Anybody disagree with this guy

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20080124/NEWS/175846186/-1/ENTERTAINMENT5

Tuscaloosa News .com
Published Thursday, January 24, 2008

Quote :

Give Credit Where Credit is Due
Dear Editor: G. Wayne Crocker states, 'I hope they [presidential candidates] believe that God — not government — is the source of our liberties.' Bush harbors this theocratic notion and look what 'divine guidance' has done to our great nation. I certainly hope that our next president understands that his authority is derived not from God but from 'we the people' as provided for in our Constitution.

I cringe every time I hear a Christian conservative state that our liberties are a gift from God. This trivializes a concept and events that are monuments to the intellect, will, spirit, determination and sacrifice of those who did provide us with the liberties we so cherish and to those who helped preserve this gift.

Although God had millenniums to provide humankind with these liberties, freedom was only a suppressed thought in men's minds for most of civilization. During the Age of Enlightenment, John Locke advocated that sovereignty resides with the people. Locke's philosophy gave true freedom a glimmer of hope.

Men of courage and wisdom assembled a collection of farmers and tradesmen creating a ragtag army possessed with boundless bravery and perseverance. Freedom became a reality. The deist founders then created a document that guaranteed personal liberties for future Americans and inspired freedom for peoples of other nations.

Generations of Americans have unselfishly given of themselves to preserve the freedom gained 232 years ago. Our liberties are a gift from a rare breed of human beings. They deserve the credit.

David N. Miles

Orange Beach

I don't.

Nope.

Could this be the Rosetta Stone of deism?

Quote :

Generations of Americans have unselfishly given of themselves to preserve the freedom gained 232 years ago. Our liberties are a gift from a rare breed of human beings. They deserve the credit.

David N. Miles

Orange Beach

Well said.

I kinda agree. I believe in the beginning God gave us natural rights, then Jesus took them away, then the founding fathers who were inspired by God gave them back, and now it is the end times so Jesus is about to have a second coming to take them away again(:

Jesus didn't take them away any more than God gave them to us. We demanded and won them at a rare time in history when men with means and the ability to lead practiced the principle of enlightened self-interest. If we loose our freedom again it will be no one's fault but the heirs of those they helped to win their rights--as it was predicted by Franklin and Paine.

I agree but I believe our rights to be natural. If they're natural then God gave them to us. When people fight for freedom they are not fighting for rights because they already have them. They are fighting to keep tyrants from violating them.

When the Nazis did the holocaust it was wrong. It wasn't wrong because they took away peoples rights but because they violated them. If they did take away their rights then they did no wrong in killing them because they had no right to live. They were born with the right to live. The Nazis didn't take away that right and it is impossible to do that. You can't give and take away rights. You can only give and take away privileges.

The point I was originally trying to make is that we get our rights from God but not from Jesus. The religious right are correct in saying we get our rights from God but they interpret that to mean that we get them from Yahweh. So, they use that to get rid of the separation of church and state. We get our rights from God because we are born with them and not because the Bible says so. Ironically Bible God is a tyrant that doesn't ever give any rights and the religious right is trying to violate our rights by misinterpreting what is meant by God giving us our rights.

I don't know if either God or the Founding Fathers conferred fundamental human rights. When Tho. Jefferson said we all have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, he was merely stating the obvious. And, whether God actually conferred those rights on us, I'm not sure either. They may just be part and parcel of Self-Consciousness.

Quote :

They may just be part and parcel of Self-Consciousness.

I've always kinda thought that, and it actually forms the basis of my contention that a moral or ethical code (and again I don't use it in the formal sense as Aaron has explained) could be universal, just as physical laws are.

As deists, hwoever, some of us might believe that God made possible self consciousness, and thus, choice, free will, responsibility, etc.

Thoreau wrote:

I don't know if either God or the Founding Fathers conferred fundamental human rights. When Tho. Jefferson said we all have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, he was merely stating the obvious. And, whether God actually conferred those rights on us, I'm not sure either. They may just be part and parcel of Self-Consciousness.

Natural Rights are exemplified in the Law of the Jungle: every creature has the right to eat or be eaten.

Artificial Rights are bestowed by Human Laws: collectively, we agree that the big fish may not eat the small fish---except where specifically allowed in the fine print.

Divine Rights are bestowed by G*D: you have the right to remain silent; anything you say may be used against you in the Final Judgement.

Just kidding . . .