Author Topic: Western Civilization  (Read 13859 times)

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Western Civilization
« Reply #200 on: July 03, 2023, 07:42:32 AM »
Feel free to agree with his other points , , ,

G M

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Re: Western Civilization
« Reply #201 on: July 03, 2023, 07:47:45 AM »

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Western Civilization
« Reply #202 on: July 03, 2023, 07:49:43 AM »
Witty, snarky, and non-responsive.

This is where you get to say "Good point!" or maybe even "I agree!"

Feel free to notice that I and the others regularly do this with you.

G M

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Re: Western Civilization
« Reply #203 on: July 03, 2023, 09:09:48 AM »
Witty, snarky, and non-responsive.

This is where you get to say "Good point!" or maybe even "I agree!"

Feel free to notice that I and the others regularly do this with you.

I actually don’t post here for a living.

The above post is what I had time for this AM.

I would add that a large number of people in the US go to shitty public schools, without the associated criminality as a result.


Crafty_Dog

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Prager
« Reply #204 on: September 06, 2023, 09:15:35 AM »

Crafty_Dog

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objectivist1

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Re: Western Civilization
« Reply #207 on: November 09, 2023, 06:43:07 PM »
There is No Moderate Jihad
And that’s why co-existence is impossible.
November 8, 2023 by Daniel Greenfield



[Make sure to read Daniel Greenfield’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]

Civilized nations have spent generations trying to convince themselves that the primary religious and national impulses of the Muslim world come down to more than conquest and mass murder.

The horrors of the past few years in Afghanistan and Israel both came down to the mistaken belief that you could negotiate and reach an agreement with Jihadist movements.

Both D.C. and Jerusalem had become enchanted with diplomatic initiatives to the Muslim world, from the Abraham Accords to two years of relative peace with Hamas, politicians, generals and diplomats were convinced that they had finally unlocked the secret of coexistence.

But there’s no perpetual motion machine, no diet that lets you eat what you want and no coexistence with an ideology that is built on conquering and destroying all outsiders.

Individually, contextually and circumstantially coexistence is possible. But not in the long run.

How long that long run is depends not on building relationships, but showing strength. Civilized people treat coexistence as a means of developing bonds but the other side uses periods of coexistence to test for weaknesses. Coexistence on their side is a wholly insincere facade, no matter how authentic it may appear, that gathers information to be used when the attack comes.

Israeli Kibbutz residents thought that they were building relationships with day laborers from Gaza. They chatted about life, their kids and their various hardships. Then those same laborers returned to kill, rape and abduct them. But that is how that was always going to end.

That is how it will end for us with the millions of immigrants that we have taken into our nations.

It is a fundamental error to view Hamas as an “extremist” group. It is an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood whose political parties rule a number of Muslim countries. Its political organizations also dominate Muslim communities in America and Europe. Most of Al Qaeda’s leaders were also members of the Muslim Brotherhood. The myth of a split between political Islam and militant Islam, between moderate and extreme Islamic movements was always just that.

As Erdogan, the brutal Islamist tyrant who became the poster boy for moderate Islam said, “Islam cannot be either ‘moderate’ or ‘not moderate.’ Islam can only be one thing.” He has since, despite previous claims of turning more moderate and rebuilding relationships, renewed his support for Hamas, and threatened western nations with a Jihad against the “crusaders”.

The trouble with all the dreams of coexistence is that Islam is Jihad and Jihad is Islam. The most fundamental external expression of Islam is a drive to conquer the entire world, not in some uncertain ‘end of days’ future, but here, now and in the present. The difference between the so-called moderates and extremists comes down to quibbling over when and how that conquest is to begin, where it is to be implemented and who is to take charge of it.

But the actual conquest is an ongoing project. Every Islamic war, whether against Muslims or non-Muslims, is waged as part of an agenda of global conquest. Muslim civil wars are waged between different factions under the banner of Islamic leadership. And the purpose of Islamic leadership is to impose Islamic law in its lands and then invade other lands to impose the same brutal theocratic repression there.

The Jihad is the defining force of Islamic political and religious life. Much as with Communism, coexistence with it is impossible. It was impossible to coexist with members of a movement that believed in conquering and subjugating everyone under the red flag and the little red book. Individually you could chat with a Communist or help them with their groceries, but the ideology doomed any long term relationship with someone who wanted you dead or as a slave.

This was a difficult lesson that we never learned during the Cold War. Is it any wonder that we’re incapable of grasping this concept now when our civilization’s future is once again on the line?

The Cold War was fought on the optimistic premise that everyone wanted the same things we did, and that once we taught them to want them, they would adopt our means of getting them. Convince Communists that color TVs were fun and they become democratic capitalists. What sounded like a good argument to us has failed in every country that it’s been tried, except those that, like Japan and Germany, were originally democratic and capitalist. Instead we convinced China that it should make and sell us the TVs and use the money to build up its military, and convinced the Muslim world to move here, kill us and take the TVs.

We are not the world and the world is not us. Not all religions, cultures and countries are alike. Most have things that they believe in every bit as strongly as our fanciful belief that all people are basically good and that if we could just get them in a room, we would agree on most things. That’s what we did with multiculturalism and it’s why we now have violent riots every few years because we don’t agree on basic things like what we want out of life or how we treat each other.

That’s why we should not delude ourselves into thinking that the Jihad is a fringe, the misbehavior of a tiny minority, and that even that tiny minority doesn’t really buy into it. Every religion and movement has its hypocrites, but the belief that the world must be purified by Islam is as sincerely held by the majority of its believers as by those who fought for Communism. That is the religious impulse, more than any other, at the heart of Islam and its promise to Muslims.

Each religion has elements that make it exceptional. What makes Islam exceptional is not the collection of beliefs, scriptures and rituals often cribbed from Judaism and Christianity, but what it offers that these religions do not, an imminent redemption of the world achieved not in the distant future, but in the present day through the violent actions of its followers. That, and not borrowed scripture and ritual, is what allowed Islam to defeat Jews and Christians.

Western nations view this as ancient history while Muslims see it as an enduring struggle. That is why they talk, as Erdogan does, about “crusaders” and taunt the Jews with the massacre of Khaybar by Mohammed’s bandits. Convinced that history can never repeat itself, we dismiss the idea that it’s relevant or that the people we are dealing with are serious about bringing it back.

Civilized people are shocked by the horrors that ISIS, Boko Haram or Hamas perpetrate because they refuse to learn history or to see how it might be relevant to current events. It’s fashionable to draw a line, whether it’s 5 minutes ago or in 1967, and begin the clock from there. Why is this happening, they wonder, as if this had not been the longstanding practice of Islamic armies to behead fallen enemies, mutilate bodies or to rape women for over a thousand years. They assume without a shred of evidence that such practices must have been abolished.

What we are experiencing is not a reaction to anything we did. It has nothing to do with our views on a ‘Palestinian’ state, whether we draw Mohammed or welcome refugees. The Jihad is the founding religious impulse of Islam with over a thousand years of history behind it. The Jihad not only predates the United States of America and the rebirth of Israel, but dates back to a name when pagan kings ruled the various parts of England. It predates colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, globalism, the dollar, WWI and the Carter administration.

The Jihad made Islam possible. It is also what gives it meaning. It is the precarious reality that colors all relationships with the Muslim world. We have learned to ignore it at our own risk. And every time we unsee it, people die. They die by the dozens, the hundreds and the thousands. And the killing and the dying happen because we mistake what is at best a Cold War for a rich relationship. We think that we are building bridges when we’re really welcoming invaders.

To survive, we need to see all the things that we’ve been unseeing. We have to recognize that these horrors are not aberrations, they are the norm. It’s the pleasantries and periods of coexistence that are the aberration. It’s not a problem we can negotiate away. It’s not solvable by spreading democracy or building up trade relationships. The only reason we weren’t living with these horrors on an everyday basis is that the Western world became too powerful to have our coastlines and ships raided for slaves as used to be common practice in the past.

What the Muslim world and it leftist allies call “imperialism” and “colonialism” meant that kidnapped European women stopped showing up in the harems of the Ottoman Caliphate and European children as slaves in his armies. It also meant that the Jews were able to rebuild their country and, briefly, Christians in the region were also able to freely lift their heads again. We forgot that we had become strong to stop ourselves from falling victim to the endless Jihad. And our sons and daughters came to sympathize with former enemies who would rape and kill them.

Now we have made ourselves weak and the horrors are returning. We struggle to coexist with those who want to kill us. And then we wonder why they keep killing us. There’s our answer.

Coexistence is death, resistance is life. Until we learn to stop coexisting with our killers, they will go on killing us. All else is an illusion. A fantasy that we keep feeding ourselves. There is no moderate Islam because there is no moderate Jihad. And there is no moderate Jihad because there is no moderate way to conquer and enslave non-Muslims. Islam is a state of perpetual war. To know Islam is to never know peace. We coexist with Islam and so we are at war.


"You have enemies?  Good.  That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

ccp

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Re: Western Civilization
« Reply #208 on: November 10, 2023, 07:52:32 AM »
Objectivist

Agree with most of the post above

but not mentioned is that the vast majority of Muslims who die of war, infighting etc are killed by other Muslims.

Where does this fit in within the framework of the above do you think?

objectivist1

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Re: Western Civilization
« Reply #209 on: November 10, 2023, 12:53:00 PM »
ccp:

Islam is a death cult. It is more than just a religion, it is a totalitarian, barbaric socio-economic system which places zero worth on human life.

Ultimately, every Muslim is called to murder, enslave or subjugate unbelievers, and this has been the case since the inception of Islam about 1400 years ago. The Jews are just proverbial canary in the coal mine. Christians are targets as well, and any member of an alternate sect of Islam (Sunni, Shia, etc.) Mohammed was crystal clear on this in the Qur'an and the hadith. Not one word can be changed because universally, Muslim clerics consider the Qur'an the word of Allah. See Robert Spencer's excellent piece on this below. I'm not sure what relevance the percentage of Muslims killed by other Muslims has. EVERY unbeliever must die under the dictates of Islam.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/trump-the-fight-between-israel-and-hamas-is-between-civilization-and-savagery/




"You have enemies?  Good.  That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

ccp

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Re: Western Civilization
« Reply #210 on: November 10, 2023, 03:13:29 PM »
Hi,
I was just thinking there is more to the Muslim history of war their like nature that goes beyond a duty to spread Islam by threat of force or by death

if they are killing each other.


Crafty_Dog

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All the kids want to do is pogrom.
« Reply #211 on: November 10, 2023, 03:21:37 PM »
Thread Nazi here.

A Search will show a number of threads dedicated to a discussion of the Nature of Islam.

OTOH this seems apt for this thread:

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2023/11/10/all-the-young-kids-want-to-do-is-intimidate-or-kill-jews-n2631079

The larger point here is our failure to impart even the basics of Western Civilization,
« Last Edit: November 10, 2023, 03:35:04 PM by Crafty_Dog »

objectivist1

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Re: Western Civilization
« Reply #212 on: November 10, 2023, 06:20:15 PM »
Also look at the Arabic term Takfir -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takfir
"You have enemies?  Good.  That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Western Civilization
« Reply #213 on: November 10, 2023, 07:57:28 PM »
Thread Nazi again-- for discussing Islam please use one of the threads dedicated to Islam:

Yes Islam is a threat to Western Civilization, but this would be an example of what this thread is about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnl243DjsUE


Crafty_Dog

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Crafty_Dog

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Why I am now a Christian
« Reply #216 on: November 13, 2023, 04:17:42 PM »

G M

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Crafty_Dog

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Re: Western Civilization
« Reply #218 on: November 13, 2023, 06:02:42 PM »
So, state it plainly, what is your syllogism here?

G M

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Re: Western Civilization
« Reply #219 on: November 13, 2023, 06:14:21 PM »
So, state it plainly, what is your syllogism here?

It's pretty evident that there is a thread of hatred and contempt for White Christians/western civilization (What used to be called Christendom) in a large percentage of Jews (both observant and secular) that seems to be even more important to them than their own survival.


G M

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Crafty_Dog

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Re: Western Civilization
« Reply #222 on: November 14, 2023, 12:16:23 PM »
Not seeing too many identifiably jewishpeople in that Genoa clip.

I would also point out that quit a few Christian denominations have gone down the anti-Western Civilization road-- which would seem to counter your syllogism about "the Jews".

Saw that you called.  Will look to call this evening.

G M

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Re: Western Civilization
« Reply #223 on: November 14, 2023, 12:51:44 PM »

Not seeing too many identifiably jewishpeople in that Genoa clip.

The rot in the west comes from many places.

I would also point out that quit a few Christian denominations have gone down the anti-Western Civilization road-- which would seem to counter your syllogism about "the Jews".

Please do me the courtesy of actually addressing my nuanced point of not blaming ALL Jews for the actions of some.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/the-infiltration-of-marxism-into-higher-education-part-2-of-2-2718972

What ethnoreligious group did almost all of the Frankfurt School belong to? Does that mean ALL Jews share a collective guilt for that, of course not, but when you see a pattern of behavior that persists and threatens the very existence of western civilization, then yes, we have to talk about it.

The FS and others were very successful in infiltrating every western institution, including the Catholic Church and many other denominations.



Crafty_Dog

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Re: Western Civilization
« Reply #224 on: November 14, 2023, 01:01:29 PM »
Most people would be getting a clue here but you are not.   Most people would realize that they need to STFU awaiting the phone call this evening so I will make it plain.   Consider yourself in time out until further notice.


Crafty_Dog

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American Mind: Roots of the Death Cult
« Reply #225 on: November 17, 2023, 04:58:54 PM »

https://americanmind.org/salvo/radical-roots-of-the-death-cult/?utm_campaign=American%20Mind%20Email%20Warm%20Up&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=282830525&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_mK-4HlrxkLtmMAAPGTyUuh6axaTWahXgmjvWpoOPkrxSVOaCyTYbRTe-YgplbC0qHJdXA3lacIZS4kJ_vhc11NmumyQ&utm_content=282830525&utm_source=hs_email

"(T)here can be no doubt any longer as to what the advocates of CRT, DEI, BLM, and intersectionality really stand for: DEATH, “Derangement, Enmity, Antisemitism, Terrorism, and Hamas.” These neo-Jacobins are at last getting a taste of what they had been longing for, preparing for, and now unabashedly consume while demanding more of: Jewish blood."
« Last Edit: November 17, 2023, 07:32:29 PM by Crafty_Dog »


ccp

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Re: Western Civilization
« Reply #227 on: November 17, 2023, 07:36:18 PM »
right

they all think they are safe

they are DEMOcrats. 

Crafty_Dog

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Einstein: The Jews and Western Civilization
« Reply #228 on: November 18, 2023, 10:02:53 AM »
For Wisdom about the Jews and Civilization, Consult Albert Einstein
By JOSEPH LOCONTE
November 18, 2023 6:30 AM

Ninety years ago, one of the greatest minds in history defended the Western heritage and explained how Jews contributed to it.
In September 1933, when the world’s most famous scientist, a Jew, was forced to renounce his German citizenship and flee for his life, he knew he would find safe harbor in the democracies of the West. With help from friends in Great Britain, Albert Einstein arrived in England and settled into a country hut in the coastal town of Cromer.

After it was reported that the Nazis had put a hefty price on Einstein’s head, Commander Oliver Lampson, a benefactor, placed an armed guard at the property. Einstein quipped: “I really had no idea my head was worth all that.” Before leaving for the United States, where his arrival was eagerly awaited, Einstein confessed to a reporter: “I could not believe that it was possible that such spontaneous affection could be extended to one who is a wanderer on the face of the earth.”

Such affection for a Jew — regardless of his credentials or circumstances — no longer seems possible in the West. Israel’s war against Hamas, following the terrorist group’s genocidal assault on Israeli civilians, has unleashed an ancient hatred. Historian Paul Johnson once called it “a disease of the mind.” The sickness of antisemitism that has expressed itself in the streets, universities, and capitals — from London to Paris to New York — is another symptom of the crisis of the West. Near the heart of this catastrophe is a staggering ignorance of our history: of the ideals and institutions that built our civilization and made possible achievements in human freedom, equality, and justice unrivaled in the human story.

Einstein knew all about them. On October 3, 1933, just before he left for his permanent home in America, he delivered a speech to an international audience at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Entitled “Science and Civilization,” it was his first public appearance since Hitler’s rise to power. Scotland Yard had received a warning earlier in the day: “Be on your guard — there’s a plot to assassinate Einstein tonight.” Other critics of Hitler’s regime — and Einstein was unsparing — had recently been murdered by the Nazis. Nevertheless, as the New York Times reported, “he spoke as unconcernedly as if lecturing in a classroom.”

It was quite a lecture — an unabashed tribute to Western civilization that, in today’s climate, would probably be shouted down at nearly every Ivy League university in America. “Today,” he warned, “the questions which concern us are: How can we save mankind and its spiritual acquisitions of which we are the heirs? How can we save Europe from a new disaster?” Einstein’s answer was to recommit ourselves to defending the achievements of our civilization: in politics, science, philosophy, literature, medicine, and the arts.

“We are concerned not merely with the technical problem of securing and maintaining peace, but also with the important task of education and enlightenment,” he said. “If we want to resist the powers which threaten to suppress the intellectual and individual freedom, we must keep clearly before us what is at stake and what we owe to that freedom which our ancestors have won for us after hard struggles.” Without this freedom, Einstein explained, there would have been no Shakespeare, no Goethe, no Newton, no Pasteur. Without these thinkers, without the scientific and technological advances pioneered in the West, “most people would live a dull life of slavery.” Despotism would be the norm.

Einstein’s general theory of relativity, published in 1915, revolutionized the world of physics and made him an international celebrity. But his Jewish identity, and his criticism of the Nazis, made him an object of scorn in the German press. His scientific works were publicly burned in Berlin. Nazi propaganda showed a photograph of Einstein with a caption in capital letters: “Not yet hanged.” The assassination of one of his associates in Czechoslovakia, the German-Jewish philosopher Theodor Lessing, convinced him to leave the continent.
 
Although sympathetic to the Zionist cause, Einstein had lived through the industrial slaughterhouse of the First World War, seeing firsthand the consequences of militant nationalism. He initially resisted the idea of a Jewish state. He also regarded the Arab peoples living in Palestine as “kinfolk” and worried that a Jewish state on Arab land would create hostilities. But the deepening antisemitism in Germany and Europe helped to change his mind.

When he was asked to explain what he found most compelling about his Jewish heritage, Einstein extolled the “pursuit of knowledge for its own sake,” as well as “a strong critical spirit” that prevents “blind obeisance to any mortal authority.” He also revealed his understanding of the gift of the Jews to Western civilization. It involved, in his words, “the democratic ideal of social justice” and “tolerance among all men.” Einstein argued that the Jewish concept of a moral law, rooted in the belief in a purposeful Creator, had powerfully influenced Christianity and Islam and “had a benign influence upon the social structure of a great part of mankind.”

These historical insights are no longer part of the educational outlook of the West. Instead, the contribution of Judaism to the cause of justice and freedom is virtually unknown in the academy. Likewise, courses in Western civilization have all but vanished from the nation’s leading colleges and universities. Interest in studying the humanities — the disciplines that reveal the stunning achievements of the West — has hit an all-time low. Meanwhile, there has never been a moment in the modern period when self-loathing, directed at our own democratic and religious traditions, has been so violent and widespread.

These problems are not unrelated. If we want to understand the nature of this fearsome outbreak of antisemitism today,  the war-torn streets of Gaza are not the place to begin. In 1933, when the Nazi Party took over Germany, a Jewish refugee fled to the West and explained what the unfolding crisis meant for his generation. Albert Einstein implored his audience to “care for what is eternal and highest among our possessions.”

The fate of the Jews and the fate of the West were inextricably linked. They have become so again.


JOSEPH LOCONTE is a presidential scholar in residence at New College of Florida and the author of God, Locke, and Liberty: The Struggle for Religious Freedom in the West.

Crafty_Dog

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Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Why I am a Christian
« Reply #229 on: November 20, 2023, 02:05:11 AM »
https://archive.ph/4AoZz

Much to ponder there, though I would proffer that our American Creed offers a more expansive and inclusive option around which to organize.
« Last Edit: November 20, 2023, 02:06:45 AM by Crafty_Dog »

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Western Civilization
« Reply #230 on: November 20, 2023, 03:27:11 AM »
A follow up to the preceding:


A Facebook saga about Christian nationalism and the ‘appeal to authority’
America was founded on biblical principles
By Everett Piper

Last week, in response to the evergrowing accusation that anyone who believes the fact that America was founded on biblical principles is a deranged Christian nationalist, I posted these three quotes on Facebook: “The general principles on which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity.” — John Adams

“The birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior. The Declaration of Independence laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity.” — John Quincy Adams

“The only true basis of all government [are] the laws of God and nature. For government is an ordinance of Heaven, designed by the allbenevolent Creator” — Samuel Adams

Well, as predictable as the sunrise, one of my Facebook trolls (I’ll call him “Skip”) shouted with hyperventilating opprobrium: ”You’re cherry-picking! This nation was founded on the separation of Church and State. Thomas Jefferson was an atheist!”

Not wanting to get into a social media titfor- tat, I decided that rather than use my own words, I’d let Thomas Jefferson (whom my friend brought up) and several other of our nation’s subsequent leaders speak for themselves. Here’s a smattering by way of example:

“Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God, [and] that they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever.” — Thomas Jefferson

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. … Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation deserts the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice.” — George Washington

“In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it, we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man’s welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it.” — Abraham Lincoln

“Now, the best religion the world has ever had is the religion of Christ. A man or a community adopting it is virtuous, prosperous, and happy. … What a great mistake is made by him who does not support the religion of the Bible!” — Rutherford B. Hayes

“I assume the arduous and responsible duties of president of the United States, relying upon the support of my countrymen and invoking the guidance of Almighty God. Our faith teaches that there is no safer reliance than upon the God of our fathers, who has so singularly favored the American people in every national trial and who will not forsake us so long as we obey his commandments and walk humbly in his footsteps.” — William McKinley

“The teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally — I do not mean figuratively, I mean literally — impossible for us to figure to ourselves what that life would be if these teachings were removed. We would lose almost all the standards by which we now judge both public and private morals; all the standards toward which we, with more or less of resolution, strive to raise ourselves.” — Theodore Roosevelt “The same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe — the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.” — John F. Kennedy

My friend Skip responded: “This is an argument from authority. This is an example of your problem! You must have something to be subservient to.”

I ignored the obvious — that Skip doesn’t understand Socratic fallacies — and simply asked, “And by what authority do you claim to discount all authority?”

“My own,” he shouted. “Ah - there we have it,” I said. “You have declared yourself to be the only measure of right and wrong, good and evil. All authority rests in you and only you. You have achieved Nietzsche’s ‘will to power.’ You, my lost friend, have just decided that you are God. Welcome to the ranks of Robespierre, Diocletian, Nero, and Hitler. Your appeal to authority is yourself.”

God help us, for God is the only one who can.