Skip to comments.
Katherine Harris: God Didn't Want Secular U.S.
NewsMax ^
| 27 August 2006
Posted on 08/27/2006 7:01:21 AM PDT by Aussie Dasher
click here to read article
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 141-160, 161-180, 181-200 ... 401-412 next last
To: an amused spectator
Your posting of the Constitutional material defining the Rights of resident atheists is of course correct.Resident atheists? You mean, of course, atheist American citizens.
161
posted on
08/27/2006 8:49:40 PM PDT
by
libravoter
(Live from the People's Republic of Cambridge)
To: an amused spectator
I sloppily interchanged the two terms, Problem solved. Just wanted to make sure you weren't using a religious test to confer constitutional rights.
Good night.
162
posted on
08/27/2006 8:51:05 PM PDT
by
sinkspur
(Today, we settled all family business.)
To: A. Pole
"Equally mean is to ask self-avowed materialist what matter is"
Well, that's not difficult -- matter is anything that exists in spacetime. The set of material objects includes everything from Mars to the humblest photon.
The challenge for the materialist is to reduce entities that are not in spacetime to those that are. For example, beliefs, sensations, numbers, inferences and so forth are not logically or causally reducible to observable behavior and material objects in any obvious way. Dualism may be the solution to the mind-body "problem," which means we don't have a problem at all.
163
posted on
08/27/2006 8:53:07 PM PDT
by
JHBowden
(Speaking truth to moonbat.)
To: an amused spectator
"It's interesting that Kant and his writings were coeval with the Founders. I'm wondering if the solution to the posit of FreedomFighter78 about the Founders being able to defend the Rights without the Creator lies here.
Hard to say how long it took to digest and interpolate the main writings of Kant. I'll have to look into the matter."
I wasn't really thinking of Kant - he didn't really gain much of a following until the mid-late 1780s (I believe his 'Critique of Pure Reason' was published in 1780 or 1781) - but he certainly provides another basis for natural rights that is not dependent on a Creator.
I was thinking of Hobbes, Locke, and (to a lesser extent) Rousseau - the social contract thinkers.
To: libravoter
Resident atheists? You mean, of course, atheist American citizens. Yes, atheist American citizens. You caught me cheating on the side of the posit "what if atheists formed their own country in the late 1700s". I admit to the slyness. :-)
165
posted on
08/27/2006 8:58:02 PM PDT
by
an amused spectator
(Hezbollah: Habitat for Humanity with an attitude)
To: an amused spectator
Apparently not to you.
Your arrogant, superior tone simply cements my point.
166
posted on
08/27/2006 8:59:44 PM PDT
by
Luis Gonzalez
(Some people see the world as they would want it to be, effective people see the world as it is.)
To: A. Pole
All State sponsored religions disappeared from the country in the Founder's time.
Amazingly enough, that concept began to die with the borth of the United States.
167
posted on
08/27/2006 9:02:55 PM PDT
by
Luis Gonzalez
(Some people see the world as they would want it to be, effective people see the world as it is.)
To: an amused spectator
An atheist's Constitutionally defended rights are the same as a non-atheists...the government is forbidden to violate those rights period.
As far as an atheist's unalienable rights, they are based on the fact that no one has a right to take their life or their liberty under any circumstance, regardless of religious belief.
168
posted on
08/27/2006 9:13:21 PM PDT
by
Luis Gonzalez
(Some people see the world as they would want it to be, effective people see the world as it is.)
To: an amused spectator
"Madison says nothing about a "wall" in these quotes."BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!
169
posted on
08/27/2006 9:15:56 PM PDT
by
Luis Gonzalez
(Some people see the world as they would want it to be, effective people see the world as it is.)
To: FreedomFighter78
Some of my thinking is framed in terms of the Civil War (which was in the timeframe of 6 decades later, of course). The descendants of the Founders were really tied up about the religion thing, and it motivated much of the viciousness of the conflict (God's on our side! No, He's on our side!)
If such attitudes persisted so long after the Enlightenment, I wonder how the argument of non-religious Rights would have been received by the majority in those times. It's a moot point in this Age.
170
posted on
08/27/2006 9:16:53 PM PDT
by
an amused spectator
(Hezbollah: Habitat for Humanity with an attitude)
To: Luis Gonzalez
An atheist's Constitutionally defended rights are the same as a non-atheists...the government is forbidden to violate those rights period. FreedomFighter78 already pointed this out. The current discussion revolves around an atheist's Natural Rights, and how he would have asserted them at the time of the Founding.
171
posted on
08/27/2006 9:19:58 PM PDT
by
an amused spectator
(Hezbollah: Habitat for Humanity with an attitude)
To: JHBowden
Well, that's not difficult -- matter is anything that exists in spacetime. Well, you say where matter exists. I asked what matter is.
In April 2005, in Windsor Castle, prince Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles. We have the time and space location. Is their marriage made of matter?
172
posted on
08/28/2006 5:41:15 AM PDT
by
A. Pole
(The Law of Comparative Advantage: "Americans should not have children and should not go to college")
To: Luis Gonzalez
All State sponsored religions disappeared from the country in the Founder's time. Not true. The Congregationalist Church remained the state church of Massachusetts well into XIX century.
173
posted on
08/28/2006 5:43:39 AM PDT
by
A. Pole
(The Law of Comparative Advantage: "Americans should not have children and should not go to college")
To: FreedomFighter78
Since all humans necessarily have a right to be human (it would be absurd to argue that a human does not have the right to be human), and since these other things (life, liberty, property, pursuit of happiness) are an inherent part of being "human," it follows that all humans have a right to life, liberty, etc. This is a nice tricky "reasoning" worthy for a good lawyer. Unfortunately it does not hold water.
It is a inherent part of being alligator to eat other living beings which are passing by. And since it is absurd to deny the right to be alligator for a alligator it follows that the alligator in zoo has the right to eat the human visitors instead of being fed with some dog food.
But what a right is? This context defines a right to be derived from natural tendency and not as a moral or legal category. We can agree that humans want some things because they are human. It does not mean that it gives them any rights. This that your desire or need is natural does not mean that you are untitled to follow it.
174
posted on
08/28/2006 5:57:13 AM PDT
by
A. Pole
(The Law of Comparative Advantage: "Americans should not have children and should not go to college")
To: orionblamblam
> God and the nation's founding fathers did not intend the country be "a nation of secular laws."
And yet... that's what the founding fathers created.
Amateurs...
To: Aussie Dasher
This loonie-toonie mouth-running gives ammunition to the "Bush Stole The Election" crowd -- now they can say that Harris rigged it because she thinks God told her to.
176
posted on
08/28/2006 10:51:40 AM PDT
by
steve-b
("Creation Science" is to the religous right what "Global Warming" is to the socialist left.)
To: an amused spectator
Perhaps you could shed some light on where an atheist's Natural Rights would come from Religious rights are protected by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.
177
posted on
08/28/2006 10:57:17 AM PDT
by
steve-b
("Creation Science" is to the religous right what "Global Warming" is to the socialist left.)
To: an amused spectator
I'm taking the position that a nation of atheists would have been incapable of writing the Declaration or the Constitution, or defending their break with the nation of England, which was ruled by a king who had a divine Right to his position.
They would have infuriated the nations of that place and time, and all men's hands would have been raised against them. HAHAHAHA!! Yeah, like the abolute monarch Louis XVI "raised his hand" against those radicals who were trying to establish a republic in rebellion against his brother Christian king.
178
posted on
08/28/2006 11:02:53 AM PDT
by
steve-b
("Creation Science" is to the religous right what "Global Warming" is to the socialist left.)
To: an amused spectator
Rejecting the premises under which the Constitution was crafted is a rejection of the Constitution itself. Nonsense. Tycho Brahe's observational tables of planetary positions were crafted under the premise that the planets moved in circular cycles and epicycles around the Earth. By your "reasoning", that renders them valueless.
179
posted on
08/28/2006 11:07:18 AM PDT
by
steve-b
("Creation Science" is to the religous right what "Global Warming" is to the socialist left.)
To: A. Pole
Did not the scholastics argue that the natural law can be discerned by reason alone, without the aid of revelation?
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 141-160, 161-180, 181-200 ... 401-412 next last
Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson