“You might very well think that, Mr. Silverman. I couldn’t possibly comment.”
Posted on 03/02/2014 2:54:18 AM PST by markomalley
In an interview with Salon, the president of American Atheists reviewed the decision of the American Conservative Union (ACU) to rescind his organization’s invitation to CPAC. David Silverman charges that the ACU is both “pretending” that “atheists aren’t relevant” and that “Christianity still holds water in American society.”
When asked about his reported “pledge” to “attack the very idea that Christianity is an important element of conservatism,” Silverman responded that while “I did say that I was going to attack the idea that Christianity and conservatism were inseparable,” he was not waging “an attack on people of faith.”
“I wanted to raise the awareness that there were atheists in the ranks, and I wanted to raise the awareness that those atheists – at least some of them – think that Christianity can easily and should easily be divorced from conservatism,” Silverman told Josh Eidelson of Slate.
Practically in the same breath that Silverman said Christianity no longer “holds water in America,” he also stated, “There is nothing in my tone that sounded aggressive toward a person, or trashed Christianity in any way.”
Eidelson reminded Silverman that American Atheists’ public relations director recently wrote:
Setting aside the fact that religions are dangerous and false, separation of religion and government is absolutely necessary because if any religion co-opts legislature, it means that no other religion is free to practice as that legislature pertains to their beliefs. The range of applications is nearly unlimited: Marriage equality, right-to-die, abortion, birth control, sex ed, science education, science funding, religious school funding, liquor sales, business hours, employment discrimination, the list goes on and on and on.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Well, that'll happen whether they are getting it from the government or a private charity. The more they are given, the more dependent they get, no matter WHERE they get it, so this doesn't really address the issue of public/private.
He cares about what’s in our heart, and the government forcing us at gunpoint to give poverty level alms to the poor is the opposite of what Jesus wants.
Again, it sounds like you think he said "give to the poor" because it's good for YOU, not because it's good for the poor. Like the poor exist so you can prove your goodness. Is that what you think?
I’ll clarify for you what my point has been: Atheism provides for no ultimate objective source of individual sovereignty.
You still haven't shown me what this opinion has to do with taxes and the poor. It seems like a completely different topic to me. If it isn't, can you show me the connection?
For any one ideology A to be consistent with another ideology B, then principles which are necessary for B must also be necessary for A.
This doesn’t work for atheism as related to conservatism. There is nothing about atheism which requires the inclusion of individual sovereignty.
Thus, while the principle of individual sovereignty is necessary for conservatism, it’s not necessary for atheism.
Atheism is not consistent with conservatism.
As for the other, Christianity does not necessarily require that the government collect taxes to create a welfare state. This is consistent with conservatism.
Liberalism necessarily requires it though. This is inconsistent with Christianity, which doesn’t.
Atheists don't go around insisting atheism=conservatism. And you have never yet explained to me what "individual sovereignty" is. It sounds like one of those self-serving, made-up phrases like "social justice."
What is individual sovereignty, to you?
I don’t want to distract you from the initial point.
To answer your question, historically the concept of individualism has been juxtaposed with that of collectivism. But I think the correct analysis is more complex than simply that Marxist ideology favors collectivism while its primary opponent—American conservatism—favors individualism.
First let me say, collectivism amounts to mob rule and is a treasured tool of tyrants.
The way I see it, individualism can also be overemphasized. That is, absolute autonomy of the individual would essentially lead to a form of psychosis.
American conservatism is based on the idea that individuals possess sovereign rights—the sovereign part means that the group cannot legitimately violate those rights merely for its own interests. The foundation of our society also includes reliance on particular aspects of community, such as church groups, political entities and the military. This intricate balance between group and individual is the basis for the American political system, and it is what the leftists are trying to overthrow.
I see. But it isn't the Bible that outlines this concept, it's the Constitution.
Of course, you'll say that the Constitution does not grant these rights, merely outlines them and then claims they come from God.
Then I'll say they don't prove it comes from God.
Then you'll say that I cannot prove they come from anywhere else and that any attempt will be subjective rather than objective.
Then I'll say that claiming they come from an outside source isn't really being objective, it's simply drawing a line in the sand beyond which one refuses to argue.
Then you'll say that it accomplishes the same purpose, whereas subjectivity cannot.
Then I'll say that what it really boils down to is not how well you can justify your rights but how well you can back them up by a show of force, since our rights have been steadily eroded by Leftists for decades now, and claiming they come from God hasn't stopped this process...
I don't remember what happens after this part.
I detect a need to control the conversation, and to dictate when it ends. That’s okay.
But I can’t help myself, just one little comment. I don’t think rights can really have any meaning at all, if their value is measurable only by the weight of the subjective opinion of whoever has access to the most physical force at any time in history.
“You might very well think that, Mr. Silverman. I couldn’t possibly comment.”
The "meaning" and "value" of rights is an amusing topic for those who have no fear of losing them. But I am afraid you are wrong: Americans still have what rights we do because we declared them and then backed them up by a show of force. We are losing them now because we seem unable to combat internal enemies as effectively as external ones. And declaring them to be "from God" makes only as much difference as the people standing for them do... which tells me they don't come "from God" at all but from the decisions of men who discerned that staking a claim was the first step to having them.
Unfortunately, Leftists have discovered the same thing, and declaring education, housing, and health care as "human rights" was all it took to set us on the road we are on now. Again, where you claim the rights come from is only an indication of what method you intend to use in justifying them. But success is the real test.
The left has succeeded in the way you mention for one reason: because they give away objects of material value for free.
And when we won with our show of force it was because we had moral justification for fighting.
Without a transcendent basis for our rights, these rights don’t really exist. They’re only opinions.
Even with you claiming a transcendent basis, they are only opinions. It took humans almost 1800 years after Christ to come to the sudden conclusion that God wanted humans to have any rights at all. The Bible never mentioned them. The Catholic church didn’t seem to notice them. Then, suddenly, in America, in the late 1770s, someone decided they were “self-evident.” Oddly enough, they hadn’t been self-evident from Adam to Abraham to Aristotle to Aquinas. It took Adams et all to suddenly decide that God wanted us to have the right to privacy and a free press.
Self evident means it’s not opinion.
Self-evident means the conclusion is inherent to the thing in itself, derived through the use of pure logic—in this case, the thing in itself is Christianity.
Actually ... a RINO is a DEMORAT who hates politicians paying taxes...
Just because someone proclaims something to be self-evident doesn’t mean it is. If it were, it wouldn’t have taken thousands of years to identify. Remember, that which the Founding Fathers were declaring self-evident WASN’T Christianity. It was the idea that man has this list of rights.
As long as even the rights aren’t the pinnacle of goodness, we’re on firm biblical territory.
The pinnacle of goodness is the glorification of God.
But even the Old Testament didn’t want the widow and orphan to be starved just because they were widows and orphans. And prophets spoke very brownly of societies that allowed it.
Rights are derived either from the minds of men, or from the mind of God.
If from men, they are applicable either equally or unequally to each individual, being dependent in an existential sense on the opinions of men.
If from God, they are applicable equally to all men, so that no opinion from any man can affect their essential nature.
That’s all very fine reasoning, but in actual practice, as we can see, human access to those rights over the centuries demonstrates how utterly “from the minds of men” they are. Your God never declared them in the Bible. He gave us Ten Commandments, not Amendments.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.