat Rick Santorum, your typical Republican these days, says that the way to preserve religious liberty is make civil law subject to "God's law."

Of course, what theocrats mean in particular is not God's law at all, but their interpretation of which God they think is the magic man in the sky, and their view of what the man in the sky allegedly says is the law.

Even the violent, cruel God of the Bible is unclear. Christians don't agree with each other as to what writings make up the Bible. For instance, Santorum is seen here trying to appeal to hateful fundamentalist Baptists at their church. What Santorum calls the Bible is different from what these Baptists call the Bible. Santorum's Bible includes Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, additional parts of Esther and First and Second Machabees. The Bible carried by Santorum's audience has none of those books.

Then there are the Old and New Testaments with different versions of "God's law." Which law is applied in which circumstance? Christians have literally gone to war with each other to try to settle these questions. Their assumption was that whichever side managed to kill the most people had the right to determine what law of the "God of love" could be imposed under penalty of execution. Even within the same denominations these people can't make up their mind which "God's law" is the correct "God's law."

And since the deity is silent on such matters it really comes down to man's beliefs, not God's law at all. It is man who has to determine what "God's law" is supposed to be. And men disagree with one another as to which God is true, if any; which law is God's law and how that law is applicable, etc.

In the end, when a politician like Santorum appeals to "God's law" as superior to all civil law, he is asking for unlimited powers, unrestricted by any concept of individual rights. What he means is that he wants the power to impose his alleged moral code on others, by violence if necessary, because he pretends to speak for God. As far as I know God is not a registered voter and hasn't endorse Santorum, or any other two-bit con man with a lust for power.

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