Quest for Truth

[Absolute_Agent]

Please...  The Declaration was a verbose call to arms and a protest document.  It is certainly stirring.  I often read it aloud on July 4th (inaccurate the date may be).  You don't people activated by quoting a lot of rules.  Back in the 70s, I was a talented creator of protest signs.  If you are old enough, you probably saw some of them (not that I was the best).

But the US was not constructed on the Declaration Of Independence.  It was constructed in The Constitution.

None of that disproves my point.  The rights of man and all just laws were correctly understood by the founding fathers to derive from God, agree with them or not.  They also understood that these laws were an organic outgrowth of implicit laws encoded into nature.  You would, through an atheist lense, view those laws and interpret them as just "the way things are." There isn't anything inaccurate about that.  However I would argue that mankind is inherently theistic in orientation.  It's only recently through science and secularism that he has been enabled to override his own nature and become atheist.  You would say this is a good thing, an advancement in evolution.  I would agree, but for a different reason.  It is good insofar as men are empowered to choose freely their religion or not.  Good for me in that choosing my religion is only that much more meaningful.  It is also a marker of evolution.  I don't have any need to convert you, despite what nonsense others project onto me.  I truly enjoy the challenge of facing your world view full blast, and I benefit from having my every word scrutinized. 

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[josephpalazzo]

  However I would argue that mankind is inherently theistic in orientation. 

Take away the power of religious institutes to brainwash the young ones, and you'll get a different outcome.

[Cavebear]

None of that disproves my point.  The rights of man and all just laws were correctly understood by the founding fathers to derive from God, agree with them or not.  They also understood that these laws were an organic outgrowth of implicit laws encoded into nature.  You would, through an atheist lense, view those laws and interpret them as just "the way things are." There isn't anything inaccurate about that.  However I would argue that mankind is inherently theistic in orientation.  It's only recently through science and secularism that he has been enabled to override his own nature and become atheist.  You would say this is a good thing, an advancement in evolution.  I would agree, but for a different reason.  It is good insofar as men are empowered to choose freely their religion or not.  Good for me in that choosing my religion is only that much more meaningful.  It is also a marker of evolution.  I don't have any need to convert you, despite what nonsense others project onto me.  I truly enjoy the challenge of facing your world view full blast, and I benefit from having my every word scrutinized. 

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I don't know whether to bother to discuss this with you or let others do it.  But I am the impatient sort...

The writers of the US Constitution arose during The Age Of Enlightenment.  The Enlightment was exemplified by a change from Monarchal and Religious heirarchy to the idea that reason and thought could promote human welfare better than higher powers and command structures.  Embedded in that was the idea that humans determined their own ethics and laws based on the abilities inherent in humans and an understanding of natural laws.

In part, it was a culmination of mass book-printing, exposure to how other non-european cultures succeeded or failed and a deep idea that laws which were collectively agreed-upon were likely to be accepted throughout a society.  In that sense, the protest over "taxation without representation" was less a complaint about the costs than from the lack of participation in the process.

The US Constitution is not the Declaration.  It is a very specifically-organized description of a formal secular government.  Unlike many European nations who had guaranteed functions and powers incrementally assigned to religious groups, the US Constitution has none.

Yes, they sometimes spoke the language of the time, full of religious references.  But it was oratorical habit.  In the same way that even I use religious terms to some expressions of anger or pain (God damn it) they did also.  Reading their seriously thoughtful writings, you see that in deepest thought, religion was seldom invoked.

I understand that the religious want to view the Constitution as deriving some justification from a deity.  Quite frankly, if I thought there was one, I would too.  "Knowing" from All High would be very reassuring and certainly eliminate many doubts about right or wrong. But false assurance is not psychologically healthy.

[Hydra009]

However I would argue that mankind is inherently theistic in orientation.

Strange then how a lot of people go through an awful lot of effort to push this stuff on kids, when it would obviously come to them naturally.

It's only recently through science and secularism that he has been enabled to override his own nature and become atheist.

There's a Westworld joke in there somewhere, I just know it.

You would say this is a good thing, an advancement in evolution.

Are you then one who doesn't understand evolution or is that your sock?

I don't have any need to convert you

Good because you're right shit at it.  So much so that you should've stopped on day 1.

[Unbeliever]

Strange then how a lot of people go through an awful lot of effort to push this stuff on kids, when it would obviously come to them naturally.

If belief in God were natural, there would be no need to teach it. Children would possess it as well as adults, the layman as the priest, the heathen as much as the missionary. We don't have to teach the general elements of human nature - the five senses, seeing hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling. They are universal; so would religion be if it were natural, but it is not. On the contrary, it is an interesting and demonstrable fact, that all children are atheists, and were religion not inculcated into their minds they would remain so. Even as it is, they are great skeptics, until made sensible of the potent weapon by which religion has ever been propagated, namely, fear - fear of the lash of public opinion here, and of a jealous, vindictive God hereafter. No; there is no religion in human nature, nor human nature in religion. It is purely artificial, the result of education, while atheism is natural, and, were the human mind not perverted and bewildered by the mysteries and follies of superstition, would be universal.

[Cavebear]

Thank you so much for that quote.  It says so much that I wish I could say in so few words.  On the other hand, she probably wasn't trying to do it in 2 minutes, LOL!

[Mr.Obvious]

If I read you correctly are saying that not agreeing to theism is not the same as opposing it.  This seems like a philosophical distinction.  Yet in actual life, I find that anyone who does not accept theism is always opposed to it.  This is because humans are not philosophical abstractions but flesh and blood creatures.  What we don't agree with, we see as a threat, if large numbers of people hold to these ideas, and rightly so.  Politics always deals with large numbers of people so any ideology that does not accept theism WILL oppose it actively.  It will definitely represent a threat to such ideology.  A good example of how this works is that I came to this forum with no intention of sharing my beliefs, yet these were immediately attacked without any provocation.  So instead of just chatting with open-minded people about science or philosophy as I hoped, I was constantly defending myself against attacks and correcting misconceptions about my beliefs.  It was assumed I was here to convert--which wasn't the case at all.  And you can see all the bitterness unleashed against my worldview scrolling through my introduction.  Atheists find genuine theism threatening, and no philosophical argument will convince me otherwise.

Who knows, maybe it's only a misconception, but that's highly doubtful.

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If you'll allow me, what I read from this is an insecurity mirrored to others because the idea of being the only one who finds the world to be so hostile is even worse than everybody thinking exactly the same way about the world and by extension the one doing the mirroring.

Who knows though, maybe it is only a misconception. ;)

[Cavebear]

If you'll allow me, what I read from this is an insecurity mirrored to others because the idea of being the only one who finds the world to be so hostile is even worse than everybody thinking exactly the same way about the world and by extension the one doing the mirroring.

Who knows though, maybe it is only a misconception. ;)

For someone named Mr. Obvious, that was very subtly snarkish...  Nice.

[Baruch]

I don't know whether to bother to discuss this with you or let others do it.  But I am the impatient sort...

The writers of the US Constitution arose during The Age Of Enlightenment.  The Enlightment was exemplified by a change from Monarchal and Religious heirarchy to the idea that reason and thought could promote human welfare better than higher powers and command structures.  Embedded in that was the idea that humans determined their own ethics and laws based on the abilities inherent in humans and an understanding of natural laws.

In part, it was a culmination of mass book-printing, exposure to how other non-european cultures succeeded or failed and a deep idea that laws which were collectively agreed-upon were likely to be accepted throughout a society.  In that sense, the protest over "taxation without representation" was less a complaint about the costs than from the lack of participation in the process.

The US Constitution is not the Declaration.  It is a very specifically-organized description of a formal secular government.  Unlike many European nations who had guaranteed functions and powers incrementally assigned to religious groups, the US Constitution has none.

Yes, they sometimes spoke the language of the time, full of religious references.  But it was oratorical habit.  In the same way that even I use religious terms to some expressions of anger or pain (God damn it) they did also.  Reading their seriously thoughtful writings, you see that in deepest thought, religion was seldom invoked.

I understand that the religious want to view the Constitution as deriving some justification from a deity.  Quite frankly, if I thought there was one, I would too.  "Knowing" from All High would be very reassuring and certainly eliminate many doubts about right or wrong. But false assurance is not psychologically healthy.

Colonial treason.

[Baruch]

Take away the power of religious institutes to brainwash the young ones, and you'll get a different outcome.

Hitler Youth or New Soviet Man?

[Absolute_Agent]

I don't know whether to bother to discuss this with you or let others do it.  But I am the impatient sort...

The writers of the US Constitution arose during The Age Of Enlightenment.  The Enlightment was exemplified by a change from Monarchal and Religious heirarchy to the idea that reason and thought could promote human welfare better than higher powers and command structures.  Embedded in that was the idea that humans determined their own ethics and laws based on the abilities inherent in humans and an understanding of natural laws.

In part, it was a culmination of mass book-printing, exposure to how other non-european cultures succeeded or failed and a deep idea that laws which were collectively agreed-upon were likely to be accepted throughout a society.  In that sense, the protest over "taxation without representation" was less a complaint about the costs than from the lack of participation in the process.

The US Constitution is not the Declaration.  It is a very specifically-organized description of a formal secular government.  Unlike many European nations who had guaranteed functions and powers incrementally assigned to religious groups, the US Constitution has none.

Yes, they sometimes spoke the language of the time, full of religious references.  But it was oratorical habit.  In the same way that even I use religious terms to some expressions of anger or pain (God damn it) they did also.  Reading their seriously thoughtful writings, you see that in deepest thought, religion was seldom invoked.

I understand that the religious want to view the Constitution as deriving some justification from a deity.  Quite frankly, if I thought there was one, I would too.  "Knowing" from All High would be very reassuring and certainly eliminate many doubts about right or wrong. But false assurance is not psychologically healthy.

There's not much I can disagree on here.  Thomas Jefferson, one of primary movers, was a Deist, which would translate into a belief that God was not directly involved in human affairs.  I wouldn't expect such a person to imvoke deity every other sentence, if ever when developing political theory.  He would correctly deduce that it was up to humans to pull ourselves up by our britches, having been given all the necessary faculties to accomplish this on our own, and as such that no God would step in to save us by merely sitting around praying in the pews all day for revelation.  Yet Jefferson was a reader of the Qur'an.   And John Adams said "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” I for one am certain of my hope in an unfailing & ever-present source of help in God.  And He has never failed me.  But believe what you will.

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[Absolute_Agent]

If you'll allow me, what I read from this is an insecurity mirrored to others because the idea of being the only one who finds the world to be so hostile is even worse than everybody thinking exactly the same way about the world and by extension the one doing the mirroring.

Who knows though, maybe it is only a misconception. ;)

Of course I will allow you, and I'll take Cavebear's word that it was right "snarkish" of you.

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[Cavebear]

There's not much I can disagree on here.  Thomas Jefferson, one of primary movers, was a Deist, which would translate into a belief that God was not directly involved in human affairs.  I wouldn't expect such a person to imvoke deity every other sentence, if ever when developing political theory.  He would correctly deduce that it was up to humans to pull ourselves up by our britches, having been given all the necessary faculties to accomplish this on our own, and as such that no God would step in to save us by merely sitting around praying in the pews all day for revelation.  Yet Jefferson was a reader of the Qur'an.   And John Adams said "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” I for one am certain of my hope in an unfailing source of help in God.  And He has never failed me.  But believe what you will.

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Well said in the first part.  You surprise me.  Well, my logic WAS irrefutable.

As the the rest, yes Jefferson read non-christian religious texts.  So have I.  He explored other ideas.

Ah John Adams., a spirititual ancestor so to speak.  That is some quote.  But what you don't realize is that it comes from a motivational letter he sent to the Massachusetts Militia, 11 October 1798.  1798?  Yes.  Nothing to do with the Constitution.  He was basically imploring the local militia to arm and feed themselves, as the US Govt had no funds.  He was begging them in terms they  might respond to. 

What do you think now?

[Baruch]

Well said in the first part.  You surprise me.  Well, my logic WAS irrefutable.

As the the rest, yes Jefferson read non-christian religious texts.  So have I.  He explored other ideas.

Ah John Adams., a spirititual ancestor so to speak.  That is some quote.  But what you don't realize is that it comes from a motivational letter he sent to the Massachusetts Militia, 11 October 1798.  1798?  Yes.  Nothing to do with the Constitution.  He was basically imploring the local militia to arm and feed themselves, as the US Govt had no funds.  He was begging them in terms they  might respond to. 

What do you think now?

Washington was a head of the US Freemasons, as was Franklin.  Jefferson was a member of the Parisian Illuminati.

[Mr.Obvious]

Of course I will allow you, and I'll take Cavebear's word that it was right "snarkish" of you.

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It was. Doesn't mean it is not true.
As to your earlier reply though. You are wrong, it is not just a philosophical distinction. The problem is you can't separate atheism from antitheism, maybe simply because many atheist also become antitheistic.
It seems like a minor distinction to you, maybe, but it is why you can't accept Sweden or other Scandinavian countries as 'atheist' countries. While they are. While many here are indeed antitheistic, myself included, very few would want a country or government that were truly antitheistic, rather atheist in nature and fully separated in it's proceedings and working manner from church. Indeed a fully szcularized nation without predisposition to allow special features for institutions of religion is an atheist nation.
Just not an antitheist one. Which is what you fear we al want because many of us are antitheist.
But our right to antitheism stops, as we here would mostly agree, where your right to theism starts. As in: my right to swing my fist in this free country of mine, stops at your face.