Subject:
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Re: Santorum Fails In His Effort To Pervert The Constitution
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 26 Jul 2004 13:31:50 GMT
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Viewed:
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2500 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Laswell wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
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I think our wires have gotten crossed in this part of the topic. Recently I
have argued that there are no truly inherent rights, and that all rights are
social constructs. Since in this passage we both appear to be arguing
toward that same end, I’m not sure what we’re really arguing about.
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As I read it, you were arguing that our “inalienable” rights were universally
held (thereby showing that they couldn’t be credited to a specific religious
heritage), and I was showing that they were not (thereby showing that they
could).
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Chalk this part up to miscommunication, then. And for the record, I certainly
don’t believe that any “rights” are truly inherent and undeniable (inalienable).
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Maybe I misunderstood your point, then. It seemed as if you were suggesting
that science is a flawed tool because one of the heavy-hitters of science
has reformulated his assessment of a particular phenomenon.
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I’m suggesting that science is a flawed tool because those who wield it (the
human race) are flawed. If we weren’t, we’d know everything, and it wouldn’t
be science anymore. It’d be “all that is”.
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Science may be a flawed tool, in the same way that the Constitution is a flawed
document, but each carries within it the means by which it may be improved. I
would contrast these with dogma, which are resistant not merely to specific
changes but to change in general.
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Because the Pledge, as modified by 1953 Congressional action, endorsed God,
whom we can identify as the Christian God, based on Eisenhower’s writings of
the same period.
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That’s Eisenhower, and by virtue of the fact that he was not a member of
Congress, his involvement is irrelevent to the wording that Congress shall
not endorse a religion by act of law.
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Of course his statements don’t carry the force of law, but can you find me a
record of someone in Congress disagreeing with him? I would be content to read
some Representative who said “you know, Dwight’s wrong about this
fealty-to-the-Christian-God thing, but the basic idea is good anyway.” I don’t
think that such a statement exists.
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Atheism has several distinct formulations, only one of which is relevant to
me in this discussions, as I’ll show in just a moment.
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You see atheism as encompassing the whole, much like using the term American
to describe every resident of North and South America. I see atheism as a
specific subset, much like referring only to residents of the US as
Americans.
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Okay, I can work with that definition, though honestly don’t agree with it.
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Zero is part of the set of whole numbers and is therefore a number, rather
than the lack of a number.
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Mathematics came up with a term specifically to include Zero in the number
set. Before that, it was not considered a number.
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But are you suggesting that some day atheists will realize that, heck, they’re
all just as religious as Christians? This sounds like nothing but an attempt to
maneuver atheists into an awkward position so that theists can say “gotcha.”
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Thus far you are attempting to define religion as infinitely inclusive, so
that it is impossible not to qualify as some member of the “set” of
religions.
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Organized religions fall into the positive category (you believe something
exists), atheism falls into the negative category (you believe nothing
exists), and true non-religion is limited to 0. You don’t believe “+”, but
you don’t believe “-” either. You just don’t believe.
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Okay, okay, I’ll buy that. But in casual conversation and in debates in
general, can you give me a term to use that will be as readily understood as
“atheist?” I don’t care for “non-believer,” which sounds like “someone who will
see the light eventually,” and I hate hate hate the idiotic term “bright,” which
was recently and stupidly coined by well-meaning atheists in a limp attempt to
put a positive spin on their public image.
I could go with “empiricist,” but that would require a 20 minute explanation
every time I used the word, which would hardly help the matter.
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I reject this definition of “non-religious status” because it requires the
simultaneous possession of negative belief in a positive and positive belief
in a negative, when a person may have one independent of the other. You
are, in essence, conflating a “lack of belief in the existence of a thing”
with the “belief in the lack of the existence of a thing.” This is
logically incorrect.
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No, I’m just going by the definition that views atheism specifically as
holding to the latter. If you don’t believe in god, and you don’t believe in
not-god, but you admit the possibility that there might be something out
there, you’re an agnostic, not an atheist. If you believe in divine creation
but not divine interaction (god created everything, then left), you’re a
deist.
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If you believe in not-god but also believe that there are fundamental
truths regarding morality, you’re a humanist.
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If you don’t believe anything regarding divinity, moral truths, or the
lack thereof, only then can you claim non-religious status (which I think is
what the term “non-theist” is in reference to).
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How about this: Based on all empirical (which is to say “verifiable by sensory
observation”) evidence available, I do not find sufficient reason to believe in
the existence of any deity, any transcendent moral truth, nor any supernatural
phenomena. I also assert that society has attempted to enshrine certain values
as immutable, and in some cases these have lasted for centuries or millennia,
but these are based on cultural pressures rather than some inherent morality.
Additionally, it would be foolish to claim that nothing is inherent in
anything--inertia is inherent in matter, for example--but moral consensus is not
a physical property, CS Lewis notwithstanding.
I would add to this that the Christian God is logically impossible, and
therefore I, as a rational being, can never accept arguments in favor of his
existence as described in canonical texts (though I accept that believers in God
are able to accommodate logical impossibilities within their belief).
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In brief, I do not believe in the existence of god. This is not the same as
believing in the non-existence of god.
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And thus you are not a true atheist (by the definition that I have
formulated--annotation mine.
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Well, okay. But I’ll stick with the term “atheist” because it gets closest to
what I’m talking about. And if, in conversation, someone cares to contest the
point, I’m always happy to explore it further.
Dave!
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