Our Theocratic Secular State

God was much on the scene during Wednesday's inaugural ceremonies. We had the usual opening and closing prayers and the swearing-in on a Bible. Prompted by Chief Justice John Roberts, Joe Biden continued the tradition, said to have begun with George Washington, of adding "so help me God" to the end of the oath. Those words are not in Article II of the U.S. Constitution. The oath there is only: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." 

Maybe this tampered-with oath is a violation of the Constitution and therefore shouldn't count.

The religious stuff continued with Garth Brooks singing of "Amazing Grace":

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me

Wretch? Really? 

It should not go without mention that Capitol rioters on Jan. 6 paused to pray--"in Christ's name"--after breaking into the Senate chamber. They were led by some damn fool in a Viking costume. (Who suckered this guy into thinking it was a fancy-dress affair?) Vikings were pagans, right? 

Nationalism and religion don't just go together; they are variations on a theme. It's superstition all the way down.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Impossibility of Illogical Thought

Thought can never be of anything illogical, since, if it were, we should have to think illogically. It used to be said that God could create anything except what would be contrary to the laws of logic. The truth is that we could not say what an 'illogical' world would look like. It is as impossible to represent in language anything that 'contradicts logic' as it is in geometry to represent by its a coordinates a figure that contradicts the laws of space, or to give the coordinates of a point that does not exist.... In a certain sense, we cannot make mistakes in logic.... Self-evidence, which [Bertrand] Russell talked about so much, can be dispensable in logic, only because language itself prevents every logical mistake.--What makes logic a priori is the impossibility of illogical thought. --Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus   3.03, 3.031, 3.032, 5.473, 5.4731 (H/T: Roderick T. Long )      
Read more

Is He Having a Laugh?

According to the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, the government is God's appointed agent on earth, and each of us owes it allegiance and obedience. If that's so--and I for one don't believe either part of that statement--I'd like some believer to explain what God had in mind when he arranged things so that one of the two major-party clowns running for president will be elected in November. Is He having a laugh?
Read more

Freedom-Saturated Language

Determinists--deniers of free will, that is--apparently don't listen to themselves or read their own words. If they did they'd see that we human beings have no escape from freedom-saturated language. Think of words like should , deliberate , presume , intend , and so on ad infinitum. It is just impossible to speak or think as though determinism were true. And that says a lot. Our freedom is self-evident. You cannot demonstrate it because to demonstrate anything both  presupposes  and requires  freedom. You confirm freedom each time you set out to disconfirm it. "Today I plan to write out my proof that we have no freedom." Nonsense!  In contrast, we are perfectly capable of getting through a day without using God-saturated language.
Read more