Guns As A " God-given Right"

[Winchester]

Weves.

That made me look better than a sincere:

" your abject grovelling at your realization of predestined and shameful defeat does not merit my notice, not even enough to urinate on the smoldering corpse of your pitifull ego".

Magnanimity in victory is one of my traits.

 

pfft

[4588686]

Is it getting hot in here or is it just me?

[PhuturePriest]

Un-following this thread was one of the best decisions I made this week.

[Socrates]

You're confusing atheism with a reductionist subset of beliefs within the Anglo-American materialist tradition.  

 

While it's conceivable that someone can claim atheism and still deny materialism, or believe in some sort of spiritual reality (and am aware that some hold such beliefs, though I'm not particularly familiar with them), I don't find this view very intellectually coherent, and the cast majority of atheists, at least in the Western world, are materialist; they deny the existence of the spiritual or immaterial.

 

I was under the impression that both you and Anomaly were materialists, though I'm open to correction if mistaken.

[Socrates]

Even with God, functionally, rights are still arbitrary. Unless He starts barking order directly from Heaven for all to hear. He's been rather quiet, though.

 

He's not so quiet if you happen to believe in Divine Revelation.

Rights are a useful legislative concept, which can be deduced rationally from certain basic moral precepts.  For example, from "Thou Shalt Not Kill" and "Thou Shalt Not Steal," you can draw the positive corollaries of a right to life and a right to property.

(I've read some Catholic thinkers who don't like the idea of "rights" and think it preferable to think in terms of responsibilities.  "Rights" can too easily become an endless, arbitrary, and contradictory list of wants.)

 

However, I never claimed a concept of rights was dependent on Divine Revelation.  

Atheists and liberals often cite "rights" as a basis for law without morality, yet the whole idea that people have rights that others must respect and not violate is itself a moral claim.

 

The big issue here is whether there are objective standards of ethics and morality above and outside of man, which man is morally obligated to follow (what Russell Kirk called an "enduring moral order"), or whether man himself is the ultimate arbitrator of morality, and makes his own rules.

If there is no objective moral order, there can be no basis for rights beyond personal preference, government power, or majority opinion.

 

This has practical consequences.  For example, without an enduring moral order to appeal to, we have such absurdities as courts denying persons the right to life on the basis of a "right to privacy" and other such nonsense.  

[Socrates]

Yeah.  It's weird how the fairly obviously and uncontroversial observation that the social power (which need not necessarily be physical violence) to assert and hold onto rights is a necessary precondition to having substantive access to those rights gets misconstrued into a normative claims that MIGHT MAKES RIGHT!!!!

 

Okay, so then what does make right?

 

Human legislation?  The majority opinion in a particular time and place?

[Winchester]

He's not so quiet if you happen to believe in Divine Revelation.

 

 

 

 

That would be a personal belief that imbues words and events with meaning for the believer. 

[Era Might]

The big issue here is whether there are objective standards of ethics and morality above and outside of man, which man is morally obligated to follow (what Russell Kirk called an "enduring moral order"), or whether man himself is the ultimate arbitrator of morality, and makes his own rules.

If there is no objective moral order, there can be no basis for rights beyond personal preference, government power, or majority opinion.

 

This has practical consequences.  For example, without an enduring moral order to appeal to, we have such absurdities as courts denying persons the right to life on the basis of a "right to privacy" and other such nonsense.  

 

You can have an enduring moral order without God. A society's mores bring together its experiences of the world. To speak of a "right to property" assumes a society where private property is practiced and valued, which is hardly necessary to human nature, though it is useful to Western mores. Just because a right can be conceived does not mean it is a divine decree. One could just as easily create a right to community, a right to kinship, a right to see the tribe's chief once a year.

 

Rights are based on human experience and the application of how we see what works best, what makes us happy, what creates order, etc.

Edited May 15, 2014 by Era Might

[Era Might]

The right to liberty. What a useless and elastic phrase, which only makes sense based on how we experience it in different ages. Even the right to life is hardly an "enduring moral concept." In Christendom, burning at the stake was acceptable, though today that would be a grave violation of the "right to life," because we have a different context and experience of the world than did medievals.

[Era Might]

The right to liberty. What a useless and elastic phrase, which only makes sense based on how we experience it in different ages. Even the right to life is hardly an "enduring moral concept." In Christendom, burning at the stake was acceptable, though today that would be a grave violation of the "right to life," because we have a different context and experience of the world than did medievals.

 

Actually, the right to liberty was not a useless phrase in the context it was written. It was a remarkable phrase for the stand it took, but it was simply an idea. To say that the abolition of slavery was a "better understanding" of the "right to liberty" would make rights like things trapped in stone, which we gradually uncover. I don't buy that. They are things we create through our experience.

[4588686]

 

 

The big issue here is whether there are objective standards of ethics and morality above and outside of man

 

 

 

Nope

[4588686]

The right to liberty. What a useless and elastic phrase, which only makes sense based on how we experience it in different ages. Even the right to life is hardly an "enduring moral concept." In Christendom, burning at the stake was acceptable, though today that would be a grave violation of the "right to life," because we have a different context and experience of the world than did medievals.

 

 

Pragmatismmmmm

[Anomaly]

Okay, so then what does make right?

Human legislation? The majority opinion in a particular time and place?

The closest thing would be the majority opinion. It is the nature of humans that we tend to develop and expand on intangible ideas and concepts. To hear you say it, we are just dumb animatronic creatures. I don't see where that is in conflict with a Christian concept of the dignity and valued nature of mankind.

Where we differ is some humans use the concept of God as a creator and how he interacts with humans as a foundation for the extrapolated idea that God established basic human rights. As been pointed out repeatedly, there exists no document provided as Gods word that establishes that.

It is just one philosophical school of thought of many. You claim a trump card of justification by the Supreme Creator. That still doesn't relieve you from the necessity of framing and explaining it within human context.

This topic was started with guns as being a god given right. That was stomped senseless as it should have been, but it was suggested that the right to self defense is the God given right.

Why? Where is that written? Has it always been preached? And the tough question, does the right exist if it isn't known or understood, or is it a symbiotic relationship with the development of human society AND understanding?

[Winchester]

More of the people who will enforce gun control: http://thefreethoughtproject.com/cops-raid-wrong-house-owner-youre-lucky-fg-shoot-you/

[Socrates]

The closest thing would be the majority opinion. It is the nature of humans that we tend to develop and expand on intangible ideas and concepts. To hear you say it, we are just dumb animatronic creatures. I don't see where that is in conflict with a Christian concept of the dignity and valued nature of mankind.

 

If we stay consistent with atheistic materialism, we are in fact dumb animatrons.  If there is no spiritual dimension to reality, all our ideas and concepts are determined purely by the physical movements of atoms and such in our brains.

 

Concepts of human dignity and the intrinsic value of human life are obviously not in conflict with Christian thought, but their objective reality is in conflict with atheism, if we're logically consistent.  (Fortunately, most atheists are not.)

 

It's simple; if moral standards are the invention of man alone, man can just as easily deny or change them - there's no objective standard to judge by.

 

And the majority can easily decide to oppress or deny the rights of the minority if it sees fit (this has happened many times through history).  

If majority opinion is what ultimately makes right, then by definition, the majority can never be wrong.  We have no basis to judge anything the majority in a given society practiced or allowed.