Stop teaching morons that Christianity has a monopoly on virtue

[Cypress]

fine, so long as we agree that the Declaration of Independence is not a testament to deism.......

I do not think I ever said it was a full blown testament to Deism.

The only reason I even brought it up is because a poster implied that the context of Natural Law was an expression of the devoutly Christian.

I simply made the point that Deists and atheists also invoked universal natural law and natural rights, aka Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, and the French Revolution in their Declaration of the Rights of Man

 

[evince]

That's simply not true...Your mind doesn't grok anything stranger in your strange land.......

How many religions are organized?



It’s not a belief


It’s a structure that many religions use to promote their religion


If you are in a car to get some where


Are you a car?



No

 

[PostmodernProphet]

I do not think I ever said it was a full blown testament to Deism.

The only reason I even brought it up is because a poster implied that the context of Natural Law was an expression of the devoutly Christian.

I simply made the point that Deists and atheists also invoked universal natural law and natural rights, aka Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, and the French Revolution in their Declaration of the Rights of Man

where did an atheist invoke natural rights......that would be irrational....

 

[Cypress]

where did an atheist invoke natural rights......that would be irrational....

No it wouldn't. Many intellectuals of the 17th century Enlightenment - both atheist and Deist/Christian - envisioned a type of universal natural law manifested as natural rights.

This is largely a result of the new scientific knowledge discovered during and subsequent to Newton's Principia Mathematica.

It was widely assumed by French philosophes and English intellectuals that if the natural world had universal and inviolable physical laws, then humans were also imbued with universal natural rights and a type of universal moral conscience.

Universal first principles was the order of the day to the Enlightenment Age mind.

These truths are self evident as the Deist Thomas Jefferson wrote.

The French Revolution famously was spearheaded by many atheists, and their Declaration of the Rights of Man is a clear reflection of this Enlightenment view of natural law.

 

[Guno צְבִי]

and yet, nature's God is not defined by history books.....

In the "Declaration of Independence," the founding document of what would become the United States, Thomas Jefferson mentions "nature's God." Unfortunately, this phrase is unclear. The religious beliefs of Jefferson were much debated in his time and still are over two centuries later. Through the letters and other writings of Jefferson, it is possible to construct an outline of his beliefs. Although he supported the moral teachings of Jesus, Jefferson believed in a creator similar to the God of deism. In the tradition of deism, Jefferson based his God on reason and rejected revealed religion.

"The whole history of these books (i.e. the Gospels) is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills."

Source: Letter of Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, January 24, 1814.

 

[BidenPresident]

In the "Declaration of Independence," the founding document of what would become the United States, Thomas Jefferson mentions "nature's God." Unfortunately, this phrase is unclear. The religious beliefs of Jefferson were much debated in his time and still are over two centuries later. Through the letters and other writings of Jefferson, it is possible to construct an outline of his beliefs. Although he supported the moral teachings of Jesus, Jefferson believed in a creator similar to the God of deism. In the tradition of deism, Jefferson based his God on reason and rejected revealed religion.

Spinoza is relevant here:

But Spinoza does not only dismantle the orthodox notion of a personal God, which he regards as a source of human misery. He also famously refers to ‘God or Nature’ (Deus sive Natura), which suggests that God is nothing but nature, and that ‘God’ can broadly be construed to refer both to the visible cosmos and to the unseen but fundamental power, laws and principles that govern it. And this, to me at least, looks like true atheism. In Spinoza’s view, all there is is nature. There is no supernatural; there is nothing that does not belong to nature and that is not subject to its causal processes.

https://literaryreview.co.uk/letting-go-of-god

 

[PostmodernProphet]

Unfortunately, this phrase is unclear.

yet the board's dumbfucks are convinced it means the founding fathers didn't believe in God......

 

[PostmodernProphet]

Spinoza is relevant here:

But Spinoza does not only dismantle the orthodox notion of a personal God, which he regards as a source of human misery. He also famously refers to ‘God or Nature’ (Deus sive Natura), which suggests that God is nothing but nature, and that ‘God’ can broadly be construed to refer both to the visible cosmos and to the unseen but fundamental power, laws and principles that govern it. And this, to me at least, looks like true atheism. In Spinoza’s view, all there is is nature. There is no supernatural; there is nothing that does not belong to nature and that is not subject to its causal processes.

https://literaryreview.co.uk/letting-go-of-god

why would ignorance be relevant?.....

 

[BidenPresident]

Religious authoritarians cannot stand the fact that each of us has the right to make our own decisions.

 

[Cypress]

yet the board's dumbfucks are convinced it means the founding fathers didn't believe in God......

Surely you aren't talking about me I never said anything of the sort.

My main point was that belief can be both reasonable and rational, even in the absence of empirical data and sensory perception.

This is famously demostrated in a belief in a universal higher truth, a natural law, expressed as universal equality and liberty articulated by both the American and French revolutionaries.

And as articulated by Christians, Deists and atheists alike of the Enlightenment era.

For that matter, the Confucian scholars of Medieval China were not strictly theists themselves, but they believed in a concept of Li - a naturally occurring pattern of universal principles and universal moral values. Basically, a type of Eastern analog to the West's tenet of natural law.