Skip to main content

Dear Brick

In response to the news that a Rhode Island public school committee has decided not to appeal a court decision to remove a prayer banner from its auditorium:






One wonders how the courts do not blush to rule that this somehow qualifies as the establishment of a religion.  Suppose the school hung the equivalent of an atheist religious banner right next to this one, giving more of a sampling of religious calls to self improvement.  It would be hard to argue then that this was not simply a display of several religious statements pertaining to personal improvement.  (And yes, atheism is very much a religion in that it is one of many views about the nature of ultimate reality, not known with certitude, requiring faith, in this case that the very base of our reality is mindless, or non-personal.)  That said, what would such a banner look like?   Maybe they could start the address to mindless matter:  "Dear mindless matter at the bedrock of existence, we speak to you, somewhat in a way as we would to a brick, and do not entreat you, because you are not a person with mind, but rather hope very much that the nature of your un-intended existence is such that we, by the mechanisms of the unalterable facts regarding the characteristics of 'your' substance, is and has always been such that we become more 'good' - by which we mean 'conformed to approved social conventions.' -- Amen....er... the end..."      For the agnostics, they could hang:  "Uh... Dear whatever is out there which we can't know, if you/it have any efficacy in doing so, please help us to be more honorable, in the way described by the other banner on this wall.. the end."     Now, who could complain about that?  :p

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Universal Slavery

We all want people who need health care to get care, just as we all want the hungry fed, etc. In accomplishing this, however, it is immoral to revoke another human's right to the product of his mental and physical effort - his property. It is evil to steal from Bob and give to Jane, and this will always be the case, even if Bob is rich and Jane poor. (This may not have been true in the case of a rich feudal lord or monarch whose wealth came by forcible economic rape of the people, BUT, in American capitalism, wealth is CREATED by the producer of value through mental or physical effort. The value is in the created good or service. Men voluntarily trade monetary markers of value for that CREATED value. Except for those rich who became so and thrive by lobbying (bribing) the government to favor their company/interests with legislation, regulation, or the competition stifling tax code --- except for those evil parasites --- wealth in America is NOT come by through the oppressi

True Rights and Morality

Thanks to our very fuzzy state indoctrination, many think that property rights means a right to property, rather than a right to defend the property /goods one has either created or for which one has honestly traded. "Right to property" vaguely subsumes a right to have property of some sort provided by 'somebody' -- usually the faceless, nebulous 'country,' or 'people,' or 'state,' or 'taxpayers,' or 'government.' Since every material value / good / commodity / service is brought to a usable and available state by the work of actual individuals spending a portion of their lifetime, life effort, and life thought - literally using up some of their time,thought, effort on this earth - it is a contradiction to say that one individual has a 'right' to be provided with any property / good /service at all. Why is it a contradiction? Because a right to 'be provided' something that requires the expenditure of another pe

A Beginning

This blog is intended to articulate what made this country great, and why and how that greatness is disintegrating. In the broadest of strokes, this country became great by doing what no country had done, and no country has done since - setting out to defend the rights of the individual (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness) as SUPERSEDING the rights or demands of government, or society as a whole. Based on a Christian worldview, the founders of the United States created a government that saw each man and woman as AN END IN THEMSELVES, and NOT as the means to the ends of society or government. They conceived the government as a policeman, protecting the products of each man and woman's minds and efforts from the clutches of other men, other groups, government, and most importantly from the community as a whole. Men and women were NOT to be slaves. This was historic in the most awesome sense. It led to the greatest period of economic growth, increase in living standard, w