The Founding Founders Did Not Believe in Natural Rights....

[miguel]

Had to laugh...I opened up this thread and this is what I got:

 

[jkershner]

If your rights came from above, would they not be supernatural rights? And if natural rights flow from the god of the Bible, what of the rights of humans before the bible was written? Man predates the Bible.

Excellent point.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

I provide you with a link to their actual words and writings, with sources. You provide me with an unsourced op-ed piece.

Thanks for helping.

Thinking about it further, what else would I expect from you, except assertions without evidence? Silly me.

Thanks for the continued insults. I guess you think that cements your arguement.

Here's some other articles from the same site with footnotes:

WallBuilders - Issues and Articles - James Madison and Religion in Public
WallBuilders - Issues and Articles - John Locke: Deist or Theologian?
WallBuilders - Issues and Articles - Treaty of Tripoli
WallBuilders - Issues and Articles - The Separation of Church and State

I know you and many more really, really, want to believe the FF's were not Christians or non-any-other-religion. I guess it's kind of like those that fawn all over movie stars and atheletes when they come out as pro-2A--it lends credibility to their own beliefs. You can still believe it if you want to but you'd be wrong.

 

[jkershner]

I know you and many more really, really, want to believe the FF's were not Christians or non-any-other-religion. I guess it's kind of like those that fawn all over movie stars and atheletes when they come out as pro-2A--it lends credibility to their own beliefs. You can still believe it if you want to but you'd be wrong.

I don't know you, GFGT, and I don't agree with your views, but I respect your opinion. And you seem to be open to a rational discussion on this topic.

I am perfectly willing to acknowledge that the majority of the FFs were indeed traditional Christians. Just as I think you would agree that there were a non-zero number who were not. My larger issue with your post is that it ignores (or at least minimizes) the fact that the FFs went through a good deal of effort to ratify a Constitution that wasn't so strongly worded, regardless of their personal beliefs.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

I don't know you, GFGT, and I don't agree with your views, but I respect your opinion. And you seem to be open to a rational discussion on this topic.

I am perfectly willing to acknowledge that the majority of the FFs were indeed traditional Christians. Just as I think you would agree that there were a non-zero number who were not. My larger issue with your post is that it ignores (or at least minimizes) the fact that the FFs went through a good deal of effort to ratify a Constitution that wasn't so strongly worded, regardless of their personal beliefs.

Thanks jk.

Hardly. The debate, I understood it, was around the contention that many of the FF's were non-Christian.

You're right, they did word the DoI and Constitution as to not create a theocracy, but to say they were not divinely inspired is simply wrong.

 

[Kutnupe14]

Intrigued by Kutnupe's baseless falsifications, I went to my Lexis account and downloaded, “Well Regulated: The Early American Origins of Gun Control,” Fordham Law Review 73 (2004), 487-528 Cornell, Saul with Nathan DeDino. Not surprisingly, p. 505 does not say anything about the militia act of 1792 requiring the registering or cataloging of anyone's guns. Even the veteran anti-gunner Cornell wasn't about to make this ridiculous, and easily refuted, claim. It seems to have been made up out of whole cloth. By the way, this edition of the Fordham Law Review was the result of a notorious "2nd Amendment" symposium funded by the radically anti-gun Joyce Foundation and from which all those whose previous scholarship was deemed "pro-gun" were excluded. Even though this volume of anti-gun rant doesn't even support the extreme claims of Kutnupe, his choice of sources is quite telling. Is this the best hatchet job the Democratic Underground could do?

See, Of Arms and the Law: Saul Cornell responds re: Joyce Fdn buying law reviews

Did you just CHANGE the font, by italicizing, of my post in an attempt to indicate that the part that I quoted from the Fordham Review made mention of the the Militia Act???

And then you make an accusation of falsification? Holy Moly!
I've come into contact with some downright dishonorable people in my life, and that lil stunt you just pulled, puts you right there with them.

Post #8, first paragraph isn't italicized, second paragraph is due to taking directly from a source (Fordham). That post was last edited 12 hours ago.

Post #73, within my quote CarmelHP has CHANGED the original, and italicized BOTH of the first 2 paragraphs, which would indicate that both are directly taken from the Fordham source (which is false). He then accuses someone of baseless falsifications. That post is from an hour ago (and has not YET been edited).

Wow, I'm actually pretty disappointed that even you would stoop so low.

 

[johnny45]

If your rights came from above, would they not be supernatural rights? And if natural rights flow from the god of the Bible, what of the rights of humans before the bible was written? Man predates the Bible.

My understanding is the Creator predates the Bible.

Heck, even the Bible says so.

 

[Liberty1911]

And your mention of the 2 groups (Christians vs Catholics) who supposedly worship the same god, yet are at odds with each other, clearly illustrates why public policy based on supernatural criteria is doomed to failure in a society populated with people from many different backgrounds.

I never said that ALL of the founding fathers were not Christians, nor did I say that there was no influence from Christianity. To say that would be to ignore history. But it is a fact that this nation was NOT founded on Christianity, as so many like to assert. Many were very skeptical of religion and religious institutions. That is crystal clear.

And for the record, although I am agnostic myself, I don't consider religions people to be stupid. I simply disagree that so many have found the answers to the mysteries of the universe based on nothing but what boils down to tradition and legend, without evidence. There are certainly some brilliant people who are believers. One would have to admit, though, that they do not apply the same logic and reason to that particular part of their life that they do to other parts of their life.

First bold quote - I agree it wasn't founded on Christianity as a religion, but I would say it was very much influenced by Christian principles, including moral principles which in today's society, people are doing everything they can to ignore.

Second bold quote - I completely disagree. The most illogical and unreasonable position put forth by man is that nobody times nothing equals everything. It requires the recipient to place their faith in something so absurd, that it defies all scientific reasoning and laws. And in a cruel paradox, it is scientists who demand your faith in that which they know themselves to be an impossibility.

It takes a great deal more faith for someone to believe everything comes from nothing than to believe in a creator God.

 

[johnny45]

First bold quote - I agree it wasn't founded on Christianity as a religion, but I would say it was very much influenced by Christian principles, including moral principles which in today's society, people are doing everything they can to ignore.

Second bold quote - I completely disagree. The most illogical and unreasonable position put forth by man is that nobody times nothing equals everything. It requires the recipient to place their faith in something so absurd, that it defies all scientific reasoning and laws. And in a cruel paradox, it is scientists who demand your faith in that which they know themselves to be an impossibility.

It takes a great deal more faith for someone to believe everything comes from nothing than to believe in a creator God.

Well said.

Tried to rep you, but got a no can do message

 

[KJQ6945]

yes, I did it to annoy:

That pretty much says it all!

 

[CountryBoy1981]

That's because they don't. Many of the founding fathers were Deists.

You sir have been given a secular historians re-write of history, just as Lincoln is the greatest president of the United States. They now claim that Washington was a deist, but in fact was a very devout religious man. If we are specifically discussing Jefferson, you may in fact be correct about him on a certain day, on others not so correct. Jefferson was a very conflicted man throughout his life.

 

[CountryBoy1981]

First bold quote - I agree it wasn't founded on Christianity as a religion, but I would say it was very much influenced by Christian principles, including moral principles which in today's society, people are doing everything they can to ignore.

Second bold quote - I completely disagree. The most illogical and unreasonable position put forth by man is that nobody times nothing equals everything. It requires the recipient to place their faith in something so absurd, that it defies all scientific reasoning and laws. And in a cruel paradox, it is scientists who demand your faith in that which they know themselves to be an impossibility.

It takes a great deal more faith for someone to believe everything comes from nothing than to believe in a creator God.

It wouldn't let me rep you either, well stated.

 

[Glocker 400]

First bold quote - I agree it wasn't founded on Christianity as a religion, but I would say it was very much influenced by Christian principles, including moral principles which in today's society, people are doing everything they can to ignore.

Second bold quote - I completely disagree. The most illogical and unreasonable position put forth by man is that nobody times nothing equals everything. It requires the recipient to place their faith in something so absurd, that it defies all scientific reasoning and laws. And in a cruel paradox, it is scientists who demand your faith in that which they know themselves to be an impossibility.

It takes a great deal more faith for someone to believe everything comes from nothing than to believe in a creator God.

And it takes a lot of gall to believe that you have just happened to have selected THE correct "creator god," out of the hundreds that have been worshipped over the centuries. The origin of the universe is not a simple equation, as much as you would like it to be. I do not claim to know the origin of everything around us (unlike you), but I do believe that miniscule cell changes in matter over millions of years resulting in the world as we know it today makes more sense than fantastic magic performed by a deity who somehow created himself out of nothing before creating everything else.

If people like you had your way throughout history, we'd still be dying from polio and scurvy, burning "witches," barking at the moon instead of landing on it and performing exorcisms on people with mental illness. Thankfully, as the base of human experience and knowledge continues to increase exponentially, man will have less and less need for archaic traditions and rituals.

As far as Christian "morality," well, I don't want to receive an infraction. Suffice it to say that morals predate Christianity, and I would question the morals of anyone who needs the threat of eternal fire in order to not be a wanton criminal or general douche. "Don't be a prick" just about covers any moral situation you can think of. No magic required.

 

[Tomfoolery]

The OP ignores completely the collected works of Thomas Paine, most notably The Rights of Man.

 

[2ndAmendmentdefender]

The OP ignores completely the collected works of Thomas Paine, most notably The Rights of Man.

If there are any Masons on this site, they can answer the questions about the Masonic FFs and their beliefs concerning God. Although Masons can be Christians, the tenets of Masonic Lodges do not embrace Christianity nor any other religion. Masons are based on one God....... but are tolerate of all beliefs as long as it is based at it's core on God..... not Jesus!

 

[CarmelHP]

Did you just CHANGE the font, by italicizing, of my post in an attempt to indicate that the part that I quoted from the Fordham Review made mention of the the Militia Act???

And then you make an accusation of falsification? Holy Moly!
I've come into contact with some downright dishonorable people in my life, and that lil stunt you just pulled, puts you right there with them.

Post #8, first paragraph isn't italicized, second paragraph is due to taking directly from a source (Fordham). That post was last edited 12 hours ago.

Post #73, within my quote CarmelHP has CHANGED the original, and italicized BOTH of the first 2 paragraphs, which would indicate that both are directly taken from the Fordham source (which is false). He then accuses someone of baseless falsifications. That post is from an hour ago (and has not YET been edited).

Wow, I'm actually pretty disappointed that even you would stoop so low.

Nice try. Nothing got changed. Is this how you always conduct yourself? Do you have a drop piece or a little bag of something to plant on those you can't come up with anything on? This is unremarkable given your past. Did you happen to notice, oh brilliant one, that the quote function italicizes quotes? Are you that lamebrained, really? Are you now claiming that you didn't make the charge that the Militia Act of 1792 DIDN'T require registration when you clearly did? You are quite the piece of work. Any other anti-gun propaganda you want to peddle and then deny?

 

[Liberty's Teeth]

That gut feeling is probably you needing to eat something.
Yes, the 3/5 Crompromise was the begining of the end of slavery, I never addressed that notion, but that meant "what" for the millions of slaves and freedmen who had to endure being counted as 3/5 of a person for the next 80 some-odd years?

The same persons that were "counted" for representation but lacked the abilty to be "represented"? And then when you consider that Freedmen, ie non-slaves, were also counted under the compromise, but were taxed, then we end up with the whole revolutionary cry of "No Taxation without Representation." Or at least non-equal representation.

Why would you count a person for representation who couldn't vote?

 

[IndyDave1776]

Why would you count a person for representation who couldn't vote?

Even a non-voter is affected by the government, just as representatives today are distributed by total population, not registered voters. Similarly, the English Parliament was held to represent the entire empire although only those in Britain could vote. You could properly argue that this was one of the critical issues leading up to the revolution (taxation without representation) but then again, slaves didn't pay taxes. It was definitely not the solution that would be accepted today, but was better than it could have been.

 

[Kutnupe14]

Nice try. Nothing got changed. Is this how you always conduct yourself? Do you have a drop piece or a little bag of something to plant on those you can't come up with anything on? This is unremarkable given your past. Did you happen to notice, oh brilliant one, that the quote function italicizes quotes? Are you that lamebrained, really? Are you now claiming that you didn't make the charge that the Militia Act of 1792 DIDN'T require registration when you clearly did? You are quite the piece of work. Any other anti-gun propaganda you want to peddle and then deny?

Well apparently, my eyes see something quite different between my original post #6, and your "revised" version of my post #73.
The first two paragraphs are in my orginal post are different, with one being italicized to document the source, and yet "magically" in your post, both the first paragraphs are italicized, indicating that both came from the same source.
And then true to form, you attack the content saying that it's not from the Fordham source, which obviously it wasn't if one looked at post #6.

Dude, I'm done with you. You can count this as the last post I'll ever respond to, of yours. I have no time for people that go changing others posts to strengthen their stance. Not only is that dispicable, but it's a flat out lie.

It's one thing to disagree, but quite another to change another's posts, in order to find something to disagree with.

You're quite the piece of work.

 

[Kutnupe14]

The OP ignores completely the collected works of Thomas Paine, most notably The Rights of Man.

I very well aware of Thomas Paine, and I actually have his collected works. I'm not saying that Natural Rights don't exist, I'm saying at the onset of the founding of the nation, they were not observed the way they were supposed to be.