Debate : 25088


Off-Topic / Debate / 25088	25087 \| 25089

Subject:	Re: Santorum Fails In His Effort To Pervert The Constitution
Newsgroups:	lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date:	Tue, 27 Jul 2004 12:41:12 GMT
Viewed:	2471 times

In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Laswell wrote:

In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:

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).

But the Declaration of Independance states that our founding fathers did.

I think it’s more accurate to say that our founding fathers believed rights to be inherent to some people, but they had no problem in accommodating slavery and the denial of women’s suffrage. These aren’t trifling matters, either--the founding fathers made a choice, conscious or otherwise, to include certain groups (by coincidence, predominantly wealthy white male land owners (then as now, I suppose)) and to exclude others. The rights of those “others” were certainly alienable.

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 think the UUA’s term “non-theist” is the most appropriate, where the individual in question truly ascribes to no religion (including Humanism). Not monotheism, not pantheism, not polythesim, not atheism. It’s also close enough to “atheist” that most people will get the gist without needing to read a pamphlet.

Maybe. I think “non-theist” is still sufficiently new to the common lexicon that it will risk strange resonances in the listener.

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.

That’s as vague as “bright” in that it doesn’t specifically refer to religion, but at least it’s less pretentious.

Man, when I first heard that those knuckleheads were going to call themselves “brights,” I thought they might as well start calling religious people “the stupids.” I was embarrassed to be even obliquely linked to their side of the argument. Way to go, brights!

Dave!

Message has 2 Replies:

		Re: Santorum Fails In His Effort To Pervert The Constitution
(...) Careful, don't fall into the trap of thinking they were of one mind on everything. I fall into this trap a lot myself. The D of I, the articles of confederation and the constitution are held by many to be compromise documents, particularly in (...) (20 years ago, 27-Jul-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

		Re: Santorum Fails In His Effort To Pervert The Constitution
(...) To be fair, slaves and women were seen more as property than people by many of the colonists, and they basically inherited the idea that political rights were tied to landownership from England. But if you were a white male landowner in the (...) (20 years ago, 27-Jul-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

Message is in Reply To:

		Re: Santorum Fails In His Effort To Pervert The Constitution
(...) But the Declaration of Independance states that our founding fathers did. (...) Some are more mutable than others, particularly in Minnesota. (...) I don't remember ever hearing anyone else credited with a similar statement. It was a dangerous (...) (20 years ago, 26-Jul-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

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