Ikari

Hyperbole. Secularism does no thing. There are churches, and people are allowed to practice and preach as they see fit so long as they don't infringe upon the rights of others in the process. Secularism doesn't force anything out, it doesn't seek to annihilate anything. Slaves were allowed when this country was created, does that mean the anti-slavery movement was an attack on private property of slave owners? No, we recognized that slaves were not private property and were attempting to restore to them the full of their own rights. Many things used to exist which don't anymore, the point is that the system was created to become more free as time went on. Secularism doesn't attack, doesn't say religion is good or bad, doesn't prevent its practice or encourage it. It merely says that there is a time and a place for everything, and religion has no place in government.

The Declaration of Independence is great, but you must note that it was also a bit of propaganda to justify revolt.

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obvious Child

The DoI is essentially nothing more then a laundry list of why the King of England is meanie and why we don't like him anymore. Why people still think that the DoI has any real impact upon our legal system, I don't know.

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The silenced majority

God is a necessary concept for a representative Republic such as ours. I can't conceive why so many waste so much time making declarations that the accomplishments of our God-fearing nation was due to the installment of a secularist government, but anyhow.

The DOI is very important because the concept of "god" is very important to our Republic. The reason why so many secularists, statists & socialists want to drive "god" out of everything that relates to government is because doing so is very useful to their agenda. Our founding documents set forth that the inherent inalienable rights of man come not from man, but God; a power that pre-dates man & the law & order of man. If God is removed, then laws are only derived from the consent of the governed and the alteration and abridgment of rights by a sitting government can be easily justified.

Whether you actually *believe in God is irrelevant.

Tucker Case

How the "concept" of some ambiguous and amorphous yet omnipotent and omnipresent invisible-man in space magically granting and ungranting rights prevent people from justifying removing them?

Don't you see, if they had actually been magically granted by the ambiguous and amorphous yet omnipotent and omnipresent invisible-man in space they could not ever be altered or abridged. In this situation, there is nothing that could be justified, because such a thing that would requires justification simply could not exist.

obvious Child

You do realize that the DoI's meat is why the King of England is a poopy head?

You do realize that law are derived from the consent of the governed and that rights are an artificial creation? Just because we'd like to credit God doesn't change this fact. In fact it's better this way as we are responsible for our actions and our laws.

The silenced majority

Did you actually read what I wrote, or does the word God trigger certain responses among the atheistic Libertarians who are here to save the planet from religion?

The reason why GOD is an important concept as it relates to government is that if our "certain inalienable rights" come from GOD not a government of men than no government of men can easily abridge these "certain inalienable rights". These "rights" are off limits; the only thing government can do is uphold these rights. If these "rights" came from the government, then the government could easily alter them.

If our founders believed that man's inalienable rights came from "the just consent of the governed" then the DOI would have read:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are equal in the eyes of the Government, that they are endowed by the just consent of the governed with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

The silenced majority

Yes, and it also set the foundation for self-governance.

No, certain laws pre-date the "just consent of the governed" as per the drafters of the Declaration of Independence. They obviously had good reason to keep certain rights out of the hands of government; away from the tyranny of the majority.

Endowed by their creator = no man or group of men will ever have a "right" to take these rights away.

I understand that the concept of "God" is major speed-bump for those who are on the superhighway to the super-state.

Tucker Case

How so. You keep saying this, but how are the rights less likely to be alienated if the concept of God exists? There is no evidence that these rights are inalianable in any religious texts that I've found. The only way to make that true is to turn our national documents INTO quasi-religious texts.

I'm not bashing the concept of God. I'm arguing that the logic your are using is false. Perhaps I was too vaugue and I should have clarified that I was trying to use a very general concept of God that could be construed as nearly universal. Not an attack on the concept of God.


But back to the logic:

You said that

That argument is based entirely on circular logic. It states that "Things that are granted by God are inalienable, things that are inalienable can only be so if they are granted by God. The rights decribed must be Granted by God because they are inalienable and since they are granted by God they must be inalienable."

Obviously you need to accept one or the other first order premises to come to the conclusion. Thus it is definitively circular logic.


Furthermore, the conclusion can be seen to be totally false, even if the logic were not fatally flawed, and this falsenes is supported by the indisputable FACT that these so-called inalienable rights are alienated daily across the globe, and the justification for which is often due to people's various concepts of God(s).

For example, the Concept of Zeus does not prevent the justification of alienating rights. Nor would the concept of Kali. Obviously the concept of Allah does not do this, nor Jehova. The concept of Thor doesn't. Nor will any various concept of some ambiguous and amorphous yet omnipotent and omnipresent invisible-man in space/Mt.Olympus/Valhalla/Heaven etc.



Your entire argument is based on the belief that concepts such as the above do more to protect our rights than such man-made documents as the Constitution. If you believe this to be ture, then support it. I can show that the logic is cicular and we all know that for the GWOT to actually exist, the conclusion must obviously be false. In may countries where this conflict is being waged the CONCEPT of God is being used for the express purpose of alienating those rights.




P.S. I'm not trying to "save the planet from religion". I believe that personal faith is hugely important, and would not do a thing to harm the rights of any perosn to practice their personal faith.

But I firmly believe that it is a personal thing. I don't think you should misinterpret that as trying to "save the planet form religion". I'm just trying to save some religions from other religions.

By establishing a single concept of God based on the judeo-christian ideas, we are marginalizing the other faiths. In that case, the right to religious freedom CAN be justified, because we've established a state-faith, if not religion.

But also, at no point did I make any argument sagainst religion. In fact, I believe it is this thread where I argued that we can and should have religious classes where students are taught about all religions as sets of beliefs that people have. Not promoting one religion or another, but educating children about all faiths, for all of the valuable aspects fond in each one. Let the children and their parents decide what that child's individual faith is. No particular faith has any dogma that prevents learning about the other faiths so what's the problem?

And how exactly is that saving the planet from religion?

Please don't assume that me not wanting religion in politics and government makes me anti-religion. I'm actually in favor of a universal religious educaton that takes care not to establish a religion. I agree that the concepts of religionare important on a personal level. I don't believe they have any place in science or government. That's actually fairly reasonable for a libertarian atheist, don't you think?

Ikari

Because we created a secular government, not a theocracy. Is that a difficult concept to understand? The DoI is an important document, but no laws or government is created by it. It has a bit of propaganda in it, a little hyperbole, to further justify the revolt. Thomas Jefferson (you may know him as the man who wrote the DoI) was at deist, and it's even suggested from letters to his son that he went further than that and was an atheist. Though you couldn't say that in those days, could get you in a heap of trouble. So you make the claim that our rights come from this god to further promote the righteousness of revolution against the crown. But our rights do not come from gods, nor do they come from governments. Rights are innate to humans, it's the innate intelligence, extelligence, and empathy from which our rights are derived.

And we atheist libertarians aren't trying to save everyone from religion, we're merely trying to save government from religion.

YamiB.

Religion being allowed to do what in schools and such?

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