Re: [asa] Ken Ham Honored

At 07:44 AM 6/28/2007, Robert Schneider wrote:

>Yes, Ted. That nominal Anglican with a Deist's sensibilities George
>Washington, along with Jefferson, Franklin, and several others of
>the founders, would be puzzled by this accolade. ..." ~ Bob

@ 4 things:

[1] "...This is why to "deconstruct," say, George Washington, is
not just an attack on the father of our country, but on fatherhood,
God, and the realm of transcendent (i.e., the Real) in general. .."
~ http://tinyurl.com/2m2g7p

*

[2] "...No, Washington was no Deist and those who say so are
ignoramouses. Washington was a Vestryman who understood his place
with the Lord God Almighty and dared not presume on his Providence.

Please read the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which may be found online
at http://www.eskimo.com/~lhowell/bcp1662/. Read it and you will
understand Washington and his God. You might even join him in
reverent worship. " ~ Reviewer J. Ames Washington: a typical
Churchman of his day, July 2, 2006

Scroll down to read his complete review of the book Washington's God
- by Michael Novak
http://www.amazon.com/Washingtons-God-Michael-Novak/dp/046505126X/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b/104-0343672-7556739

*

[3] The above book reviewer is backed up here: Leading Christian
Myths - James Patrick Holding http://www.tektonics.org/af/christianmyths.html

Myth #2 God is my buddy, Jesus is my friend. The modern hymn calls
Jesus a "friend" and some may appeal to a verse in John where Jesus
calls his disciples "friends". But the understanding of the word is
decontextualized. People of the time of the Bible did not "get to
know" each other as modern persons in the West do. A "friend" meant a
person who looked out for your practical interests -- not someone you
had beer and watched football with. ..." [snip]

*

[4] *Unless otherwise indicated, all quotes below are from Michael
Novak's
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1893554341/002-7478175-6474406?ie=UTF8&tag=onecosmos-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=1893554341>On
Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at America's
Founding http://tinyurl.com/2724rw

" [large snip] ...The question I have is whether any of any of this
integral theorizing of about human nature and the role of the state
is in any way superior to what America's founders already worked out
some 225 years ago. I cannot see any advantage whatsoever. In my
view, the founders combined timeless truths about human nature with a
deep understanding of the dynamics of progress, both material and
spiritual, collective and individual. Clearly, they regarded the
individual as sacrosanct, and I do not regard any form of leftist
collectivism as developmentally "higher" than classical liberalism.
More often than not, it is a regressive move backward, dictated by
the desire for maternal comfort and security. ....."

Perhaps one of the differences between the integral movement and the
American experiment is that the former seems to be steeped in
Buddhist metaphysics, while the American founders could only have
come from a Judeo-Christian perspective that regards the interior and
exterior as equally real and valuable. America's founders, although
liberal -- again, classically liberal -- were in no way analogous to
modern day "flatland" secular liberals who deny interiors, blame
society for their problems, and need a large federal government to
help them get through life.

As John Adams wrote, "I always consider the settlement of America
with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design
in Providence for the illumination of the ignorant, and the
emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth." In
other words, at its core, America is all about the possibility of
interior evolution. This has been its very purpose from the start.
Leftists have perverted that purpose and taken America further away
from its founding ideals and principles. Should they ever prevail,
they would eliminate the very idea of America, that "last best hope of earth."

As I have mentioned before, human beings have a horizontal aspect
that develops and changes through time, and is largely conditioned by
the environment. However, they also have a vertical nature which it
is the purpose of life to actualize or "realize" in the horizontal.

You might say that we have a genetic blueprint (the horizontal) and a
divine blueprint (the vertical). This is a distinction of which the
founders were fully aware.

For example, Alexander Hamilton wrote that "The sacred rights of
mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty
records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of
human nature, by the hand of Divinity itself, and can never be erased
or obscured by mortal power."

Does this vertical awareness sound anything like a contemporary
leftist liberal? Hardly. One cannot imagine HowardDean making such a
statement, while [our current president] has made any number of
statements that parallel the words of Hamilton.

 From the start, America's founders believed they had forged a new
compact with God, in exactly the same way the ancient Hebrews had.
They were fully conscious of being chosen for a divine evolutionary mission.

In his second inaugural address, Jefferson pleaded for the assistance
of "that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel
of old, from their native land and planted them" in this new world.
This goes completely against modern secular myths that suggest that
America was somehow set up to protect us from religion -- from the
great interior.

One scholar undertook the task of counting the citations found among
the writings of the founders. Of 3,154 references, nearly 1,100 of
them -- 34 percent -- are to the Bible. Nothing else comes close.

Like the ancient Jews, America's founders regarded time as linear and
progressive, not cyclical. But the operative word is progressive.
They did not, like the modern progressive, regard time as linear and
going nowhere except toward increasing materialism and collectivism.

Rather, as Michael Novak writes, the founders "believed history had a
beginning and was guided by Providence for a purpose.... Time was
created for the unfolding of human liberty, for human emancipation."
Again, the purposes of time and history were not merely for exterior
emancipation but, more importantly, interior emancipation. Or, one
might say that the purpose of exterior liberty was for the purpose of
interior, vertical development, so that history becomes "a record of
progress (or decline), measured by permanent standards, God's
standards..." (Novak).

As Novak notes, "Without this metaphysical background, the founding
generation of Americans would have had little heart for the War of
Independence. They would have had no ground for believing that their
seemingly unlawful rebellion actually fulfilled the will of God --
and suited the laws of nature and nature's God."

But the Founders, in the words of the Declaration of Independence,
specifically appealed "to the Supreme Judge of the world for the
Rectitude of our Intentions."

Modern secular liberals often cite the words of Jefferson or Franklin
to support their erroneous ideas about the founding of America, but,
as
<http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MDliOGUzMjJkNmQ3ZjI4Nzc3MGRlYTg2NWNiMjBmYjA=>Novak
writes, "the greatest of all American historians, Gordon Wood.... has
not found a single atheist during the Founding period (not even Tom
Paine), and certainly not among the Founders.

Second, he finds even the least religious of the Founders
considerably more religious than the average professor at American
universities today.

Ours is a far, far more secular age, our leaders and our people are
far more ignorant of religious ideas. Third, he finds that Jefferson
-- the Founder most attended to today -- was an outlier among the Founders."

In that same article, Novak cites a letter written by Benjamin
Franklin, who, like Jefferson, was one of the least orthodox of the
founders. And yet, he wrote that "I believe in one God, creator of
the universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That he ought to
be worshiped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is
doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal,
and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its
conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental principles of all
sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them."

Even Thomas Paine -- whom many mistakenly regard as an atheist --
"was so hostile to atheism that he sailed to France after 1789 to
fight against it, holding it responsible for the bloody massacres of
the Terror." This hostility to atheism "was nearly universal in
America, on the ground that where there is no omniscient Judge,
political power knows no moral check." Atheism is the exterior
philosophy par excellence, completely denying even the possibility of
interior evolution.

The founders categorically rejected atheism because it violated all
common sense -- and America's founders were nothing if not common-sensical.

As Washington wrote, "Reason and experience both forbid us to expect
that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious
principles." Moreover, as Novak writes, the founders were aware that
"a free society demands a higher level of virtue than a tyranny,
which no other moral energy has heretofore proven capable of
inspiring except Judaism and Christianity." Novak retraces the simple
logic of the Founders:

Liberty is the object of the Republic.
Liberty needs virtue.
Virtue among the people is impossible without religion.

Again, I do not see "progressives" as having progressed beyond
Washington's understanding. Since what Washington said is eternally
true, one can only deviate from it and move backward, which secular
and atheistic ideologies have proved time and again. Keep in mind
that dreadful figure -- 200 million souls murdered in the 20th
century due to atheistic and anti-Christian ideologies.

Yes, things have not turned out as we might have hoped in Iraq. But
the "progressive" left sees our mission there as an entirely ignoble,
fundamentally evil enterprise motivated by purely venal interests.
They see this because, in their flatland view of the world, this is
all they can see. Instead of seeing in [our current president] an
idealist with flawed execution, they see a greedy and self-interested
religious fascist. For the left there is no vertical.

It's not easy to bring the vertical world of liberty to a resistant
hellhole such as the Muslim Middle East. Tocqueville wrote that
"Fixed ideas about God and human nature are indispensable to men for
the conduct of daily life," even if these fixed ideals are difficult
for most men to reach. But eliminate them, and you descend to the
horizontal wasteland of the contemporary leftist liberal.

"Democracy," wrote Tocqueville, "favors the taste for physical
pleasures," i.e., the exterior and the horizontal. But "this taste,
if it becomes excessive, soon disposes men to believe that nothing
but matter exists." Thus, the downward pull of secular
"progressivism" must be actively countered by each generation
anew. ..." [snip]

Wednesday, December 13, 2006 America's Founding Avatars: Back to the
Future (with updates from mankind's progressive
past) http://tinyurl.com/2vxx9w

~ Janice ...... agreeing that "....if we could somehow eliminate envy
from the human genome, there would be almost no reason for the left
to exist. They would instantly lose that which animates them, for
example, envy masquerading as justice or economic theory. In order
to be happy, we must all keep our envy in check, because envy is the
opposite of gratitude. Envy does not appreciate what one has, only
what one doesn't have. And our capacity to imagine what we do not
have--and that someone else is enjoying it--is literally infinite, as
is envy. .." Friday, April 28, 2006 http://tinyurl.com/jhwlp

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Received on Thu Jun 28 12:38:18 2007