Posted on 08/01/2006 12:42:58 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback
I've been in several accidents in my life. Based on previous performance my last words on this earth will be. "Oh Shit... " In one case where I knew what was going to happen for about two seconds I said, "This is gonna hurt."
No surprise there.
Feels like a spear.
Those hard-sell religions have never held anything for me.
You would post that and call MM's father egotistical? LOL.
Whatever he can get away with.
Anyone who prides them self on taking positions based purely on logic should be able to lay out the logic of their position on this very basic question about our form of government. Where are our rights derived?
Laws of men are only capable of taking rights. They are unable to give them.
Atheism is not a neutral position. Even someone who believes in a pixie creator will have a logical basis for their rights within our form of government. An atheist must rely on the good will of his fellow citizens. Trust me. Most of us not that nice.
Any of the other atheists around here wanna take on this challenge, I'll be around later.
Pretty much, yes.
But in practice, many Buddhists have deified him.
See post 66 for an example. I don't think atheists have the corner on thinking they "know" what the truth is. There are lots of dogmatic atheists out there. And lots of dogmatic theists too.
Well, if you don't allow for the idea that our rights come from other men, then it's clear that nobody will be able to refute your argument.
At the risk of stirring up a hornet's nest, Natural Law, which is basically what we're talking about, has it's routes in Greek philosopy, and more closely, the Roman flavour of Stoicism that followed it. Jewish theologians (such as Philo of Alexandria) were heavily influenced by this tradition, and judging by the style of the New Testament, Paul was also. This goes to show that despite the fact that Stoics were theists, their concept of natural law was independent of a need to believe in God (Seneca himself states this). The early church fathers largely lifted this philosophy in its entirety, and simply change the 'objective' from the happiness/contentment of the Stoics to the salvation objective of Christians.
To put it simply, the moral traditions of Christianity (and non-Orthodox Jewry) is largely based on pagan philosophy.
Is there a reason I should???
Im sorry for that. I wish I knew what you meant by hard-sell?
If you don't care about insulting others, then no, there's no reason you should care at all. I would point out, however, that if you are interested in holding a conversation as opposed to trying to score metaphysical points against someone, that your method is counter-productive.
Atheism still sucks.
'Routes'? I mean 'roots' of course...
You are on your own.
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