Posted on 03/27/2010 7:04:16 AM PDT by pinochet
“I would assume an atheist believes these rights come from man & government.”
See, that’s the problem. You should not “assume.”
Your assumption is wrong. Please see my previous post:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2481086/posts?page=160#160
Hank
I would happily vote for a Jew or a Christian as long as they are conservative. I draw the line on anyone that believes in nothing or denys God because they are typically statist. The only exception I am aware of is an Ayne Ran objectivist.
“The only exception I am aware of is an Ayne Ran objectivist.”
Then I’m another. I’m a long-time student of Rand, but do not call myself an Objectivist, but am fiercely anti-statist and anti-collectivist, and have written extensively defending Christians, though am not a theist myself.
http://192.168.0.5/home/backup/iindv/articles_stand/objectivism/three_books.php
One reason I do not call myself an Objectivist, in addition to some difference I have with Rand over epistemological and ontological issues, those who call themselves Objectivists today are much more hedonistic and collectivist (turning Objectivism into a “movement” which Rand despised).
Here’s a late article. Short.
http://192.168.0.5/home/backup/atnmst/jrnl_ii.php?art=84
I do not accept the evolutionary hypothesis either, another assumption almost always made about those who do not believe in a God. And I certainly have no objection if other people believe in God, but certainly object to anyone attempting to use government to force their ideas on others.
Hank
I personally laugh at the term, born again, and it is used as a term by people who identify themselves as true believers.
The other poster described it as scraping the bottom of the barrel in considering an atheist for office. And I can rightly point to believers who screwed the pooch while holding office.
Agreed.
The question is moot. The country has already done it, all of the Wrights and Pflegers notwithstanding.
There’s no getting around what’s clearly written in the Declaration of Independence. Unless you acknowledge that our rights descend from a power greater than man or government, you accept that they are graned by one of those entities, and subject to being revoked by the same. They are either unalienable (as our founders believed) or transient and subject to change. They have to be one or the other, and if they transcend mankind and government, they have to derive from a source more permanent than either.
“They are either unalienable (as our founders believed) or transient and subject to change.”
I know that what you call rights, the principles behind that concept, are eternal and absolute.
If anything, including whatever your notion of rights is, is merely dictated or granted by some being, whatever that being is, they are not absolute, but contingent on the whim of whatever being made the declaration.
If they are absolute, it does not matter whether God grants them or not, they are eternally true. If they are not eternally true, there is nothing to prevent God from revoking them.
Hank
I suspect you'll be disappointed long before I am.
“Well then, I’ll look to God for my rights, and you can look to government.”
I know it is very difficult for you, but I do not look to anyone else for my rights, God, Government, or man. Reality is the source of all truth, and rights do not depend on the grants or gifts of anyone. The government has taken away almost all freedoms from Americans, what is your God doing to restore them?
Hank
It’s not up to God to restore them. Like all His gifts, we are free to abuse and neglect our rights or embrace them in all their glory. I suspect one reason they are being so easily trampled today is precisely because people fail to, or refuse to recognize their source...or “...Divine Providence...” to once again quote the Declaration of Independence.
Probably not, as almost all atheists I have met in real life and on here have a grudge against religion, particularly Christianity (exclusively?).
Perhaps an agnostic, but not an atheist.
Have you read her book “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”?
I for one, and most others, would never make such a categorical statement. I would vote for a conservative Jew (if one such individual still exists in the USA). But I want to vote for men and women whose morality I trust. Someone who believes that no higher power exists has suspect morality to me.
No. I read Atlas Shrugged for the first time last year during the first few months after Obama was elected.
Her book on Capitalism is a bit more revealing about Ayn Rand herself and includes a chapter on the rights of man and the role of government.
Joe, first off, please don’t throw accusations at someone who happens to hold a view different than yours. It doesn’t do the rest of us any good to be seen that way.
Second, read Ayn Rand’s “The Rights of Man” to get an idea of what Hank is talking about. Coming from someone who doesn’t fully subscribe to Ayn Rand’s views, she does make some good points on the subject of individual rights.
What accusation is that? The Declaration of Independence makes it very, very clear where the signatories of that document believed our rights derive from. They may have been right or wrong, but that's what they believed, and had they not, they would not have pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.
You may or may not agree with them, but again, that is what they believed and that is the premise upon which they declared this an independant nation.
Neither of us is going to resolve whether or not God exists, and I don't begrudge someone their personal beliefs; however, to dispute what the Declaration of Independence declares on the part of its signatories and to say that it doesn't say what it clearly says is at best disingenuous.
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