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Judeo-Christian legal tradition

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Okay, so I've gotten into an argument with someone about whether or not this nation was based on Judeo-Christian legal tradtions. Our Constitution is secular. We don't have an argument about that. He argues that

- The 8th amendment is based on "an eye for an eye"

- Republicanism over Theocracy

- Individualism over Collectivism

- Democracy over Authoritarianism

- Natural law over Positive Law

He agrees that the Constitution is meant to allow for secular beliefs. What we do not agree on is that this nation's legal tradition is Judeo-Christian in nature.

I argue that the Declaration of Independence provision that states that it is morally acceptable to revolt against an abusive leader, and the Second Amendment based on this notion is inconsistent with the Bible, and thus, it is not compatible with Judeo-Christian law.

Is our government largely Judeo-Christian? I mean not to imply that many legal concepts Ayn Rand found to be moral were results of the aforementioned religions, but is our legal tradition Judeo-Christian in nature? Or is it just largely influenced by J-C?

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Okay, so I've gotten into an argument with someone about whether or not this nation was based on Judeo-Christian legal tradtions. Our Constitution is secular. We don't have an argument about that. He argues that

- The 8th amendment is based on "an eye for an eye"

- Republicanism over Theocracy

- Individualism over Collectivism

- Democracy over Authoritarianism

- Natural law over Positive Law

He agrees that the Constitution is meant to allow for secular beliefs. What we do not agree on is that this nation's legal tradition is Judeo-Christian in nature.

I argue that the Declaration of Independence provision that states that it is morally acceptable to revolt against an abusive leader, and the Second Amendment based on this notion is inconsistent with the Bible, and thus, it is not compatible with Judeo-Christian law.

Is our government largely Judeo-Christian? I mean not to imply that many legal concepts Ayn Rand found to be moral were results of the aforementioned religions, but is our legal tradition Judeo-Christian in nature? Or is it just largely influenced by J-C?

What do you mean by religious law or religious legal tradition?

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Okay, so I've gotten into an argument with someone about whether or not this nation was based on Judeo-Christian legal tradtions. Our Constitution is secular.

Although I tend to use the term some what often, there is no such thing as Judeo-Christian tradition. That is something that was created out of continued secularization and commercialization of American religious groups and life in general. During the cold war it was used as a term to create solidarity of religion (and America) against communism and what was its most evil component, atheism. The only "Judeo-Christian tradition" that existed, maybe one could say up until that point, was infighting amongst christian groups in America (protestant vs. catholic) and a solid hate against Jews.

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As RussK pointed out, there isn't any such thing as a Judeo-Christian legal tradition.

However, there is a plurality of ideological groups that call themselves Christians.

The six tendencies I can think of.

Fundementalist Christiainity, Apocalyptic and Pseudo-Conservative. Same type of people who were involved in the progressive movement, but they pretend to be for capitalism.

You have Post-Enlightenment 19th Century Liturgical Christians, who tended to be pro-liberty.

You have Post-Enlightenment 19th century non-liturgical Christians, the progressives came out of this group.

The Catholic Church up till the reformation was a major political power in western europe.

Orthodox Christianity in the east was and still is basically monarchist/authoritarian.

Then you have Tolstoyans who are absolute pacifists, no aggression what so ever, basically communist-anarchists without a revolution.

Of all of the traditions that are there is, he is probably referring to a mixture of the 19th Century Liturgical types and the contemporary Fundamentalists. Post-Enlightenment Liturgical Christians, however, are barely Christians at all.

Look up the lecture "The Emergence of Communism" by Murray Rothbard. Its hard to understand, but he has some interesting ideas about how Christianity influenced politics in America. That is where I got these ideas from.

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Okay, so I've gotten into an argument with someone about whether or not this nation was based on Judeo-Christian legal tradtions.

Does he watch Glenn Beck? The entire format of his show is now centered around how the Founders were all super-Christians whos sole motive in doing what they did was altruism. Faith, hope, and charity, that is the whole show.

j..

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Our legal tradition is derived from England. There is nothing Judaic about English law. There is hardly anything Christian about English law, and it certainly was long-standingly the case that the church (either church) did not get to directly determine English law.

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  • 4 years later...

Okay, so I've gotten into an argument with someone about whether or not this nation was based on Judeo-Christian legal tradtions. Our Constitution is secular. We don't have an argument about that. He argues that

- The 8th amendment is based on "an eye for an eye"

 

 

The notion of having different levels of retaliation or punishment for different levels of crime is as the first thoughtful primitives who figured they should not kill another person for the smallest of slights. At some point, many thousands of years ago, people -- probably independently in various places -- must have identified the notion of scale when it comes to good and evil deeds, and to crimes and punishments. This is not something that the Jews invented.

 

From the code of Hammurabi, over 1700 years before Christ: Law #196. "If a man destroy the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye. If one break a man's bone, they shall break his bone. If one destroy the eye of a freeman or break the bone of a freeman he shall pay one mana of silver. If one destroy the eye of a man's slave or break a bone of a man's slave he shall pay one-half his price."

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