Tacitly dismissing the "insignificant" global era, rev.

          Readers who are interested in physics-based ethics for negotiating civic morality, providing relief from religious immorality in civics, please read Michael Gerson's column, "If our heroism is hopeless."[1] It is fascinating how close to our theory he comes. Our theory is that religious morals prevent civic morality and thereby ruin lives.

          Gerson tacitly claims that Mr. Obama is negotiating us into "a new and deadly global standoff . . . with one side holding an ideology with a streak of suicide." Then he cites the imaginings of a religious man to segue to "For all of us who perceive reality through the functions of a biological organism, the problem of the apocalypse is the problem of mortality." Then he goes from the personal to the global, recalling past cataclysms to say, "Blame the second law of thermodynamics . . . [for the march] from more to less." All to posit the Bible's hope for the soul "even unto the end of the world." Thus, the inevitable end of the global era is all for souls like that of Mr. Lewis, imaginary as souls may be.

          So here's another writer, self-styled “journalist,” making money from bemusement over the eternal hope that a person's personal god will provide rescue, in this case as a soul. So far, there’s been no evidence for souls or soul benefits. The intellectual construct is merely comforting for some, but bemuses too many persons who presume that there is nothing a people can do: So just get together and worship and pray. Here’s a better message: a civic people can govern a civic people through candid discussion. Candid discussion brutally discovers contradictions against physics, which is not beneficial. Together, a civic people can face brutal physics. For an example of rebuking physics, the Bible can be interpreted as supporting the idea a person can own a person. That's not an idea physics supports.

          Meanwhile, the Machiavellian political officials and clergy team up to do whatever they want and the people neither rebel nor leave their country (The Prince, Chapter XI). In America, it's Greece v Galloway, with a text that states plainly: legislative prayer is for the legislators, and the people who object to church and state partnership are welcome to leave the room during the prayer. In Iran, the president may negotiate all he wants, but when the Ayatollah steps in, all bets are off and demands from the clergy set in. As a consequence, Obama has embarrassment he is unable to recognize for reasons only he could suggest. Perhaps he envisions restoring humankind’s communications to before the tower of Babel. It's more reasonable to think Obama believes black liberation theology: The Christian god is black and black Americans will rein supreme.

          In the preamble, a civic people surrender nothing: not to their state government, not to the federal government; not to the people; and not to their personal gods. A civic people hope for the totalitarian "We the People of the United States," realizing that that phrase describes the subjugation of the people who resist the civic contact--the ignorant, the dissident, the criminal, the evil, and other persons who alienate themselves from a civic people. In the text of the constitution for the USA, those of the people who have not subscribed to the civic contract may find themselves subject to the law: restricted, incarcerated, even executed. If they have acted in conflict with civil law, their god cannot rescue them from law enforcement. In fact, evidently their god was faulty for them, or they would have had the character to observe civil law. Yet, they may reform. Historically, those who seceded from the USA to rebuke physics-based ethics paid the price. That's the mystery of the literal preamble: Its goals work to benefit from physics-based ethics.

          Many persons who are of a civic people make good use of their personal gods, but they also take responsibility to govern their person in civic morality; and many of a civic people also supervise their local governance and state governance; and many of a civic people also supervise their federal governance. However, they do not allow their personal gods to interfere with their civic responsibilities. And members of a civic people do not brook their clergy’s erroneous opinions regarding civic governance. Members of a civic people think for themselves respecting civic connections. Just as personally earning your money is in your best interest, personally tending civic morality is in your best interest. The persons most likely to overlook personal interest in civic morality are the very rich, who perceive they are shielded from it, and the very poor who are desperate for the next meal. A civic people need to help both extremes reform to interest in civic morality. A civic people need 70% of the members of every no-harm faction in this country to collaborate for the achievable combination personal liberty and domestic goodwill.

          When this country’s independent governance began, free citizens were 99% secular Protestant and 1% Catholic with white gods that could easily control or destroy persons with red gods and persons with black gods. The elite patriots controlled so only 6% of free inhabitants could vote; free women could not vote. Later, people with yellow gods were abused. Today, only 50% are secular Protestant but 100% of non-criminals can vote, and America is in chaos, because the red, yellow, black, white and other colored gods neither collaborate nor cooperate. The skin-colors of gods may never change, but the personal character of each person may psychologically advance during that person’s life of some eighty years; maybe it takes 30 years to get your feet on the ground, forty years to grow wisdom, and another ten years to eliminate self-contradiction. People in their early decades need to collaboration with people in the later decades. A people can establish integrity (the whole people in fidelity to civic connectivity), provided that most people adopt physics-based ethics as the means of settling civic disputes and negotiating necessary civil laws. Civic morality can overcome religious immorality in civics. It does not mean the end of religion, but does mean that each inhabitant who is of a civic people separates civic obligations from religious pursuits. In fact, civic morality makes it possible for every no-harm religion to flourish.

          With A Civic People of the United States using each the preamble; the ethics of physics; candid civic debate; supervision of elected and appointed officials; and celebrating a civic people, collaboration of by and for a civic people (modifying Abraham Lincoln's dream of 1863), can emerge for the first time in history.

Copyright©2015 by Phillip R. Beaver. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the publication of all or portions of this paper as long as this complete copyright notice is included. Revised August 4, 2015

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[1] Online at www.arcamax.com/politics/fromtheleft/michaelgerson/s-1636985 .