Christian Anarchy is the only sensible answer...

[John Shaw]

I take most of my belief in a Creator from my own personal experiences and observations...

GOD DONE BEEN TALKIN' TO GENE!!!

[rabidfurby]

INSERT HEAD HERE

[ChristianAnarchist]

I take most of my belief in a Creator from my own personal experiences and observations...

GOD DONE BEEN TALKIN' TO GENE!!!

I wish.

[ChristianAnarchist]

Gene, I read your first post on this thread and you really only make one point: that a Christian (creationist) perspective is necessary for true liberty because the human rights that secure individual freedom are unalienable only if they are God-given.  Or did I misunderstand?  In 160+ pages has it been suggested that a theory of "natural law" operates to the same effect?

I suggest that your subject line is inaccurate. Christianity appears to be wholly unnecessary for true liberty.  Before you get carried away, I'm talking about here on Earth.  I need not believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster nor any other God in order to believe that I have unalienable human rights to life, liberty and property.  What am I missing?  Keep it on this planet, please.

You are correct in observing that my position is that understanding that rights come from God is the basis of the "Christian" part of the answer.  This is also (or so it seems) the exact same thing that you claim to be "missing" above when stating that God is unnecessary for liberty.  If we don't understand where our rights come from, we cannot understand how they become "unalienable".  If we claim that our rights are simply there because of our existence, then we have no "authority" behind the rights.  I can claim as easily that you don't have them and take your life away on a whim and have just as legitimate an argument for doing so (of course a Christian can still do it, but with an understanding of the Creator, that person would know that he runs some risk of doing so).

[Rillion]

If we claim that our rights are simply there because of our existence, then we have no "authority" behind the rights.  I can claim as easily that you don't have them and take your life away on a whim and have just as legitimate an argument for doing so (of course a Christian can still do it, but with an understanding of the Creator, that person would know that he runs some risk of doing so).

...unless, of course, the Creator he understands doesn't think that "those people" have rights either.  You may call that understanding wrong, but one can just as easily call your  understanding wrong.  Therefore, the Creator is no authority either. 

Deuteronomy 13:6-10

13:6  If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; 
13:7 Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;
13:8 Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:
13:9 But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
13:10 And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.

[HOO-HAA]

My word... this thread has the longevity of George Bush.

[Johnson]

You certainly could claim that you proved your point if your claim is that I somehow allow dominion over me by those "earthly rulers" you claim wrote a book, but no "rulers" wrote the book.  The book (or more accurately books) were written for the most part by prophets (akin to street people) and other rabble. 

The Authorized King James Version is an English translation of the Christian Bible begun in 1604 and first published in 1611 by the Church of England. The Great Bible was the first "authorized version" issued by the Church of England in the reign of King Henry VIII. In January 1604, King James I of England convened the Hampton Court Conference where a new English version was conceived in response to the perceived problems of the earlier translations as detected by the Puritans, a faction within the Church of England.

So either you believe in the modern versions of the bible which have been bastardized by kings and royalty for self serving ends....

OR

you believe in the OLD TESTAMENT - kill babies, smash women, let your daughter be raped, we love INCEST! version of the bible, which was written by DIRECT servants of Kings... Like say... Ezra and Nehemiah who wrote the books from Judges to Job, and were essentially very close servants of a Persian king. (Basically Nehemiah was a akin to a butler)

So... either A. You're just wrong.

or

B. You're an asshole who believes in extreme violence, force, and evil... AND you're wrong.

There is the exception being what was written (or claimed to have been written) by king Solomon, but most was written by the little people who can only make the claim to be "historians". 

Well, there's the influence of THIS King too...

and then there is also the theory that the entire bible was sanctioned and requested by the ruling authority of the day specifically to keep the rabble in line and create a form of 'higher' law to keep people scared and obedient as well as to help solve certain problems of disease and crime.

Now if your claim is that historians have some kind of "authority" or that I have granted these dead men "authority" over me, then hey, you won.  Congratulations.  If it were true that I have granted dead men authority over me, then I still am miles ahead of those of the religion of statism as my "authorities" are dead and cannot hurt me (unless you believe that ghosts are real...)

You've used the metal from one cage to pick the lock of another. Unfortunately, you are still in a cage, at least you are admitting it now. That's a step.

Also, I've stated that I don't take my beliefs 100% from any books.  I take most of my belief in a Creator from my own personal experiences and observations...

Inaccurate statement really. You have taken normal experiences and observations and attributed them to a creator, most likely because you were initially indoctrinated with religion. Chicken and Egg really.... and guess what... The egg came first, because the chicken isn't the first animal to lay eggs.

[ChristianAnarchist]

Wow.  So many words to simply say what I've said many times.  That a belief in a Creator requires faith.  The same point used on those of the "cult of science"  (as opposed to ACTUAL science) is lost on the blinded cult members.  No one responds to the valid claim (for instance) that all radiometric dating is based on certaiin unprovable assumptions.  Let's hear any of your cult members admit to this fact (silence...)

Forgive me for not writing a lengthy responce (which is no more valid than a short one) but I'm typing this out on my treo keyboard waiting for someone...

[Johnson]

so, in lieu of an answer that has any merit, you instead claim to be insane?
Isn't that what faith is when it is shown to be totally unfounded? If you claimed that you could fly, or that you were in fact Elvis, come to roam the earth as a performing werewolf... Would it not be time to lock you away and treat your illness?

The only difference is that for some reason polite society has deemed it acceptable to ignore that insanity of religious claims, and not question irrationality in the same way people address unicorns, or leprechauns, or fairies.

I'll get to your points about the source and authority of morality without religion, and your inaccurate and misinformed claims about carbon dating shortly, as I am also on my phone... I hope you CAN actually address the points I made.

[Johnson]

Ok, time to answer your first point...

You are correct in observing that my position is that understanding that rights come from God is the basis of the "Christian" part of the answer.  This is also (or so it seems) the exact same thing that you claim to be "missing" above when stating that God is unnecessary for liberty.  If we don't understand where our rights come from, we cannot understand how they become "unalienable".  If we claim that our rights are simply there because of our existence, then we have no "authority" behind the rights.  I can claim as easily that you don't have them and take your life away on a whim and have just as legitimate an argument for doing so (of course a Christian can still do it, but with an understanding of the Creator, that person would know that he runs some risk of doing so).

So, all morals and rights must come from God? Ok... Let's END that notion right here.


[youtube=425,350]1XBTMFAch-I[/youtube]

Is morality driven by faith? Few things unite believers and atheists more firmly than the suggestion that moral judgments draw their strength from religion. To be sure, many a virtuous atheist has denied it, and with good reason. The old saw that we would have to invent God if He didn't exist implies a view of moral motivation that's suitable for four-year-olds. If you follow these commandments you'll go to heaven, and if you don't you'll burn in hell is just a spectacular version of the bribes and threats we use to raise our children: If you clean up your room you'll go to the playground and if not you'll stay inside. Few serious thinkers, secular or religious, view us as moral infants in need of sacred carrots and sticks. Still their remains a lurking suspicion that religion is what gives moral convictions their backbone. Just watch the difference between believers and atheists defending an ethical standpoint. When most atheists use words like evil, moral, or nobility, they incline to put some distance between themselves and their language with an air-quote. It's the ultimate post-modern gesture, wiggling fingers to express doubt and discomfort about making moral judgments at all. Most believers, by contrast, keep their hands in their laps.

In a world where politicians invoke God's command to start a war in the absence of other reasons for doing so, we may wish more believers would express self-doubt. Here both sides would benefit from a closer look at the Bible. Consider Sodom and Gomorrah, traditional focus of a favorite fundamentalist message of the carrot and stick variety. Most people think the story is simple: the Sodomites sinned - through homosexual behavior, or sexual licentiousness in general - and God destroyed them, turning a thriving town into a pile of rubble and a wistful woman into a pillar of salt. But you needn't be a fundamentalist to abhor the sin that did in the Sodomites: it was in fact their attempt to gang-rape two strangers to death. The strangers turned out to be angels, which was the Sodomites' undoing, and their violation of ancient rules of hospitality turned moral law upside down. Concerned that total annihilation might be too severe a punishment even for gang-raping one"s guests, Jewish legends expand on the account in Genesis: the Sodomites made xenophobia a matter of principle, and punished those who helped strangers with death.
But the most important part of the story is what happens before the cities are leveled. God reveals His destructive plans to Abraham, and Abraham speaks up. What if there are fifty righteous people among the sinners? Surely the God of justice would not judge the innocent and guilty alike? The God of justice agrees; for fifty righteous people He will leave the cities alone. But is the Lord a pedant? Surely He won't destroy the city for the want of just five? Abraham bargains God down to ten, and several things about his actions should serve as a model.

First, they're universalistic. Abraham's interest is not confined to his tribe or his neighbors, but to the lives of innocents everywhere. Second, Abraham is clearly frightened. In a world where even ordinary sovereigns are ill-inclined to debate their actions with their subjects, he dares remind the King of Kings that He's about to violate moral law. Third, both parties acknowledge that morality is not a matter of absolute principles, but of paying attention to detail. (God might have answered: Save the town for the sake of fifty? Next he'll be wanting to let the' whole bunch go scot-free!) But despite a refusal to trade in absolutes, two moral judgments emerge perfectly clear: rape is a criminal action, and so is collateral damage.

What's most important about this story, however, is what it says about the source of moral judgment. Whatever it is, it isn't divine authority. We have moral needs so strong they can override our instincts for self-preservation. Even those with a direct line to God cannot depend on it to yield moral certainty. Abraham was as true a man of faith as religion ever knew, yet he used his own moral reason - even at the risk of God's wrath.
For conservative believers, the message is a warning: morality can be expressed through faith, but it cannot be based on it. Sometimes questioning religious authority can be a moral action, as the Bible itself reveals. This story of Abraham suggests that if God gave us reason, He meant us to use it - even if that means challenging the very highest commands.

For secular citizens, the message should be welcome: among the many pieces of wisdom to be found in the Bible is the acknowledgment that no moral judgment is infallible - and all of us are required to do our best nonetheless. You can stand firm even without the belief that God's own voice is directing you - so long as you rely on principles of justice which have guided the better angels of our nature from ancient days to our own. There's much more to be said about those principles themselves, but finding common ground on which believers and secularists can stand is the first and crucial step.

Ok, that was enough, but if you feel like being further entertained with this sort of debate... I present Al Sharpton vs Christopher Hitchens
[youtube=425,350]bWt8a1aMkZ4[/youtube]


So, the authority for our morality is based on human solidarity, and some variation of the golden rule and the categorical imperative. Rights cannot come from God, no matter what your belief, because belief in God is not only not universal, thereby making it impossible for him to be a universal standard for morality, but also because, as Susan Neiman so eloquently demonstrates, even the bible requires you to make an independent judgment of the very morality of 'God' himself.

The authority of rights is not based in FEAR of a spooky father figure, but in VIRTUE and MORALITY. Not the FAKE virtue and MORALITY that comes from FEAR of punishment, but in the true virtue that comes from the honest desire to be a good person without regard to punishment or reward in some mystical afterlife.

[Johnson]

This should smash your lame argument about radiometric dating to peices in a way that is pleasant for one such as yourself to swallow since it's from a Christian, and is totally pro-god.

http://www.answersincreation.org/dating.htm
 

[ChristianAnarchist]

Rights cannot come from God, no matter what your belief, because belief in God is
ot only not universal, thereby making it impossible for him to be a universal standard for morality,

This is why you are not able to get it.  You are confusing a "belief in God" with "God".  My points do not require any "belief".  My point is that YOUR CREATOR created you and created your rights.  Either that is correct or it is not.  No "belief" is required for this point.  If NO ONE on this little ball had a belief in God but God did indeed exist and create all those who DID NOT believe in him, this has no effect on His existence.  You mistake a universal "belief" as the basis of my position and I do not require it (neither does God).  It is His existence that generates His authority over us, not our "belief" in that existence. 

Until you understand that this is my position, you are arguing from a fallicy. You are misrepresenting my position.

[ChristianAnarchist]

This should smash your lame argument about radiometric dating to peices in a way that is pleasant for one such as yourself to swallow since it's from a Christian, and is totally pro-god.

http://www.answersincreation.org/dating.htm
 

Wrong again.  My position is that certain ASSUMPTIONS have to be made in radiometric dating.  TRUE (  )  or  FALSE (  ) ???

[Militant]

Gene, you should really get that neurological disorder checked out.

[Johnson]

Rights cannot come from God, no matter what your belief, because belief in God is
ot only not universal, thereby making it impossible for him to be a universal standard for morality,

This is why you are not able to get it.  You are confusing a "belief in God" with "God".  My points do not require any "belief".  My point is that YOUR CREATOR created you and created your rights.  Either that is correct or it is not.  No "belief" is required for this point.  If NO ONE on this little ball had a belief in God but God did indeed exist and create all those who DID NOT believe in him, this has no effect on His existence.  You mistake a universal "belief" as the basis of my position and I do not require it (neither does God).  It is His existence that generates His authority over us, not our "belief" in that existence. 

Until you understand that this is my position, you are arguing from a fallicy. You are misrepresenting my position.

Actually you specifically said - which is why I quoted you initially, and now, for some odd reason I am having to quote you again seemingly because you are trying to change your arguments post facto...

If we claim that our rights are simply there because of our existence, then we have no "authority" behind the rights.

I very definitely understood what you were saying, and the "authority" is only valid with the combination of belief. The very claim of a "right" is a claim that is usually stated to affect a human behavior. IE: You cannot enslave them, because they have the RIGHT to be free. You cannot censor me, I have the right to free speech. You cannot search me, I have the right to privacy.

If I don't believe in your concept of a deity - you telling me that rights come from "god" is not only meaningless... It's idiotic. Also, if I am a person of an opposing religion, and you tell me that you have certain rights endowed by your creator, and the rights granted by MY creator conflict with yours, then the only acceptable solution is to murder you, especially if my religion tells me that my creator has granted me the right to do so.

So, your argument for the authority of God requires a BELIEF in God in order for it to have any effect.
In fact, it requires a BELIEF not only in God, but in the JudeoChristian God and the particular rules and regulations that define the moral cage as specifically laid out by that particular system of belief.

I know it's difficult to tolerate the rattling of your cage, but if you can free your mind, the inner peace is wonderful...Life is so much simpler without fear and worry over arbitrary rules. Logical and moral decisions are so much simpler when you understand that your morals are internal, rather than external, no matter what your beliefs are.

So, instead of ignoring what was said because you glazed over and were merely thinking of what you were going to say next, maybe you could examine what was presented, and respond to it, rather than avoid it or attempt to circumnavigate it with dishonest evasions.