If I understand correctly from his past statements, he believes "human rights" is meaningless without god saying they exist. Otherwise those rights are subject to change and denial by people, society and government. He believes God is the only entity that can give these rights because God is the "Final Authority" and without that "Final Authority" there is no other "Final Authority" from which to base "Human Rights". He pegged this basis of "Final Authority" on the fact that god created us, and therefore God defines our rights.

After a long effort of poking and prying, this statement finally game from PI's mouth... um, keyboard:

To which I responded:

PI has yet to respond to this claim, and until that time I take this as proof that he accepts reason as the final authority, not god. Thus human rights come from reason if they come from god because god subscribes to reason. This prompts the restatement of the thread title:

In the Absence of Reason: Human rights is a concept without meaning

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True knowledge exists in being aware of what you don't know.

How about,

Absence of Reason: Thread Without Meaning

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Well no... You’re got the chronology inverted... I read their words, did the calculation, realized their thinking was valid and sound and as a result adhered to their thinking... this in contrast to the forces of leftism which is incapable of reason, pretty much across the board.


I've made no such attestation; I stated that the existence of God is not provable to YOU... because you reject God's existence out of hand. My beliefs beyond that are not only provable, they're incontestable, as you've come to realize, despite your inability to admit it.


Again you run to the red herring that my position is set upon nothing beyond my own personal authority, due to a distinct lack of options...; when in FACT, my positions rests on the authority of the immutable reason inherent in them.


ROFL... But setting that aside, given your above position, as you've crafted it, what you're saying is that where one would act upon their own beliefs in such a way that they would defend their life against an unjust law, that this calculation would be that of the sick and otherwise defective mind?

Now Jeff… this would tend to put a damper on the viability of Jeff-Rights, wouldn't it?

Ahhh... so we get down to it... Jeff, an atheist, feels that Human Rights are nothing more than an abstract notion, subjective to the individual and as such stand as meaningless...

Now Friends, Jeff here is absent God and she's just unwittingly adhered to the essence of the Opening Premise... that where God is not recognized, one will not recognize human rights...

In effect, these people reject the subject of the premise. They simply aren't comfortable seeing themselves in the SAME place as they overtly set the most innocent of human life, even as they write their respective screeds... But they have no problem sanctioning the deaths of millions of the most innocent among us, for no other reason than government, through its judiciary, NOT THE LEGISLATURE, as was the case in the Opening Premise... but the mere unfounded fiat of a radical judiciary, has determined such as a Right...

Jeff, your concession is duly noted and summarily accepted.

Secular Humanism? You want me to show you where the combined concepts of secular and humanism are define by their advocacy that government is the final authority?

Sure... Using Webster's Collegiate 2008, let's start with: Secular:
of or relating to the worldly or temporal.

and quickly turn to: Humanism:

A doctrine, attitude, or way of life centered on human interests or values; especially a philosophy that usually rejects supernaturalism (Now that's God in case you missed it...) and stresses an individual's dignity and worth and capacity for self-realization through reason<< ROFL... I love that part... Clearly this was written by one of YOU.

So when we combine the two concepts to establish the conjunction we see that a secular humanist is one that is an earthly person who rejects the existence of God and lives upon the doctrine centered on human interests or values; thus the only authority that such can recognize would therefore be that authority relative to humanity... now Scooter; follow me closely here... there is no greater power to be found relative to humanity, than that of human government.

Now I hope that helps...


Here's the thing sport... there is ABSOLUTELY NO... NONE> NADA> ZILCH correlation between the popularity of a given position and the validity of that position... PERIOD.


Polls are fine... what's NOT fine is the use of polls to push opinion... which is what the left uses them for, as I've already pointed out.


God did put them there... given that God created the universe and the elements within it, he in effect put it all there... without regard to where there is.

ROFL... You're really proud that you can explain the elementary physical processes which resulted from God's creation, even while you deny God's existence, don't ya?



Insane? Why you just want to use the oddball exception to define the norm... now what could be insane about that?

I'm guessin' you're correct on this one... I sensed that about you right off...

No... not at all, as that is a certainty. What I'm doing is illustrating the vacuous nature of the atheist position, wherein they claim to be advocates of human rights, while rejecting the source of that Right...

It’s a principle sport... it crosses many issues, murder of the innocent being only one of them. The point is that where one establishes the rationale for one, that in doing so, one established the premise on which the rationale for one’s own destruction will rest... It's not complicated. When you deterine that the pre-born human have no rights, that because you possess the power to end their life, you can... you establish that YOU have no rights and all that remains to complete the circle is for someone to splice up a juicy rationale for why YOU should be executed... perhaps even the same one; wherein it may be said that you've just become inconvenient.

Nonsense... There is no Right to take human life absent valid moral justification. "I'm not ready to raise a child" is not a valid moral justification.

The Mother's 'Right to Choose' was exercised fully when she rolled over and gave her expressed permission for a male to enter her body. At that point SHE HAD MADE HER CHOICE! It is through abortion that she seeks to escape responsibility for that decision.


It's your inference which is skewed... As stated above the scenario is much closer to the Holocaust, the Iraqi National Socialist attack on the Kurds, the Communist Purges in The Soviet Union, China, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam and Cambodia than abortion, but the principle remains the same.

Well I don't sense you as one that lingers at depth... so that seems fairly unlikely.

I'm going for exposing the left as a unmitigated farce; an ideology void of valid principle, wholly discredited and thoroughly loathsome on every level and without exception... and I want to thank you for your help.

"Ya done good BOY!"

Hey BTW, are you actually touting the virtue inherent ot the Nissan 240Z?

ROFLMNAO... Say it ain’t so.

We had one come up to the track a few weeks ago, he'd thrown in an after market turbo and still ran 10s in the 1/8th. He wanted to run again and we told him to come back the next week and we'd have a calendar set up to better calculate his time...

It is about time you finally admitted that Pubi!

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R.I.P. Molly, I miss you every day!!

Im a Tarte, what! you want some of this?


To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead. Thomas Paine

Not to the degree that any idea of my rights doesn't come from a baseless belief of knowing these rights because "god says so". You can say you've "calculated" your understanding of god's law all you want. You've failed to present any such calcutation, and I deny that any such calculation can exist. God can do whatever the heck he wants, he is not bound by any calculation. And if he is bound by calculation, I would assume that this means he is subject to reason, once again making reason the final authority, not god. Just the idea that you gods law can be "calculated" afferms this.
I'm not an athiest as you've continued to ignore. Once again, human rights, if they exist at all, exist because of reason. If they exist because god says they exist, then they exist because of reason because god subscribes to reason. you've said so yourself.
At best I've said human rights don't exist at all. I have not adhered to the OP. Ive said Where god is not recognized AND EVEN IF HE IS RECOGNIZED, one will not recognize human rights. It is only by the reason of god that the rights he "grants" to humans has basis, so the rights come from reason, not god.
One does not need to reject the subject of the premise to say human rights don't exist because of God. And further, even if one does accept the argument, the question of if anyone but god himself can know what the laws and rights are is still in question as nobody knows what makes god tick. If you believe you know what makes god tick because god subscribes to reason, then it is this reason that is the final authority, not god.

Further, I don't reject god, as I've said many times before. I'm agnostic. What I reject is the ability of anyone to somehow "reason" that they know god better than anyone else. Certainly you've done nothing to show that you have.

And I admire once again your ability to ignore the key elements that I've asked you to address based on your own words. You don't do a good job proving your point against someone else when you don't actually do anything but re-state your points and ignore others.

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True knowledge exists in being aware of what you don't know.

there is no such thing as rights.. its a human idea. there are no such things as natural rights. nature doesnt give rights. the only thing that matters is dominance. without dominance, nobody follows any rights. thats why we need to have a powerful judicial system. the reason god was brought into the idea of human rights is because of the idea that god has absolute power, therefore absolute dominance. the idea of god doesnt weaken us, it empowers us. or at least the ones who have the same belief. power is simply a numbers game. the more people you control, the more power you have. if the people feel you have power, they will obey. alternatively, the more power is given to people, the stronger they feel. the idea of rights is empowering to people. if you feel like you have the right to do something, that means you have to power do do it. so the best way for a leader to have as much power as possible, he has to give as much power as possible. thats why the belief in god is so strong. we believe that god is just and that god gives us power, therefore we follow his way. clearly, the idea is not a bad one because there is nobody that is more powerful then god, even if he doesnt exist, because nobody has more followers. thats also why some leaders tried to protray themselves as a god. just look at how the japanese emperors were followed. thats because they were believed to be gods. the reason, the judeo christian god is the one who is followed by most people is because the foolowers believe he is powerful. if we believe that our rights came from absolute power then those rights have to be forced absolutely.

I deny two main claims:

power = the ability to give "rights". At best, power = the ability to control, but this is not what it means to have "rights" as they are usually understood.

God, if he subscribes to anything, subscribes to reason. This makes Reason the ultimate power and authority, God merely serves to implement reason. A god without reason is not a god we have any reason to follow, as he would be unpredictable and his "laws" baseless. At this point, we have no reason to believe anything he says for even if we do follow, we have no idea what he will do to us following that. God, if anything, must subscribe to reason and reason is the final authority.

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True knowledge exists in being aware of what you don't know.

who dictates rights? the one who has control.


[quote]
God, if he subscribes to anything, subscribes to reason. This makes Reason the ultimate power and authority, God merely serves to implement reason.[quote]thats not necessarily true. most religions dont follow reason, but belief. it your statement were true, the religion would have to change every time an idea changes.

i partially agree. but like i said, god doesnt have to exist for the power to be there.

The logical fallacy that people of faith continually fall back on is that whatever you base your argument on, they will claim God has 'invented' or is somehow transcendent. It does not matter what your argument is, because god invented it.

For example Jeff, you are using "reason" as your argument for now. Someone will come along and say, "God invented reason." It's pointless to debate really, since God's supreme logic transcends anything we could possibly hope to fathom with our feebile human conceptions (extreme sarcasm of course).

So in the absence of all physical evidence--and since we cannot understand him either, logical and psychological evidence as well, the only evidence that remains is well, emotional. Every emotion felt by "these people" (apologies for stereotyping) is attributed to being evidence of God's existence; for example a beautiful sunset or a romantic evening or a day in church.

I propose that we introduce "them" to the biological evolution of emotions and morality 101.

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