From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Jan 03 2004 - 13:27:56 GMT
Hi JoVo
Happy New Year to you, too. I was in bed by 10PM and slept right through
the celebrations. Mostly a sign of my advancing age.
> Now the followig is rather a question. Would you think that Pat Boone's
> (guest-)commentary in the Wash.-Post under the title "One nation 'under
> god' " ( jan 3. ) is an example of the political center of the american
> people - mainstream so to say.
Far be it for me to identify the political center of the American people.
As in Europe, political beliefs in America based on religion run the gamut
from those who believe in a literal interpretations of the Bible to pure
atheism. I do think it's fair to say that generally speaking, Europeans
tend to be more atheistic and thus more secular than Americans. Would you
agree?
> Especially I would like to know, whether
> you would subscribe to the following '[...] As wise as our forefathers
> were, even they recognized that Divine Providence influenced their every
> move[...]'. It may be that I was quite mistaken on some aspects about USA.
No, I do not subscribe to that statement. Our forefathers "every move"
was influenced by any number of factors including down and dirty politics
and selfish commercial interests. They did, however, use God as an excuse
to override the power of government, claiming that individual human rights
are God-given rather than government-granted. To what extent they actually
believed that I have no idea. (Attributing motives to others is mighty
risky business.) But, the assertion that people "are endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable rights" turned the world on its ear.
Never before in history (to the best of my knowledge) was freedom
acknowledged by any government to be the natural heritage of every human
being starting at birth. I liken it to DQ. As Pirsig says, every human is
born with DQ. To the newborn It predominates everything. The connection to
the assertion of our forefathers is that freedom is DQ's highest value.
I hope this addresses your question, but if I'm off the mark please let me
know. To paint a very broad brush of the difference between Europe and
America, no American can be elected president today who admitted to being
an atheist whereas in Europe it probably makes little or no difference as
to the electability of a national leader. Am I wrong?
Again, wishing you the best for the New Year,
Platt
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