Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Clifford Goldstein
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000178B
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00:06 Welcome back to "The Liberty Insider."
00:08 Before the break with guest, Clifford Goldstein. 00:10 We were talking Zombie Muhammad, 00:13 and a crazy incident there in Mechanicsville, Pennsylvania. 00:20 And this is a matter of free speech 00:21 and we discussed that at some length. 00:23 Free speech has amazing limits legally 00:26 and thankfully that those- 00:28 But to me it raises a bigger question of religious liberty. 00:31 You and I take it for granted, we defend it. 00:34 We look at the constitution, we look at Bible text 00:38 and so on, but what is the philosophical 00:40 and logical base for religious liberty. 00:43 Is it so self evident, 00:44 is it one of this self evident truth. 00:46 Now, and that's where, you know, 00:47 I mentioned in our earlier show that I thought 00:49 Jefferson's declaration of independence was bit over 00:54 the top, and you know, we hold these truths 00:56 to be self evident, that all men are created 00:58 equal and they die with their creator 00:59 with all these alienable life, 01:01 liberty in the pursuit of happiness. 01:03 It all sounds nice, but I am not really quite sure 01:06 it is an unalienable truth. 01:08 You know, it's very obvious, in fact- 01:11 It's not obvious to most societies, 01:13 because they don't grant it naturally. 01:14 Well, I mean you go back, we talked here about Plato, 01:17 you go back Aristotle. 01:20 Aristotle was very much into putting things in categories, 01:23 you know, into categorizing this, categorizing that, 01:26 everything, I think he got one of his things 01:28 is called the categories, and so forth. 01:30 But he argued for slavery. And she said it was natural. 01:38 He said there are some people amazed to this place. 01:41 Well, there are some people who are made to be slave. 01:44 Some people are made to be, you know, this higher level. 01:48 And I think Plato, even bought into some of that as well so, 01:51 its not- Now I better defend Plato. 01:54 I think when they were talking about slavery, 01:58 as even in the Bible, it was really well, 02:02 what do they used to say in the U.S. 02:04 early days, it was bonded servant. 02:07 Yeah, that peculiar institutions. 02:09 Now, this slavery where you got someone 02:12 that you're holding by force, you'll be mistreatment. 02:16 You treat them less than human, 02:17 but throughout a lot of human history 02:19 it was bonded servants, people that did 02:23 financially lost independence over landlords, 02:25 or were contractually tied to an employer. 02:29 Yeah. 02:31 And what did Jesus say, 02:32 the employer always has with you. 02:34 So I implying that side of the argument. 02:36 I can say yes, society naturally stratifies, 02:39 but that shouldn't deprive a court slave, 02:43 or person without the same economic freedom. 02:46 They shouldn't deprive them 02:47 of their human rights and values. 02:49 But I think this discussion of slavery 02:52 when you get into ancient Greeks 02:54 and so on, and even the Bible. 02:56 It's not always the same thing as the institution in the- 02:58 Well, I wouldn't have a slave to slavery, 03:01 you could put it different turn out, its still- 03:02 Well, I don't know about you, but I feel 03:04 that I'm a slave to the bank 03:05 when I have to pay them mortgage. 03:07 Yeah, well, but then you can take it to flaws some ways. 03:09 I'm a slave to the government if I don't pay the tax, 03:11 where do I end up. 03:12 Yeah, but you could put it to flaw, 03:14 but I think lets use the term in it, 03:15 the way that we generally know back in ancient Greek world 03:18 that wasn't so much a racial thing as it was. 03:21 If you went-- they went to war. 03:23 Those who lost, they took the women, 03:26 they kill the men, and whatever they could take, 03:28 you know, and they put 03:29 and make him a slave and so forth. 03:30 But the point is, the point is Aristotle 03:33 who is probably a great man, okay, to say the least. 03:36 He looked around and a good astute student of nature. 03:40 He spend his life studying the world. 03:42 He argued that there was an inherent, you know, 03:45 inherent levels of humanity and that there were 03:48 certain people who were meant to be slave. 03:50 So it's not a natural thing 03:53 that's right, that's right there. 03:55 Now there might be something innate in humans, 03:59 would strive for freedom, they want freedom, 04:02 and I believe that. 04:04 And again to say, I do think from our religious liberty 04:08 perspective coming from our perspective, 04:10 we really can't separate it from our theology. 04:14 No. 04:15 And that's where I'm leading it to it. 04:16 Because I mean if you really want to argue, 04:18 if you took a totally atheistic worldview, 04:22 say that a dog when in worldview dog eats dog, 04:26 survival of the fittest. 04:27 You can almost argue that slavery would be 04:29 a natural thing, you know, 04:31 that those who are stronger over the weak 04:33 dominate them and use them to support themselves 04:37 and to use them to keep them going, 04:39 so I think from a--I mean I guess, 04:41 I'm sure there is some very articulate atheists, 04:45 an evolutionists who could argue 04:47 very well for their position. 04:49 There's a philosophical viewpoint that would be 04:51 fairly not synonymous, but agreed-- 04:54 agreeable to true religious liberty. 04:56 Ironically in my view is Anarchism. 04:58 Yeah, well, yeah, without-- 04:59 Without lure, without keep. 05:01 Yeah, yeah, that's not really 05:02 freedom though, that's not really-- 05:03 No, but it's the freedom that many people think of 05:05 that innately we've a right 05:07 to for absolute self determination, 05:09 no one can strain you. 05:11 If you talk about the first amendment before, 05:14 but there are other restrains. 05:16 There are restrains, there are civil restrains, 05:18 and even there are heavenly restrains. 05:21 God doesn't, you know, 05:23 the whole story of the Garden of Eden. 05:24 Adam and Eve were created free, 05:26 but not to do anything they want to. 05:27 Also you're bringing in now, 05:29 you're bringing in the theological construct. 05:31 If you want to bring a theological construct. 05:33 Of course, you got to wobble, that's fine. 05:35 We're gonna go that way. We're gonna go that way. 05:37 If you're gonna go from a purely secular contra. 05:40 As I said I've no doubt, you can find 05:41 some secular atheistic, Darwin in evolution 05:44 of people who would come up think the dignity of man. 05:47 Well, I'm not sure where that comes 05:49 from an atheistic worldview. 05:50 I mean we're just all on the, you know, 05:52 as Richard Clarkin says, we're just machines created 05:55 to keep our genes alive and so on. 05:57 But now from a theological perspective, 05:59 but even here you're really, that it's very hard to 06:04 go to the Old Testament, in it of itself at face value 06:08 and get religious freedom out of the Old Testament. 06:11 Well, it's a theocracy like. It's really like theocracy. 06:13 Now you can go back to, now I think in Eden. 06:16 In Eden, well, I tell you, you can go back further. 06:18 For me one of the most powerful verses in the Bible, 06:22 verse that-that, doesn't say haunt me, haunts me. 06:25 But a verse I think about a lot 06:28 is a description of Lucifer in Ezekiel. 06:31 "You were perfect in your ways from the day 06:34 that you were created." 06:36 Now interested enough that word created, 06:38 that Hebrew verb there Bara, is a verb that appears 06:42 only with God as a subject. 06:44 In other words a number of different verbs 06:46 in the Hebrew Bible were created, 06:48 made, form, done, but only God Baras. 06:52 Okay, it says it was a Bereshit bara Elohim et 06:54 hashamayim ve'et ha'arets. 06:56 In the beginning God created the heavens. 06:58 You're pulling linguistic lang to me. 06:59 Yeah, we already getting God creator. 07:01 Some of our viewers haven't seen 07:02 what I've seen in the morning. 07:03 You know, we work in the same building. 07:04 And I've seen you pacing, they're always with you, 07:07 your Hebrew Bible. 07:08 Yeah, yeah, yes I do my worship-- 07:11 Analyzing it, I know you know this. 07:12 Absolutely. 07:14 Yes, so the point is, in the beginning, so, so, 07:16 you were perfect in the ways from the day that you, 07:19 Lucifer was created, created by God. 07:22 Then sin was found in you and you've to say with it. 07:24 Till iniquity was found in you. 07:26 But where did it come from? So if here's a question. 07:28 You got a perfect pain, created b a perfect God, 07:31 'cause God says, you were perfect in your ways, 07:33 a perfect thing created by a perfect God, 07:35 in a perfect universe in heaven. 07:37 And yet it says, Iniquity was found in him. 07:41 How did that happen? 07:42 Because the only way it could be is that perfection 07:47 includes the potential for iniquity 07:51 and included, because an, an, an-- 07:53 But iniquity still must be in action. 07:56 If its something within him, it had to have come 07:59 somewhere and it came to perfect him. 08:00 It came from, well, I can't-- 08:02 we don't really know it, but the point is 08:03 God created a free being, a truly, morally free being. 08:10 And that true freedom to be truly 08:12 more he could have created a robot 08:14 or a zombie or something like that, 08:15 and it wouldn't have so, so it's amazing. 08:18 You got a perfect being 08:19 created by a perfect God in a perfect universe, 08:21 and yet iniquity was found in him, 08:23 because that perfection included the potential. 08:26 You come down to Adam and Eve on earth, perfect. 08:29 God saw all that He made, it was very good. 08:33 So He got perfect beings created by a perfect God, 08:36 you know, in a perfect world and yet Adam and Eve sinned. 08:41 Adam and Eve sinned. 08:43 How could that have possibly happened, 08:44 because that perfection included moral freedom, 08:48 that perfection included the potential, 08:52 the option to do wrong. 08:55 And think to, as I'm waxing here. 08:57 Because Eve was deceived, Adam was more of the -- 09:00 Well, well, do they still, but think to. 09:02 Why did God in the biblical account, 09:05 why did he warned them against eating from the tree 09:09 unless, you know, I waste Kids, 09:11 I got two kids in College. 09:12 Now I never once remember saying 09:14 to one of my kids, to my son. 09:16 He took the car keys, you know, 09:18 you kind of grip your teeth in here. 09:19 Given the keys oh, mean that is common. 09:22 They puts you to-you know, I want to talk, 09:24 I want the car things, because your hind, 09:26 but I'll never said to my son, 09:29 son I don't want you take a card to the moon this evening. 09:32 Why because it wasn't an option, it was a--. 09:34 So why did God have to say that Adam and Eve don't eat 09:39 of the tree unless they have the potential to do it. 09:42 So it shows, so what I'm saying is, 09:44 in there is where and of course 09:46 you can back to the New Testament. 09:47 We can pick up this another time, 09:48 you come back to the New Testament 09:50 with Jesus in the whole New Testament thing was. 09:54 Your Jesus died on the cross, because He gave us freedom. 09:57 You know, in other words. And if He made us zombies. 10:00 If He made us that we could not choose to sin 10:02 then Jesus would never have gone to the cross. 10:06 Because freedom is relative. Of course. Of course. 10:08 What's that song, freedom is just another word 10:10 for nothing left to loose. 10:11 Yeah. Janis Joplin. 10:12 Freedom's just another word for. 10:13 I'm not gonna sing it for you. 10:15 But, but especially well in the Old Testament, 10:17 but then in the New it says this, 10:19 "When you are free from sin which inhibits your potential. 10:23 When Christ frees us from that." 10:25 Then it says, "You become His slave." 10:27 You're really not absolutely, morally, 10:32 conceptually free even in the Bible. 10:35 Well, again it totally depends on what your concept 10:37 of how you understand freedom. 10:40 If you understand freedom, you could do whatever you want 10:42 whenever you want with anyone you want 10:44 anyway you want regardless of the consequences. 10:46 That's the license, you know-- 10:48 Yeah, yeah. That's not the Biblical-- 10:50 But I think the way I see it, 10:53 civil is man sort of administering his own affairs. 10:56 In the absence of the theocracy. 10:59 But as--as an individual, other men 11:01 have no right to restrict your 11:04 interchanging relationship with the Creator. 11:07 That's the root of-- 11:08 Well, that's the root of religious except-- 11:10 In your relationship with the Creator, 11:12 you are not absolutely free to do anything you want. 11:15 He's given you construct. 11:16 'Cause that's just called God's law. 11:18 So the point is freedom is a gift. 11:20 Freedom is a gift that God has given to us 11:25 but if it's through freedom, it comes with risks. 11:29 And as I've said before the greatest example 11:31 of seeing what that risk was 11:33 and the cost of that risk was the cross. 11:37 I mean so sacred was freedom, 11:38 rather than take that risk from us, 11:41 take that freedom from us, Jesus went to the cross. 11:43 That's why we need that. 11:44 Think very carefully about what we do with the freedom 11:48 that was given us at such an incredible price. 11:51 One of the most extraordinary scenes 11:54 in the Bible is where faced with Jesus 11:58 and His claims for the divinity, 12:00 the high priest ripped his robes. 12:03 It's an extraordinary scene because the Old Testament 12:06 was quite specified that if a high priest ripped his 12:10 robes like that he was to be put to death. 12:13 In the face of what he saw as a blasphemy, 12:16 the high priest himself was committing 12:20 an act of rebellion against God. 12:22 I think a lot of the behavior that we're seeing 12:25 in the world sometimes exemplified by Muslims, 12:29 sometimes by Christians and others, 12:31 objecting to discretions of their faith 12:34 coming to that same realm, it's never good 12:36 when someone knocks our faith, 12:38 but it's never good or excusable to react 12:43 in a way that's outrageous and violent. 12:46 Religious freedom to a large degree 12:48 in a civil construct exist on charitable respect 12:53 shown to other people of faith. 12:56 God is the judge at the end of the day. 12:58 "Vengeance is Mine." Says the Lord. 13:00 We are called to show toleration, 13:02 respect and understanding 13:04 of other people of different views. 13:08 For Liberty Insider, this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2014-12-17