Responding to my observation that you seem incapable of looking past doctrine to see values, you ask, “What doctrine?”
We’ve dealt in this thread with one instance of the issue previously (see #338, #320, & #235), where your only response to the Judeo-Christian values expressed by the Founding Fathers in their philosophy of government, was to declare that they were not really real Christians because they didn’t subscribe to the formalism and the doctrinal standards you’ve erected to determine who is “truly” Christian and who is not. Even if you are dead-on accurate (which you are not) in your assessment that the Founding Fathers (or at least some of them) were not Christian, that would have no bearing on their declarations that America, its government, and the Revolutionary Act were founded on Christian values. They should know. It is they who created it.
Turning to another example:
Elsewhere in this thread you’ve declared that might always makes right. This is an inevitable consequence of Agnostic and Atheist thought wherein the only values that count are distilled down to the conclusion that “might always makes right.” To declare that “might always makes right” is to confess that Western Civilization had to wait until May of 1945 to know that opposing the evil of fascist Germany was the moral and right thing to do and that we had to wait even longer (until August) to know that opposing the evil of imperialist Japan was the moral and right thing to do.
Likewise then, we must admit that Cortés was right to loot and utterly devastate the Aztec civilization. Might, after all, always makes right. Despite the fact that Cortés was able to achieve his remarkable conquest by enlisting the aid of willing native peoples who had themselves been subject to the vicious degradations of the Aztecs, I know of no one who believes Cortés to have been in the right (surely there must be someone somewhere who does). But, according to the doctrine of Might always makes right it has to be true that anyone who dissents from the doctrine must be dead wrong.
By the same token we cannot deny the right of Islamic lunatics to crash very large jet planes into very tall buildings and to kill thousands of innocent people. Nor can we deny these same lunatics the right to turn the entire Middle East into a desert cesspool have they the power to do it. But, we may not dissent from the indisputable. Might always makes right.
There are, I believe, literally thousands of instances where values clashes with doctrine. Yet no variance between values and doctrine disturbs your mind, raising issues with the certainty of your assertion that might always makes right. You seem convinced that the conflict of right and might exists only in our heads.
And, I must express my absolute astonishment that you seem unable to comprehend that the Founders’ expression ‘a more perfect union’ refers not to the impossible task of improving perfection, but simply means constructing a union more closely approaching perfection. Do you truly not understand the meaning of their expression, or find it awkward?
With respect to Ayn Rand and your suggestion that we not go there because “the reality of life shows that such absolute statement are abjectly false, or just plain unrealistic,” I would ask you that do these abjectly false absolute statements include such absolutes as might always makes right?
Rand’s point is that there is no compromise with evil save abject surrender. She illustrates her point by asking, what compromise is possible between a vial of poison and a glass of water.
Precisely so.
Well said.
Well done.
THX.
Those who deny the divinity of Jesus or the Trinitarian nature of God are not Christians. Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Unitarists, deists, agnostics, etc. are not Christians. Some of the key authors and players of the Declaration were known to fall into one of those groups.
the Revolutionary Act were founded on Christian values. They [Founding Fathers] should know. It is they who created it.
The Declaration is not specifically Christian, implicitly or explicitly.
Elsewhere in this thread you’ve declared that might always makes right
That's the way the world is, whether you understand it or not. Might prevails. If you have the might, you write the rules.
And, I must express my absolute astonishment that you seem unable to comprehend that the Founders’ expression ‘a more perfect union’ refers not to the impossible task of improving perfection, but simply means constructing a union more closely approaching perfection.
In a poetic sense, perhaps, but not in a legal document. Grammatically "more perfect" is an oxymoron . To form a more perfect union suggests the union that exists is already "perfect." If Jefferson wanted to say to form "an improved" or "better" or "more equitable" union or words to that effect, then he should have said so plainly.
With respect to Ayn Rand and your suggestion that we not go there because “the reality of life shows that such absolute statement are abjectly false, or just plain unrealistic,” I would ask you that do these abjectly false absolute statements include such absolutes as might always makes right?
In the real world we "settle" things by compromising with our adversaries and even enemies. Therefore a compromise with a nemesis is not always abject surrender to it. Only Christianity calls for abject surrender to evil by teaching that we "not resist the evil." [cf Mat 5:39]
On the other hand, might is right without exception, which can easily be demonistrated as the universal law.