In U.S. founding, Bible not central
In the July 15 Faith and Family section, Daniel Dreisbach took unqualified liberties with the relationship of the Bible and the founding of the United States. The Bible did not cause, nor foretell, its development.
John Adams may have been a Christian. However, he was a Unitarian and did not ascribe to the trinitarian view of Father, son and Holy Spirit, as reflected in many current Christian teachings. Adams pointed to the Hebrew Bible for republicanism. “The Hebrews,” he said, “have done more to civilize men than any other nation.”
While Dreisbach attributes to the Bible the foundation and wisdom of the democratic process, I’ll suggest the Bible is not the reason. The Bible is used, as other important documents, as validation for decisions men and women make in favor of, or against, this or that.
One only has to look briefly into history to see those who have committed genocide, conquered nations, beat children, thrown acid on women, eaten pork, killed prisoners and many other forbidden activities, all in the name of the holy book.
All authoritative text is interpreted in light of the times. No different with the Bible, other authoritative scripts and the Constitution.
Lincoln Christensen
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Reader appreciates TFP columnist event
I attended the “Headshots to Handshakes” meeting at the TFP on Tuesday evening and was very impressed with the format and getting to meet your editorial staff, along with being able to ask questions. An interesting variety of questions, and I enjoyed the answers.
I have been a subscriber for many years and enjoy writing letters to the editor with my views, and wish more would write their educated views for us to ponder.
Here in Dunlap, we only have one weekly newspaper. It has a great circulation among the locals. There is no editorial section and some of the letters I have written in the past were not published for various reasons, so we don’t get much input from the citizens. That is unfortunate. I get interesting feedback from my letters, most favorably in Dunlap.
In closing, I learned last evening you all have thick skin. We all need that. This is a ‘thank you’ and keep it up.
Jack Pine, Dunlap, Tenn.
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Consumers bear brunt of steep corporate taxes
It astonishes me that America has the highest corporate taxes in the developed world. Businesses don’t pay taxes, they only collect them.
When government imposes a tax on a business, it is just another cost of doing business. That cost will become part of the price of their product just like the electric bill and payroll.
So guess who winds up paying the tax? We do.
We pay it when we buy the product. I wonder how much of the price of a car is business taxes? Thirty percent? Fifty percent?
Let your elected representative know that you have figured this out and you’re tired of it.
Eric Ashby