[Nightfall]

"...to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them..."

"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..."

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Reading through the significant documents in American history, one often comes across ‘God given rights' in some form or another. The fore fathers seemed to have wrote this believing that basic human rights were inherent in being a ‘made by God' human, and that no man could take them away, only infringe upon them.

On the other hand, we have it clearly laid out in the 1st Amendment that no establishment of religion shall be respected above another. However, I'm unclear as to whether this means man is free to have any particular way of believing in a god(s) (maybe only as some religions see it, THE one God), or that one can forego the belief of any higher form of being altogether.

So... my question is: Does the BOR and the basic foundations of being a free American rest on the belief in a God? Are atheists such as myself left in the dust because, as stated in the Declaration of Independence, we are "endowed by their Creator (God) with certain unalienable Rights"? Or can Creator mean nature in and of itself, minus a higher being? Perhaps it doesn't matter what I believe personally, because it has been established that I am created by God and my beliefs hold no water with the government?

All opinions, particularly those that come with evidence and past decisions on the issue, welcome. :)

P.S. Keep it on topic please. Any personal inquiries addressing my personal issues with any god or religion should be resolved via PM. :D

[Duncan Idaho]

Come up with a logical proof that there is no God.

Then you will have your answer.

[jsalcedo]

Shifting the burden of proof
The burden of proof is always on the person asserting something. Shifting the burden of proof, a special case of Argumentum ad Ignorantiam, is the fallacy of putting the burden of proof on the person who denies or questions the assertion. The source of the fallacy is the assumption that something is true unless proven otherwise.


Argumentum ad ignorantiam means "argument from ignorance." The fallacy occurs when it's argued that something must be true, simply because it hasn't been proved false.

Prove that tiny aliens descended from rabid chiuahuas are not secretly using telepathy in order to subvert the judicial branch of our government.

[tyme]

I'm an agnostic (and possibly an athiest depending on what you mean by "God", but that's just my belief, because the probability that there's an all-powerful entity that demands fealty is, IMO, a bit slim, to be kind).

I don't agree that you can state that there is no "God" without proving it, though. The default state is that you don't know anything - in particular, whether there is a god or not. Saying that there is no God (no creator-of-the-universe, not necessarily no creator-of-Man) is just like saying there is one. Either something had to have created it, or we're lost... we have no frame of reference for understanding something that's always existed. It seems silly to say that that's the way things are "just because." It's not necessarily the simplest explanation because it isn't simple at all. I don't know of anyone who understands it. I don't even know of anyone who claims to.

And you can stack the arguments... "if there is a 'creator,' how was it created?" Obviously by another creator, or it existed always. But that doesn't mean this universe is the one true "universe" that has exited forever (a la 13th floor/matrix/whatever). There's no reason to believe either way.

[brookstexas]

Nature.
I don't see any conflict with "Who/What the creator is" it never specifies a "Christian God". Most of the founders were deists and there are many records on their thoughts. Jefferson even wrote a book on what he felt was the philosopher named Jesus and what may have been the facts of history seperated from the fiction based on his knowledge at the time.
BT

[brownie0486]

I'm not sure anyone has proof of a God or can disprove it.

On the other hand if you are asking for proof there isn't a god, perhaps you can shed some light on the fact there is a god by providing your own documentation to support your position.

The BOR was writen by mortal men who had certain religious beliefs and stated their opinions as facts in that parchment.

I had asked on anotehr thread and I'll ask again here of you-------
"God given rights"--
When did he give them and to whom did he speak? And don't quote the bible as it was not written by god himself but again by mere mortals [ who could be wrong, like all of us mortals ].

Until I can be shown who God spoke to at the convention or sometime before that in Philly in the 1700's it really isn't "god given" but rather an interpretation by mortals [ who could be wrong ].

What god given rights has god granted you personally?

Brownie

[Boats]

The Enlightenment era schism of whether God exists has been going on in public in the "modern" world since the early 1750s. Scottish Empiricist philosopher David Hume made it alright for atheists to come out of the closet so to speak. He makes a very masterful case for atheism in his writings. An excerpt:

"When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles [empiricism--if it cannot be proven it doesn't exist] any volume of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance, let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion."

An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1758)

The philosophical gulfs between believers, agnostics, and non-believers finds a bridge with the language of political philosophy of the day. Believers used "God-given rights." Non believers used "natural rights." Agnostics were comfortable using either.

The use of "God-given rights" is a form of appeal to authority. The natural rights metaphor is tighter logically IMO.

I just thank God that Nature didn't allow men of lesser caliber write our governing documents.:D

On matters of religion, I go with Pascal: "The betting man bets on the existence of God." IOW, what do you have to lose if you are wrong?

[Mike Irwin]

"Come up with a logical proof that there is no God."

Oh please. Attempting to "prove" a negative is fruitless.

In the same vein, one could say that they require a logical proof that there is a God.

In the short run, though, NO. Not believing in some sort of supreme diety/entity, or even the same supreme diety/entity in whom the dead men believed is a requirement for admission into the "American Civil Rights Club."

[Gordon Fink]

Natural rights.… Human rights.… Civil rights.… What does God have to do with it?

Not much. God would be one more authority I would fail to recognize, if I found His commandments to be unjust or immoral. Furthermore, if he/she/it/they do exist, we were clearly created with free will. By extension, we have sovereign rights to exercise and even abuse, though we must always face the consequences of our actions.

If there are no deities, then there is clearly also no “higher” authority. If there is no higher authority, then we have sovereign rights by default, as one individual is no more entitled to exercise authority than another. Of course, these rights can still be unjustly suppressed … as they frequently are.

~G. Fink

[boltaction]

Borrowing loosely from the great 20th century theologian Paul Tillich, your "God" is whatever is the "Ultimate" in your world view. To some, it is a masculine human-like figure, to others it is the set of all laws of physics, to others, "nature", etc. In my view, everyone who lives or who has ever lived has a unique idea of "God". Of course, that type of statement is unprovable; however, that is not a serious problem in this realm!

Bottom line, our rights come from God, nature, the ultimate, whatever you want to call it.

Peace,

(or if you like,
Sic vis pacem, parabellum)

[scottgun]

When I die, I will have definite proof whether or not God exists. I'm not going to wait until then to start believing. If there really isn't a God, then I'll be dead and it won't matter. If there is a God, it will validate my life long beliefs and I will reap the benefits.

q: "What god given rights has god granted you personally? "
a: all of them

Morals are based upon religious beliefs. Without the religious aspect, morals are relative and can be shifted to suit the situation. Laws are (were, should be) written to reflect religious morals.

Our God given rights are offset by the responsibily to follow the Laws (of man and God).

But to answer the original question, yes you do still have rights even though you do not believe in God. Kind of like the protesters who bash America but are protected under the 1st A to do so.

[Mike Irwin]

Also, note how it was worded in the Declaration of Independence...

"...and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them..."

The way Jefferson wrote it, it would appear that he placed more importance on freedoms being inherent in nature, but not necessarily derived by the action of a god.

God is mentioned only once by name in the Declaration, and only obliquely "Divine Providence" in another.

I'll have to check when I get home, but I know that the Divine Providence was a suggested addition, not in Jefferson's original text.

The "of Nature's God" very well may also have been a suggested addition, not originally included by Jefferson.

If both are as I believe them to be, later additions by other members of Congress, that would give a very interesting insight as to where at least one member of the Congress believed that rights came from.

[Edward429451]

Good question. Full of holes, but good question nonetheless.

I'll start by saying I believe in God, drawn from my own conclusions and by personal revalation from my God. I'll try to be brief so as not to drag on...

If you conclude that there is no God because no one created the creator, then how is is that we evolved when there was nothing to evolve from?

Show me an example of evolution wherein the product was evolved into a more complex structure than before.

I just assume that I'm ignorant of how things really are, and after I cross over to the other side, the things I dont understand will be revealed to me and will make perfect sense to me then.

Evidence of God's existance is all around us, all you have to do is look without preconceived notions.

[Mike Irwin]

Good God...


Paul Tillich.

"The Dynamics of Faith" just about broke my brain...

[Graystar]

So... my question is: Does the BOR and the basic foundations of being a free American rest on the belief in a God? The answer is no.

There was a time when the words and perceived intentions of the Founding Fathers was taken as an absolute authority. A good example is the Dred Scott decision, which ruled that slaves did not have rights because some of the Founding Fathers were slave owners when they wrote "that all men are created equal..." Clearly, if they owned slaved then they did not mean to include them as equals.

The Court no longer does this because it elevated both the Founding Fathers' insights and oversights to a godlike level. But they were not gods...merely men. So the court have removed the "layer" of the Founding Fathers, and now depends upon the same law and history that the Founding Fathers did, as well as the law and history that has transpired since, in making its rulings.

So the fact that god is mentioned in the Declaration Of Independence does not mean that you must also believe in a god to be free, because the layer that introduced god into the picture has been removed. We no longer see truth through the Founding Fathers' eyes, but through our own.

[John Ross]

I believe that "Creator" should be read as broadly as possible and the meaning could therefore be restated "You have these rights by virtue of the fact that you are breathing."

Whether your vision of the "Creator" is a bearded giant in an oaken chair hurling thunderbolts, a set of known and unknown scientific principles, or something else altogether is irrelevant. You have been Created by *something*, so you have Natural Rights so long as you're sucking air.

JR

[Mike Irwin]

"Show me an example of evolution wherein the product was evolved into a more complex structure than before."

Look in the mirror.

More specifically, crack your mellon open and look at your brain. FAR more complex than the brains of proto humans 250,000 years ago.

[Boats]

I have never seen a satisfying answer to Epicurus' trilemma from about 250-300 BCE:

Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; Or he can, but does not want to; Or he cannot, and does not want to.

If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If he neither can, nor wants to, he is both powerless and wicked.

But if God can abolish evil, And God really wants to do it, Why is there evil in the world?

The standard dodge, and remember I am not an atheist, is that God has endowed humans with free will and has not revoked that endowment. Thus humans are imbued with the capacity for evil.

My beef with that position is precisely that it is a dodge. God is allegedly omnipotent and omniscient. It is inescapable that God could not then make mistakes. Is it not "wicked" to create something, especially something made in His own image, that has the capacity to cause untold suffering onto undeserving others.

In fact, do we even have free will or is it only an illusory choice from a retrospective view?

Think about it. You are at dinner. You finish. The waiter comes over and asks if you'd like dessert. You say yes. There are only two choices: apple pie or chocolate cake. You decide you'd still like dessert in the face of limited choices. One might impulsively choose one over the other. Some may ponder it like life and death.

However are you really free to choose? What is actually going on in your thought processes? Every concious decision you make every day, if you are not suffering from diminished capacity, is really the culmination of every other decision you have ever made before. We all know people we could predict with near absolute certainty would have one of the two dessert choices and why they would "choose" it.

Perhaps every decision the diner ever made will lead him or her to picking chocolate cake at that moment of decision. It is only really afterwards, particularly in moments of dissatisfaction, that people say, "I could've had apple pie instead." It is the appearence of free will but how free is it really?

[Edward429451]

More specifically, crack your mellon open and look at your brain. FAR more complex than the brains of proto humans 250,000 years ago.

You don't KNOW this to be fact. You're choosing to believe the written word of the scientist's. You choose to believe it. You got as much proof as I do which is none. I CHOSE to believe the written word of God over mans.

It's all about faith and making a choice to believe or not. Scientist are proving the old theories wrong every day, even dating. No one has proven God wrong yet.:scrutiny: Hmmm.

[Intune]

Which God? Oh, THAT God, the RIGHT God! Everybody knows Zeus, many have strayed though! The Founders didn't use generic terms like "Creator" by happenstance.

My thanks to Gordon Fink & Boats. I like it when I say hmmm???

[tyme]

(John Ross) You have been Created by *something*, so you have Natural Rights so long as you're sucking air.
So what? A tree leaf needs air too (CO2), so am I violating its natural rights by picking a leaf off of a low-hanging branch? Or does this only apply to things that have been "created" if they're self-aware? And how exactly do we measure the self-awareness of, say, a rock? No, I'm not joking, how do you explain the self-awareness (or lack thereof) of an ant if considering a rock is too silly? Presumably at some point of complexity animals are accepted as self-aware. So if it's not self-awareness, what could it be? Use of tools? Opposable thumbs? Ability to build computers? What exactly differentiates animals we use as test subjects from ourselves? What gives us "rights" where they have none?

...a few words from our sponsors...

"I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies." --Franklin (a satanist/hedonist at one point, by the way)

My earlier views at the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures, have become clearer and stronger with advancing years and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them. --Lincoln

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise. --Madison

The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity. --Adams

The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion. --Paine

"Now is not the time to make new enemies." --Voltaire on his deathbed, when asked to renounce the Devil

[Gordon Fink]

I CHOSE to believe the written word of God over mans.

Please show me where God has written anything.

~G. Fink

I was hoping this thread wouldn’t become a religious debate. Oh, well …

[Mike Irwin]

"I have never seen a satisfying answer to Epicurus' trilemma from about 250-300 BCE:"

There's a 4th element that Epicurus never examined.

That God knows that no singular absolute can exist, and therefore evil is as necessary as good in the world.


"You don't KNOW this to be fact."

Just as you have NO factual, or even faith-based, basis to believe that evolution doesn't result in more complex organisms.

You say you choose to believe the word of God.

Would that be the word of a Christian, Jewish, Native American, Ancient Egyptian, Japanese, Chinese, Sub-Saharan African or other God?

If you choose the Christian God, how do you filter out the many, and often clumsy, translations that have been done over the past X thousand years?

How do you know that today's translated word of God is, in fact, in concert with the supposed word of God as handed to the prophets who wrote it down originally?

No original texts of the Gospels exist by which comparison can be made.

Thus you have no way of knowing if the supposed Word of God is, in fact, even that.

Faith is a wonderful thing, unless it so restricts and blinds an individual that all other possibilities are excluded.

[scottgun]

Please show me where God has written anything.

Ummm, The Bible, I know it was written by man, but is a record of man's visions of, interactions with, and messages from God. It is in all practical purposes the word of God. Not trying to convince you, but you asked.

[TallPine]

Please show me where God has written anything.

In the stars, maybe ...?

(but you have to figure out how to translate it :) )

[mercedesrules]

My friends Chris, Robert and I think that the only "rights" you can say you have are those that you can devise some way of defending.

MR

[Boats]

Please show me where God has written anything.

Ummm, The Bible, I know it was written by man, but is a record of man's visions of, interactions with, and messages from God. It is in all practical purposes the word of God. Not trying to convince you, but you asked.

Biblical literalism has always been of keen interest to me. God is infalliable. Man his creation, is not.

So if the Gospel is the transmitted word of God as recived by men, how can you be sure that you aren't worshipping with the aid of what amounts to a garbled transmission?

Case in point: Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden. They have Cain and Abel. Cain eventually marries a woman from the land of Nod. Where'd she come from if the Bible is the infalliable word of God?

Then we get into biblical prophecy, wherein lifetimes are not really lifespans, days are years or millennia, and other fantastical liberties are taken. That is, to be polite, an illogical approach to a text.

And where are the standards? God spoke to men, and they wrote it down, end of inquiry? Some would say that God spoke to Joseph Smith through golden tablets delivered by an angel. Some would say he is a fraud. Who can say one or the other? However, it is worth noting that one can check aspects of the Bible through the histories of other cultures and via archaeology. No such luck with the tale told in The Book of Mormon.

So who is the arbiter of whether God spoke to someone and whether what was allegedly said is accurate in any regard?

[scottgun]

how can you be sure that you aren't worshipping with the aid of what amounts to a garbled transmission?

I think if you screw up the word of God, there would be hell to pay, literally. Seriously, I think that God makes things pretty clear.

I'm not a biblical scholar so I can't refute every point. But readings and stories from other cultures do confirm and coincide with stories in the bible, ex: the flood, the exodus. Archaeology also confirms many of the stories. As for the ages of those during biblical times, they do seem to live a real long time, maybe different calendars or time tracking methods. In the period the Bible was written it was against the law to write facts or record events as they actually occurred. Liberties were taken, but the message is more important than the details.

The Bible has been translated by Monks in the middle ages, they had sworn their lives to serving God, they weren't making changes to suit their own agenda.

this is starting to resemble a religious debate......

[brownie0486]

It's not that i do or don't believe there is a god, I just wanted to hear from someone who had personally spoken to him where he stated that the right to carry a gun was a "god given right"

I have seen that quote here too many times defending their positions of a right to carry. I don't believe they are correct, and conversely need to be corrected so they won't continue to make such claims.

I am very impressed with the responses on this thread from all. Good points are made for both views, however, I'm still waiting for the ones who say it is a "god given right" to carry a gun for self defense to explain who god actually said this to.

The bible is not the word of god. It is written by mortals and is a translation which begs the question of mistakes due to human errors and the writers own thoughts and interpretations.

Brownie

[Mike Irwin]

"So if the Gospel is the transmitted word of God as recived by men, how can you be sure that you aren't worshipping with the aid of what amounts to a garbled transmission?"

And given that the transmission has been REworked dozens, if not hundreds, of times over the past few thousand years, there's also a very good chance that any resembelence to the ORIGINAL word of God is only marginal.

That's the danger of literalism, folks, when insisting on following, literally, the word of something or someone that very well may not have been the word for a thousand or more years.

"I'm not a biblical scholar so I can't refute every point. But readings and stories from other cultures do confirm and coincide with stories in the bible, ex: the flood, the exodus."

That they do. Navajo tribal customs have a creation story that's somewhat similar to that in Genesis, but at the same time is also very different.

The point of that, though, is what?

If you agree on certain specific instances, but diverge as many, or more, other issues, what have you really gained in understanding, other than two cultures, widely separated by space and time, have a similar basis for some of their beliefs.

For example, Christianity teachs of the existence of a single God, who created the heavens and the earth.

Navajo religion has many Gods, three of which were present at the creation -- First Man, First Woman, and Coyote.

Only the Navajo creation story doesn't stop there. It's a LOT more complex...

So which one is the true creation?

Christian?

Navajo?

Or one of the other myriad religions?

And the Celtic creation myth? Hell, that's UNBELIEVABLY complex, essentially Atlas World Builders at work all at once.



"The Bible has been translated by Monks in the middle ages, they had sworn their lives to serving God, they weren't making changes to suit their own agenda."

And the works from which the Monks were working were ALSO translations, and those translations, in many cases were ALSO translations.

It's very doubtful that any of those people were making changes in those translations just because they felt like it, or based on a particular political point of view.

BUT THAT CANNOT BE DISCOUNTED.

It also can't be discounted that the individuals who made those translations were human beings, and thus NOT infallible.

It's also known that from one language to another sometimes words, or even concepts, can't be directly translated, thus requiring best-guess transliteration.

The Bible is a wonderous book, full of incredible stories -- some doubtless true and some doubtless apocrypal. I've also no doubt that as the word of God, it lost true connection to that provenance many thousands of years ago.

I believe, however that it is fair to say that these are the CONCEPTS of God.

[Devonai]

My 4 cents:

God created man in His own image. The only thing I take from this is the endowment of free will, the most important of being human. God has free will. So do we.

God wants us to be happy and to believe in Him. The only way this can be accomplished is to give humans free will.

We can either accept or reject God. Accepting God by our own free will allows us to be sincere about our faith. God could make His presence known and demand He be worshipped, but that would completely defeat the purpose of humankind. He wants a real relationship with His creation, and free will guarantees that those who believe, believe honestly.

Because of this relationship, I also believe that God interferes very little in this world. Physics are the rules that God put in place to govern this universe, and that's why you get things like hurricanes, floods, and volcanoes. Free will results in people making their own decisions, good, bad or indifferent.

In response to a similar thread, I reviewed my exhaustive concordance for about an hour. I couldn't find much that directly correlated freedom (as in our BOR) with Christianity. I am not a biblical scholar, but the best I can do in this regard is pose the position above.

[Gordon Fink]

Ummm, The Bible, I know it was written by man, but is a record of man’s visions of, interactions with, and messages from God. It is in all practical purposes the word of God.…

What Boats, Mike, and even brownie said. :D

~G. Fink

[Boats]

I have always had some conceptual difficulty as to why an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being, would need to be continually loved by a bunch of hairless apes. It always reminds me of that scene from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

...And spotteth twice they the camels before the third hour, and so, the Midianites went forth to Ram Gilead in Kadesh Bilgemath, by Shor Ethra Regalion, to the house of Gash-Bil-Bethuel-Bazda, he who brought the butter dish to Balshazar and the tent peg to the house of Rashomon, and there slew they the goats, yea, and placed they the bits in little pots. Here endeth the lesson.

CHAPLAIN:
Let us praise God. O Lord,...
...ooh, You are so big,...
...so absolutely huge.
Gosh, we're all really impressed down here, I can tell You.
Forgive us, O Lord, for this, our dreadful toadying, and...
And barefaced flattery.
But You are so strong and, well, just so super.
Fantastic.
Amen.

HUMPHRIES:
Now, two boys have been found rubbing linseed oil into the school cormorant. Now, some of you may feel that the cormorant does not play an important part in the life of the school, but I would remind you that it was presented to us by the Corporation of the town of Sudbury to commemorate Empire Day, when we try to remember the names of all those from the Sudbury area who so gallantly gave their lives to keep China British. So, from now on, the cormorant is strictly out of bounds! Oh, and Jenkins, apparently your mother died this morning. Chaplain.

[organ music]
CHAPLAIN and CONGREGATION: [singing]

O Lord, please don't burn us.
Don't grill or toast Your flock.
Don't put us on the barbecue
Or simmer us in stock.
Don't braise or bake or boil us
Or stir-fry us in a wok.
Oh, please don't lightly poach us
Or baste us with hot fat.
Don't fricassee or roast us
Or boil us in a vat,
And please don't stick Thy servants, Lord,
In a Rotissomat.

[scottgun]

Boats, I hope you didn't type all that from memory.

I have always had some conceptual difficulty as to why an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being, would need to be continually loved by a bunch of hairless apes.

Maybe because love is the answer, maybe because a group of like minded people focusing on a single thought can make positive changes.

Maybe because if I have to explain, you probably wouldn't understand.

[tyme]

I like Dershowitz's opinion of what rights are... those things that, when not protected, result in terrible abuses (by governments, other citizens, or whoever else). In essence, rights are a set of principles that contains the least abuse-prone element of every set of mutually exclusive harms.

I think this is well understood at some level. Polls indicate that while there's no concensus over precisely what rights ought to be protected, just about everyone feels that there exist rights that need to be protected.

For instance, having rights enforced preemptively is mutually exclusive of freedom from a police state. And a police state has been shown to be more abusive, so freedom from a police state is a right, while pre-enforcement of rights is not.

[Marko Kloos]

Morals are based upon religious beliefs. Without the religious aspect, morals are relative and can be shifted to suit the situation.

I disagree. Morality is not dependent on religious beliefs...I even propose that religious morality is more "flexible" than humanist morality. Scripture can be (and has been) interpreted to support any sort of morality. A mere 150 years ago, Scripture was used to support slavery, which is thoroughly immoral in my secular morality, for example. The Bible has been used to support polygamy, torture, slavery, disenfranchising of women, child abuse, and many other things which I would consider immoral.

Have you ever considered that it might be patently offensive to non-religious people when you suggest that they can't possibly have any morals?

Do you really need the threat of divine punishment and promise of reward after death to do the right thing? Do you really need a list pinned to a wall to tell you that killing people and stealing their stuff is *wrong*?



Dan Barker addresses the "no morals without God" issue quite well:

"Ethical systems are based on the worth humans have assigned to life: "good" is that which enhances life, and "evil" is that which threatens it. We do not need a deity to tell us it is wrong to kill, lie or steal. Humans have always had the potential to use their minds to determine what is kind and reasonable.
There is no "universal moral urge" and not all ethical systems agree. Polygamy, human sacrifice, cannibalism (Eucharist), wife beating, self mutilation, war, circumcision, castration and incest are perfectly "moral" actions in certain cultures. Is god confused?
To call god a "nonphysical being" is contradictory. A being must exist as some form of mass in space and time. Values reside within physical brains, so if morality points to "god," then we are it: the god concept is just a projection of human ideals.

"If there is no absolute moral standard then there is no ultimate right or wrong. Without God there is no ethical basis and social order would disintegrate. Our laws are based on scripture."

This is an argument for belief in a god, not for the existence of a god. The demand for "absolute" morality comes only from insecure religionists. (Voltaire quipped: "If god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.") Mature people are comfortable with the relativism of humanism since it provides a consistent, rational and flexible framework for ethical human behavior--without a deity.

American laws are based on a secular constitution, not the bible. Any scriptures that might support a good law do so only because they have met the test of human values, which long predate the ineffective Ten Commandments.

There is no evidence that theists are more moral than atheists. In fact, the contrary seems to be true, as evidenced by centuries of religious violence. Most atheists are happy, productive, moral people.

Even if this argument is true, it is of little practical value. Devout, bible-believing Christians cannot agree on what the scriptures say about many crucial moral issues. Believers regularly take opposing positions on such matters as capital punishment, abortion, pacifism, birth control, physician-assisted suicide, animal rights, the environment, the separation of church and state, gay rights, and women's rights. It might be concluded from this that there is either a multiplicity of gods handing out conflicting moral advice, or a single god who is hopelessly confused."

[SkunkApe]

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

Stephen Roberts

[pax]

So... my question is: Does the BOR and the basic foundations of being a free American rest on the belief in a God? Are atheists such as myself left in the dust because, as stated in the Declaration of Independence, we are "endowed by their Creator (God) with certain unalienable Rights"? Or can Creator mean nature in and of itself, minus a higher being? Perhaps it doesn't matter what I believe personally, because it has been established that I am created by God and my beliefs hold no water with the government?
Nightfall --

I don't know the name of the guy who built my house. My house exists anyway. My house's existence does not rest upon my belief in the builder's work; the house exists, and the builder built, completely without reference to me and my beliefs. The house would exist, and would be of the nature that it is, whether or not I believed in the one who built it.

Similarly, your rights which are a built-in part of your human nature exist whether or not you ever believe in or acknowledge the One who put them into your nature. Those rights are "inalienable" -- that is, they are part of your nature and cannot be made alien to your nature, cannot be separated from your nature. They are part of what it means to be a human being.

Now for my little lecture on the meaning of the word "rights." I've given it before, so feel free to skip it. But some folks may not have seen it yet.

Looking up in the old Websters I find rights are "something to which one has just claim" or "the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled."

As the dictionary implies, the whole concept of 'rights' comes back to the idea that it is morally proper for people to do certain things, and morally improper for them to do certain other things. That is precisely what is being discussed when someone talks about their "right to ____." At issue is whether someone else may justly deprive them of their ability to do that thing.

When someone appeals to "rights," they are really appealing to an almost-universally understood standard of what is morally proper (or 'just') and what is morally improper (or 'injust'). Arguments over what rights human beings have, if any, will nearly always boil down to such fundamental moral distinctions. That is why theists will usually take the shortcut of saying "God-given," since the moral code they claim is based on the idea of a God who endowed human beings with a moral sense.

This moral instinct or drive is something that most human beings have in common. Even those who reject the concept of a deity will generally find themselves saying things like "that's not fair!" when something bumps into this innate sense of justice, so it is possible to believe in, and appeal to, the human moral drive without believing in "God-given rights."

If you believe that it is not "right" for someone to kill you when you have done nothing to harm them; or if you believe that it is not "just" to throw someone in prison when they have committed no crime; or if you believe it is not "fair" when someone sneakily breaks the rules in a poker game -- then (by your appeal to it) you demonstrate that you do believe in the concept of innate human rights.

It is the nature of human beings to appeal to this moral code. It is built into the system, part of what it means to be human. If you are a theist, you can say that it is "endowed by the Creator." If not, you can say it is simply part of your nature, and leave it at that.

Human beings appeal to the innate moral code all the time. We regularly discuss the issue of who may justly do what to whom. The moral sense is there, regardless of how it got there. Thus we can see that your human rights exist completely without regard to what you believe about God.

Further, because of this, we can see that your human rights exist regardless of what the Founders said about it. Those dead white men were speaking the truth, but in one very large sense it doesn't matter whether they were or not. All that matters is that it was the truth.

Human rights exist, and the rights are not derived from some fading bit of parchment kept behind glass in a government-owned building. Human rights come from the nature of the human being, and cannot be separated from that nature.

pax

A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you. -- Ramsey Clark

[pax]

Addenda, partly in response to Lendringser's post --

I neatly dodged the question of why something is "just" or "not just." To answer that, religionists grab a Holy Book, libertarians refer to the NAP, curmudgeons and non-philosophers of all stripes just say, "you know!!! that's wrong..." (which is what Lendringser's post was addressing -- and he appealed to the built-in moral sense in order to do so. But where'd that moral sense come from? How'd it get in his nature?).

Interestingly, folks with radically different ideas as to why something is wrong will often still agree that it is wrong. And if something is truly wrong or truly right, there will usually be more than one reason why this is so.

pax

Truth is. Belief is not required. -- Gerry Roston

[hops]

'God given right's' comment in other thread.

Since someone wanted me to ignore my rights for the greater good of society- the right of self-defence, using a gun in this case, I got a bit passionate. God popped in to my thoughts quickly. Perhaps Nature given rights would have been better, I guess.

Someone gave me the right's I have. Could be god, could be nature, or perhaps the people who donated 1/2 of their chromosomes to me - Mom and Dad. They certainly gave me life, if god did not. I certainly feel that Goverment nor society gave me my rights.

Religion, like a gun can be used for good or evil, just like anything else.

Dennis Miller ; "Every time I now go to confession, I say, 'You first.' ".

[Tom B]

Since part of this discussion deals with the afterlife let me suggest some interesting reading. The book "We don't die - George Anderson's conversations with the other side" by Joel Martin & Patricia Romanowski. As far as Atheists I say sad...sad...sad....some day they will be all dressed up and no place to go!:neener:

[Marko Kloos]

As far as Atheists I say sad...sad...sad....some day they will be all dressed up and no place to go!

That's your opinion, not verifiable fact. I have no issue with the idea that I will cease to exist when I die. It helps me live this life to the fullest, and find meaning in my current existence, instead of spending the only life I'm conclusively *known* to have with collecting brownie points for a possible afterlife.

But that is my preference, and I am perfectly comfortable with people who take the celestial option, as long as they both recognize a.) my right to not indulge in their beliefs, and b.) my status as a full human, without declaring me to be stunted being that can't possibly have any morality or happiness.

"Nyah, nyah, my God will show you when you die" is not really high on my list of acceptable debating techniques on the subject.

[boltaction]

"Show me an example of evolution wherein the product was evolved into a more complex structure than before."

Happens all the time, AND is not actually what happens in biological evolution when you get down to the details (the devil is in the details, but I will NOT go there):

1. liquid water turns to ice on a pond as darkness falls (the H2O "orders" itself, but the (thermal) disorder in the surroundings INCREASES.

here is a more complicated case but the physics is pretty close to "life physics":

2. pot of water is put on the stove on very low "heat"; the water at the top of the pot gets hot by conduction of heat through the static (not moving) water column. Then, the heat is turned up - the thermal energy in the lowermost layers of water in the pot builds to a critical level, and the water SPONTANEOUS ORGANIZES itself into a complex structure known as "Rayleigh-Barnard Convection" - that is, the water spontaneously starts to move, or convect upwards, carrying the heat with it.

In case 2, the system has organized itself so that it can create "disorder" more rapidly (in physics we say that the rate of entropy production has increased). This is what life is from the point of view of physics: systems of organization that have high "order", and that are "allowed" by the laws of physics exactly because they creat havoc around themselves. I hate to be crude, but in goes the broccoli, and out goes the.....

That is, elementary thermal physics shows us CLEARY that we cannot simply look at whether a given "thing" is more or less ordered with time.

BTW, biological evolution is not just an idea - it is written very clearly in the rocks - evidence for the evolution of plants and animals is seen in the millions of sequences of sedimentary rocks from around the world, which show, if you will allow me to GREATLY oversimply, that "germs go to worms, worms go to fish, fish go to amphibians, amphibians go to reptiles, reptiles go to mammals", etc. Note that it is NOT always increasing complexity - some of our modern organisms are also mosquitoes. Further, do not confuse intelligence with biological complexity. I do not want to belabor this, but using Evolution as proof of deity in theological arguments is futile. It never works.

[Strings]

... before this thread gets closed... :cool:

1) Speaking of translation problems with the Bible: remember that some words can be translated in several ways. IIRC, the Aramaic(?) word for "salt" is also the word for "steam". Make that little switch, and read the story of Lot's wife (leaving the destruction of Sodom and Gamorrah)...

2) Y'all are talking about DIETY... something that transcends humans. There is no way any one human is gonna understand every bit of Diety, so we all understand little bits of it...

[Standing Wolf]

This lifelong atheist is a believer in inalienable human rights. That's a belief. If I wanted to bother with proof, I'd be a philosopher or a logician rather than a gun nut.

[SkunkApe]

But where'd that moral sense come from? How'd it get in his nature? -Pax




On Goodness

...One thing I often hear from theists is that without god, a person can not be good. To that, I have two comments:

...When I (as an atheist) am good. When I
don't steal when I can, when I don't lie even
when it would benefit me, when I return a lost
wallet, when I help others, etc... I do it for no
other reason than to be good, my actions are
selflessly good.
...When a theist does good, he usually does it
to please his god or avoid his god's hell, the
theist is selfishly good.
...also...

...What if I could prove to you beyond the
shadow of a doubt that there was no god
(hypothetically that is), would you immediately
run out and become a horrid murderer,
content only in the pleasures of yourself?
Or would you remain a basically good person?
...If the former, then you are a scary individual,
for only your timid faith keeps you decent. If
the later, then why do you need god to tell
you good?
...When I first realized I was an atheist, I had trouble reconciling goodness with atheism. Over time, I grew more certain in my choice and I began to understand what 'good' is. I recommend that you read up on evolutionary psychology.

...'Goodness' is a requirement for any animal that wants to live in a communal society. Early humans were such beasts, and it was through cooperation that they survived. Only early humans who behaved could live in the community, so they were more likely to find mates and pass along their genes... the genes that encouraged behaving.

...In addition to this, there is the question of is an action right because god says so, or is it right anyway. If it is right because god says so, then we are at the mercy of god's whims, and he may turn around and say something that is wrong today is right tomorrow (as he did during the O.T.). If things are good anyway and god just does them, then goodness is defined outside of god, and it is possible to be good without god.

...It is not sufficient to say that god is good because god is good or that it is his nature to be good. In either of these cases, then goodness is still defined outside of god.

...So round and round we go. But the basic point is that most atheists are good, law-abiding citizens. They are good people without some god out there to threaten or reward them. Think about it.


-Stephen Roberts

[brownie0486]

On another note with the same theme.

You have inalienable/natural right to defend your life and very existance as a human once you are here on earth, you are a christian carrying a gun.

Are you obeying your gods commandments to their fullest if you then kill another human being for any reason? Is this a dilemma for you, and if so why or why not.

Which takes precedence?

Brownie

[pax]

...One thing I often hear from theists is that without god, a person can not be good. To that, I have two comments:
SkunkApe,

I hope that wasn't really in answer to my post, because I said nothing of the sort. What I said was that human beings, atheists and religionists alike, have an innate moral sense. To assert that atheists cannot exercise the faculty of morality is just silly -- as silly as it is to assert that Christians cannot exercise the faculty of reason.
Are you obeying your gods commandments to their fullest if you then kill another human being for any reason? Is this a dilemma for you, and if so why or why not.
Brownie,

You could open another thread with that question. Quick answer is that "Thou shalt not kill" is properly translated "Thou shalt not murder" -- a different thing entirely. There are other commands, precepts, and examples to analyze, but that's the one most folks only vaguely familiar with the Bible would think of, and that's my quick-and-easy answer for it.

pax

"But, as a matter of fact, another part of my trade, too, made me sure you weren't a priest."
"What?" asked the thief, almost gaping.
"You attacked reason," said Father Brown. "It's bad theology." -- G.K. Chesterton

[Boats]

I'm no expert on the nature of good and evil, free will or determinism, religion or atheism, but I absolutely know one thing:


I have never seen an innately evil baby.

[SkunkApe]

I have never seen an innately evil baby.


My sister's kids were pretty close...

[Chipper]

The original question and the two replies below are all that I have found useful about this thread. Boats gives us the thinking man's answer and Standing Wolf gives us the doing man's answer.

boats:
The philosophical gulfs between believers, agnostics, and non-believers finds a bridge with the language of political philosophy of the day. Believers used "God-given rights." Non believers used "natural rights." Agnostics were comfortable using either.

The use of "God-given rights" is a form of appeal to authority. The natural rights metaphor is tighter logically IMO.

I just thank God that Nature didn't allow men of lesser caliber write our governing documents.


Standing Wolf:
This lifelong atheist is a believer in inalienable human rights. That's a belief. If I wanted to bother with proof, I'd be a philosopher or a logician rather than a gun nut.

The inclusion of the statement "God given Rights" does NOT obligate anyone to believe. Nor does it limit rights only to believers no matter brand they fill up with at any stained-glass filling station. Using the name, God, or the term, Creator, is exactly what boats stated it to be...an appeal to a higher authority. Without a higher authority we are left to our own devices. We are left with our own individual standards. We have NO basis upon which we may enter into society. A higher authority, be it God, Creator, Nature or whatever is chosen by those entering into society to agree upon as a general standard in understanding that which is common to all men choosing to enter into society.

Is it too hard for an atheist to cede to a believer his chosen belief? Is it so hard for a christian to accept that an atheist has the absolute freedom of will to choose to NOT believe in any higher being? God may have chosen you from before the foundations of the world to be His child BUT, the choice remained in your hands to accept that election or not. The endless and pointless bantering and evangelizing of those who claim to be christians is annoying. It is pointless. It is argumentative. It is a waste of everyone's time. A person who declares himself to be agnostic or an atheist is a human being with all rights equal to yours. Their choice to not believe as you do is not a gauntlet thrown down. It is not a challenge for the christian to overcome. It is not a game of "spiritual chess". It is not a battle of wits or doctrines to engage in. You simply wipe the dust from your feet and move on to the next person. When engaging in a discussion or a debate, make the christian perspective known. Do not make judgments. Do not make God uber alles, for you certainly cannot do that. Only God can and has.

You atheists and agnostics need to learn to leave a person to their own beliefs. You always knock God and the religions that sprang up out of a belief in God whenever a believer starts into a God-related diatribe. For God's sake, leave it alone! Make a satanic gesture. Do a neener! neener!:neener: Make a big yawn. Ignore the intrusion. When you choose to argue with an idiotes you only egg him on. If you're so confident in your lack of believing and your reasoning for such a position simply move on. You have neither duty nor obligation to justify your position to anyone.

To both sides, evolution remains a theory. Creation remains a belief.
The archaeological record indicates humanoid creatures. We do NOT know if they were human or ape. All we have is speculations and theories. In dating objects for linear time comparisons, carbon 14 and other methods are not reliable in the least beyond 40,000 years. Gen. 1:1 did NOT occur only 5 or 6000 years ago. There is a huge time gap between Gen. 1:1 and Gen. 1:2. Study your bible for specifics. The 2nd law of thermodynamics does NOT equate with God. It is but a small bit of minutiae in a tiny part of all that is God. And nobody gets anywhere by debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin! Indeed!

None of you have guaranteed life in your body beyond this moment now. You have no guarantee of living to 80 or 100 years. Why waste time and resources with pointless arguments in which NO ONE will be persuaded?

Let's just move on, enjoy our rights and give an honest consideration as to whether we can remain joined in society under one style of government or if we need to consider other options that we may live our lives as we so choose.

Chipper
Nomex on

[SkunkApe]

Now I feel guilty for something or other...

[Edward429451]

If you choose the Christian God, how do you filter out the many, and often clumsy, translations that have been done over the past X thousand years?

Ummm, slowly and with much confusion?:D It gets easier the more you study it. I've got various translations and cross them for comparison as I do reloading data..<------See? gun related reference!

I'm no scientist, expert, physicist, or anything like that, but how can water boiling or freezing become more complex? Its just a change of state, I dont get that analogy in the least.

I think humans differ from animals in that we have the ability to reason, wherein animals operate on instinct, and have no soul.

On the where did Cain get his wife thing, I've heard the theory that (Gen. 1:27) its written that God created male and female (not necessarily adam & eve) and it doesn't really say that these men & women received the breath of life and became living souls...Then in Gen 2:7 it describes adam being created and receiving the breath of life and becoming a living soul, later Eve was created from Adam's rib (suggesting that Adam & Eve were different from the other men & women who 'may have been created for this express purpose of propagation of the species'?) The Bible is a snapshot of history and is most definitly not all inclusive of everything that was happening at the time. Enough is recorded for its purpose to be effective for us, but don't think it tells the whole story. If scripture is to be taken literally, then there must be a significance to the two different references to creation of humankind. Kinda makes sense.

I can't keep up with you professional debaters on this, but it is highly interesting.:scrutiny: :)

[Chuck Dye]

Isn’t it wonderful that truth is utterly independent of belief? There is, are, or were whatever, regardless of how many affirm or deny.

I suspect that there is only one right: the right of organisms, not just humans, to do whatever they want to and can, with whatever powers and resources they have or can garner. Humans accomplish more than other organisms through cooperation in various forms. The "rights" enumerated in various and sundry political and religious systems are merely privileges acquired and sustained, or suppressed and denied, by the exercise of that one right.

I suspect that if you could survey the founding fathers, you would find that their idea of freedom of religion is the right to practice any European branch of Christianity you wish. The idea that the concept would be applied to even Asian forms of Christianity, much less to non-Christian religions, probably never occurred to them and likely would have outraged most.

[Chipper]

SkunkApe,

Sorry. Didn't mean to make anyone feel guilty or something. Sometimes these endless religious/non-religious arguments just drive me nuts. Here Nyghtfall asks a really good question which should, I would think, demand our best considerations and discussion. Lots of really intelligent people here that could do grand things with a question like this. Instead it degenerates into the usual arguments that settle nothing, waste bandwidth, waste time and usually serve to upset people rather than resolve any questions. Why build bitterness and strife when we have an opportunity to explore something relevan to the bettering of life here in America?

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy a good, passionate debate, discussion or even an argument. This can only happen when minds are focused on the question and determined to discover an answer. Not running off on some tangent based solely on beliefs and irrelevant, unnecessary and unwanted judgments.

Chipper

[Chuck Dye]

Of course there also isn't, aren't or weren't whatever, regardless of how many affirm or deny!

[pax]

Chipper,

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy a good, passionate debate, discussion or even an argument. This can only happen when minds are focused on the question and determined to discover an answer. Not running off on some tangent based solely on beliefs and irrelevant, unnecessary and unwanted judgments.
Sure, there's been some of that.

But if you found only two posts in this whole thread which addressed the question at hand, you didn't read the thread very carefully -- if at all.

pax

Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there is one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear. -- Thomas Jefferson

[cato87]

Let's see rights, if you want the Founder's view of rights you need to do some pretty heavy reading. Books such as Locke's Treatises on Government, Montesquieu?, Algernon Sydney are very enlightening when it comes to explaining where the Founders got their view of natural rights and where rights came from. Possibly the best treatment of the theory of natural rights comes from Thomas Paine in any of his writings.
Now as to the faith aspect of things, I am a Christian and I will not try to convince anyone who is not willing to listen, that God exists as it is a matter of faith not logic. However, I feel that the Founders were very correct in wanting to remain neutral in matters of religion, notice I said NEUTRAL not hostile, this keeps the government from officially favoring any religious group over another. This being said the government should not be in the business of removing all vestiges of religion from the public sphere and trying to establish a totally secular state without the consent of the people. I will continue to practice my Christianity no matter what the government says but it really bothers me that the judicial branch can rule with impunity without any recourse by the people. But no matter what happens what other country in the world could we have this discussion without some religious group or governmental group shutting us down and/or arresting us. Also as to the other religions mentioned they have the freedom to practice them as they see fit as long as they don't make it where I have to stop practicing my faith to suit theirs. Also I will not force my beliefs on anyone if they are not totally willing to listen to what I have to say to them. I think that a few very obnoxious Christians are giving all of us a very bad name. Just my .02 cents worth, but I would encourage any of you to read the above mentioned works as they really help you to understand the justification behind the founder's beliefs (particularly Jefferson and Madison).

Cato87

[Alan Smithiee]

if they ment The Christian God, why didn't they just say so?

they managed to make everything else pretty darn clear (except to Lawyers and burocrats)

[Chipper]

Pax,

I did read the WHOLE thing. Right out of the gate the thread segued right around Nightfall's question. It became just another battlefield for the religionist/atheist war. Using the same old arguments to beat each other over the head with. No real consideration given to the topic at hand. No one willing to consider the other side's point. Just a continuation of an endless debate that has gone on for literally millenia. I guarantee that nothing new will be introduced and nothing will be resolved.

Chipper

[Sean Smith]

I'll make a wild guess and say that if the Constitution was meant to be a specifically Christian document, it would probably mention that minor character known as Christ in it someplace... :rolleyes:

To my way of thinking, it is someone singularly lacking in faith that resorts to the use of state power to further their religion's interests. If your religion spreads on its own merits, so to speak, citizen's behaviors will change to fit its ethics without coersion. On the other hand, enmeshing your religion with state power corrupts the church and removes all logical constraints from state power, which serves the interests of nobody except the would-be theocrats and demagogues. Virtually every example in history supports this point of view. The classic Christian example is the Catholic Church, which lost spiritual credibilitiy as it gained in political power.

Make the state Christian, and when the state is corrupt, the church becomes corrupt by association.

A smarter argument would be that the Founding Fathers, being to varying degrees Christian, had the good sense to serve the intersts of their faith by not enmeshing it in the power of the state in even a tangental way.

[RON in PA]

The Declaration of Independance (1776) was a statement of why we (the Americans) were severing the political bonds between us and King George. It was not and is not the law of the land. The Constitution of 1787 is the law of the land and states that there is no established religion. I don't have a copy in front of me, but I seem to remember that God is not mentioned in the Constitution. "We, the People" is and that is where the power comes from.

[spacemanspiff]

just because the BOR and the Constitution "said" that humans have those inalienable human rights doesnt necessarily mean all those rights were recognized from the day those documents were written.

religious rights have often been unconstitutionally oppressed in this country to our generation. it will probably continue to be oppressed as well. therefore, it seems like the theological aspects included in the BOR and the Constitution were only because of the social climate at that time. werent they still burning accused witches simply because they had different belief systems than the christians did?

to say that these rights are moot if you dont believe in god is as assinine as saying that if you dont have the same religious beliefs as the WRITERS of the BOR and Constitution, then those rights dont apply to you. IOW, if the writers were catholic and you were baptist, then you dont get those rights.


now, to address the question of 'is there a god?'
why is it so difficult for humans to contemplate a supreme being that created all things? the answer is rather simple. our minds are hardcoded to understand things that have a beginning and an end. anything that exists outside of time/space is beyond our grasp. we are stuck pondering 'who created god?' only because we assume god has a beginning and likely an end.

for all we know, our universe is a childs playtoy. there may be infinite other worlds that 'deitys' have charge of.

as far as evolution is concerned, somehow it has become "fact" rather than "theory", and i for one, have not seen any evidence that supposedly proves that all species evolved. i have seen adaptation INSIDE specific species, but never any evidence to support species becoming other species, nor is there any fossil evidence of species in the middle of an evolutionary cycle. it is my opinion that the theory of evolution was born from an egotistical ambition to draw attention away from the creator, much like the angel now known as 'satan' wanted to draw attention away from the god of the old testament.

[TheOtherOne]

I did read the WHOLE thing. Right out of the gate the thread segued right around Nightfall's question. It became just another battlefield for the religionist/atheist war. Using the same old arguments to beat each other over the head with. No real consideration given to the topic at hand. No one willing to consider the other side's point. Just a continuation of an endless debate that has gone on for literally millenia. I guarantee that nothing new will be introduced and nothing will be resolved.I agree but the original poster pointing out the fact that he's an athiest and asking not to be converted was it's downfall from the beginning.

If it would have just been something like this, I would have enjoyed reading through this topic alot more:

Will the government eventually declare that there is no "God" and thus exempt the bill of rights on those grounds?

I think in a hundred years or so (or less) that is a high possibility. ANY excuse to take our rights away is how I see it.

[JShirley]

I believe it is possible to be moral without being religious or even theistic. Positive interaction with our fellow man and environment is not predicated by religious belief (though the opposite has often been the case).

Saying something is God-given is just a poetic way of saying that right is not conferred by any human agency.

John

[Edward429451]

As far as rights go, the single most neutral, reasonable and succint point made so far was the poster who said Whoever breathes air has absolute rights. This sounds like some serious common sense. :)

[DRC]

God. I believe in God. Why? If you have to ask there is no way I can explain it. What do I believe of the after life? I believe whatever you believe to be the final destination is exactly what you get. Those that believe that when you die you're done, are absolutely right. Those that believe you go on to another life are absolutely right. Those that believe that when you die you end up on a cloudy perch with a bunch of Jehovah's Witnesses are absolutely right.

Can you prove it? you may ask. Okay, all you have to do is die.

My point? God is morality, spirituality and unity. Does God give us rights? Nope. Rights are man made, God gives us direction. What you choose to do in life is your choice but God tells you what's right for you. Whether or not you follow it is up to you.

The Bible is the instruction manual for your soul. The BOR is an instruction manual for your freedom.

Whatever anyone wishes to believe is their bounty at the end.

Take care and intresting to see something religious on this forum.

God bless,

DRC

[Gordon Fink]

Actually, the post that had the most common sense was this one.

My friends Chris, Robert and I think that the only “rights” you can say you have are those that you can devise some way of defending.

And thus we see why the Second Amendment is so important … gods or no gods. :D

~G. Fink