The origins of laws

Henry became the new representative of God on earth, no longer the Pope. Henry became the new giver of laws, no longer the Church. Henry became the enforcer of laws, no longer the Church. In the past, the Church tried you, sentenced you, and punished you for violating ‘God’s laws’. Now, Henry held the power of life and death over the English people.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Islam has thought me well. The body is sacred and probably the only thing in life that you have complete control over. With this control, we should exercise ethical behavior and treat ours and others' with the utmost respect. Sexual activity should remain between loving persons as an interpretation of their passion and respect for each other. Prostitution LGBTs etc etc should remain illegal to set an example to society that it is not morally right to sell one's body as if it were a product. By the way RPK you may have not gone to Australia (a civilised nation created under British Christian Laws). In Victoria, Australia, where prostitution is legal, casinos deal sexual favor chips that can be cashed in at local brothels. The whole of Victoria is devoid of human ethics. -- Udin

Apa gile betul nee..Next time please write about STDs ..sexually transmitted diseases. People like buying and selling, so next time you write about why sex should not be sold.. then extrapolate this to legalizing prostitution and also how it will help regulate the industry and then making it safer for women and controlling the spread of STD. Once prostitution is legalized, the number of people out there practicing it will grow tremendously. To use an example, if Marijuana became legalized it would be a fair bet to say that around eighty percent of people would be smoking marijuana on a regular basis. We know that although it is illegal, many people smoke Marijuana now. In any case you should know that Brothels may be subjecting clients to women with STDs and not even know it, and because prostitution is legal, thousands more men will be engaging with these women than normally would if it was against the law. This is when and where religion became a source of reference. -- Udin

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Dear Udin, I refer to the two comments above, which you posted in my article Let’s ban people who believe in God from public office. Note that I have not edited or amended your comments but have published them in their original text.

My article was about how religious laws evolved into common laws. Laws such as the ‘unnatural sexual act’ law passed by England’s Parliament during the time of Henry VIII were actually adopted from ‘church laws’.

And allow me to explain how that happened.

Around 500 years or so ago, England was practically bankrupt. From the mid-1300s to the mid-1400s, England was engaged in the 100 Years War with France. By the time Henry took the throne, England had no more money. But Henry still needed to go to war with France. So, how was he going to finance these wars?

Now, why did Henry want to go to war with France? This is where English history is very complex and beyond the comprehension of Malaysians who never studied English history. The English were not really the Rulers of England. Technically, the Vikings from France were. England actually changed hands many times. At one time, the Romans were ruling England, at least south of Adrian’s Wall. Then they had the Vikings. By the year 1,000, the Saxons were ruling South England with the Vikings in the Midlands and the Picts in the North, what we would now call Scotland. The Celts were in what we now call Wales and the Picts also in Ireland, together with the Vikings.

Hence, England at that time was only the Southern part and not the whole of England that we know today. 

Then, in 1066, the Normans from Normandy, which is now France, invaded England. The Normans were not really Frenchmen but Norsemen or people from the North, meaning Vikings. The Saxons, who were also engaged in a war with the Vikings in the North of England, were defeated at Hastings and William, the Duke of Normandy, took over as the King of England. Hence part of France and part of England could be considered as belonging to the same Kingdom.

Eventually, over the next 400 years, France took over the ‘English territory’ in France and the Kingdoms of France and England were separated by the English Channel. In short, England lost its territories in France and the 100 Years War was this defining moment.

Henry’s dream was to recapture England’s ‘lost territory’ in France. So this meant another war. But how does Henry embark on a costly war with France when the treasury was bankrupt? Henry turned to the Church to try to borrow money to finance his army. But the Crown already owed the Church a lot of money, which it was not able to pay back. So the Church, which was very rich, and still is, declined the request for further loans.

Now, it must be remembered that the Church owned about 20% of all the land in England, as it did in France and other parts of Europe. And the Church was levying taxes on this land. So this made the Church very rich. However, instead of lending Henry the money that he wanted, the Church was sending the money to Rome.

The only way Henry could get his hands on this money and stop it from going to Rome was to control the Church. But the Pope was head of the Church, not the King. Henry’s advisors then came out with a plan for Henry to start a new Church, the Church of England, and appoint himself as head of this new Church of England. Then the Crown can confiscate all the property of the Church and make it Crown property.

With the stroke of a pen, Henry’s treasury was suddenly flush with cash. Henry’s army went round the country to burn the Catholic churches, kill the Catholic priests, and confiscate everything they could get their hands on. Those who resisted were hung and burned alive. Convert (to the Church of England), or die, was basically the order of the day.

Henry became the new representative of God on earth, no longer the Pope. Henry became the new giver of laws, no longer the Church. Henry became the enforcer of laws, no longer the Church. In the past, the Church tried you, sentenced you, and punished you for violating ‘God’s laws’. Now, Henry held the power of life and death over the English people. This also gave Henry the 'immunity' from the Church that he needed, which was forbidding him from divorcing his wife, an added bonus.

Okay, now let us relate all these events of the 1500s to my article, Let’s ban people who believe in God from public office.

In 1533, England’s Parliament passed The Buggery Act. Basically, it was a law that made sodomy a crime. And sodomy was classified as an unnatural sexual act against the will of God and man. In fact, this was an old church law so it was not really a new law. Only now, the government and not the Church enforced this law.

In short, the government took over all the powers of the Church and Parliament passed laws to turn religious laws into common laws. The basis of all these laws was still Church laws.

Now, around that same time, also in the 1500s, the Europeans came to Malaya. First came the Portuguese, then the Dutch. Then, another 200 years or so later, the English took over. And when the English ran this country they introduced laws. Then, another 200 years or so later, the English left and Malaya became independent. However, although the British may have left the country, they left the various systems that they set up. And this included the administrative, education and legal systems.

Hence, Udin, my argument in that article of mine, which you have commented on, is that some of the laws in practice in Malaysia today have a history. And this history can be traced back to England. And if you were to trace this history, you will discover that many common laws are actually originally church or religious laws.

That, dear Udin, is the gist of what I am trying to say. Can you now see that your comments are off-the-mark and not at all refer to what I was talking about? How does what you say rebut my argument that many common laws have religious origins and that they have actually evolved from Church laws of the pre-Henry VIII era? Furthermore, I was not talking about prostitution. And The Buggery Act 1533 is not about homosexuality. It is about making anal sex a crime, even between husband and wife.