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To: exmarine
I go by transcendant standards of right and wrong just as our founding fathers did.

That's your belief, based on a belief in God. It's not something you can ever prove because your belief system is predicated on a belief in God, whose existence no one can prove.

Right and wrong exist independent of belief, of your belief.

Again, that's your belief, which I have no desire to disabuse you of. However, there is no way for you to prove this point.

People like you are the arch-enemy of people who love liberty.

LOL. My love of liberty is based on cold, hard reality- the only liberty you get is that which you can wrest away from tyrants. Everything else is mere fantasy.

The founders ACKNOWLEDGED the existence of inalienable rights - they didn't invent them. They DISCERNED them. Big difference. A difference someone with your mindset cannot possibly comprehend

Again, your argument is predicated on the existence of God. That is your belief and it is not an illegitimate viewpoint. However, there is no way for you to prove the existence of God. Without that crucial link in the chain, your view of morality is no more legitimate than mine. If you can prove to me the existence of God, then and only then, will your argument be correct.

673 posted on 11/14/2003 1:48:07 PM PST by Modernman (What Would Jimmy Buffet Do?)
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To: Modernman
Bottom line: You have confused observation of moral behavior with the natura of morality. You cannot logically make conclusions about the nature of morality from the behavior of people. Observation and moral truth are two different things. Just because a person or group of people is behaving in a certain manner does not mean that this behavior is what they OUGHT to be doing. That is obvious. Morality has to do with OUGHT. You have a sense of OUGHT. Before you take ANY moral action, you first think about what you OUGHT to do. Even you must do that and you cannot deny it. Observation of behavior does not equate to truths about the nature of morality. But you have made some selected observations and jumped to invalid conclusions about the nature of morality based on those observations. Can't do it because you are erecting a universal moral standard - and there can't be any universals in your system.

Marquis De Sade said: "What is is right." He said that because he knew he could not make any universal claims about moral truth if no standards existed. If no standards exist, then what is is right. Period. That means that Osama is right, Hitler was right, Jeffrey Dahmer was right, and if I steal your stereo and kick you in the knee, I am right as well. :) YOu can't win this argument.

707 posted on 11/20/2003 10:54:43 AM PST by exmarine (sic semper tyrannis)
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