As president Kennedy observed in his 1961 inaugural address, "The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God." If the Atheist worldview is correct about there being no God, then the only place anything called "rights" can come from, is gratuitously from the state.
complete article here *******************************************************8 10-08-04, 01:53 PM MommyTimesTwo
quote:"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness..."
The Constitution says "creator". Therefore, I could suppose that an atheist reading that statement could assume that by creator, the Constitution means parents and ancestors. As in, the work of their ancestors gives them inaliable rights to enjoy the freedoms of this country.
BTW--I am agnostic. I do not assume creator to be God, because I am not certain there is a God. However, I am aware that JFK was Catholic, and I interpret his speech in the light of that knowledge. I interpret it to mean that in his belief, rights come from a higher power than the state, and the state cannot recind those rights.
10-08-04, 02:08 PM juanruiz "The Constitution says "creator."
This is an important point. If one were to infer anything from the Bible, it would be that the Judeo-Christian god apparently did not believe in such rights; he seemed to be ok with slavery, for example. As has been said ad nauseum for years on boards such as these, the authors of the document in question were Deists, and their definition of Creator would have been a good deal different from that commonly espoused today.
10-08-04, 02:11 PM MommyTimesTwo Hey Juan Smile
You are correct, the authors were Deists. (Protestants, mostly, right?)
However, the Constitution is constantly up for interpretation. Whereas before, when it was written, saying "all men are created equal" meant "men" to be only landowning white European males. But now we read "men" to mean humans. Therefore, I feel we can interpret Creator to mean whatever we personally feel it means, not just what the intended meaning was when the Constitution was written.
10-08-04, 02:17 PM FredPuli Rights come from The Creator? They don't ; they come from the common sense of the human race. It is not in the longterm interests of any community to deny those rights; not that every community sees that, of course, but the more intelligent ones do. You do not need God and priests to tell you such things; if indeed you can work out which of the words are those of God, and which those of humans who are not His messenger at that moment . Wild animals don't need to pray or ask senior animals to work out what is best for their species in the long run; and they haven't, under a god's purview, evolved into killing one another en masse for no obvious reason Smile
10-08-04, 02:18 PM juanruiz Most of the Founding Fathers suckled at the breast of the European Enlightenment; that is where they absorbed all these revolutionary ideas. One of which was the roi faitnéant, the do-nothing king...a god who set everything up like a clock, and then walked away to let it run on its own. And yes, you are right, that given the situation in the colonies at the time, "men" did not mean "all male homo sapiens".
10-08-04, 02:29 PM juanruiz "if indeed you can work out which of the words are those of God, and which those of humans who are not His messenger at that moment ."
Ah, Cher Fred, ça c'est la question. When you resolve it let me know Wink
10-08-04, 02:55 PM Paul Mommy times two says: "I feel we can interpret Creator to mean whatever we personally feel it means, not just what the intended meaning was when the Constitution was written."
Contrary to popular myth, our Constitution is not a living, breathing document up for interpretation, but rather a very clear and concise document that directly spells out the power of the federal government, its limitations and the rules it must follow, not rules that you and I must follow. Our actions with one another as individuals are ruled by the Common Law and the Law of Commerce. The Common Law is rooted in the Law of Commerce, and the Law of Commerce is rooted in Biblical Law. They go hand in hand quite nicely. source
The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, not freedom from religion, as atheists like to interpret.
FredPuli Said: "Rights come from The Creator? They don't ; they come from the common sense of the human race."
Where does common sense come from, that it can disappear so readily?
10-08-04, 03:00 PM juanruiz To my good friends piano1, Fred, and M X 2, let us not forget the words in question come from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution.
10-08-04, 03:30 PM MommyTimesTwo lol Okay, I give up already. I am totally talking out of my posterior here, as Juan just pointed out I didn't even have the right document. Razz I give up trying to think I know something Big Grin
10-08-04, 05:16 PM juanruiz S'ok, M. A day doesn't go by that I don't realize how little I know. Of course this was made particularly clear to me when my daughter was a teenager Wink.
10-09-04, 02:26 AM tsaeb
quote:Originally posted by juanruiz: "if indeed you can work out which of the words are those of God, and which those of humans who are not His messenger at that moment ."
Ah, Cher Fred, ça c'est la question. When you resolve it let me know Wink
We can do this in bits and pieces, one prophet at at time . . . another indication that there is no end of the world. After all, God has to always have more in His spirit than we can know with our meager brains and too often desperately wicked hearts.
10-09-04, 12:44 PM newnickname
quote:Where does common sense come from, that it can disappear so readily?
Common sense evolved. We behave a lot like our relatives, the apes, both in looking out for each other and in being murderous towards those not in our own 'group' - respecting and denying rights. Common sense is, roughly, simply how to survive and prosper in the world, as an individual or a society - avoiding dangers, finding the necessities, seeking strength in cooperation and so on. We're born - thanks to our evolutionary past - knowing how to come in out of the rain, find shelter, and share an umbrella.
Common sense can also arise from reasoning, from sitting down and trying to rationally think out what is best, considering hypothetical situations, past history and original theories (isn't that exactly what those who wrote the US constitution did?). The results of this deliberation can be passed from generation to generation, and can be refined by real-life trial and error. It becomes 'common sense' - everybody just knows you need to have equal rights for all in a stable and safe society.
Of course we can choose to ignore common sense. It is a fragile, human construct; sometimes reinforced, sometimes denied by 'the state'. We have also inherited the behaviours of selfishness, violence and building cruel heirarchies.
More than one society believed that human sacrifice was needed to keep God happy and supportive from year to year. (There are echoes of this in the Christian religion.) Has this practice been stopped by secular common-sense - or by modern religions that are less violent? Looking at the world today, you'd have a hard time arguing that religious people are any less violent than in the past.
It has been pointed out several times in discussions in this category that the particular rights upheld by any one religion as it changes over time are at least as arbitrary and gratuitous as those adopted by secular thought.
We've discussed this "atheism has no philosophical underpinning for morality but my religion in its current form does" error before AnswerPool.com. Claiming that your morality, or notion of rights, has a solid foundation because it comes from God is meaningless to an atheist. An imaginary God is not a solid foundation. Moreover, it can usually be shown, as with the example of slavery and Judeo-Christian history, that the particular God of any one religious tradition has such arbitrary and changeable ideas of rights that He/She/It is no more reliable than common sense.
10-10-04, 04:46 AM tsaeb
quote:Originally posted by newnickname: An imaginary God is not a solid foundation. Moreover, it can usually be shown, as with the example of slavery and Judeo-Christian history, that the particular God of any one religious tradition has such arbitrary and changeable ideas of rights that He/She/It is no more reliable than common sense.
I don't know whether I should cry that you find God to be imaginary or laugh that you then go on to imply that you (an authority on the matter, no doubt) are, nevertheless, able to get into God's head and inform us about His ideas.
Frown Big Grin
10-10-04, 11:35 AM newnickname Whether or not any one of the infinite number of Gods dreamed up by people is imaginary is obviously a matter of opinion (or faith). If you feel your particular God is real, fair enough; I won't argue.
I didn't mean to claim to be able to climb inside anyone's head, however. Maybe I didn't explain clearly; I was thinking about the visible evidence - how Christians behave. We can see that Christianity, in its various forms and over time, has had a variety of approaches to 'rights'.
10-12-04, 05:14 PM Rakuchild [QUOTE] The Common Law is rooted in the Law of Commerce, and the Law of Commerce is rooted in Biblical Law.
The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, not freedom from religion, as atheists like to interpret.
QUOTE]
And what are the roots of biblical law? Laws and civilizations existed long before Christians and their bible.
Why would we not have freedom from religion as well as the freedom to worship as we please?
10-12-04, 05:32 PM juanruiz I always get a little nervous when talk turns to the US being a country founded on Christian principles. This is Fundamentalist code for getting religion into the secular part of every citizen's life. "America needs God" does not mean that somehow a divinity will descend and make his will known; rather it means some religious group, interpreting what God wants, is attempting a power grab. One need only look at more than a millenium and a half of Western European history, or more recent examples elsewhere, to see that theocracies are absolutely counter to individual liberty.
10-13-04, 01:52 AM FredPuli "The Law of Commerce is rooted in Biblical Law" Really? No wonder Jews are so good at it ! Big Grin Never been much of a biblical student, but I can't remember seeing where in the bible we have rules about transfer of title; when does the buyer become owner? On transfer of possession? On payment? On acceptance of his offer? When? Common law had the answers; I must have missed that bit in Deuteronomy . Big Grin
Unless the writer in the link has a completely different definition of each, the statement that the common law is rooted in commercial law is completely the wrong way round too, if not meaningless. The common law is based on local custom and judicial interpretation of it. It goes far beyond simple commerce, the law of which grew from it or with it, as you will. Where necessary the judges made decisions anew which then were followed as precedents, for the avoidance of doubt . All commercial law in 'common law' countries is derived from custom; which custom of any conflicting customs is followed has been determined by the judges and so applied to the whole jurisdiction.Thereafter it has usually been cast into statutes. Take the question of title. Why are auction sales concluded with the fall of a hammer and at that moment title in the goods passes , for example? Custom. Within the UK there were variants, so the statute here read 'fall of the hammer or other customary method ' or words to that effect, before settling that that was when title passed, which was the important part.In other sales title passes differently; that is common law too, at base, but in most countries the rules have been put into statute; in our case the Victorians made one Sale of Goods Act to standardise practice all over Britain, because commerce in what had hitherto been traded only locally had become so widespread by then.
[Of course, if we speak of international trade the rules of that were rooted in Roman Law, even for Britain, and that too , no doubt, had arisen from custom (which is why the Emperor Justinian had much of Roman Law codified. His scholars were not thinking biblically, that's for sure ! )]
10-13-04, 05:11 PM doñadiana I read something the other day that I was not aware of. The US Constitution was written to define the relationship between the federal Government and the State Governments...not necessarily to define the rights of individual citizens. Does this make a difference in how we interpret it?
DD
10-14-04, 03:26 AM tsaeb
quote:Originally posted by juanruiz: "America needs God" does not mean that somehow a divinity will descend and make his will known; rather it means some religious group, interpreting what God wants, is attempting a power grab.
God has never left. So He makes His presence known to a few who are not afraid to hear Him speak. Recall in the Bible how the Jews were fearful of Him and let Moses do all the communicating with Him. Anyway, since most today cannot hear God, of course, we can safely say that the overwhelming majority of those who claim to hear Him are lying, falsely prophesying, and doing so for the power grab.
If there be any exceptional hearers, I wonder what is keeping that one or more from being quoted. Perhaps that one or more is/are not out for the worldly power grab, having already attained God's power working in them, for them, and through them. The same are subject, necessarily if they be genuine, to God's will and timing.
This is deep stuff, indeed, and we are, at the very least, to be vigilant against the phonies; however, we risk being bogged down in the quagmire of tradition, another hotbed mixture of truth and lies even for the continuing power grab remaining in place. Understanding of God is supposed to increase with the individual, while understanding of religion is supposed to increase with the masses. However, certainly the latter has been decreasing with increasing false interpretations, most likely for the self-aggrandizement of those saying what they never heard from God to no one's spiritual enlightenment.
03-17-06, 07:12 PM sheanima Atheism and unalienable rights Whether or not you're atheistic or religious, there is a crucial benefit to the founding fathers' assertion that unalienable rights come from the Creator. Only that which gives, has the right to take away. In other words, no human being can legally step in and take our rights from us (unless the voters allow them to be taken away).
03-17-06, 09:39 PM babthrower Civil rights and freedoms, and the economic well-being of the majority of citizens, have reached their highest point in human history in those nations whose thinkers and politicians were strongly influenced by the Enlightenment.
The success of the American Revolution, and the entrenchment of Enlightenment ideals in U.S. constitutional documents set the tone for nations all over the western world.
Previously Western Europe and the Middle East were theistic. Slavery and exploitation of the poor was the norm. Crime even when due to destitution was punished with the greatest cruelty, as was religious non-conformity.
That is what we aspire to return to when we welcome theistic zealots back into our houses of government.
If we look around today, we see that the real backwaters, the miserable places, in South America and the Middle East for example, are places where either a theistic government is in power, or one religion is overwhelmingly dominant.
And the Religious Right forgets one thing: there is no guarantee that if they get their way, one sect will not become dominant and suppress all the rest. It was from that kind of opression that many religious people came to North America. They were fleeing theistic governments -- who didn't quite see eye-to-eye with their own particular sect.
The superb irony is that the Religious Right is so idiotic that it imagines our economic progress can continue if we gut our science programs!
"One cold night, as an Arab sat in his tent, a camel gently thrust his nose under the flap and looked in. "Master," he said, "let me put my nose in your tent. It's cold and stormy out here." "By all means," said the Arab, "and welcome" as he turned over and went to sleep.
A little later the Arab awoke to find that the camel had not only put his nose in the tent but his head and neck also. The camel, who had been turning his head from side to side, said, "I will take but little more room if I place my forelegs within the tent. It is difficult standing out here." "Yes, you may put your forelegs within," said the Arab, moving a little to make room, for the tent was small.
Finally, the camel said, "May I not stand wholly inside? I keep the tent open by standing as I do." "Yes, yes," said the Arab. "Come wholly inside. Perhaps it will be better for both of us." So the camel crowded in. The Arab with difficulty in the crowded quarters again went to sleep. When he woke up the next time, he was outside in the cold and the camel had the tent to himself."
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