Sunday, May 4, 2014

Discussion

From the lack of posts, you can tell I've been busy. American Creation participants might want to discuss the articles in this link from John Fea from last Sunday. Lots of great stuff to read there.

6 comments:

Bill Fortenberry said...

Seemed kind of boring to me. Fea's link to the American Revolution Reborn conference was much more interesting especially Heyrman's piece at: http://www.common-place.org/vol-14/no-03/heyrman/#.U2cSU6LQ5j5

If you're looking for topics to discuss, I've recently accused Gregg Frazer of lying about his "key founders'" use of the name of Christ in an article entitled: Gregg Frazer is Still Lying about the Founders.

And I've also pointed out that Richard Carrier was wrong in his claim that America was founded more on the ten commandments of Solon than on the Ten Commandments of the Bible. The first of this two-part article is available on my blog under the title of: Richard Carrier - Wrong About History Again

Tom Van Dyke said...

Ouch, Mr. Fortenberger. Must you use the word "lie"?

It makes you sound psycho like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqMIOc7afZ0

And FTR, although I have some problems with Gregg Frazer's thesis, he's been a friend to this blog and has always comported himself in exemplary fashion.

That's not to say you haven't, but I think "lie" is a word best left for the culture warriors.

Bill Fortenberry said...

I guess I could have used softer words, but I don't think that I was any harsher on Gregg than he has been toward Barton and Marshall.

Tom Van Dyke said...

You'd have to show me where Gregg has crossed that line into polemics and culture war.

And even if he has, I'm personally not a fan of anyone doing so. If you do it too, or if we do it too here--and we've had a few posts that have called Barton a liar--I think it's bad for discussion, bad for our nation's polity.

I think it's great you pull no punches on this New Orthodoxy, but I'd rather see you do it here in the real world, not in the Bearded Spock Universe where calling people liars is considered acceptable.

Otherwise, give 'em hell, Billy!

Bill Fortenberry said...

I think that Gregg admits that in the preface of his book:

And any students of politics knows, as did the Founders, that those who win the battle of ideas generally determine policy. My purpose in writing this book spans both disciplines and includes both motives. I want to get the history right. More than that, though, I want to force extremists on the Left and on the Right to make the case for their vision of what America should be on its own merits, without hijacking the fame of the Founders and without holding their reputations hostage to causes of which they would not approve. [emphasis mine]

I suspect that Gregg has simply allowed his primary goal of forcing the "Christian America camp" (as he puts it) to stop relying on the founders to compromise his secondary goal of getting the history right. My article documents this effect. Gregg is so eager to prove that the "key founders" denied Christ that he has resorted to saying something that he knows to be false.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Oh, I think he believes it's all true. In his theology, many or most heterodox Christians aren't Christian atall.

My objection has always been that to accept Dr. Frazer's history, first you have to accept his theology, and that's a line he should not ask us to cross.

As for his preface/manifesto

I want to force extremists on the Left and on the Right to make the case for their vision of what America should be on its own merits, without hijacking the fame of the Founders and without holding their reputations hostage to causes of which they would not approve.

I do not approve. Although it has a veneer of even-handedness--a pox on both houses--in real life it's the Right who most often claims the Founding principles. The Left prefers to argue in the name of "progress" and "living constitutionalism," that we should not be bound by the sentiments of Dead White Men.

"My friends on the right don’t like to hear this, but the Constitution is not a clear document. Written 100 years ago, when America had thirteen states and very different problems, it rarely speaks directly to the questions we ask it."---The Washington Post's Ezra Klein