| | The author writes, Leftism seeks to undo most of the values that are distinct to Judeo-Christian religions. That is why the left has always been so anti-religious and especially anti-Christian. Karl Marx understood that a vibrant leftism and a vibrant Christianity could not coexist. He was right." On the contrary, Marx had the same altruist/collectivist morality as Christianity. A few Biblical quotations are sufficient to bear this out: Karl Marx: "From each according to his ability to each according to his need."
Christianity: "All that believed were together, and had all things in common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need." Acts 2:44-45
John, the Baptist: "The man who has two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same." Luke 3:11
"The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common." Acts 4:32
"That in the kingdom of God, every loyal citizen is subordinate joint-owner with God of all things." Rev. 21: 7.
"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."
"Blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the earth."
"When human beings walk around with their genitals uncovered, they are behaving in a manner indistinguishable from animals. A major difference between humans and animals is clothing; clothing separates us from -- and in the biblical view, elevates us above -- the animal kingdom." Then why did God create Adam and Eve naked? And if the major difference between humans and animals is clothing, then why are people born naked? The basic difference between humans and animals is much more fundamental than the practice of wearing clothes. Even the Christian Scholastics recognized this, for they defined man as "a rational animal," not a clothed one. Clothing is a consequence of rational behavior, not a fundamental characteristic distinguishing man from other animals. The Christian Scholastics got their definition of man, not from the Bible, but from Aristotle, who stated in the Nicomachean Ethics that the human being "has a rational principle," meaning that what differentiates man from other animals is that he functions by means of reason. "But one of our human tasks is to elevate us above the animal. And covering our genitals is one important way to do that." This is an arbitrary assertion with no rational support. If the premise is that wearing clothes differentiates us from the animals, it doesn't follow that doing so makes us superior to them. Humans do all sorts of things that animals don't do. Humans commit mass murder, whereas animals don't, but no one would say that this elevates humans above animals. "The second reason to oppose public nudity also comes from the list of separations: the concept of the holy, or sacred." There are reasons to oppose public nudity -- such as respect for other people's sensibilities -- but religious dogma is not one of them, for it is even less defensible than public nudity itself. "For the left, little is sacred -- certainly little in the ways that Jewish and Christian civilization has usually understood the term.
"That is why an 'artist' achieved cult-like status in the left-wing cultural world with a depiction of a crucifix in a jar of his urine. The crucifix is sacred to hundreds of millions of people -- I will pee on it. Or why a major European art award was given to a German artist for his sculpture of a policewoman crouching and urinating (a puddle of her urine was sculptured beneath her). Whatever Judeo-Christian convention held sacred, true believing leftists have sought to desacralize." One doesn't have to be a Christian to oppose this kind of trashy art, but if we're going to talk about what is sacred, how about the sacredness of human reason and dignity? How rational or sacred is it to idealize the sacrifice of one's very own deity by commemorating his crucifixion at the hands of barbaric Roman soldiers?! If one is a Christian, how uplifting is it for Jesus Christ, one's highest moral ideal, to be treated as a sacrificial animal in order to atone for the moral transgressions of others? If human beings have sinned, why should their God be punished for it? If anything is profane and morally degrading, that certainly is! Even today, Christians in the Philippines celebrate Good Friday by having themselves crucified. Does crucifixion elevate man above the animals?! "The first thing Adam and Eve discovered after eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was that they were naked. And the first emotion they ever experienced was shame over their nudity. This doesn't make any sense. Why would Adam and Eve feel ashamed over their nudity, if God created them that way? Quoting the Bible to justify contemporary standards of morality is a dead end, since there are many events in the Bible that are not remotely rational or justifiable, like stoning people to death for working on the Sabbath. Morality should be based on rational standards of value, on the vital needs and values of humans beings, not on the arbitrary dictates of Biblical precedent or of religious authority. The United States is not a theocracy, nor was it ever intended to be. "San Francisco, America and the west are going to have to choose whether Stardust or the Bible is right. By one vote San Francisco decided in favor of the Bible. But a judge, who may well have Stardust's values, is yet to rule." As if choosing between "Stardust" and the Bible were the only alternative. Of course, people shouldn't be ashamed of their nakedness, but that also doesn't mean that they should flaunt it on public streets. A decent respect for other people's sensibilities should govern one's social behavior. The city has every right to ban public nudity on city streets, just as a private mall or store has a right to ban it, if it's offensive to its customers. The city owns the streets (whether it should is a different question), and must set standards that accommodate the values of most of the public that uses them." And finally, there's this: "And it's hard to see why a liberal judge would not rule the law [banning public nudity on city streets] unconstitutional. Because the fact is that there is no secular reason to ban public nudity." Sure there is, just as there is a secular reason for a business to ban behavior that is annoying to its customers, or for a host to ban behavior that is rude to his guests -- social compatibility. You don't need religion for that. Nor, contrary to the author, would religion qualify as a good reason to ban it. There is in fact no religious reason to ban any kind of bad behavior, because to base morality on commandments would make it entirely arbitrary and subjective. Morality must rest on objective criteria independently of anyone's commandments, in which case, God's commandments cannot themselves be the ultimate standard of morality. Suppose, for example, that God had commanded us to kill the infidels -- as some Muslims have claimed. Would we be justified in obeying that commandment? No? Then the foundation of morality must lie elsewhere -- in the life serving values of man.
Religious authoritarianism has more in common with a collectivist dictatorship than it does with a free society.
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