But of course, I have to ask, what do you consider an “open enemy of religion”? Is being an athiest being an “enemy of religion”? Is removing mandatory prayer from school being an enemy of religion? Is claiming that the religion of Islam should be stamped out being an enemy of religion?
I’m not sure if a God there is, but what I’m sure is that there’s absolutely no reason we can’t all get along, today, regardless of religion, race, gender or political affiliation. Just takes a little bit of effort from everyone to bridge the gaps. 🙂
Abraham Lincoln was a politician, and when he made public appeals to Christianity, like the above quoted passage, it was for the same reasons politicians do it today — to present oneself as “moral” and/or to court voters who are religious and want their political representatives to be as religious as them. His own views on spirituality and religion were murky and complex but he was not a jesus freak.
There is a central theme to Lincoln’s wisdom that most of the secular culture completely misses.
Those who have a deep faith in a higher, omnipotent and all benevolent creator, typically are a different kind of leader than someone who has no belief in eternal accountability for their actions.
The Founding Fathers were God-fearing believers (yes, Jefferson had his competing beliefs, nevertheless…) and many of them wrote that our system of governing our Republic required a person of a moral, Christian based character should best hold elected higher office.
On purpose, they designed our system so anyone is free to follow lesser wisdoms, and vote for any secular-humanist character who can woo the public,… recent examples; the reprobate Clinton, or our current serial-liar man-child POTUS.
However, the latter does have that “historic” skin color… which obviously trumped any inconvenient examination of “…the content of [his] character”.
So you HAVE to believe in a Higher Power to be a good leader, Steve? There’s no way a non-believer, much less an agnostic/atheist can be a good leader?
Manny — to your question, it depends upon what a “good” leader means to you.
What is your value base ?…
Have you EVER asked yourself that question ?
What Lincoln stated and the Founding Fathers said was clear… they strongly advocated a Christian based leadership for our Republic.
What value-base do you suggest as a replacement ??
The Bible contains a universal moral law, some variant of which can be found everywhere in the world, and which truthfully encapsulates every other moral law into one sentence, and that law is what we have come to call the Golden Rule.
(There are other offshoots, of course. What little I undertood of Kant in that one Philosphy semester I took was the categorical imperative, which essentially argues that you should do the right thing not because it brings you any spiritual or material rewards, but because you know it is right.)
The Golden Rule, and all that it implies, is really the only absolute that is necessary. (Unless, of course, one happens to be a masochist who enjoys being raped, beaten, robbed, starved, etc., but that’s a few degrees too high on the Hypothetical-O-Meter.)
Belief in eternal consequences for one’s actions has little bearing on the moral actions of individuals. You’d think it would, but it doesn’t. I think the existence of the largely Catholic Mafia is proof enough of that alone, and there are countless others examples both today and throughout history.
@Marbles – I never asserted that someone of a Judeo- Christian faith is immune from unethical or immoral behavior.
My assertion is about the law of averages.
Our culture is full of people who call themselves Christians, yet live a life and conduct themselves completely alien from the tenants of the Christian faith.
Your example of mafia members is one of countless such examples.
Anyone can claim they are a church-attending Christian however, if you bother to examine the nature of their church AND if they have a leftist, Black Liberation Theological pastor who has a long, long history of extreme behavior, like screaming, “G-d Damn America !” …multiple times, by ANY objective analysis to well-known Christian Orthodoxy, that is neither a true Christian Church nor is the imposter-pastor a true Christian himself.
Anyone, or any organization, can call themselves “Christian”.
It comes to both the law of averages, and if a person who claims they are a person of sincere faith, actually walks that walks.
One who has a life history of closely adhering to a Christian faith, is very likely going to have higher quality (ethical) leadership potentials, compared to one who considers them self the master of their own ethics, and does not answer to a higher power. The latter is too often a recipe for the value of “…any means to an end”.
History is replete with contrasting examples of these two character profiles.
To live one’s life without burdening others
Might seem to be moral, not something that smothers,
While taking from others what they have well earned
Seems thievery immoral which might well be spurned.
But the Left defines morals by giving away
What is not theirs in a brilliant display
Of morality painted in bright shiny hues
While applying their twists and tightening screws.
The golden rule, as an old jokes inform,
Is the who has gold rules, and is much the norm
For the Liberals who hate it when others play
The same little game that they offer each day.
Do unto others as they would have done to them?
Fine, let’s level the field? No, that’s mayhem!
We should choose who wins and who loses! That’s fair,
In the heady, high morals of the Left’s stale air.
Do not unto others as they shall not to you?
This paints the Left with a dark, bitter hue,
For double standards are their morality’s spiel
Which uses their backrooms to wheel and deal.
I’d play wholly by the true golden rule,
And ask the Left, please nevermore drool
After what I saved when they’ve spent theirs away,
But that’s not what the Left ultimately will say.
Life is unfair, unequal, untrue,
Until the moral Left pops into view
To teach us what’s right from what it wrong,
For that’s Liberalism’s morality song.
They get to choose to take to distribute to give,
While taking a hefty share as “administrative.”
Morality? It’s a topic quite broad,
But in Leftist hands, it most often a fraud.
It’s moral to confiscate what they demand
Because it’s ever what they have planned.
They are the righteous, the bright and the pure,
As they chatter “morality” as a clever lure.
What is moral? Showing that which has failed
If evidence proves that so many have failed?
Among them are Leftists, when one has a look,
Whose morals were found in no traditional book.
But if the golden rule, in its shiniest form,
Were ever to be the clear, rightful norm,
The Left would fall in an immoral heap.
Do not to me what I won’t do to you? That’s deep!
Then leave me be with consequences I choose?
No! Leftists would save me from this as their dues.
Leave me to live life as I might see it through?
No! It’s — Do what I say, not what I do!
Fund all the moral things the Left dreams,
For the best of intentions is all that it seems.
Austerity’s lurking in the darkness of this,
For the Left’s good intentions go so often amiss.
Catholic mafia? Sound’s reasonable enough.
How about Democrat corruption and that sort of stuff?
“Socialism bankrupts whole nations” is proof
That the Left’s illusions pop up and go poof!
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Abraham Lincoln is a wise man. Wiser than most…
But of course, I have to ask, what do you consider an “open enemy of religion”? Is being an athiest being an “enemy of religion”? Is removing mandatory prayer from school being an enemy of religion? Is claiming that the religion of Islam should be stamped out being an enemy of religion?
I’m not sure if a God there is, but what I’m sure is that there’s absolutely no reason we can’t all get along, today, regardless of religion, race, gender or political affiliation. Just takes a little bit of effort from everyone to bridge the gaps. 🙂
You can’t argue with Abraham Lincoln.
Abraham Lincoln was a politician, and when he made public appeals to Christianity, like the above quoted passage, it was for the same reasons politicians do it today — to present oneself as “moral” and/or to court voters who are religious and want their political representatives to be as religious as them. His own views on spirituality and religion were murky and complex but he was not a jesus freak.
There is a central theme to Lincoln’s wisdom that most of the secular culture completely misses.
Those who have a deep faith in a higher, omnipotent and all benevolent creator, typically are a different kind of leader than someone who has no belief in eternal accountability for their actions.
The Founding Fathers were God-fearing believers (yes, Jefferson had his competing beliefs, nevertheless…) and many of them wrote that our system of governing our Republic required a person of a moral, Christian based character should best hold elected higher office.
On purpose, they designed our system so anyone is free to follow lesser wisdoms, and vote for any secular-humanist character who can woo the public,… recent examples; the reprobate Clinton, or our current serial-liar man-child POTUS.
However, the latter does have that “historic” skin color… which obviously trumped any inconvenient examination of “…the content of [his] character”.
So you HAVE to believe in a Higher Power to be a good leader, Steve? There’s no way a non-believer, much less an agnostic/atheist can be a good leader?
Manny — to your question, it depends upon what a “good” leader means to you.
What is your value base ?…
Have you EVER asked yourself that question ?
What Lincoln stated and the Founding Fathers said was clear… they strongly advocated a Christian based leadership for our Republic.
What value-base do you suggest as a replacement ??
Being an Atheist is one thing. Being an Atheist and then openly scorning people of faith falls under the category Lincoln was talking about.
It’s not very fair
To ask as a snare
What a liberal believes.
“Good” is a word
In which meanings are blurred,
By which a liberal deceives.
Defining “the good”
Ultimately would
Prove to what he cleaves.
Answering such
Would evidence much
His “good” well relieves
What others produce
To thereby reduce
What able production achieves.
“Spread wealth around”
Is the phrase that’s been crowned,
By which liberalism deceives.
Non-production’s “good”
In the liberal ‘hood
Where “good” underachieves.
Such “good” buys votes;
Governments’ debt then bloats,
As the “good” a liberal believes.
High marks are given
To the liberal whose striven
To use “good” as whatever he conceives.
@ Steve:
The Bible contains a universal moral law, some variant of which can be found everywhere in the world, and which truthfully encapsulates every other moral law into one sentence, and that law is what we have come to call the Golden Rule.
(There are other offshoots, of course. What little I undertood of Kant in that one Philosphy semester I took was the categorical imperative, which essentially argues that you should do the right thing not because it brings you any spiritual or material rewards, but because you know it is right.)
The Golden Rule, and all that it implies, is really the only absolute that is necessary. (Unless, of course, one happens to be a masochist who enjoys being raped, beaten, robbed, starved, etc., but that’s a few degrees too high on the Hypothetical-O-Meter.)
Belief in eternal consequences for one’s actions has little bearing on the moral actions of individuals. You’d think it would, but it doesn’t. I think the existence of the largely Catholic Mafia is proof enough of that alone, and there are countless others examples both today and throughout history.
@Marbles – I never asserted that someone of a Judeo- Christian faith is immune from unethical or immoral behavior.
My assertion is about the law of averages.
Our culture is full of people who call themselves Christians, yet live a life and conduct themselves completely alien from the tenants of the Christian faith.
Your example of mafia members is one of countless such examples.
Anyone can claim they are a church-attending Christian however, if you bother to examine the nature of their church AND if they have a leftist, Black Liberation Theological pastor who has a long, long history of extreme behavior, like screaming, “G-d Damn America !” …multiple times, by ANY objective analysis to well-known Christian Orthodoxy, that is neither a true Christian Church nor is the imposter-pastor a true Christian himself.
Anyone, or any organization, can call themselves “Christian”.
It comes to both the law of averages, and if a person who claims they are a person of sincere faith, actually walks that walks.
One who has a life history of closely adhering to a Christian faith, is very likely going to have higher quality (ethical) leadership potentials, compared to one who considers them self the master of their own ethics, and does not answer to a higher power. The latter is too often a recipe for the value of “…any means to an end”.
History is replete with contrasting examples of these two character profiles.
To live one’s life without burdening others
Might seem to be moral, not something that smothers,
While taking from others what they have well earned
Seems thievery immoral which might well be spurned.
But the Left defines morals by giving away
What is not theirs in a brilliant display
Of morality painted in bright shiny hues
While applying their twists and tightening screws.
The golden rule, as an old jokes inform,
Is the who has gold rules, and is much the norm
For the Liberals who hate it when others play
The same little game that they offer each day.
Do unto others as they would have done to them?
Fine, let’s level the field? No, that’s mayhem!
We should choose who wins and who loses! That’s fair,
In the heady, high morals of the Left’s stale air.
Do not unto others as they shall not to you?
This paints the Left with a dark, bitter hue,
For double standards are their morality’s spiel
Which uses their backrooms to wheel and deal.
I’d play wholly by the true golden rule,
And ask the Left, please nevermore drool
After what I saved when they’ve spent theirs away,
But that’s not what the Left ultimately will say.
Life is unfair, unequal, untrue,
Until the moral Left pops into view
To teach us what’s right from what it wrong,
For that’s Liberalism’s morality song.
They get to choose to take to distribute to give,
While taking a hefty share as “administrative.”
Morality? It’s a topic quite broad,
But in Leftist hands, it most often a fraud.
It’s moral to confiscate what they demand
Because it’s ever what they have planned.
They are the righteous, the bright and the pure,
As they chatter “morality” as a clever lure.
What is moral? Showing that which has failed
If evidence proves that so many have failed?
Among them are Leftists, when one has a look,
Whose morals were found in no traditional book.
But if the golden rule, in its shiniest form,
Were ever to be the clear, rightful norm,
The Left would fall in an immoral heap.
Do not to me what I won’t do to you? That’s deep!
Then leave me be with consequences I choose?
No! Leftists would save me from this as their dues.
Leave me to live life as I might see it through?
No! It’s — Do what I say, not what I do!
Fund all the moral things the Left dreams,
For the best of intentions is all that it seems.
Austerity’s lurking in the darkness of this,
For the Left’s good intentions go so often amiss.
Catholic mafia? Sound’s reasonable enough.
How about Democrat corruption and that sort of stuff?
“Socialism bankrupts whole nations” is proof
That the Left’s illusions pop up and go poof!