Archives for articles tagged "bill-of-rights"

Justice & rights

Justice came up in the discussion a few days ago on What makes one person more caring than another? and it’s been one of those topics that keeps popping up everywhere I look lately. In an email exchange recently, a Christian (who does not post here) sent me an essay about naturalistic vs. theistic bases for morality, Read the rest of this entry »

11-30-2006 |

Friday Video: Habeas Corpus (what??)

There’s an event that sounds intriguing in Seattle this weekend: “Freedom Rings…and the long life of Habeas Corpus”. According to the flyer, it will include speakers and choirs from both a (black) Baptist church and a (white) Unitarian-Universalist church, ‘prominent community leaders’ reading the Bill of Rights ‘with Gospel accompaniment’, and a physical/comic actor/artist who will “enact the role of Habeas Corpus”. Sounds irresistible! I hope to go. But it forces me to ask, finally, just what “habeas corpus” is.

Luckily, YouTube had this handy-dandy video to help explain habeas corpus & that pesky Constitution, from “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” on MSNBC.

link to movie

11-03-2006 |

Class #4: The Ten Commandments (part 1)

Wow. I thought I was getting a sense of where this pastor’s, and this church’s, beliefs come from: Bible-based, literal, OK — I thought I knew what that meant. Hoooo boy did this topic toss me a big surprise. This is not what I’d read & heard about the Ten Commandments before. (Read on & see how it compares to your understanding of them…)

Here are the main points that I learned from class #4:

1. There are meaning and purpose attributed to the Ten Commandments that I’ve never run into before.
2. The Ten Commandments are numbered differently by different groups.
3. The 3rd commandment no longer applies.
4. The 4th and 5th commandments are more expansive in scope than they seem (and, more than I’d ever heard before).
5. This class could use a session to review the Bill of Rights (of the U.S. Constitution).

Read the rest of this entry »

10-26-2006 |