Brain Food (Amazingthing about Godless is the amount of intellectual meat Ann Coulter has packed...)

The American Prowler ^ | 6/30/2006 | Richard Kirk

[hail to the chief]

At any rate, your answer is a sidestep. At issue was whether God should send his creations to hell, and you still haven't explained from where he derives that authority.

[OmahaFields]

Let me clarify: If you can do a thing, it is, by definition, a God given right to choose to do it and carry out the act.

But somewhere on here I read that taking away our god-given rights was reason for overthrowing our government? Is this your perception?

[RobRoy]

>>and you still haven't explained from where he derives that authority.<<

He created them. If I create a thing out of clay, I can pretty much do whatever I want with it. If a bowl leaks, I can throw it away if I so choose. Heck, even if it is a GREAT bowl I could throw it away. Good thing I'm not God. ;)

[OmahaFields]

#602?

[RobRoy]

>>But somewhere on here I read that taking away our judging rights was reason for overthrowing our government? Is this your perception?<<

It absolutely CAN be! And I get that directly from the declaration of independence:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies As you probably already know, the bill of rights doesn't list the rights the government gives us. It lists the God given rights the government shall not take away. In that sentence is the concept that obviously some God given rights will be taken away by the state, even in our country - The right to murder, for example - and rightly so. It is one of the main reasons government exists: Protect our borders from invasion; protect us from each other.

[RobRoy]

Bad formatting. The declaration ends where the italics end... Sorry...

[RobRoy]

see 605.

[OmahaFields]

It absolutely CAN be!That is the DofI, not our constitution. It does not give legal authority but may give moral authority. In that context, should we overthrow our government if they take away or God-given rights?

[jennyp]

God gave man the ability to make choices, even bad ones. But He did not give us the right to do anything. For example, so far it appears that he did not give us the right to travel backwards in time.

That's like saying "670,616,629.384 miles per hour. It's not just a good idea - it's the law!"

Here is a simple test to see if God gave you the right to choose to do a thing. Try to do it. If you can, He gave you that right. Of course, your actions may have negative consequences.

So yes, God gave Hitler the right to kill jews, otherwise he would have been incapable of such action. He gives parents the right to kill their children, otherwise abortions would not be possible.

However, acting on that right may be as devastating as when Adam and Eve acted on their rights by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Saying someone CAN do a thing is not the same as saying they SHOULD do it.

Um, up top you said, "God gave man the ability to make choices, even bad ones. But He did not give us the right to do anything." Then the rest of your post you directly contradicted yourself.

Overall, you're doing some serious conflating of concepts here. What you call a "right" is what everyone else on the planet would call "ability". Whether we have a right to do something depends on the consequences. Whether I have a right to fly my jet around the world is true or false regardless of the fact that I don't actually own a jet. (I'm blanking out on better analogies at the moment.)

Being physically able to do something is a prerequisite for acting on something you have a right to do - but it's also a prerequisite for doing something you don't have a right to do. Ability is not the same thing as the right itself. That's just silly. A right answers the question, "is a proposed act morally acceptable?" Which means: "Would we be justified if we physically stopped this person from carrying out the act that they're contemplating?" The answer depends on the consequences of the action, and whether the person asking the question thinks that a world in which the contemplated act was allowed would be a good one or not. Whether someone actually has the ability to do something hardly prevents us from discussing whether something would be right.

When you conflate such basic concepts so badly, it's not surprising that you end up with bizarre conclusions such as agreeing with Leviticus about parents killing their "incorrigible" children. But when you take a basic premise and work out its consequences, and they turn out to be bizarre & palpably evil, don't you think it's a signal that you should rethink your premises?

[jennyp]

In that context, should we overthrow our government if they take away or God-given rights?

Omaha, you're not getting RobRoy's argument. If we are successful, then we had the ability, so we had the right by definition. If we're not successful, then we didn't have the ability, so we didn't have the right by definition.

(The mind boggles, I know.)

[RobRoy]

>>That is the DofI, not our constitution.<<

Yes. I believe I said that before I posted it.

>>In that context, should we overthrow our government if they take away or God-given rights?<<

My quoting the specific section of the Declaration of Independence IS my answer. It is the only answer to that question you will get from me.

[RobRoy]

You are mincing words. My post was not a thesis. It was a post.

I admit that when I used the word "anything" I actually should have added "you want".

And in the context of my post I was intentionally using the word "right" as synonymy's with "ability", for that IS how God grants you the right to do a thing - like have children, for instance.

There is a big difference between rights granted by God and rights granted by man. For example, if man says you cannot cross the street when the light is red, I'll bet if you look both ways and try, you'll be able to do it. And if there are no cops around, you'll even get away with it.

If the physical law (established by God) says that if your body is exposed, naked, to the vacuum of outer space, certain icky things will happen to the gasses and liquids within you, I would highly advise against it, no matter how fast you think you are.

And if you wear a space suit, you are no longer naked and, therefore, not violating the law.

Then, of course, there are moral laws which, by definition, come from your creator. One would be that you cannot murder. Yet people murder people every day. So what about that. The answer is that there will be consequences. You exercised your right to choose to do something that God gave you the ability to do. God doesn't micromanage like Allah does. He let's you make choices, even bad ones, by giving you the authority (and right) to carry out wrong activities - like murder - and then the penalty is paid for such actions.

If you did not have that ability/right, you would not have a free will.

[RobRoy]

Thank you Jenny. You got my point exactly.

It is basic, I know, but I find that discussing these issues we must often strip away all the "learning" we have piled onto the original basic concepts and see if we can or should rebuild our paradigms as they currently exist.

Sometimes in doing so it is discovered that we do not share a common foundational belief at all. We only think we do, which is the root of the misscommunication.

[jennyp]

Thank you Jenny. You got my point exactly.

So if a robber robs a bank and gets away with it, that's proof that he had the right to do it.

This actually resolves to: Might makes right. Interesting.

[RobRoy]

>>So if a robber robs a bank and gets away with it, that's proof that he had the right to do it. <<

No.

If a robber robs a bank, the act alone is proof he had the God given right to do so. That is, btw, one of the "God given" rights that the state takes away.

Further, even if the state never caught him, he would not "get away with it". As I told my children, when a man breaks into your home and steals your stereo, the only person he is hurting is himself. You can replace your stereo, he has become something he was not before he stole it. It impacts who he is. It makes him morally "sick".

And in one way or another, we have all exercised our "right" to do the wrong thing almost constantly. As I said in a previous post to someone else: We are all morally sick. Christians simply KNOW they are sick and have accepted their creators freely offered forgiveness and healing - which they/we need on an hourly basis. There is a reason he is called the bread/water of life - SPIRITUAL life.

But it goes far deeper than that.

[RobRoy]

>>This actually resolves to: Might makes right. Interesting.<<

Actually, in a true "we evolved without a creator" society, that would be absolutely correct.

[jennyp]

Your whole concept of morality is as an arbitrary demand by a dictator. I know this is a common moral framework that animates creationists, but I just can't see how you can accept that and at the same time support the concept of individual freedom and the promise of America.

(I'm sure you support America and what it stands for. I'm just baffled as how you could with your concept of morality.)

[RobRoy]

>>Your whole concept of morality is as an arbitrary demand by a dictator.<<

That really is one way of looking at it. Except in this case the dictator is my creator, not another flawed man.

And His personality compels me to want to live in His "dictatorship". It is the Father-son relationship.

The problem with earthly dictatorships is the quality of the dictator - they are always human, and all that that implies. When God is the "dictator" it is a completely different thing.

[hail to the chief]

That's a ridiculous analogy. Of course you can do what you want with a piece of clay, but it is a different thing entirely to bring harm on a conscious being.

[Varmint Al]

I agree completely with post #43. I am a conservative through and through, but I just don’t "believe" in the Creationism. I believe in evolution, but that doesn't make me a bleeding heart liberal. Beliefs are beliefs and should be exempt from debate. One doesn’t change beliefs with facts, one way or the other. BTW, Ann’s book is great. I have it on the coffee table for any liberal bold enough to visit this conservative household. Good Hunting... from Varmint Al