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Quote:
Originally Posted by Harrier
What do you man "WHY".
A right is not a right if it is subject to the whims of any human ruler or political entity.
A right is only a right if it is unalienable, which means that it cannot be granted or taken away by human beings, only secured through government, which is the reason why governments exist.
If rights do not come from men/women, then they must come some outside source.
Call it God or nature, but it can't be from people, otherwise rights are no longer inalienable.
WHAT supposedly 'God-given' right has NEVER been taken from someone in this earthly life?
How can those facts be inconvenient to Harrier when he cited them and attributed those positive actions to people of faith, something of which you did not even attempt to refute?
Of course not, because they're true.
But I'm waiting for you to explain how religious people who have spent millennia murdering people, fighting wars, selling human beings and fighting human rights are also the same people who you claim are the correct arbiters of morals?
Do you need me to repost what you said? I'd be happy to, in case you're inclined to try to weasel out of it.
Oh, heck. Here it is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Harrier
Do you say the same thing about civil rights?
If rights are not God-given, but instead come from mortal men, then they are no longer inalienable, and can be taken away.
Do you see the problem with flexible standards of morality?
A right is not a right if it is subject to the whims of any human ruler or political entity.
A right is only a right if it is unalienable, which means that it cannot be granted or taken away by human beings, only secured through government, which is the reason why governments exist.
If rights do not come from men/women, then they must come some outside source.
Call it God or nature, but it can't be from people, otherwise rights are no longer inalienable.
The only time we assert that an action is a right is when someone tries to deny us (ie not grant or take away) that ability to act. So rights can be denied, but that doesn't change our view that it is still our right. Slaves had a right to freedom. They believed that, though their rights were denied at every turn.
Governments exist because people are social animals. We live together. It is more efficient to have an organized approach to addressing the issues that arise from living together than to have a chaotic approach.
Religion doesn't have a monopoly on morals. If you need a fear of hell and eternal damnation to be moral then you aren't really moral - just scared into compliance.
Then what do you base morals on? Majority rule and thought? Hello Hunger Games future.
Christians not only supported, but were the facilitators of abolition, women's suffrage, and civil rights.
Ummm.... You might want to think about the WHY of things. Christians owned slaves, Christians denied women the right to vote until the 19th Amendment was signed into law and WAY TOO MANY Christians made any non-white they deemed inferior subject to segregation laws. Yep. Christians forced African-Americans to sit in the back of the bus, use the "colored" bathrooms and drinking fountains and denied them the right to vote. And many of them used the Bible to justify it.
Never mind the fact that actual atheists helped right those injustices.
WHAT supposedly 'God-given' right has NEVER been taken from someone in this earthly life?
The fact that rights are taken away by people does not deny them of the attribute of being unalienable.
The sole purpose of any good government is to secure those rights.
That was the ambition of the Civil Rights movement.
Do you remember(or if you are relatively younger, like Harrier, and read about it in history books) when black Americans were trying to register to vote, and Democrats were using force to stop them, and the FBI agents present would do nothing?
The Civil Rights Act forced the federal government to give a darn when such abuses took place.
Then what do you base morals on? Majority rule and thought? Hello Hunger Games future.
I base morals on the Golden Rule. That's all. I do my best but if I'm batting better than .500, I'm probably doing ok. I don't believe in any deity, and those who do would do well to listen to the following song because nobody knows what comes after this life, nobody knows who's right or wrong, and it's obvious none of us are perfect, but some of us (liberals) care more about the common person than right-wing billionaires who are supported by the teabagger types who want to help the billionaires get richer, at their own expense.
Ummm.... You might want to think about the WHY of things. Christians owned slaves, Christians denied women the right to vote until the 19th Amendment was signed into law and WAY TOO MANY Christians made any non-white they deemed inferior subject to segregation laws. Yep. Christians forced African-Americans to sit in the back of the bus, use the "colored" bathrooms and drinking fountains and denied them the right to vote. And many of them used the Bible to justify it.
Never mind the fact that actual atheists helped right those injustices.
You know to little of the issues which you discuss.
Christians were the primary impetus behind advocating abolition. They were the conductors of the Underground Railroad.
Christians were the drive behind women being allowed to vote.
You can in no way deny that Christians opposed Jim Crow and were the implementers of the Civil Rights protests and paved the way for the enactment of the Civil Rights Act.
Quit trying to rewrite history because you are intolerant of people of faith.
Do you remember(or if you are relatively younger, like Harrier, and read about it in history books) when black Americans were trying to register to vote, and Democrats were using force to stop them, and the FBI agents present would do nothing?
Totally incorrect.
The FBI was quite busy keeping secret files on everyone. They were photographing people, writing down license plate numbers, asking for drivers licenses. Investigating sex lives. Hoover kept his agents very, very busy.
I must say reading the posts of conservatives often reveals their desire to re-write history and gloss over the parts they don't like. So they can make themselves the heroes. Quite odd.
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