But you've yet to present any arguments....you say...[presenting my argument]:
"Its self evident to me that our rights evolved from our ability to reason, to our ability to apply the golden rule as a basis for a moral life. No 'Creator' is needed to realize that 'do onto others' is in our self interest."
Many have "been able to reason" absolute monarchies, despotic tyrannies, etc. Karl Marx is viewed by many as a great intellectual, and "millions" have found his logic to be self evident. Basing the source of our rights on what we as humans intuit, rationalize or arrive at through logic is to put all human assertions on equal footing wherein what I think is no more right or wrong than what you think and what Thomas Jefferson thought is no better or worse than what Otto Von Bismark was able to arrive at through his logic.
That's fine joe.. As I said, think & reason as you like. However, nothing you've written here refutes my logic on the origin of rights.
If the source of rights evolves from within a human, why did our founders carefully articulate that it had been endowed?
You're approaching the phrase "endowed by their Creator" as if it were scripture joe. It was written by a committee.
The source of rights must be viewed as having come from an external (not necessarily omnipotent) but certainly superior source that is external to human thought.
You feel that way, -- I don't.
By exercise of my logic, I'm able to arrive at the conclusion that 2+2=4. That's not because I think so; it's because it is an immutable truth that always has been and always will be. If it were contingent on individual logic, the person who believed that 2+2=5 would not be (and logically could not be) any more right or wrong than me; ergo the notion of moral relativism and why it is a falsehood. "Doing unto others" may not necessarily be in our own interest and may even be at our own peril. Just ask the guy who dies rushing into a burning building or diving into an icy pool to rescue somebody (if you could ask them). Those things are done in direct contravention of self-interest because of a known and respected moral absolute. To use the "Golden Rule" in an argument against belief in a Creator is like treating a toothache with a jaw breaker.
Good grief joe. What can I say in the face of such over the top rhetoric? Gives me a headache.
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"That's only a problem in YOUR mind joe."
I'll respond to this one, with the second amendment issue as they are very closely related. Do I think your position on the Creator leads to gun control? It's a matter of cause and effect, but the two are ultimately related, even if unbeknownst to you, and that's the insidious thing about our nation's decline. You personally, for all I know, may be the greatest proponent of gun rights, the most staunch advocate of the Second Amendment and the biggest contributor to the NRA for the past 20 years, and if so more power to you. Having said that, I'll use another analogy to explain my contention. First, by accepting that there is no Creator, higher authority, God, etc. one abandons a source of rights and values that exist or emanate from an arbiter that is beyond the power of man. If man is the measure and arbiter of all things all morality becomes relative. Natural Law in essence dictates an inexorable bond between rights and responsibilities. Our culture has become entirely preoccupied with the rights aspect of this that it has generally abandoned the (personal) responsibility element. When it does so, government has an open door to step in and make everything *better* when things inevitably go south. Many moral, patriotic conservative Americans are pro-WOD. The WOD is an abomination from a constitutional and moral perspective. The folks who endorse it are generally not immoral people and are otherwise very conservative in their understanding of the Constitution. Why then, do they tolerate if not endorse the WOD? Because they're otherwise frustrated with the drug culture and the misery it causes. They have tolerated the passage of laws that violate inalienable rights because too many have abandoned the responsibilities inherent in the usage of mood altering chemicals. Frankly, the overwhelming majority of drug laws (at least at the Federal level) should not exist. They do exist because segments of our culture have glamorized, rather than marginalized irresponsible drug usage. If the junkie / addict were made a pariah and object of derision rather than a recipient of government largesse, we wouldn't have had the outcry to make laws against his behavior in the first place. Moreover, a stronger moral stance and belief in absolute right or wrong may have led him to avoid drug usage or abuse in the first place. As it is, enough of us tolerate the legislated incursions on personal liberties to offset the sizable enough portion of society that fails to link responsibility with the right to ingest what they may. Furthermore, many people may never do drugs, but see usage as a "victimless crime" and turn a blind eye to the addict and the crack house as long as they aren't in "my neighborhood." When enough blind eyes have been turned in the name of tolerance and moral relativity, the aberrant behavior becomes normative and accepted and any problems that don't directly affect "me" become the business of the government. To not believe in an absolute source of morality (and rights) means that any and all behavior can be in some manner justified. Likewise, abuses of responsibilities inherent in the right to bear arms have resulted in a sufficient level of frustration that has allowed the tolerance of the incursion of personal liberties. Hence, inner city crime does not effect those who live in the burbs, so we turn a blind eye to "Saturday Night Special Laws," because they don't affect us. Even those who oppose such laws because they can see the incremental creep, may not be cognizant of similar creep in other areas they are not as familiar with as gun rights. If one believes that the right to weapon ownership is not derived from some source superior to, and which transcends human history, defense against the dictates of conventional *wisdom* becomes very tenuous when that CW turns against the gun owner. Our founders articulated this as an enumerated right because they could foresee that had they not, even a democratic republic could potentially disarm it's citizenry (or actually allow them to disarm themselves.) Regardless of conventional wisdom, the weight of the electorate, public sentiment against, and the hatred towards gun owners by government officials at the highest level, we have these rights that can not be changed. They can be infringed by a despot, but only in violation of natural law which derives from a higher authority. Now, there always have been and always will be those who abuse the responsibilities inherent in their rights. What has changed is that there now exists a certain level of tolerance, and acceptance (if not celebration) of this behavior which used to be shunned by the overwhelming majority of society. Because communities no longer have the social weight to bring to bear against this irresponsibility, either through numbers or will, laws are passed to, in a sense, not impose, but take the place of a vanishing absolute morality.
My joe, but you do go on. Feel better?
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My two issues are that in this day and age, the atheist is using the force of law to impose their beliefs and that without a belief in a creator, one brings into question the "inalienability," of our rights and opens the door for situational ethics and moral relativism which is the tiny thread by which the entire blanket is ultimately unraveled.
"Joe that line may make sense to you, but please, read it again. I'm baffled as to your point[as it applies to me, seeing I'm not an atheist]."
First, the atheist movement in America is using the force of law and judicial activism to impose its beliefs on others who do not agree with them.
Joe, all such movements in America are using the force of law and judicial activism to impose their beliefs on others who do not agree with them. -- Your generalization is meaningless.
Second, for a right to be inalienable it must be unchangeable. To be unchangeable, by definition it must be eternal; if not eternal, the only conclusion is that they start and end at some point, and I do not envision the rights of man as having an expiration date. The rights with which we are endowed have applied equally to every person throughout human history. Many have lived in systems or in environments where those rights were repressed and violated, but the rights themselves never went away or changed. They were always there. If this is the case, the same, equal rights that every individual enjoys transcend the lives of individual persons and therefore exist outside of and external to the individual human experience. To believe that those rights have been granted to us from an external source is to acknowledge an "endower" that by definition, transcends and is external to individual human lives, historic eras, dynasties, etc. If the source of the rights is internal to the individual human, then the assertion of one individual's belief system is no better or worse than any other and it is in the application of this individual morality that we get situational ethics which is ultimately why it's *ok* to ban certain weapons, to conduct certain searches and seizures, etc.
No joe, you're wrong.. Whatever the source, we have Constitutionally agreed on our rights.
I intend to see that my peers support that agreement.
Your insistence that your peers agree on sources is divisive, not supportive.
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Having said all that, I will at this point indicate that there is a possibility that I am entirely wrong and that there is no creator. The existence of GOD, allah, buddha, vishnu, etc. is not what I was advocating. This entire discussion revolves around the assertion that the lack of belief in a creator as the source of rights undermines the foundation of our nation.
And your insistence on having a creator acknowledged by all is divisive, and not needed.
The founding fathers may turn out to be wrong as well....there may not in fact be any such thing as inalienable rights or creator; however, they wrote the DOI with a firm belief in both, and it was that belief that became the central principle expressed as the justification for breaking away from England and establishing our nation.
The DOI's reasoning reads the same, and means the same, -- if all religious references are ignored.
You are on a meaningless, divisive crusade joe. Chill, and spend your time better in seeing that our Constitution is supported.
You accuse me of treating the DOI as though it were scripture. While I do not quite elevate it to that level, yes, I do believe it was divinely inspired, unprecedented and something all Americans should hold in high esteem (I of course refer to the ideas expressed and not the physical document itself, and my belief that it is divinely inspired is simply my opinion and otherwise irrelevant to this discussion.) The men signing that that document knew that it may have actually been counter to their self-interest (spitting in the face of a king is rarely a life enhancing practice) and did so because of some higher, external ideal. You have made remarks to the effect that the inclusion of references to a higher being could be deleted from the document without changing its fundamental character,and that assertion is making an incredible leap.
The document begins by acknowledging that there are times in human history when, "...it becomes necessary for one people 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..." This is the basic and fundamental premise given for breaking with the crown and establishing a new nation. Take away the references to the Laws of Nature and Nature's God, and you need to come up with an entirely new justification.
Whereas Chesterton chooses the word, "dogma," which we've discussed in terms of a credo or belief system, the founders write, "We hold these truths to be self-evident..." In other words..."we accept these things as fact"...or, dare I say,..."we firmly believe in the following." The things they articulate and identify as self-evident truths include the endowment of rights by a creator. If that was not part of their belief system, why would they refer to it as "self-evident"?
Finally, after articulating the list of grievances, the actual words of declaration are made by those identifying themselves as "...Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world..." In other words, they affirm the dissolution of political ties by identifying and acting under the auspices of a source of law greater than the King of England and with the authority to exercise supreme judgment over the entire world. Their concluding pledge of their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to one another is made, ...with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence..."
As I've noted elsewhere, this is not an insistence that anyone must believe as they did, nor does it compel anyone to embrace a particular creed; many died so that none would be forced to do so. I'm simply making the observation that the founding document of this nation can not have references to the divine deleted from it without changing it's fundamental underpinnings. I've further indicated that there is no requirement for any American since that time to agree with the founders; I've simply indicated that those who freely choose to deny or ignore the role of the concept of a creator as the source of our rights can not view those rights as absolute in the same manner as the signatories of the DOI (unless of course, it can be demonstrated that they signed it against their will or pledged their life without actually agreeing to all that they were committing to.)