Okay…last one…Wrapping up the Patriots Bible Series

In my earlier post about the Apollo 8 mission, I mentioned the section about Judeo-Christian ethics located in the beginning of this Bible.  How hypocritical is this little ditty....

Principle #1 - The Dignity of Human Life

Exodus 20:13 (You shall not murder)

Matthew 22:39 (You shall love your neighbor as yourself)

The Scriptures emphatically teach the great importance of the respect and preservation of human life.  In the Declaration of Independence, our nation's Founding Fathers wrote that everyone has "unalienable rights" and that among those rights are "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." We Americans not only believe this for our land, but also we send our brave military men and women around the world to defend the rights of those who are threatened.

If people and nations do not grant ultimate respect and protection to both the born and the unborn, all other professed morals and values are meaningless.  The dignity of human life is not just a principle of the Bible, it is the first principle of any civilized society. 

How can they say this with a straight face?  I picked up a couple of books at a yard sale a couple of weeks ago (also for a quarter a piece.  That must be the going price for yard sale books these days) One is called Secret Native American Pathways.  In it there is a section that talks about Trail of Tears….

….and in 1838, the removal called the “Trail of Tears” took place.  Sixteen thousand Cherokees were brutally rounded up by US Military forces and marched in midwinter to Indian Territory, which today is known as the state of Oklahoma.  Of this group, four thousand would perish in holding pens or along the way.  The entire episode stands as one of the darkest and most shameful events in United States history. 

 

The Trail of Tears, was painted by Robert Lindneux in 1942. It commemorates the suffering of the Cherokee people under forced removal.

I’m thinking perhaps neither of these images made it into the glossed over view of American history depicted in the American Patriots Bible.  To repeat the closing sentence in the first principle of Judeo-Christian ethics….. 

The dignity of human life is not just a principle of the Bible, it is the first principle of any civilized society. 

Hmmmmmmmm……say that again??