Statement 10 + Footnotes
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Statement of Facts #10 from:
Reversing_Landmark_Abomination_Cases
Saving Babies from judges & voters
Saving Souls from ‘Scrupulous Neutrality’ about Religion
by proving in courts of law and in the Court of Public Opinion that:
The right to live of a baby and of a judge are equal The Bible & reality-challenged religions are NOT equal
A strategy of Life that relies on the Author of Life
for pro-life, pro-Bible Lawmakers, Leaders, Lawyers, and Laymen
by Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa (talk) November 21, 2023 (UTC)
Try to imagine how a judge, reviewing a prolife law with these Findings of Facts, would be able to dodge this evidence - in fact, see if you can find ANYONE who can refute these facts - as opposed to not caring about facts - that is, not caring about reality:
Statement of Fact #10 of 12:
Finding #10: Tyranny over any class of humans by any other is prohibited by the Constitution, and by the Declaration which gives the purpose of the Constitution, and which rests its own authority on the revelation of God [1]
in the Bible. [2]
Yikes! How can we cite the “B” word in court without judges screaming “Establishment of Religion!” and terrorists demanding equal “free exercise” of their religious duty, which includes beheading everyone in the courtroom? Surely almost every Christian wants God to be uncensored in forums where Americans decide whether to pattern our laws after the principles of Heaven or of Hell, but believing it to be impossible, will scream at anyone suggesting it! So DON’T READ any more of this Statement unless you are sitting down under your strapped Class “a” seat belt, and you have throat lozenges handy for when you are done screaming. (Actually these principles which founded Freedom, no matter how legally irrefutable their presentation, can’t be imagined prevailing in modern courts before SCOTUS’ history of perverting the Constitution is exposed. That is the goal of Statement #11.)
Roe v Wade was not out of line to consult “those trained in... theology” who study souls, as well as doctors who study bodies, to clarify who to count as human with an unalienable right to life. [3] America’s Freedom springs from “all men are created equal” and “equal protection of the laws” for all humans even if their looks, language, wealth, strength, ancestry, power, or faith are different. [4] These rights have proven such a blessing to the world that their source, the Bible, deserves the fair hearing owed any witness whose reliability has been confirmed, when it promises still greater blessings if we will equally protect humans whose physical size is different. [5]
Its testimony is not “cumulative”, but “probative”. [6] It is not to be feared as dispositive or compulsory: American freedom balances human understanding of how best to apply Biblical principles to government against the willingness of voting majorities to follow those principles. Even that is a Biblical principle legitimized in 1 Samuel 8. [7]
The history of slavery, prohibition, and abortion illustrate the “willingness” factor. The probative value of the testimony of God is proved by the fact that without it, slavery would never have ended, and the prolife movement would never have begun. Which makes it probative to observe that not only the 14th Amendment, but also the revelation of God, requires this state, as it does every state, to outlaw all trampling of fundamental rights of any class of people, including abortion of babies. [8] Where the two authorities say the same thing, the Bible, for all its alleged ambiguity, is better understood and more trusted than the Constitution which has indeed proven “a thing of wax” in the nimble fingers of even the most scrupulous judges. [9]
Without God – without belief in a more objective standard of right and wrong than the “value” that voters place on “different” people through evolving community standards, it is impossible to understand fundamental rights. [10]
Courts have demonstrated this impossibility by so often confusing abominations for rights, decimating those whom Jesus said “forbid them not to come unto Me”, denying that He created them, murdering 17% of them, sodomizing 20% of the survivors, and censoring 100% of His teachings in schools. [11]
That destruction of the 14th Amendment (1868) began when “Substantive Due Process”, pioneered in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), was applied in United States v. Cruikshank 92 U. S. 542 (1876) to acquit a white Democrat mililtia of murdering “as many as 165” black Republicans and burning down the courthouse they were defending. [12]
Uncensoring God does not “establish religion”. It does not compel belief, action or endorsement. It simply allows judges and voters to make informed decisions. It is part of fact-finding. It is part of reasoning. Part of embracing reality. Part of examining “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”. Judges must stop punishing people for telling the truth just because the truth favors God. [13]
Uncensoring the Bible does not require equal weight for claims of religions that deny equal rights for all.14 [14]
For example, some claim “souls” don’t enter babies until long after fertilization, or even long after birth.15 [15] Their claims do not “cancel” the mountain of consensus of court-recognized fact finders that souls are present from the beginning. Our Constitution and laws reject their unequal rights, and are appropriately wary of their rationales for their unequal rights. The credibility of every witness is not equal. Credibility is earned.
There can be “free exercise” of religions hostile to “equal protection of the laws” only to the extent their “exercise” does not threaten the rights of others or violate the laws enacted to protect them – laws ultimately decided by voting majorities, hopefully well informed through the uncensoring of reality.16 [16] 39/520 words
Mini-Lexicon of legal terms: Cumulative: testimony so redundant that it wastes the court’s time Dispositive: testimony so strong that it settles the issue with no more Probative: probative facts establish, or contribute to, proof. Probative value is the degree of relevance of evidence.
The footnotes below are enriched by amicus briefs filed in Dobbs v. Jackson by: Foundation for Moral Law and Lutherans for Life <> Jewish Prolife Foundation <> LONANG Institute <> U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Other Religious Organizations <> Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence
INDEX to all 12 Statements of Facts
Statement_1_+_Footnotes Courtrecognized, court-tested Finders of Facts unanimously establish that unborn babies are fully human
Statement_2_+_Footnotes Courts Accept the Fact-Finding Authority of Legislatures, Juries, Experts for the same good reasons their findings persuade the public.
Statement_3_+_Footnotes The FACT that Babies are Fully Human was never denied or ruled irrelevant by SCOTUS.
Statement_4_+_Footnotes Heartbeats & Brain Waves are Legally Recognized Evidence of Life.
Statement_5_+_Footnotes Legislatures should regulate abortion, as Dobbs held, just as legislatures regulate the prosecution of all other murders.
Statement_6_+_Footnotes The full humanity of a tiny physical body is hard for many to grasp. But what distinguishes us from animals isn’t physical, and has no known pre-conscious stage.
Statement_7_+_Footnotes Congress has Already Enacted a Personhood Law as Strong as a “Life Amendment”. The 14th Amendment already authorizes Congress to require all states to outlaw abortion.
Statement_8_+_Footnotes Roe, Dobbs, and the 14th Amendment agree: All Humans are “Persons”.
Statement_9_+_Footnotes When pregnancies develop into medical emergencies requiring separation of mother and child to save the mother, the child has an equal fundamental right to life and medical care.
Statement_10_+_Footnotes Tyranny over any class of humans by any other is prohibited by the Constitution, by the Declaration which gives the purpose of the Constitution, and which rests its own authority on the revelation of God in the Bible.
Statement_11_+_Footnotes The 14th Amendment gives courts no authority to invent rights not specified in the Constitution, like the right to murder, and gives legislatures no authority to legalize violations of Constitutional Rights.
Statement_12_+_Footnotes Judicial Interference with Constitutional Obligations is Impeachable.
==
FOOTNOTES
- ↑ More about “the Declaration lays out the purpose of the Constitution, and rests its own authority on the revelation of God”
The Revelation of God upon which the Declaration of Independence rests its authority: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
The purpose of government and its courts which our Constitution was designed to serve: “to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. ...whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.” - ↑ More about “the Declaration...rests its own authority on the revelation of God in the Bible”
“Nature’s God”, the phrase in the Declaration of Independence of 1776, was a clear, unambiguous reference to God as revealed by the Bible. The first clue is that “God” is singular, while every nonChristian major religion except Islam worships “gods”. And there were no Moslems among the Declaration’s signers.
“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
Bill Fortenberry, a Birmingham Christian “philosopher and historian” whose work “has been cited in several legal journals”, writes “Nearly all of the modern historians who have written about this phrase have accused Jefferson and the other signers of the Declaration of abandoning the God of the Bible and erecting a more deistic god of nature in His place.” The attempt to tie the definition of the phrase to Jefferson’s personal ambiguous faith statements is a study in irrelevance, since if the Declaration’s signers understood the phrase to differ from their own theology, they wouldn’t have signed it.
Here Fortenberry explains how we can be sure Jefferson’s personal understanding of the phrase was, indeed, the Bible, the Word of God:
Thomas Jefferson was a student of Lord Bolingbroke. He first began studying Bolingbroke’s writings at the age of fourteen, and he read them again at the age of twenty-three as he was preparing for a career as a lawyer. Jefferson’s Literary Commonplace Book contains more quotations from Bolingbroke than from any other author, and I do not know of a single historian who has not given Bolingbroke the credit for Jefferson’s famous phrase regarding “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” What these scholars keep hidden is the fact that Lord Bolingbroke provided a very specific definition for this phrase.
In a renowned letter to Alexander Pope, Lord Bolingbroke wrote the following words which were to become the basis for Jefferson’s opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:
“You will find that it is the modest, not the presumptuous enquirer, who makes a real, and safe progress in the discovery of divine truths. One follows nature, and nature’s God; that is, he follows God in his works, and in his word.”
Here we find a definition from the very individual that all scholars recognize as the source of Jefferson’s phrase. According to Lord Bolingbroke, the law of nature’s God is the Law which is found in God’s Word. This was the definition which was intended by Jefferson, and this was the manner in which his words were understood by our forefathers. The law of nature’s God upon which our nation was founded is nothing less than the Bible itself. (http://www.increasinglearning.com/blog/law-of-natures-god)
“Jefferson’s phrase ‘the laws of nature and of nature’s God,’ was clearly defined by Blackstone’s Commentaries as meaning the unwritten law of God in creation and the revealed law of God in the Bible” (according to Jerry Newcombe, http://doubtingthomasbook.com/the-laws-of-nature-and-of-natures-god/)
“Louisiana State University professor Ellis Sandoz writes that Jefferson’s language ‘. . .harmonizes with the Christian religious and Whig political consensus that prevailed in the country at the time; . . . (and with) traditional Christian natural law and rights going back to Aquinas…’ Similar language was used by the Protestant John Calvin, John Locke and others. See Sandoz, A Government of Laws, pp. 190-191.” (Newcombe)
Even the phrase “the laws of nature” was not understood then as now, as physical forces in our material universe, but “Jefferson defined the law of nature in 1793 as: ‘the moral Law to which man has been subjected by his creator,’ Opinion on the Treaties with France, 28 April 1793.” (Newcombe)
Other Declaration signers were Christians, not activists of other faiths, who when writing “God” meant “as revealed in the Bible”: “Other references to God such as ‘endowed by their Creator’ and ‘the Supreme Judge’ and ‘the protection of divine providence’ were added during the collaborative process by others in Congress before the final document was adopted.” (Newcombe)
History professor David Voelker says Jefferson didn’t believe the Bible is a revelation of God. Professor of Humanities and History, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, http://davidjvoelker.com/ he concludes, without offering supporting Jefferson quotes: “Although he supported the moral teachings of Jesus, Jefferson believed in a creator similar to the God of deism. In the tradition of deism, Jefferson based his God on reason and rejected revealed religion.” http://historytools.davidjvoelker.com/docs/Natures-God.html
But Newcombe offers a Jefferson quote inconsistent with Deism’s idea that God doesn’t get involved in current events: “To Richard Henry Lee, Jefferson reported on the military front: ‘Our camps recruit slowly, amazing slowly. God knows in what it will end. The finger of providence has as yet saved us by retarding the arrival of Ld. Howe’s recruits.’ ”
Concerning the “Deism” label, Voelker wrote: “Deism was not actually a formal religion, but rather was a label used loosely to describe certain religious views. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word deist was used negatively during Jefferson's lifetime. The label was often applied to freethinkers like Jefferson as a slander rather than as a precise description.”
Newcombe is a joint author of a book of the latest compilation of Jefferson’s letters and other writings, which challenge the narrative that Jefferson didn’t take the Bible seriously. The book’s synopsis, at http://doubtingthomasbook.com/marks-blog: “Drawing from about 1100 religious letters and papers of Thomas Jefferson (of which over 100 in recent months have been printed for the first time ever – some in this volume itself), this book identifies over 200 religious leaders or groups that Thomas Jefferson either worshiped with, aided financially or corresponded with. While not denying the unorthodox writings of Jefferson late in life, the context of the vast majority of his religious correspondence and actions, and the unique religious culture of Central Virginia, show a much more nuanced picture that challenges both secular and religious scholars to reassess Jefferson’s modern image.” (Contact form: http://doubtingthomasbook.com/praise-for-doubting-thomas)
“Jefferson’s Bible” is his condensation of the Four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) for distribution among Native Americans to inspire good behavior. It omits Jesus’ miracles, which is cited by many as evidence that Jefferson didn’t believe in miracles.
But even if such a “hands off” God were Jefferson’s concept of “nature’s God”, and even if the other Declaration signers accepted such a notion, that would be irrelevant to the Signers’ reliance on the Bible as an inspired guide to good behavior, and to understanding the Unalienable Rights with which “all men” are “endowed” by our “Creator”. General Biblical inspiration of American Freedom.
In 1954, Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren: “I believe the entire Bill of Rights came into being because of the knowledge our forefathers had of the Bible and their belief in it: freedom of belief, of expression, of assembly, of petition, the dignity of the individual, the sanctity of the home, equal justice under law, and the reservation of powers to the people.” Earl Warren, quoted in Jim Nelson Black, When Nations Die: Ten Warning Signs of a Culture in Crisis (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1994) p. 253. The Foundation for Moral Law and Lutherans for Life point out in their joint amicus in Dobbs v. Jackson:
Much of our Western legal tradition has been shaped by the Bible. On October 4, 1982, Congress passed Public Law 97-280, declaring 1983 the “Year of the Bible,” and the President signed the bill into law. The opening clause of the bill is: “Whereas Biblical teachings inspired concepts of civil government that are contained in our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States; . . .”
Joshua Berman, Senior Editor at Bar-Ilan University, in his 2008 book Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought, contends that the Pentateuch [first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy] is the world’s first model of a society in which politics and economics embrace egalitarian [equal rights for all] ideals. Berman states flatly: If there was one truth the ancients [who rejected the religion of the Bible] held to be self-evident it was that all men were not created equal. If we maintain today that, in fact, they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, then it is because we have inherited as part of our cultural heritage notions of equality that were deeply entrenched in the ancient passages of the Pentateuch.
(Footnote: Joshua Berman, Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought (Oxford 2008) 175, See also John Marshall Gest, The Influence of Biblical Texts Upon English Law, an address delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma xi Societies of the University of Pennsylvania June 14, 1910, https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu quoting Sir Francis Bacon: “The law of England is not taken out of Amadis de Gaul, nor the Book of Palmerin, but out of the Scripture, of the laws of the Romans and the Grecians.” - ↑ More about “Roe v Wade...consult[ed] those ...who study souls....”
We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.” Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 159 (1973)
Roe v. Wade “opened the door” to a Bible study of abortion as part of our national debate, by claiming that the reason “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins” is because “the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer” since, after all, doctors and preachers can’t agree: “those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus”.
It’s not just that Roe “opened the door”, which is the name for a technical legal principle that lawyers use in court to get around a judge’s “in limine” order to not say certain words or offer certain evidence. This is no “loophole” around the 1st Amendment prohibition of establishing a religion.
Roe couldn’t legalize abortion without neutralizing somehow public concern that babies of humans might turn out to be humans. Justice Blackmun understood there are two sources of authority on that issue: medicine, which documents that unborn babies have physical human bodies, and theology, which documents that unborn babies have souls made in the Image of God. That is why Roe devoted many pages of selective evidence and tortured logic to justify its conclusion that doctors and preachers can't agree, so how can mere Supreme Court Justices know? (For their exact words, see Finding #1, Footnote #3.)
The most modern Christian that they consulted was Thomas Aquinas who died in 1274 AD! Most important, they didn’t consult God! One citation to one Bible verse is in one footnote, neutralized by not an analysis but an insinuation. So to patch up SCOTUS’ confusion about whether God can agree with Himself, you can find my prolife Bible study in Appendix E of my book, http://www.saltshaker.us/ HowStatesCanOutlawAbortion.pdf (in a Way that Survives Courts). Another great Bible study by the Jewish Prolife Foundation, from their Amicus Brief submitted in Dobbs V. Jackson, closes this footnote.
What was Blackmun thinking, to paint doctors and preachers as greater authorities than himself on the dispositive fact question in abortion policy, and then to torture historical facts to FANTACIZE serious disagreement? What Roe was correct about, and that many prolifers today are incorrect about, is that leaving out the Biblical evidence really does leave prolifers with an unnecessarily weak argument. Let’s admit it, it really is hard to grasp the full humanity of a single fertilized egg. I didn't come by the conviction automatically or naturally; I had to study and believe Scripture until my incredulity over protecting such a tiny little thing melted away. I AM FAR FROM ALONE.
But the “personhood focus” of the Scripture is not on the physical, but on the soul. So why will Bible believers give the public every other reason for saving unborn lives than the one that was strong enough to persuade them?
50 years, and mass murder of babies is still fully legal in almost every state! So much evil runs free, after God is censored and then forgotten! This really is about more than “just” infanticide. It’s about every other political issue about which God’s views are clear. And it’s not “just” about the future and survival of our nation. It’s about Heaven and Hell for eternity. Not just for others, either.
See Footnote #4 of Statement #11 for a discussion of the constitutionality of quoting Bible verses in a bill of a state legislature. - ↑ More about “America’s Freedom springs from “all men are created equal...”
From footnote #4:
From the amicus brief by LONANG Institute filed in Dobbs v. Jackson:
No understanding of state power is complete without consideration of the Declaration. The Declaration grounded civil power itself on the “laws of nature and of nature’s God.” ...“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”.
Even if this Court’s search for new fundamental un-enumerated substantive due process rights was constitutionally legitimate, it has neglected to look carefully at the “laws of nature and of nature’s God” as a source of those rights. Any legitimate search even for rights “deeply rooted” in American history and tradition would consider unalienable rights granted by the Creator as asserted in such a quintessential founding American document. In other words, the first place to look for any rights of the people would be to examine those rights granted by the Creator, not any purported rights invented by people. And if the Creator has not deemed it necessary or advisable to confer a particular right, then the logical conclusion would be that such a right does not exist. DocketPDF/19/19-1392/185037/20210727131024868_19-1392 tsac Lonang Institute.pdf
We even get our definitions of basic words from the Bible. American culture and law loses its grasp of basic words by its exclusion of the Bible. The same Bible from which America got the idea that “all men are created equal” tells us who counts as “men”: everyone. All humans. Women, children, believers, pagans, rich, poor, bosses, employees. Everyone. - ↑ More about “it promises still greater blessings if we will equally protect humans whose size is different.”
First, a selection from Footnote #4 with a few Bible verses about the equality of all humans before God’s Laws, the principle embedded in our “all men are created equal” and “equal protection of the laws”.
After that, a few verses that indicate this equality even extends to physical size.
(From Footnote #4:) Finding #8, Footnote #3, gives the definition of “man” in Webster’s 1828 dictionary, where we learn that our ancestors learned the correct meanings of Freedom-supporting basic words from the Bible. Webster’s definition includes several Bible quotes.
Here are a few more, documenting that “all men are created equal” is indeed firmly established in the Bible, which I challenge anyone to find in any major religion or philosophy not influenced by the Bible.
Exodus 12:49 One law [equal rights] shall be to him that is homeborn, [a natural born citizen] and unto the stranger [immigrant] that sojourneth [lives] among you. [Even the least appreciated people – even immigrants – shall have the same freedom you do.]
Leviticus 24:22 Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country: for I am the LORD your God. (See also Numbers 9:14, 15:15-16, 29)
Galatians 3:28 (ERV) Now, in Christ, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or free, male or female. You are all the same in Christ Jesus.
Colossians 3:11 Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all. (See also Galatians 5:6; Romans 1:16, 2:9-10, 3:29-30, 4:11-12, 9:24, 10:12-15; 1 Corinthians 7:19; 12:12-13; Ephesians 2:13-22, 3:5-10, 4:4, 15-16; John 10:16, 11:52, 17:20-21)
Even the word “Freedom” is confusing where the Bible is excluded from the discussion. Without the Bible for its foundation, logic says freedom means license – no need of discipline to achieve greater and nobler goals than instant gratification of desires – lack of restraint from doing harm to others. Unmoored logic defines “freedom of religion” as freedom from morality, from being “offended” by Truth. My freedom requires restraining you from saying whatever I don’t like, just as dictators enjoy “freedom” to tyrannize their subjects.
Now, some verses about size:
Luke 19 tells about Zacchaeus. Luke 19:2 And, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. 3 And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. (Jesus honored this short guy who was also the head tax collector, the most hated profession available to Jewish citizens.)
See what Jesus says about the value of little children, and consider the precedent our forefathers say in this for legal protection of the smallest of children:
Matthew 18:1 At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? 2 And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, 3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. 6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea....10 Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. 11 For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost. 12 How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? 13 And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray.14 Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.
Luke 9:46 Then there arose a reasoning among them, which of them should be greatest.47 And Jesus, perceiving the thought of their heart, took a child, and set him by him, 48 And said unto them, Whosoever shall receive this child in my name receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me receiveth him that sent me: for he that is least among you all, the same shall be great.
Mark 10:13 And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. 14 But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. 15 Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. 16 And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.
Matthew 25:44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? 45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. 46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal. 44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? 45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. 46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal. - ↑ More about “Its testimony is not ‘cumulative’, but ‘probative.”
“When Does the Number of Experts Used By One Side Become Cumulative?” by Christine Funk, May 25, 2020 (www.expertinstitute.com/ resources /insights/when-does-the-number-of-experts-used-by-one-side-become-cumulative/)
Excerpts: [In Shallow v. Follwell,] (https://law.justia.com/cases/missouri/ supreme-court/2018/sc96901.html ) Plaintiffs argued that the testimony of the four experts was cumulative, as the testimony of each expert overlapped that of some or all of the other testifying experts. ...
Evidence is relevant “if it tends to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.” However, courts must still engage in a balancing test to determine whether the relevant evidence poses the risk of unfair prejudice, cumulativeness, confusion of the issues, misleading the jury, or is an undue delay or waste of time. Where the cost of admitting otherwise relevant evidence “substantially outweighs” the benefits, the evidence should be excluded.
...[Evidence is “cumulative”] when evidence “relates to a matter so fully and properly proved by other testimony as to take it out of the area of serious dispute.” [But courts can’t] “to reject evidence as cumulative when it goes to the very root of the matter in controversy or relates to the main issue, the decision of which turns on the weight of the evidence.”
...An excessive number of expert witnesses can create the risk that the trier of fact will simply resolve inconsistencies in expert opinions by merely counting the number of witnesses each side calls, rather than providing due consideration to the credibility and quality of each expert’s opinion. While not the only measure, one measure of prejudicial testimony is where the testimony tends to “lead the jury to decide the case on some basis other than the established propositions of the case.”
A federal rule states: "The court may exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of one or more of the following: unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting time, or needlessly presenting cumulative evidence."
Because what is and what is not considered cumulative is, by and large, a [subjective] judgment call, attorneys and experts would be wise to delineate their differences for the court prior to the beginning of testimony. - ↑ More about “That is a Biblical principle legitimized in 1 Samuel 8.”
1 Samuel 8 shows us that although “the powers that be are ordained of God”, Romans 13:1, that doesn’t mean the powers He ordains are always His first choice. They are God’s first choice among options which population majorities will accept.
It should be a stern warning to all of us, that when we demand less than God’s best for us, God doesn’t force it on us. If we want a certain degree of Hell mixed with God's blessings, God will step back and let reality become our teacher.
When Jesus came the first time, the people tried to make Him their dictator, but Jesus declined. Now, for the first time in world history, Freedom is almost widely enough respected and desired that when Jesus returns the people of the world will be ready to accept Him, not as a dictator to pretend to “judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles”, as Israel explained to God when they begged to trade in their freedom for a dictator in 1 Samuel 8:20, but as an elected administrator who delegates responsibility to humans, as God did with Moses only after a series of unanimous votes of approval by the people.
God equates a Republican form of government (in which voters elect representatives) with submission to God.
1 Samuel 8:4 Then all the [elected, see Deuteronomy 1:13] elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah, 5 And said...make us a king to judge us like all the nations. 6 But the thing displeased Samuel...[their reason: Samuel, their elected judge, was old, and his sons whom he had appointed to judge with him were corrupt, but what displeased Samuel was wanting a monarchy] And Samuel prayed unto the LORD. 7 And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them....9 Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them.” (In other words, remind them of how much worse a dictator is than an occasional corrupt judge.)
1 Samuel 8:7 says when the people wanted to replace their freedom with a dictatorship, God characterized that as the people rejecting God from ruling over them; in other words, God’s idea of a government submitted to Him is a government elected by the majority of voters. In other words, the choice of the majority is what God wants the majority to have - which is different than saying it is what would be best for the people. This interpretation is supported by God’s actions in 1 Samuel 8-10.
The election of judges before Israel’s first king is documented by Deuteronomy 1:13 which says the system of judges suggested by Jethro were “chosen”. Josephus adds that the voting followed campaign speeches of the candidates; a footnote by the English translator in 1825 adds that it is the same system followed in selecting pastors in the New Testament. - ↑ More about “The 14th Amendment requires this state...to...outlaw abortion.”
(See also Statements #1, 3, 7, 8)
The indecision of judges over whether babies of humans are humans does not neutralize the consensus of fact finders that babies are fully “human persons” – an abstention does not cancel an “aye”.
That consensus makes abortion legally recognizable as killing innocent human beings, which is legally recognizable as murder, which was never constitutionally protected or legal, but is what even Roe correctly said “of course” requires abortion’s legality to end.
No judge can squarely address this evidence and keep abortion legal because the 14th Amendment doesn’t let any state legalize the tyranny of any class of humans over any other. It made irrelevant whether their destroyers “rely” on destroying them. The only constitutional way to keep baby murder legal would be to repeal the 14th Amendment, returning to states the power of majorities to tyrannize minorities. Of course, that would make slavery legal again.
These truths are too critical to be dismissed as opinions. They are statements of facts. Disprove them or admit you can’t. Voters need to hear the Whole Truth. Courts must stop punishing people for telling the whole truth just because the whole truth favors God.
Judges need the Whole Truth even more than voters, since the inability of judges to know if babies of people are people is the reason for America’s slaughter of over 60 million people. Just one natural consequence in the service of God’s judgment: an aging Social Security-dependent population causing a federal debt threatening our national security.
Stupidity has consequences. Judges need to uncensor large swaths of reality. Millions of lives depend on it.
The 14th Amendment doesn’t let any state legalize the tyranny of any class of humans over any other.
Dobbs went to a lot of trouble to show that the right to murder your own baby is not “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition” so therefore the Constitution doesn't protect it. Indeed it does not, but not for that reason.
The 14th Amendment demonstrated the irrelevance of “deeply rooted in history” by its creation for the purpose of ending slavery, an institution more “deeply rooted in” the whole world’s “history” than almost any other. The reason conservatives like precedents from America’s first century is because they were closer to the Bible and often quoted the Bible for its authority. Indeed, that is a good reason – and the only reason slavery ended. But the Bible is a safer subject of our admiration than the history of Bible believers.
Here’s how Professor Schluetter expressed the idea that what tells us whether to protect babies is not how much our ancestors protected babies but whether babies are real people:
“Notice that the minor premise of the syllogism above [whether the word ‘persons’ in the 14th Amendment includes unborn babies] is only marginally contingent upon historical analysis. The primary issue is ontological, not historical....[the actual nature of babies, not how others used to treat them]
“In other words, it doesn’t ultimately matter what past people thought about when human life begins, so long as they agreed-as they did-that at whatever point it begins, this is the point at which the protective powers of the state must be introduced. They did not have enough access to the scientific and biological facts of human reproduction and embryology to know for certain when life begins. But in a time of 4D ultrasound technology, when infants can be operated on while still in the womb, there is no room for dispute about the status of the fetus.”
Actually it doesn’t matter, either, if our ancestors “agreed that at whatever point life begins, the protective powers of the state must be introduced.” Nor does it matter if the Amendment authors wanted to protect all humans. In fact, it doesn’t matter if there is a 14th Amendment. If law is not equal upon its operation on all humans, which is the very definition of the word “law” as explained by Samuel Rutherford’s “Lex Rex” and Blackstone, and adopted by America’s founders, to that extent there is, by definition, no “rule of law”, no restraint upon the “strong” to not tyrannize the “weak”.
Had a time traveler from today told those senators who authored the 14th Amendment about Roe v Wade, and the need to clarify that unborn babies are “persons” or their descendants wouldn’t be able to figure that out, they would have answered, “you are telling us our great great great grandchildren will flock to pay baby killers to murder their very own babies if we don’t spell out that babies of people are people, which every idiot knows? But should our descendants actually become that bloodthirsty, you really think a word in the Constitution will stop them? Bosh!” [People in 1868 said “Bosh!” a lot.] Then they will throw the time traveler out of the room.
It is mind boggling that Dobbs never once mentioned the right of a baby to live “in this Nation’s history”. The right of babies to live was certainly “deeply rooted in history”, as the same history in Dobbs makes clear by proving the converse.
Roe...attempted...to locate an abortion right in history. The attempt was seriously flawed. ... acceptance of abortion is not in any sense deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions. The opposite is true: it is the prohibition of abortion that has deep roots in English and American history....An exhaustive study...concludes that ‘[t]he tradition of treating abortion as a crime was unbroken through nearly 800 years of English and American history until the ‘reform’ movement of the later twentieth century.’ Joseph W. Dellapenna, Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History....
[Legalism caused] the tragedy that is the common denominator in these cases: the intentional destruction, on an unprecedented scale, of the most innocent and defenseless of the human family. In the truest sense, they are our family, our brothers and sisters. Like all members of the human family, they should be treasured and loved. Nothing in the Constitution requires states to stand idly by while their lives are deliberately taken. The Declaration of Independence places the right to life first in the list of inalienable rights. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments list the right to life first among those rights of which the government cannot deprive a person without due process of law.
Thomas Jefferson’s March 31, 1809 letter to the Republican Citizens of Washington County, Maryland, stated: “The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.” THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 165 (H.A. Washington, ed.) (1871). xii (2006) (From the amicus of U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Other Religious Organizations, submitted in Dobbs. http://www.supremecourt.gov/ DocketPDF/19/19-1392/185030/20210727130348783_13-1932.Dobbs.final.pdf
The amicus of the Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence agrees:
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects against deprivation “life, liberty, or property.” In the abortion rights cases, this Court has focused on “liberty.” [of moms.] The real issue, however, is life. [of babes.] Life is a natural right endowed by our Creator and is the first unalienable right recognized in the Declaration of Independence. ...The duty of government to protect life is at the center of the nation’s first legal document. [www.supreme court.gov/DocketPDF/ 19/19-1392/185038/20210727131748801_ 19-1392 tsac CCJ.pdf]
But again, that’s not why the 14th Amendment protects it. The 14th Amendment protects the right of babies to live because the 14th Amendment doesn’t let any state legalize the tyranny of any class of humans over any other. The 14th Amendment put a “full stop” to the exceptionally strange and frankly stupid idea that a long history of tyranny constitutionally requires us to let tyranny continue till Jesus comes.
“Amicus aids the Court in recognizing that unenumerated fundamental rights elevated to a constitutional status by the Court because they are “implicit,” “inherent” or “rooted in history” have no basis in the law of nature, and no textual basis in Article III, or in the power of judicial review.” That bold rejection of just about every tool of SCOTUS dominance over America was made by the Lonang Institute in its amicus in Dobbs. www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/ 19/19-1392/ 185037/20210727131024868_19-1392%20tsac%20Lonang%20Institute.pdf - ↑ More about “the Constitution...has...proven ‘a thing of wax’.”
“Our law is now so riddled with special exceptions for special rights that our decisions deliver neither predictability nor the promise of a judiciary bound by the rule of law.” - Justice Clarence Thomas in his dissent in Hellerstedt (2016)
In other words, a floating standard of how to interpret precedents makes precedent a thing of wax in the nimble fingers of a judge, making what is “legal” unpredictable for the rest of us. How much more disastrous a floating standard of how to interpret the Constitution!
“A thing of wax”, a phrase coined by Thomas Jefferson, became a book title: A thing of wax (1978) Judicial review, the constitution, and constitutional law. By John Burleigh
Thomas Jefferson said if SCOTUS is taken as the absolute authority on the Constitution, nothing will restrain it but “the moral law”. Of course 204 years later we see that was one of the earliest restraints they threw off.
The following Thomas Jefferson quotes are copied from https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2012/06/04/thomas-jefferson-on-judicial-tyranny/ But the comments about each one are my own.
If [as the Federalists say] “the judiciary is the last resort in relation to the other departments of the government,” … , then indeed is our Constitution a complete felo de so [A crime committed against oneself, in particular an early twentieth-century euphemism for suicide]. … The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they may please. It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also; in theory only, at first, while the spirit of the people is up, but in practice, as fast as that relaxes. Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral law … — Letter to Judge Spencer Roane, Nov. 1819
Today all America considers judges the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions. As of 1820 that was a new enough threat that Jefferson said it “would”, not that it “did”, “place us under...despotism”.
You seem to consider the judges the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. [Dictatorship by a few tyrants.] Our judges … and their power [are] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and are not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves … . When the legislative or executive functionaries act unconstitutionally, they are responsible to the people in their elective capacity. The exemption of the judges from that is quite dangerous enough. I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society, but the people themselves. …. — Letter to Mr. Jarvis, Sept, 1820
By 1823 the threat was growing; Judges were usurping powers Jefferson still saw as future threats, not present threats yet, though he was alarmed by what judges were starting to claim:
This case of Marbury and Madison is continually cited by bench and bar, as if it were settled law, without any animadversions on its being merely an obiter dissertation [a statement from the bench commenting on a point of law which is not necessary for the judgment at hand and therefore has no judicial weight] of the Chief Justice … . But the Chief Justice says, “there must be an ultimate arbiter somewhere.” True, there must; but … . The ultimate arbiter is the people …. — Letter to Judge William Johnson, June 1823
Though a future threat, Jefferson called for a preemptive strike:
The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working underground to undermine our Constitution from a co-ordinate of a general and special government to a general supreme one alone. This will lay all things at their feet.
… I will say, that “against this every man should raise his voice,” and, more, should uplift his arm … — Letter to Thomas Ritchie, Sept. 1820
Jefferson said the assaults on the Constitution had begun:
I fear, dear Sir, we are now in such another crisis [as when the Alien and Sedition Laws were enacted], with this difference only, that the judiciary branch is alone and single-handed in the present assaults on the Constitution. But its assaults are more sure and deadly, as from an agent seemingly passive and unassuming. — Letter to Mr. Nicholas, Dec. 1821
Jefferson correctly saw the erosion of the Constitution by SCOTUS as deadly through their gradual, therefore “unalarming”, creeping forward, like the frog in the boiling water:
… there is no danger I apprehend so much as the consolidation of our government by the noiseless, and therefore unalarming, instrumentality of the Supreme Court. — Letter to William Johnson, Mar. 1823
For judges to usurp the powers of the legislature is unconstitutional judicial tyranny.
 … One single object … will entitle you to the endless gratitude of society; that of restraining judges from usurping legislation. — Letter to Edward Livingston, Mar. 1825 - ↑ More about “Without God...it is impossible to understand fundamental rights.”
The Bible is so much the foundation of American law, and the definition of fundamental rights, that fundamental rights cannot be understood where God is censored, as SCOTUS has so magnificently demonstrated in a wide range of SCOTUS protections of Bible-defined abominations.
From the amicus brief by LONANG Institute filed in Dobbs v. Jackson:
No understanding of state power is complete without consideration of the Declaration. The Declaration grounded civil power itself on the “laws of nature and of nature’s God.” ...“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”.
Even if this Court’s search for new fundamental un-enumerated substantive due process rights was constitutionally legitimate, it has neglected to look carefully at the “laws of nature and of nature’s God” as a source of those rights. Any legitimate search even for rights “deeply rooted” in American history and tradition would consider unalienable rights granted by the Creator as asserted in such a quintessential founding American document. In other words, the first place to look for any rights of the people would be to examine those rights granted by the Creator, not any purported rights invented by people. And if the Creator has not deemed it necessary or advisable to confer a particular right, then the logical conclusion would be that such a right does not exist.
Nevertheless the state governments’ purpose is to secure these natural and unalienable rights and as we have seen, any un-enumerated rights are reserved to the People (not the judicial branch) to find, identify, and assert, and their States to enact. The People created their state governments for this purpose and their national government for a much more limited purpose. The People did not establish a national government with a judicial branch given any power to make law or discover un-enumerated rights. ...
The States in the union have all power to do all “Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.” The Constitution of a state may further limit this power. The United States Constitution including the fourteenth amendment also limits the power of States. But neither the framers nor text of that amendment contain any substantive due process limitation on a state’s police power. DocketPDF/19/19-1392/185037/20210727131024868_19-1392 tsac Lonang Institute.pdf
We even get our definitions of basic words from the Bible. American culture and law loses its grasp of basic words by its exclusion of the Bible. The same Bible from which America got the idea that “all men are created equal” tells us who counts as “men”: everyone. All humans. Women, children, believers, pagans, rich, poor, bosses, employees. Everyone.
How could several generations of the earliest Americans be so confused about whether blacks were among the “men...endowed by their creator with...(the)...unalienable right...(to)...Liberty”? And they even publicly honored the Bible and taught from it in public schools! Now several generations of the latest Americans, excluding the Bible from public discussion, have been confused about whether their very own babies have an “unalienable right” to even live!
Legal gaslighting has intimidated easily confused Americans into imagining the 14th Amendment doesn’t necessarily include “unborn babies” in its protection of “all persons”. Never mind that whatever the 14th Amendment means, its authority is secondary to the judgment of God which He lets fall on civilizations which murder their own babies. No-ho, let’s not risk our “credibility” by resorting to the pleadings of God! Our highest authority is the 14th Amendment, and we can’t even figure out if “all persons” means “all people”!!!
Finding #8, Footnote #3, gives the definition of “man” in Webster’s 1828 dictionary, where we learn that our ancestors learned the correct meanings of Freedom-supporting basic words from the Bible. Webster’s definition includes several Bible quotes.
Here are a few more, documenting that “all men are created equal” is indeed firmly established in the Bible, which I challenge anyone to find in any major religion or philosophy not influenced by the Bible.
Exodus 12:49 One law [equal rights] shall be to him that is homeborn, [a natural born citizen] and unto the stranger [immigrant] that sojourneth [lives] among you. [Even the least appreciated people – even immigrants – shall have the same freedom you do.]
Leviticus 24:22 Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country: for I am the LORD your God. (See also Numbers 9:14, 15:15-16, 29)
Galatians 3:28 (ERV) Now, in Christ, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or free, male or female. You are all the same in Christ Jesus.
Colossians 3:11 Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all. (See also Galatians 5:6; Romans 1:16, 2:9-10, 3:29-30, 4:11-12, 9:24, 10:12-15; 1 Corinthians 7:19; 12:12-13; Ephesians 2:13-22, 3:5-10, 4:4, 15-16; John 10:16, 11:52, 17:20-21)
Even the word “Freedom” is confusing where the Bible is excluded from the discussion.
Without the Bible for its foundation, logic says freedom means license – no need of discipline to achieve greater and nobler goals than instant gratification of desires – lack of restraint from doing harm to others. Unmoored logic defines “freedom of religion” as freedom from morality, from being “offended” by Truth. My freedom requires restraining you from saying whatever I don’t like, just as dictators enjoy “freedom” to tyrannize their subjects.
From the Bible we don’t find the phrase “freedom of speech”, but those who told the Truth freely, no matter the cost, are honored throughout the Bible as our examples of faith. Hebrews 11 lists several.
Conversely, we find those judged by God who censor and persecute Truth tellers. Not even God issues nonsensical, unilateral, self-serving orders, but reasons with people, allowing mere people to reason back, and adjusting reality to accommodate reasonable and even semi reasonable prayers.
(A lowly Canaanite woman’s logic changed Jesus’ judgment and won His praise, Matthew 15:22-28. God changed His judgment against Israel in response to Moses’ reasons, Exodus 32:7-14. Though disgusted with Moses’ fear of public speaking, God assigned Aaron do the talking, Exodus 4. God allowed Israel to exchange their political freedom wherein they elected their leaders for a dictatorship, after God warned them but the people still insisted, 1 Samuel 8. God issues zero commands for His own benefit; they are all for ours, Job 35:1-8. God let Hezekiah live another 15 years because Hezekiah pleaded, even though God knew Hezekiah would use those years to reveal state secrets to Babylon and to raise a thoroughly wicked prince, 2 Kings 20:1-21:2. Jesus invites us to be persistent in prayer even when we might be annoying God, Luke 11:5-13, 18:1-8. “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord.” Isaiah 1:18.)
Informed by the Bible, which informed the framers of our freedoms, we understand “Freedom of Speech” to mean freedom to tell the truth and not be prosecuted for it, even when Truth is stated to authorities who can hurt you, who don’t want to hear Truth, and who don’t like you. We also learn something about human nature from the Bible, about the persecution to be expected from those who love the “darkness” because “their deeds are evil”.
John 3:19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
So we are not surprised when “freedom of speech” in America proves to be relative. It is a goal, and the most important of goals, towards which we all need to press each other. We learn from the Bible the proper role of Freedom of Speech. Treated as an end in itself, it becomes license for fraud and incitement to violence. But rather its goal, its legitimate purpose, is Truth. To the extent speech articulates anything else, it is evil, as many verses tell us, especially in Proverbs and in James 3.
Swimming champion Riley Gaines states in a June 24, 2023 Leadership Institute letter that for saying “things like ‘men are men, and men are not women’, ‘there are only two sexes’, ‘men have no business being in women’s locker rooms and playing in women’s sports’”, she “spent three hours barricaded in a classroom while leftist college students just outside the door yelled the most obscene things at me” after “a man – wearing a woman’s dress – punched me twice.”
A 13-year-old girl and her friend were reportedly called “despicable” by one of their schoolteachers last week after one of them challenged their classmates about “how she identifies as a cat” after a lesson about gender ideology. The 13-year-old girl and her friend are students at Rye College in the United Kingdom.
The students were in their end-of-year lesson on “life education” where they were told they can “be who you want to be and how you identify is up to you.”
After the lesson, one of the students asked her classmate: “How can you identify as a cat when you’re a girl?” The schoolteacher reprimanded the student and her friend and said that they were being reported to school officials. And, the teacher reportedly said that they would no longer be welcome at the school if they “continued to express the view that only boys and girls exist”. (Townhall: www.click1.srnemail.com/izbcmdttmrbwrrqtwbbfywzr pmwndpprhdfqphbvhcnmmm_sklkkbpvcskbtbklsrmvcjj.html)
Young children, whatever else they might be, are not cats. Nor unicorns. Nor space aliens, right? However unique we all might be, being grounded in a basic reality is a requirement for life itself. If you believe you are a rock and insist you don’t need food, you are not only wrong but soon to be dead. Feed the person, not the delusion. (Hot Air: http://click1.srnemail.com/cqp)mclkkc sgfsszkfggntfqsvcfjlvvsdlnzvdgpdmjccl_sklkkbpvcskbtbklsrmvcjj.html)
Not so long ago people “identifying” as Napoleon, Caesar, or Jesus Christ, were kept safe in insane asylums. “Not all the lights are on upstairs”, we would say. “Out of touch with reality.”
Truth. The freedom to state it. That’s how a culture gets in touch with reality. There are ugly consequences from making a joke out of reality.
“I have a right to my religion too” even if “my religion” has no connection to reality.
There are eternal consequences from making a joke out of reality.
“...our decision is not based on any view about when a State should regard prenatal life as having rights or legally cognizable interests.” (Dobbs) The blood of millions cries out to God, spilled by a score of judges regarded by most Americans as among the smartest in the world, who actually, literally ruled that reality is irrelevant.
That’s not evidence of smart. But of insanity.
Which is as much as can be expected of the smartest people in the world, in a discussion that excludes the Bible.
1 Corinthians 1:25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 3:19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.</span> </li>- ↑ More about “Courts have demonstrated this impossibility by so often confusing abominations for rights...murdering 17% of [the children Jesus loves], sodomizing 20% of the survivors, and censoring 100% of His teachings in schools”
Just under 200 babies are murdered for every 1,200 allowed to live, according to the CDC; that is, nearly 200 of every 1,200 pregnancies ends in murder. That’s just under 17%. (www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/ss/ss7110a1.htm)
Just under 20% of 10-30 year olds who were not murdered have been persuaded that they are sodomites, according to Statista. (www.statista.com/topics/1249/ homosexuality/#topicOverview)
For more disgusting examples of Supreme Court abominations, see the article “Landmark Abomination Cases” in the section “What Happened to Unalienable Rights, and How to Get Them Back”- ↑ More about “... United States v. Cruikshank 92 U. S. 542 (1876)... acquit[ed] a white Democrat mililtia of murdering “as many as 165” black Republicans....”
“Substantive Due Process” didn’t get its name until 1906. But its evil rights-blocking reasoning first reared its ugly head in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 1857, which fueled America’s Civil War in three years by ruling that Dred Scott was the “property” of his master and thus did not become free just because he was also human, when his master brought him into a state that had outlawed slavery.
(“Substantive Due Process” is normally associated with a reinterpretation of the “due process” clause in the 14th Amendment, but an article on the Supreme Court website (https://supreme.justia.com/cases-by-topic/due-process/) lists several “due process” cases, beginning with Scott v. Sandford (1857), 11 years before the 14th Amendment was ratified. Justice Thomas characterized the case as “stating that an Act of Congress prohibiting slavery in certain Federal Territories violated the substantive due process rights of slaveowners and was therefore void.” See Concurrence in Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. 591, 623 (2015) )
Cruikshank arose out of majority-black Grant Parish, Louisiana. Although the election of 1872 had been relatively orderly, local Democrats were able to rig the count, claim a victory, and occupy the courthouse. Uncowed, the Republicans seized the courthouse and organized anmostly black [and mostly unarmed] “posse” to defend it. This was a period of relative calm in most of the South, brought on by the initial success of Enforcement Act prosecutions. But to the white supremacists of Grant Parish, the Republicans’ assertive, mixed-race action constituted an intolerable provocation.
Both sides built up their forces and, after a pitched battle on Easter Sunday, 1873, the Democrats burned the courthouse and massacred some thirty to fifty black prisoners [after they had surrendered!].
Continued in What Happened to Unalienable Rights, and How to Get Them Back
* Landmark Abomination Cases
* The satanic “church” lawsuit: empowered by court “neutrality” about religion
* ‘Substantive Due Process’: how SCOTUS usurped the Constitution’s Authority to Define Rights, and Congress’ Authority to Enforce Rights, into its own authority to reclassify abominations as ‘rights’
* Crumbling Anti-Christian dogmas (Lemon, Employment Division); how Truth can fill the vacuum – Matthew 12:44
* Solutions: Understanding Establishment of Religion: a Tour through Reality with the Bible as our Guide
* Solutions: Judicial Accountability Act: How Legislatures can stop judges from legislating- ↑ More about “Uncensoring God...is part of examining “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”. Courts must stop punishing people for telling the truth just because the truth favors God.
A 1963 book, Author of Liberty by Carl McIntire, explains the connection between censoring God, in our public forums where voters decide to fashion our laws after the principles of Heaven or of Hell, and a culture of lies, deceit, and fraud:
...moral degeneration...can be seen very clearly when we have a world that no longer seeks the truth. Lying, backbiting, slander, talebearing, and in short, all manner of violations of this Ninth Commandment [“Thou shalt not bear false witness”] abound on every hand. Hence, there is no peace or security. When men fear God, they will tell the truth. It is God who judges; it is God who sees and knows every lie and every thought. The fear of God will keep men clear, pure and true. The fear of God will enable them to love the truth. When the State [or the Supreme Court] sets itself up as God and no longer fears Him, manufacturing its own tales, creating its own “truth”, it rules out this commandment altogether. This is precisely what Russian censorship means today. [Update: Communist Chinese, North Korean, Facebook, and Biden administration-coordinated censorship.]
When a man does not tell the truth, he is afraid to hear the truth told to another. When a man lives in a world of untruth, which he creates, he wants all others to be subject to the same limitations and deceptions. The communistic state controls “truth” as it controls the individual and “his” property. It does not think that truth can stand alone, it must be socialized, too! It therefore enslaves “truth”, and there is no longer any such thing.
When the State occupies such a position, degeneration is felt in every individual! Lying abounds, and for this reason the State has to use its iron hand to force individuals to tell the truth, under the fear of the most horrible kinds of penalty, so that even the State can be reasonably sure to tell its falsehood. The Ten Commandments are meaningless, and religion, therefore, is the “opiate of the people”! Marx was right if we accept his premise and system as true.
How different this is from the free ordered world in which men fear God and tell the truth because they love God! The fear of the State will not lead men to be truthful, because the State cannot know, as God knows, when lies are being told. The fear of the total State is an abomination; the fear of the Living God – and every man should know this – is the beginning of wisdom.
Natan Sharansky explains so even a spoiled American can understand, the utter emptiness, the “life” without Life, of not being allowed to say what you know, and knowing no one around you can either. Being tortured is an improvement.
See his EpochTV.com interview at www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv/ natan-sharansky-on-todays-evil-empires-the-war-in-ukraine-soviet-communism-and-the-new-antisemitism-5103919
4:36 The realization that I had to hide my thoughts came very early. I was five years old when Stalin died. My father explained to me, a five-year-old boy...you have to remember all your life that a miracle happened. Just when we Jews were in big danger, Stalin died. It was good for us. But, of course, don’t say that to anybody. Do and say what everybody does.
I go back to Kindergarten and I cry together with all the children about the death of Stalin. And they sing the songs about Great Sun of all the People, Stalin. And I remember that a miracle happened. Stalin died. I should be happy. And I have no idea how many children are really crying or are crying like me.
That was the beginning of my life as a loyal Soviet citizen. That’s when I learned that you are not supposed to say what you really think. It was very uncomfortable, feeling that you have to live with this self-censorship. But that’s how loyal Soviet citizens live. I had no freedom. I had no identity. There was no value in you being a Jew except that it means there are restrictions, discrimination, and so on. Nothing positive.
But I discovered my identity through other people. When the victory of Israel happened, they treat you as if it is your victory. You understand there is a connection. You start to read books. I remember the books like Exodus by Leon Uris. Or the History of the Jewish People. Suddenly you understand that there is a whole great history which doesn’t start from the communist revolution. It starts from the Exodus from Egypt, thousands of years ago. It’s only natural to feel yourself part of that history. Not the history of hiding your thoughts and being afraid of repression.
When you are not afraid and you start speaking openly your mind, you can finally read the books which are describing the real Soviet life. You read Solzhenitsyn about the gulag. You knew about it. You were whispering about it. It was like a non-existent world somewhere behind, like ghosts are in this world.
Suddenly, yeah, it is your world. It becomes real through these books.
With time, I became an unofficial spokesman, meaning that I was connecting the world of dissidents with the outer world. I used some diplomatic channels, some tourists. I was getting different books, and distributing them all over the Soviet Union. Once I sent a note to my friend in New York: “Send us 100 books of Exodus and we will make here a Zionist revolution. Just the book. Simply the book about Jewish history was making such a big influence on people. They were suddenly discovering their own identity. They felt that they can change all that reality. The same was true about the books by Solzhenitsyn, the letters of Andrei Sakharov and many other great books which we started reading through Samizdat. (Definition: The secret publication and distribution of government-banned literature in the former Soviet Union. The literature produced by this system. An underground press.)
When I became active in the movement of the national revival of the Jews and the movement fighting for human rights, there was pressure. Warnings from both sides, that you have to choose. Are you a nationalist, or a universalist? Are you concerned only about your own tribe or are you concerned about everybody? You have to choose!
I felt from the beginning that it is absolutely wrong. You don’t have to choose. If I have the strength to fight for freedom, for human rights, for everybody, it’s only because I discovered my own identity. And that is the source of strength.
When I was nobody, I had no identity, the only value in life was survival. I learned from childhood that because you’re a Jew, you must be the best in physics, mathematics, chess, whatever, because that’s the way of survival. There are no other values but survival. But career. But when you get your identity, suddenly you want to belong to something bigger than yourself. Then this desire to belong, to be with your people in your history, with your identity, you have something bigger than your own career. And then you feel yourself strong enough to fight for world values.
...The really full, enjoyable life is when people satisfy both desires: to belong, and to be free. (End at 10:43)</span> </li>- ↑ More about “...claims of religions that deny equal rights for all.”
What other religion than those influenced by the Bible vigorously calls for equal rights for all people? Doesn’t every other religion dehumanize entire people groups, reserving fewer legal rights for them than for “better” groups?
“In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.” – Pamela Geller’s ad on the sides of New York buses and wherever else she can find advertisers willing to post them
Does it seem ironic that civilization as we understand the concept today includes equal legal rights for all people, but that cannot exist where there is equal respect for all religions? When religions and philosophies hostile to our Freedoms are given equal influence in Congress and in courts with the religion of Freedom’s Founders, how can Freedom survive?
We are intimidated by our First Amendment prohibition against “establishing” a religion. We think that means we are prohibited from establishing the truth. We think that means we have to believe the truth and lies equally. We must equally respect reality and superstition.
I can “identify as a girl”, which makes me a girl, and the hospital will cut off whatever is appropriate for that designation; although when I made myself a badge saying “I identify as wearing a mask”, they still made me leave the hospital.
Are equal rights for all better than fewer rights for unimportant people? Is freedom better than slavery? Are elected leaders better than dictators? Is free speech better than torturing critics?
If “yes”, then without being accused of “establishing a religion”, may we publicly identify that religion which vigorously supports equal rights, freedom of religion and speech, and elections, and publicly contrast that with religions which pile legal burdens on inferior classes, support slavery, glorify tyranny, and torture critics?
Are we allowed to publicly observe reality, even if we are lawmakers or judges deciding who to count as “people” to be protected from being murdered?
“No! Not in public”, you scream! “That would be too distressing, because that would ‘establish religion’! America is not a theocracy!”
You even quote scripture to prove you should never allow distressing talk like that, because talk like that puts you in danger of changing your mind! Here is the verse:
“...do not ask about things which, if they are shown to you, will distress you [challenge your faith in Me]….A people asked such questions before you; [In the past, when people did that,] then they became thereby disbelievers.”
You didn’t know that was in Scripture, did you? But it is. Look it up for yourself: Surah 5:101-102. The Koran is not big on Freedom of Speech.
If you are not already bouncing off the walls in frustration with me, just wait till you get to the end of this footnote! Because it gives a few quotes from the two most popular alternative religions to the Bible, which show their hostility towards “equal protection of the laws”, such that courts and Congress must not consult them as reliable guides to reality.
I am not belaboring the pagan-ness of Hinduism with the slightest feeling of disrespect for the people who believe it. Especially if you are a Hindu, as is 2023 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who chooses to live in America whose laws are far more influenced by the Bible than by the Gita! Thank you for your choice to live under these laws!
My purpose, which I feel strongly is worth making, is to make very clear why
“All men are created equal”
and “equal protection of the laws”
makes constitutionally relevant
the testimony of the only religion
that counts all humans as equal,
on the matter of who counts as humans,
while making irrelevant who
other religions and philosophies
count as humans.
This makes relevant the easily documented, widely known facts which few have the courage to cite publicly, that disqualify the testimony of other religions: their vigorous opposition to equality under law for all humans, born and unborn, which the United States has mercifully rejected in favor of what the world recognizes as Freedom. This footnote will skim over some of those facts regarding Hinduism and Islam, Christianity’s two most successful competitors for the hearts and minds of Americans today. There is less need to prove the opposition to equal rights for all of other religions like Satanism, Atheism, Hedonism, Communism, headhunters, cannibals, and witch doctors.
(By the way, I quote Wikipedia as evidence of Hinduism’s principles because it is a liberal source, and more friendly to Hinduism than conservative sources. The liberal-ness of their articles is evident from what seem like apologies for Hinduism throughout. The one on “Hinduism” actually begins with a claim that the Caste System most likely got its unfairness and rigidity from British occupation! But later the article contradicts that many times; I tried to pick quotes that were the least contradicted by the rest of the article.)
The DANGER of Truth Telling!
Any inaccuracy of what I am about to quote, from Islam’s Koran and Hinduism’s Gita, is not where I expect to make myself the target of media rage. I quote from common, widely available original sources. I don’t foresee a serious allegation of significant inaccuracy here. I expect rage because I say what is true, with relative yawns over anything I write that isn’t true.
It’s like when I explain to supporters of sodomy why I oppose legalizing sodomy on health grounds by citing what sodomites do that they call “sex”. Really disgusting stuff, which cannot be done in any kind of remotely sanitary way, making it impossible to imagine it not breeding the worst of diseases and spreading them throughout the population. But as I begin citing what sodomy supporters well know, their faces darken with anger that I tell them the truth.
Misunderstanding of “establishment of religion” will get me some arrows, because courtroom redefinition of the right has been so thorough and successful that followers of The Truth politely step back from reality to avoid challenging the myths of the “fools” who “have said in their heart, there is no God”! Psalm 14:1, 53:1. Not smart, says the Bible, Psalm 2, but exceptions are rare and generally unpopular. But I believe I have made the case for the relevance of God well enough to survive courts, so I expect skeptics who honestly weigh the reasoning and evidence will see its merit.
I foresee that the greatest hostility to this information will be not because it is inaccurate, but because it is accurate and irrefutable, and therefore capable of sparking violent rage from followers of that violent religion, for telling the truth about how violent they are, which is so ironic because logic would suggest they would appreciate their religion being portrayed correctly.
Media fear of reality:
Hamas Founder’s Son Says Media Too ‘Afraid’ To Label Group As Terrorists, Fearing Religious War October 23, 2023, One American News: “Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of a Hamas co-founder, declared on Monday that Hamas is even more dangerous than ISIS and that the mainstream media is reluctant to label the organization as terrorists and a genocidal religious movement for fear of starting a full-scale religious conflict.
“Look at the division and the global confusion because of Hamas. They brought us to our knees somehow by their brutality and their barbarism. Brutality is even understating Hamas’ acts. Hamas is a religious movement, and they are a raging religious movement against Israel. The mainstream media cannot say this, because they are afraid to ignite a religious war. And what I say, it already is. They want to annihilate the Jewish people because they are Jewish people, because they are a Jewish state. They are driven by dark hatred toward a race, toward a nation. They have many tunnels. They used the funds and the aid that came to Gaza, they used it to dig tunnels,” he said. “It’s very hard to deal with this style of suicidal group of fighters who basically don’t appreciate life. They actually [are] looking forward to death.”
Yousef, who denounced Islam to become a Christian and left the terrorist organization in the 1990s to secretly work as a spy for Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency, claimed that since Hamas is neither a political nor national movement, negotiations with them are practically impossible. (www.oann.com/newsroom/hamas-founders-son-says-media-too-afraid-to-label-group-as-terrorists-fearing-religious-war/)
I don’t know if violence from worshipers of violence will be exceeded by opposition from fellow Christians terrified that my telling of truths that everybody already suspects if not knows will spark violence from worshipers of violence. Although a majority of Moslems are not personally violent, yet, thank God, (!) a majority justify violence:
https://www.cygn.al/new-national-poll-muslim-americans-say-hamas-was-justified-in-attacking-israel-majority-of-americans-say-iran-should-be-held-accountable-majority-support-israels-right-to-self-defense/
A majority of Muslim-Americans agree that Israel has a right to defend itself, but in stark contrast to other demographic groups, a majority disagree that Israel should invade Gaza, and a majority agree that Hamas was justified in its attack on Israel.
A majority of Muslim-Americans (68.8%) agree that Israel has a right to defend itself, yet disagree (53.2%) that Israel should invade Gaza, and a majority (57.5%) agree that Hamas was justified in its attack on Israel. (For comparison with all Americans, 78.9%, 38.2%, 25.2%.)
16.5% of Americans have a favorable view of Gaza. Republican, 14.8%, Democrat, 24.9% but Muslim-Americans, 52.1%.
8.5% of Americans have a positive view of Iran; 25.9% of Muslim-Americans do.
(Giving credit where due: though the percentage of Moslems who don’t justify violence is smaller than for other groups, there are still a lot who don’t. Romans 2 likewise gives credit to people who don’t profess, or know about God, yet who live as if they did. As nearly as statisticians can determine, 60% of Palestinians support the barbaric Hamas slaughter of Jews beginning October 7, 2023, but not 100%.)
That fear of violence from worshipers of violence already silences many who know better. Most notably, President George W. Bush was notorious for calling Islam a “religion of peace”.
But that is another reason to “glorify” God (give God credit). God is not just the “Author of Liberty”, as the national song “America” states, but liberty’s protector. God exists. And decides whether anyone gets to hurt us. Therefore, doing what God likes is the safest thing we can do. Although there is a cost at some level; telling too much Truth where Truth that most matters is most vigorously censored means a Cross for its tellers. Still, Truth is Life. “Life” without Truth is not Life.
So here are a few facts, which you surely already suspect; perhaps you know them better than I:
Hinduism
From Hinduism’s “Caste System in India”: wiki/Caste_system_in_India
Varna, meaning type, order, colour, or class are a framework for grouping people into classes, first used in Vedic Indian society. It is referred frequently in the ancient Indian texts. There are four classes: the Brahmins (priestly people), the Kshatriyas (rulers, administrators and warriors; also called Rajanyas), the Vaishyas (artisans, merchants, tradesmen and farmers), and the Shudras (labouring classes). The varna categorisation implicitly includes a fifth element, those deemed to be entirely outside its scope, such as tribal people and the untouchables (Dalits).
(Applications of the system included) Restrictions on feeding and social intercourse, with minute rules...Segregation,...the dominant caste living in the center and other castes living on the periphery. There were restrictions on the use of water wells or streets by one caste on another: an upper-caste Brahmin might not be permitted to use the street of a lower-caste group, while a caste considered impure might not be permitted to draw water from a well used by members of other castes....Occupation, generally inherited. Lack of unrestricted choice of profession....restrictions on marrying a person outside caste, but in some situations hypergamy [“dating or marrying a spouse of a higher caste”] allowed. ….[sub] castes rise and fall in the social scale, and old [sub]castes die out and new ones are formed, but the four great classes are stable. There are never more or less than four and for over 2,000 years their order of precedence has not altered.... [From 1000 to 600 BC] The Brahmins and the Kshatriyas are given a special position in the rituals, distinguishing them from both the Vaishyas and the Shudras. The Vaishya is said to be “oppressed at will” and the Shudra “beaten at will.”
“The Bhagavad Gita is one of the most revered Hindu texts” [1] “The title has been interpreted as ‘the word of God’ [and as] ‘celestial song’.” The Gita documents at least the Kshatriya [soldier] caste as a “religious” “duty” (dharma) of Hinduism, which should be carried out with “no need for hesitation” even if it is a civil war in which the other side includes your own family and indeed your own religious teachers!
B’hagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Verse 31. Considering your specific duty as a ksatriya, you should know that there is no better engagement for you than fighting on religious principles; and so there is no need for hesitation. Verse 37. O son of Kunti, either you will be killed on the battlefield and attain the heavenly planets, or you will conquer and enjoy the earthly kingdom. Therefore get up and fight with determination.
Wikipedia, Bhagavad Gita: “V. R. Narla, in his book length critique of the text titled The Truth About the Gita,... argues that the fact that the Gita tries constantly to make Arjuna kill his kin in order to gain a petty kingdom shows it is not a pacifist work. ….[He] compares the Krishna of the Gita with a modern day terrorist, who uses theology to excuse violence. Narla also cites D.D. Kosambi who argued that the apparent moral of the Gita is ‘kill your brother if duty calls, without passion; as long as you have faith in Me, all sins are forgiven...’.”
B’hagavad Gita, 2:33 If, however, you do not fight this religious war, then you will certainly incur sins for neglecting your duties and thus lose your reputation as a fighter.
This is a very pro-war theology! The opposite of virtuous for being a peacemaker, which Matthew 5:9 says makes one “blessed” (happy), Krishna calls the very desire for peace a “sin”! I didn’t even know Hinduism acknowledged the existence of “sin”. I thought they were relativists.
B’hagavad Gita, 2:34 People will always speak of your infamy, and for one who has been honored, dishonor is worse than death. 35.
The great generals who have highly esteemed your name and fame will think that you have left the battlefield out of fear only, and thus they will consider you a coward. Verse 36. Your enemies will describe you in many unkind words and scorn your ability. What could be more painful for you?
Krishna is talking like the “bad guys” in “Westerns” (cowboy movies) who taunt a “good guy” with “Yer yellow! Pick up that gun, ef ya call yerself a man! Coward! Ya ain’t worth spit!”
Krishna says if even enemies, those most inclined to deliberately twist the truth to justify their hate, falsely accuse you, even those false accusations are worse than letting your family live! “What could be more painful for you?” How about arrows and swords piercing your body? It is nothing, no harm at all, to kill another man, but the mere threat of “unkind words” from “enemies” who have always spewed unkind words anyway, are so harmful as to compel you to slaughter your family! This guy Krishna would not get along in America, with our Freedom of Speech! This Krishna is not a “free speech” kind of guy!
Jesus thought it quite foolish to kill another for “honor”! Describing what I take for a challenge to a duel, He said, “Matthew 5:39 But I say unto you, That ye resist [Wesley: “ the Greek word translated resist signifies standing in battle array, striving for victory. ”] not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, [Greek ραπιζω, slap with the palm of the hand, as opposed to slugging the jaw with a closed fist] turn to him the other also.” (Jesus’ own submission to this principle: John 18:22-23)
Krishna thinks we ought to return to the days of dueling! Iowa voters voted to repeal the archaic law against dueling in the Iowa Constitution, in 1992. If courts continue pulling down the Bible to the level of other religions, maybe they will make us put it back in!
Verses 11-27 had explained how killing people doesn’t actually hurt anyone because all you are killing is mere bodies; souls are eternal. Which makes verses 34-36 the more astonishing: if you kill me, no big deal. But don’t call me names! How can I survive THAT?!
What makes the verses ultra astonishing is the supposed goal of Hinduism: to suppress all “attachment” to any “desire” for anything. We are to worship Apathy Incarnate, and yet pull our guns on any low-life who dares disrespect us! Here is an amazing description of righteous apathy:
B’hagavad Gita, 14:21 Arjuna [the military commander] inquired: O my Lord, by what symptoms is one known who is transcendental to those modes? What is his behavior? And how does he transcend the modes of nature? 25 The Blessed Lord said: He who does not hate illumination, attachment and delusion when they are present, nor longs for them when they disappear; who is seated like one unconcerned, being situated beyond these material reactions of the modes of nature, who remains firm, knowing that the modes alone are active; who regards alike pleasure and pain, and looks on a clod, a stone and a piece of gold with an equal eye; who is wise and holds praise and blame to be the same; who is unchanged in honor and dishonor, who treats friend and foe alike, who has abandoned all fruitive undertakings [actions designed to “bear fruit”, that is, actions with goals; efforts to accomplish things]--such a man is said to have transcended the modes of nature. 26 One who engages in full devotional service, who does not fall down in any circumstance, at once transcends the modes of material nature and thus comes to the level of Brahman.
We are supposed to not care whether we become wise or foolish. We are to care no more for gold than a clod of dirt. Contrast that with:
Proverbs 3:13 Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. 14 For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. 15 She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. 16 Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour. 17 Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. 18 She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her. 19 The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens. 20 By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew.
21 My son, let not them depart from thine eyes: keep sound wisdom and discretion: 22 So shall they be life unto thy soul, and grace to thy neck. 23 Then shalt thou walk in thy way safely, and thy foot shall not stumble. 24 When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet. 25 Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it cometh. 26 For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.
God sees value in wisdom, and lesser value in riches, v. 16. God, by wisdom, created the Earth; but the Gita says we must see any value in wisdom. Indeed the process of creation is not understood by Hindus to involve consciously weighing possibilities and preferring one possibility over another. The Brahman Force just sort of made everything happen without caring if it did.
We are supposed to “abandon all fruitive undertakings”. In other words, we are not supposed to do anything with the goal of being successful. We are not supposed to accomplish anything. We are not supposed to have any goals, or if we do, we are certainly not supposed to try to reach them. Without goals, we can’t be successful, but neither can we be failures, the Gita tells us.
Islam
A husband should beat his wife if he thinks she wants to leave him: Koran 4:34 … “(as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places [stop having sex with them] and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely God is High, Great.”
The testimony of two women equals that of one man: Koran 2:282 “...call in to witness from among your men two witnesses; but if there are not two men, then one man and two women from among those whom you choose to be witnesses, so that if one of the two errs, the second of the two may remind the other....” That Surah (verse) is justified on a Moslem website with:
“This does not mean that a woman does not understand or that she cannot remember things, but she is weaker than man in these aspects – usually. Scientific and specialized studies have shown that men’s minds are more perfect than those of women, and reality and experience bear witness to that.... there are some women who are far superior to men in their reason and insight, but they are few, and the ruling is based on the majority and the usual cases.” (https://islamqa.info/en/answers/20051/why-is-the-witness-of-one-man-considered-to-be-equal-to-the-witness-of-two-women)
We can't go much farther without addressing the widespread notion that the Bible similarly has two passages in the Letters of Paul that make a similar claim about the mental inferiority of women, though falling short of recommending beatings as the solution. Were that true, that would similarly disqualify the Bible's testimony on who merits equal protection of our laws! That would argue that modern Americans have exceeded the Bible in our regard for "equal protection of the laws", leaving the Bible as a relic of our past spiritual evolution whose past help is appreciated but we have grown past it and would be pulled back down if we listened to it again!
All this because of widespread interpretations of two Bible passages about women. Which, properly understood, aren’t even about the rights of women in society but are about husband/wife relationships.
To address this misunderstanding, and consider a case for again honoring God's morality as superior to ours, please read my Bible study "Did God Write 'Men Only' on the Pulpit?" There you will learn that the Corinthians passage actually says, rather clearly if you look at the evidence, simply that husbands and wives shouldn't argue with each other in public; it is embarrassing. And the Timothy passage is targeting a kind of "browbeating".
[MAYBE this addresses a natural temptation of women, due to their generally smaller size and lesser capacity for physical violence, to resort more to verbal violence. And then, to “hide behind” society's disapproval of stopping her mouth with a man’s physical violence - at least in societies that frown on men physically abusing women. Of course, immature men can be verbally violent too, but immature men feel less pressure to fight with words while they have their fists. And women can get physically violent too, but generally, fighting with words instead of fists is safer for women. Of course, a huge goal of the Bible is to end all violence, verbal or physical. But the relative general tendency of abusive women to attack more with words, while abusive men attack more with fists, could account for Paul addressing only to wives his appeal to avoid verbal abuse, while to husbands he says “love your wives as Christ loved the church”, suffering rather than attacking. Ephesians 5:25]
Meanwhile the New Testament gives the names of a woman preacher and a woman who taught Paul; Jesus seriously honored women; many women "prophesied" in Christian meetings - meaning they spoke out loud, teaching men what God had to say; the word means "to bring a message from God". And in the Old Testament, one of the dozen plus national elected leaders, before the reign of kings, was a woman.
No Freedom of Speech in Islam:
Koran 5:101-102 “O you who have believed [in Islam], do not ask about things which, if they are shown to you, will distress [challenge] you….A people asked such questions before you; [In the past, when people did that,] then they became thereby disbelievers.” (Qur’an) - See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2014/12/after-years-of-being-taught-to-hate-jews-muslim-discovers-he-is-jewish.html/#sthash.VAjlOphK.dpuf
No Freedom of Religion
8.12 When your Lord revealed to the angels: I am with you, therefore make firm those who believe. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve [in Islam]. Therefore strike off their heads and off every fingertip of them.
Question: Does Islam allow any kind of Freedom of Religion? It seems peace is granted only so long as unbelievers “repent” and “pay the poor rate”, which missionaries tell me is, in practice today, an enormous tax that leaves Christians in the most degrading poverty and helplessness. It is not physical aggression of a Christian for which he is to be “fought”, but openly questioning Islam, v. 12-13. By contrast, when the Samaritans were rude to Jesus, and Jesus’ apostles offered to use their miraculous powers to slay them, Jesus rebuked them: Luke 9:55 “...Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. 56 For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them.”
By contrast, the Bible, just like U.S. law today, allows freedom of religious speech and thought, and freedom of religious practice up until the point where “serving” another god involves committing crimes. Deuteronomy 13, for example, doesn’t outlaw pagan belief, or speech, but “serving” other gods; burning your child to death in the fire-heated arms of an idol was the most common way to “serve” the gods of Bible times, which is, by our laws, a crime.
9.5 So when the sacred months [Ramadan] have passed away, then slay the idolaters [Christians who worship the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, which the Koran says is polygamy] wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer [5 times a day to Allah] and pay the poor-rate [an oppressive tax that leaves people very poor], leave their way free to them; [let them live] surely God is Forgiving, Merciful.
Fight those who do not believe in God [Allah], nor in the latter day [the belief that in the end times the Mahdi will arise and conquer the world for Islam with Jesus’ help, beheading all who “disbelieve”], nor do they prohibit what God and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book [Bible], until they pay the tax [a horrible tax that leaves people destitute] in acknowledgment of [our] superiority and they are in a state of subjection [slavery].
No Forgiveness
9.113 It is not (fit) for the Prophet and those who believe that they should ask forgiveness for the polytheists, even though they should be near relatives, after it has become clear to them that they are inmates of the flaming fire. 5.41 “O Messenger! let not those grieve thee, who race each other into unbelief: (whether it be) among those who say ‘We believe’ with their lips but whose hearts have no faith; or it be among the Jews -- men who will listen to any lie -- will listen even to others who have never so much as come to thee. They change the words from their (right) times and places: they say, ‘If ye are given this, take it, but if not, beware!’ If any one’s trial is intended by Allah, thou hast no authority in the least for him against Allah. For such – it is not Allah’s will to purify their hearts. For them there is disgrace in this world, and in the Hereafter a heavy punishment.” (5:41)
A Muslim should hate even family members who are not Muslims: “There has already been for you an excellent pattern in Abraham and those with him, when they said to their people, ‘Indeed, we are disassociated from you and from whatever you worship other than Allah. We have denied you, and there has appeared between us and you animosity and hatred forever until you believe in Allah alone.” (60:4).
Dehumanization on steroids: Allah transforms disobedient Jews into apes and pigs (2:63-66; 5:59-60; 7:166).
This surah was the subject of a question submitted to a Muslim site hoping to provide sensible answers to questioners about Islam. The question and answer: “https://islamqa.info/en/answers/14085/are-the-monkeys-and-pigs-that-exist-nowadays-humans-who-have-been-transformed” ?
“Could you please tell me about monkeys. Are they humans who were turned into monkeys for disobeying Allahs commandments? if so which people were they and what did they do?”
The answer acknowledges surahs saying people were turned into monkeys and pigs, and agrees that is really what happened, but the monkeys today weren’t people from the past because the monkeys that were former people lost their ability to reproduce! Which actually doesn’t answer whether monkeys today might be people recently turned into monkeys. Oh well. I guess we will never know?
This should help us understand how much to trust Islam today as a reliable guide to reality – the Koran itself, and its modern defenders.
Questions I have asked Moslem leaders:
"Does there exist a translation of these verses which is true to the text yet which encourages Muslims to live in peace and cooperation with Christians and Jews?"
"Do there exist verse-by-verse commentaries of the Qu’ran, like we have of the Bible, where I can look up these verses and have explained how these verses actually support peace with “people of the Book”?"
"When you pray for 'victory over those who disbelieve', in the mantra which you recite many times a day over almost every event in your lives, do you mean physical victory? Do you believe Christians and Jews 'disbelieve'?"
So far, I have had lengthy dialog with a half dozen Moslem leaders, which sputtered to an end when I asked these questions.
One of them is posted at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQRxbmBRjNU.
Headlines from the Palestinian/Israel war of October, 2023, comparing the barbarity of the Palestianians with the barbarity demanded by the Koran, supporting the controversial theory that the Palestinians are actually following the Koran
https://gellerreport.com/2023/10/in-israel-babies-discovered-with-their-heads-cut-off.html/?lctg=36933672
“The Israeli soldiers discovered babies with heads cut off”
“The Israeli soldiers discovered families butchered altogether, women raped, children killed while playing, babies with heads cut off” Hamas beheaded babies in accordance with Islamic texts and teachings. Quran 47:4: So, when you encounter the unbelievers, strike at their necks…
The bodies were discovered lying on the floors in their homes, some without heads after Hamas gunman stormed a residential area in Kfar Aza on Saturday. IDF soldiers were not able to reach the homes until today as they continued to fight gunman and clear booby traps that had been laid in and outside the homes. Israeli Major General Itai Veruv said: “It is something that I never saw in my life.”
Watch i24NEWS Correspondent Nicole Zedek report from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a quarter-mile from the Gaza border. Here she recounts the atrocities that were committed in the small community which remains an active scene as soldiers clear booby traps and recover the bodies of dozens of victims.
https://gellerreport.com/2023/10/photos-emerge-of-jewish-children-burned-alive-by-hamas.html/?lctg=36933672 (This is a link to photos of “Jewish Children Burned Alive By Hamas”)
https://gellerreport.com/2023/10/watch-hamas-terrorist-admit-true-motive-for-kidnapping-babies-and-children-to-rape-them.html/?lctg=36933672
WATCH Hamas Terrorist Admit True Motive For Kidnapping Babies and Children: “To Rape Them”
By Pamela Geller - on October 11, 2023
Video of Interrogation of Hamas terrorist: “why did you want to capture women and children?” “I don’t want to talk about it.” “Talk!” “To have our way with them.” “What does that mean?” “To dirty them. To rape them.”
The Qur’an teaches that non-Muslim women can be lawfully taken for sexual use (cf. its allowance for a man to take “captives of the right hand,” 4:3, 4:24, 23:1-6, 33:50, 70:30). The Qur’an says: “O Prophet, tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to bring down over themselves of their outer garments. That is suitable that they will be known and not be abused. And ever is Allah Forgiving and Merciful.” (33:59) The implication there is that if women do not cover themselves adequately with their outer garments, they may be abused, and that such abuse would be justified.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/israelis-describe-hellish-scenes-in-communities-attacked-by-hamas-terrorists A baby, an infant, riddled with bullets. Soldiers beheaded. Young people burned alive in their cars or in their hideaway rooms. Horrifying photos of babies murdered and burned.
Children and adults decapitated...babies that were hanged in a row with their mothers’ bras. ...the volunteers encountered booby traps placed under the victims’ bodies.
Burnt bodies, burnt houses everywhere. Decapitated heads of children of several ages. The smell of rotting corpses [is so bad] that you can't even breathe. Bodies of babies tied up.
At the end of the kibbutz, in a house that was completely destroyed, they [the babies] are sitting on a fence outside of the house. Their bodies are burned. Their parents, sitting in front of them, are slaughtered.
Even more harrowing scenes: a pregnant woman with her stomach cut open and a woman burned in a wheelchair.
https://gellerreport.com/2023/10/top-secret-hamas-documents-show-that-terrorists-intentionally-targeted-children-elementary-schools-and-youth-center.html/ ‘Top secret’ Hamas documents show that terrorists intentionally targeted CHILDREN elementary schools and youth center
By Pamela Geller - on October 14, 2023
‘Top secret’ Hamas documents show that terrorists intentionally targeted elementary schools and a youth center.
Maps and documents recovered from the bodies of Hamas attackers reveal a coordinated plan to target children and take hostages inside an Israeli village near Gaza. The terrorists forgot that on Shabbat (Saturday), when they attacked, children aren't in school.
https://gellerreport.com/2023/10/witness-children-were-tortured-in-front-of-their-parents-parents-in-front-of-their-children-eyes-gouged-out-fingers-chopped-off.html/?lctg=36933672 Witness: ‘Children Were Tortured In Front of Their Parents, Parents In Front of Their Children ….Eyes Gouged Out, Fingers Chopped Off…”
By Pamela Geller - on October 19, 2023
We saw a couple – mother and father – sitting on their knees on the floor, heads down, hands tied behind their back
On the other side of the dining room was a seven year old boy and a girl, about 6 years old, hands tied behind their back. The bodies were tortured. Gouged out eyes, cut off flesh, and then shot them with their hands tied behind their backs.
There’s a new website (https://sites.google.com/view/hamas-massacre-new/home) that contains all videos and images of documented Hamas War Crimes from October 7th, including raw footage from the attacks.
The world must know the enemy we are fighting. The enemy whose clearly stated intentions are to rid Israel of its Jews and then the world.
https://gellerreport.com/2023/10/hamas-terrorists-were-told-by-commanders-to-behead-israelis-and-cut-their-feet-and-what-they-did-to-the-bodies-of-jewish-women.html/?lctg=36933672
Hamas terrorists were told by commanders to behead Israelis and cut their feet and what they did to the bodies of Jewish women
By Pamela Geller - on October 21, 2023
Israeli Morgue: ‘Evidence of mass rape of so brutal that they broke their victims’ pelvis – women, grandmothers, children.’ ‘People whose heads have been cut off. Faces blasted off. Heads smashed and their brains spilling out. A baby was cut out of a pregnant woman and beheaded and then the mother was beheaded’
“Charred remains and a CT scan of the remains show a parent and child who were bound together and burned alive by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7. Two spinal columns—one of an adult and one of a child—can be seen in the scan. The pair were likely embracing as they burned.” Israeli Forensic team: cut, burned alive, raped (inc. very young and very old women), arms and feet cut off, beheaded. Children tied together & burned alive. Entire families slaughtered together.
The age range of the victims spans from 3 months to 80 or 90 years old. Many bodies, including those of babies, are without heads.
November 15, 2023: one criticism of the Bible is why did God tell Israeli soldiers to kill even children in Canaan? Maybe this headline will give a clue: “Children as Young as 10 Took Part in Hamas's Oct. 7 Terror Attack, Survivors Say”. https://freebeacon.com/national-security/children-as-young-as-10-took-part-in-hamass-oct-7-terror-attack-survivors-say/ “Eran Smilansky, a 28-year-old potato farmer, watched Gazan children go from house to house in his kibbutz on Oct. 7. Hamas terrorists followed. The boys laughed as the gunmen shot or dragged away Israeli families....The youngest children were around 10 years old, according to several of the survivors, one of whom provided photographs of some of the women and children he saw....
“On the camera's livestream, Barad watched three types of Gazans pass by his house: uniformed Hamas commandos carrying automatic weapons, RPGs, and grenades; casually dressed gunmen; and ordinary-looking men, women, and children. Barad said the ordinary Gazans vastly outnumbered the armed terrorists. He estimated that he saw at least a dozen children, who were between the ages of 10 and 15, and 30 women from Gaza. The armed terrorists were in charge, Barad recalled. They gave orders to the ordinary Gazans, like sending the children to loot specific homes.
“While Barad's speed camera lacked the capability to save the livestream footage, it did snap photos 155 of moving objects between about 9:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Barad shared the images with the Free Beacon. At least five Gazan boys and two Gazan women can be seen riding stolen bicycles....Amotz Bazer, a 52-year-old farm worker from Nir Oz, was hiding in his safe room with his wife and three daughters when his kitchen window was shot out. He heard the gunmen push two young boys through the window. The boys then opened the front door for the armed terrorists. ‘They were not older than 10,’ said Bazer, who understands some Arabic....
“When Tamil looked back toward the festival grounds, several hundred feet away, he said he saw Hamas commandos holding a group of Israelis at gunpoint. Several children, ages about 6 to 10, then emerged from a pickup truck wearing Hamas outfits, he said. ‘You could see the people on their knees and like begging for their life,’ Tamir said. ‘I heard the screaming.’ According to Tamir, the commandos gave some of the children rifles and directed them to execute hostages, which they did. The terrorists shot more of the hostages and loaded the survivors into the truck, he said.”
November 13: “ Israel publishes documentation of Hamas terrorists firing from Al-Quds Hospital”. A 23 second video taken by a surveillance drone shows a Hamas terrorist firing on an Israeli tank with an RPG (rocket propelled grenade) from a hospital entrance!
“A group of Hamas terrorists opened fire with RPGs from among civilians at the hospital entrance, damaging an Israeli tank just dozens of meters from the hospital. When Israeli soldiers began to return fire, civilians fled from the area while additional terrorists joined the fight – some of whom had been hiding among the civilians – while others exited adjacent buildings, including a Red Cross building. The terrorists later tried to fall back into the hospital but were eliminated by the IDF soldiers with the help of the Israeli Air Force. Twenty-one terrorists were killed in the incident, while the IDF stressed that no civilians were killed. Israel did not suffer any casualties as a result of the clashes.” November 12: “WATCH: Hamas Opening Fire on Civilians Trying To Leave Northern Gaza” (https://gellerreport.com/2023/11/watch-hamas-opening-fire-on-civilians-trying-to-leave-northern-gaza.html/?lctg=36933672)
“Exclusive documentation: Hamas terrorists brutally beat Gaza civilians and prevent them from taking food from a humanitarian aid truck@eliorlevy | #KanIsraelstory pic.twitter.com/PXHsNECt6I”
“Civilians waving white flags begin an orderly evacuation of a communal building. Once they reach the main road Hamas terrorists open fire on unarmed women and children. Hamas must pay for its crimes against Gaza. pic.twitter.com/1tHLLjgXrL”
November 19 Eyewitness Accounts: Palestinian Terrorists Gang Rape Israeli Girl, Cut Off Her Breasts While She’s Still Alive, Then Shoot Her In Her Head And Continue to Rape Her (Video)
No Words In Kibbutz Be’eri, I witnessed bodies of two women with their hands and legs tied to a bed. One of these bodies was found sexually terrorized with a knife stuck in her vagina and all her internal organs removed. After brutally violating these women, Hamas detonated the house on them, so we found them beneath a pile of stones. The mini shelters scattered from the Nova party site to road 34, shelters that had been broken into, were filled with piles of women. Their clothing was torn on the upper part, but their bottoms were completely naked. Piles and piles of women, dead bodies, lying this way. When you took a closer look at their heads, a single shot straight to the brain of each.
November 19, 2023 Terrifying Threats (https://gellerreport.com/2023/11/nyc-muslim-makes-terrifying-threats-against-jewish-people-i-watch-israeli-people-die-and-i-masturbate-with-that-i-just-like-killing-jews-i-rape-them-first-then-i-kill-them.html/?lctg=36933672)
Short video. Transcript:
Muslim: I watch Israeli people die and I masturbate with that.
Interviewer: Wow, what do you think about the Jewish people?
Muslim: They are dirty. Heil Hitler. I just like killing Jews. I’ll rape them first. Then I kill them. That’s the difference. Cutting their fingers, my God, it was so good. I’m in the US right now, I’m in Manhattan. The US is fucking evil. One day we will take all US.
All the Muslims will destroy the US and we will rule the world
Interviewer: I wish you find god. I wish you peace.
Muslim: I have god.
Interviewer: No.
Muslim: Allah.
November 20, 2023 https://allisrael.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a22d85388ddcd4f211b8287b6&id=d22dec3e53&e=56160a94d4 85% of Palestinians express support for Hamas massacre on Oct. 7, Palestinian poll finds. https://allisrael.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a22d85388ddcd4f211b8287b6&id=25f5be127c&e=56160a94d4 Israeli witnesses say Gazan women, children and elderly participated in Oct. 7 Hamas attack in southern Israel </span> </li>- ↑
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