Bruce Lee can (and did) kick his arse. Mr. Norris just likes Huckabee's plan to make sure everyone practices his version of Christian morality.

You're just jealous that you can't do a bazillion crunches. And yes Bruce Lee kicked his but. And they could both kick Sensei Seagal's but, who could in turn kick David Carradine's butt. And they could all kick our respective butts. Now that we've got that straight I don't think Chuck and Huck's brand of Christianity are quite the same. And no one can (or should) make sure of that. But I knew what you meant.

Hey Scott,

"You're just jealous that you can't do a bazillion crunches."

If it were that important to me, I would be doing tons of push ups. But a good paycheck and computer games (among many other things) are obviously much more important to me ;)

I'm just upset that Bruce Lee isn't around anymore to put Norris in his place.

I'm much less interested in their particular flavors of Christianity than I am the fact that both of them think Christian morality should form that basis behind laws.

Yeah me too. It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I have too many "important" things to do. ;-)

I miss Bruce too. They're actually going to make a movie with him as a digital actor and use all of his dialogue, chopping it up to fit the movie. Should be interesting if a bit creepy.

And of course you know that Christian morality forms the basis of a good number of our laws. The blue laws are primarily what I'm thinking of here, and those are gradually going away. Still what's the problem with Christian morality forming the basis of some laws? No one's making a law respecting religion, iow no one is establishing a state run church or ftm a church run state.

I wouldn't vote for him simply because they didn't credit Seth MacFarlane or any of the Family Guy writers with Huck's quotes about Norris.

What does "hypocrisy" mean?

What does "plagiarism" mean?

Oh, Scott, I can't let this one slide:

And of course you know that Christian morality forms the basis of a good number of our laws.

Be careful, there. A number of laws concur with Christian morality. Concurrence doesn't guarantee causation. For instance, a number of our laws concur with Hindu morality, yet our laws are not based on Hindu morality.

But the blue laws are a good example of laws that are based on Christianity. I believe these to be unconstitutional.

Still what's the problem with Christian morality forming the basis of some laws?

Which bits of Christian morality? Who's interpretations? What's the punishment for not honoring one's father? Which day is really the Sabbath, Saturday or Sunday? Is 'gosh dammit' close enough to taking the Lord's name in vain to stone the offender to death? If we only use a subset of Christian morality, what criteria are we to use to choose which to use and which to exclude?

I think you get my point.

I fully intended that to be bait. ;-)

Since this country was founded by Europeans who were undeniably influenced by Judeo-Christianity (those that weren't Christians themselves) I would say that it goes beyind being in concurrence with. The morals of a large number of the founding fathers were influenced not by Hinduism, Jainism, or Islam, but Christianity and Judaism. We had the Ten Commandments and the Bible in the one room school houses of this nation before, during, and after its founding. Since those schools were, unless I miss my guess, not government funded it would not have been un-Constitutional. So I would further hazard a guess that the majority of children during the first hundred years or so were influenced by Chrisitianity. So I think saying that Christian morality formed the basis of many of our laws today isn't going too far out in left field. That's a good distance, a very comfortable distance for me, from having a church run state or vice versa. Can you deny any of this? And note that I am most decdedly not saying that the founding fathers wanted to form a "Christian nation". I don't believe that for a minute.

Also, your last paragraph? I don't think Huckabee or Chuck want to stone anyone. I think if I were a legislator whose views are undeniably informed by my faith, as Huckabee's are, I would be making decisions informed by those views, but with an eye towards the constitutionality of them. For instance as a Christian who finds it my moral duty to care for the poor I would use whatever power I had to make laws that would ensure that our country does that. Would that be unconstitutional?

Hello Scott.

"can you deny any of this?"

No. Those assumptions sound reasonable and likely true.

I'd make two points here. First, the morality Christianity was influenced by Jewish morality, which was influenced by Zoroastrianism religion, which, in turn, was influenced by an earlier system of thought, etc. Choosing Christianity seems... arbitrary.

Secondly, our laws were based on the idea that all people have natural (or even God-given, depending on who you read) rights. Our laws are designed to protect these rights. This is a new idea with a new basis. Some of Christian morality had the effect of protecting rights. But the basis for Christian morality is not the rights themselves, but God's word.

I think that Christianity certainly did, and currently does, influence our laws. But having influence is different from forming a basis.

Also, your last paragraph? I don't think Huckabee or Chuck want to stone anyone.

I don't think that's what they (or almost every other Christian) want. The point I was trying to make is that there is a criteria other than Christian morality that we use to pick and choose which aspects of Christian morality to accept, how to interpret and codify the ones we choose, and how we choose to enforce them. It is this criteria on which our laws are based. The basis is a reasoned protection of individual rights.

I certainly agree that Christianity was influenced by Judaism. Past that we can be less certain and the differences become more substantial. The point is that the founders of this country were most acutely influenced by Christian morality in addition to the culture of their day. Choosing Christianity is far from arbitrary, since it is that religion that had the most direct influence.

I'm far from an expert on political science so I'll concede that our country was doing something relatively speaking new. I think that God's word was very much on the minds of our founding fathers. I'm not saying that Christianity formed the basis of our country. I merely said that it forms the basis of some of our laws, a point you conceded earlier. I think we both agree that it influenced a good deal of our founding father's thoughts one way or another. Even Ben Franklin believed that parts of the Bible had merit. Of course there were also a good number of other philosophies that influenced them as well.

I was not trying to make the case that Christianity formed the basis of our legal/political system, so I agree with your last paragraph. The criteria that we currently use is (hopefully) bound up more in the Constitution than the Bible. I'd have it no other way. I still stand by my statement though. We have laws that were written by Christians who were making these laws based on their sense of morality which while it might have things in common with other religions is strictly speaking Christian by definition. So long as these laws are Constitutional I don't see a problem.

WOW...Huckabee is unfurling years old webjunk in his campaign!

Obama responds: "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!11!ONE"

Chuck4Huck.. not a bad idea for a high school student council campaign :)

Maybe Mike can help Chuck sell those exercise machines on thse infomercials :(

Ssssshhh, he thinks he's being edgy..