What “Judeo-Christian” Values?

SARAH PALIN, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I have said all along that America is based on Judeo-Christian beliefs and, you know, nobody has to believe me though. You can just go to our Founding Fathers' early documents and see how they crafted a Declaration of Independence and a Constitution that allows that Judeo-Christian belief to be the foundation of our lives. And our Constitution, of course, essentially acknowledging that our unalienable rights don't come from man; they come from God. So this document is set up to protect us from a government that would ever infringe upon our rights to have freedom of religion and to be able to express our faith freely.

"Die Kultur in Deutschland ist jüdisch-christlich geprägt."

Messen wir also die christliche Kultur an der Realität, an ihren geschaffenen materiellen Gütern und, als vielleicht wichtigstes Kulturgut, an der Anhäufung wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis. Seit der kulturellen Wiege der Menschheit bei den Assyrern steigerten die darauf folgenden Hochkulturen der Ägypter, Griechen und Römer ihre Kulturleistungen. Was folgte darauf? Ein tausend Jahre währendes Kulturloch. Die Christen waren Meister im Schleifen von Vorgängerkulturen. Mancher Tempelfries ziert noch heute eine hässliche Kirchenfassade.
Gemessen an dem, was vorher an Kultur vorhanden war, sind die ersten tausend Jahre Christentum eine Katastrophe, die erst mit der Aufklärung gestoppt werden konnte. Sogenannt christliche Kulturgüter entstanden erst dank neuer säkularer Werte, basierend auf Wissenschaft und Philosophie, welche bis heute unser Leben prägen. Die europäische Leitkultur baut somit weiterhin auf den Werten des einstigen Abendlandes, etwa der griechischen Philosophie und dem römischen Recht, nicht aber auf Judentum und Christentum.

("Let us measure Christian culture against reality, the material goods it has created and, perhaps as Europe's most important cultural asset, by the accumulation of scientific findings. After the Assyrian dawn of mankind the high cultures of the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans followed, each of these cultures attaining a higher level of cultural achievement. And what came then? A cultural void that lasted a thousand years. The Christians were masters in copying from previous cultures. Even today the odd temple frieze beautifies an ugly church façade. Compared with the cultures that preceded them the first thousand years of Christianity were a disaster that only ended with the Enlightenment. So-called Christian cultural assets emerged only thanks to the new secular values, based on science and philosophy, which still define our lives today. Europe's guiding culture therefore continues to rely on the values of the early Occident, such as Greek philosophy and Roman law, rather than Judaism and Christianity.")

Now, if Sarah Palin had pointed out that the institution of slavery, which the American  Founding Fathers endorsed, was part of our Judeo-Christian heritage, she would be on firm ground.