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A religious/science question.


Grumps

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This is intended to be a serious question, even though it is probably somewhat simplistic. Feel free to flame away, but my intent in posting is, in my mind, sincere.

The Declaration of Independence says that "we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights." Also our government states that "all men are created equal." Clearly, these are religious ideals. My Creator values all people equally--my soul is worth exactly the same as the pope's and the president's and a drug dealer's. From a naturalistic standpoint, it is sheer nonsense to say, even in this country, that "all men are created equal." My genetics goes a LONG way to determine my size and strength and intelligence. The situation into which I am born also plays a HUGE role into my potential.

How can one justify a naturalistic viewpoint (randomness/evolution/survival of the fittest, etc.) and the belief that all men are created equal?

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You can't justify it. In the grand scheme of things, people are not created equal. I have talents that homie and Ben have and they have talents that I don't have and so on.

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One can perceive the terminology as allegory for a naturalistic perspective.

After all, these documents were composed at a time prior to the naturalistic theories which offer an alternative to religious dogma.

To answer your question specifically, the term 'all men are created equal' could refer to their right to receive social respect and compassion that it does to their talents and physical attributes.

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This is intended to be a serious question, even though it is probably somewhat simplistic. Feel free to flame away, but my intent in posting is, in my mind, sincere.

Our constitution says that "we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights." Also our government states that "all men are created equal." Clearly, these are religious ideals. My Creator values all people equally--my soul is worth exactly the same as the pope's and the president's and a drug dealer's. From a naturalistic standpoint, it is sheer nonsense to say, even in this country, that "all men are created equal." My genetics goes a LONG way to determine my size and strength and intelligence. The situation into which I am born also plays a HUGE role into my potential.

How can one justify a naturalistic viewpoint (randomness/evolution/survival of the fittest, etc.) and the belief that all men are created equal?

Jefferson was stating that all people are created with equal rights. Not equal abilities or talents.

"all men are created (with) equal (rights)."

The second paragraph of the United States Declaration of Independence starts as follows:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, t
hat all men are created equal
, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;
"

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This is intended to be a serious question, even though it is probably somewhat simplistic. Feel free to flame away, but my intent in posting is, in my mind, sincere.

Our constitution says that "we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights." Also our government states that "all men are created equal." Clearly, these are religious ideals. My Creator values all people equally--my soul is worth exactly the same as the pope's and the president's and a drug dealer's. From a naturalistic standpoint, it is sheer nonsense to say, even in this country, that "all men are created equal." My genetics goes a LONG way to determine my size and strength and intelligence. The situation into which I am born also plays a HUGE role into my potential.

How can one justify a naturalistic viewpoint (randomness/evolution/survival of the fittest, etc.) and the belief that all men are created equal?

Jefferson was stating that all people are created with equal rights. Not equal abilities or talents.

"all men are created (with) equal (rights)."

The second paragraph of the United States Declaration of Independence starts as follows:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, t
hat all men are created equal
, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;
"

Everybody has seen Jefferson's quote before. I mean, come on. What are your thoughts on fiscal equality and how do they relate to Jefferson's quote?
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This is intended to be a serious question, even though it is probably somewhat simplistic. Feel free to flame away, but my intent in posting is, in my mind, sincere.

Our constitution says that "we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights." Also our government states that "all men are created equal." Clearly, these are religious ideals. My Creator values all people equally--my soul is worth exactly the same as the pope's and the president's and a drug dealer's. From a naturalistic standpoint, it is sheer nonsense to say, even in this country, that "all men are created equal." My genetics goes a LONG way to determine my size and strength and intelligence. The situation into which I am born also plays a HUGE role into my potential.

How can one justify a naturalistic viewpoint (randomness/evolution/survival of the fittest, etc.) and the belief that all men are created equal?

Jefferson was stating that all people are created with equal rights. Not equal abilities or talents.

"all men are created (with) equal (rights)."

The second paragraph of the United States Declaration of Independence starts as follows:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, t
hat all men are created equal
, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;
"

Everybody has seen Jefferson's quote before. I mean, come on. What are your thoughts on fiscal equality and how do they relate to Jefferson's quote?

The only relationship between what Jefferson and other wrote about equal rights and fiscal equality is that you have a right to to attempt and compete with others. You will come up against others that have more talents, are better at using them, or there is more public demand for a certain talent over another. Free market competition. However, the government does sometimes interfere in that competition to try and provide closer fiscal equality.

If you are a student at a college or high school you have a right to try out for the football team, but there is no guarantee that your talent and abilities will allow you to join the team. A 110 pound male freshman probably will not make a football team or a female either, unless they have some unique skill such as field goal kicking.

Government often entered rules into the competition to try an direct an outcome based on race, gender, ethnicity, etc. Sometimes government even creates a separate but equal outcome based on gender such as the number of college athletic scholarships for men and women. Even then the marketplace takes over and awards large money contracts to many male athletics in professional sports based on ability and performance, but very few to women in professional sports.

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Written in a time when kings and the ' upper class ' ruled society, the ' created equal ' concept simply meant that, in the eyes of our Creator, and w/ regards to how govt works, there are no ordained rulers from upon high, and that WE THE PEOPLE determine our happiness, our life, etc..

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... How can one justify a naturalistic viewpoint (randomness/evolution/survival of the fittest, etc.) and the belief that all men are created equal?

"that all men are created equal" means exactly what it states. An individual's ambition/desire to achieve will determine what becomes of them after "creation."

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This is intended to be a serious question, even though it is probably somewhat simplistic. Feel free to flame away, but my intent in posting is, in my mind, sincere.

Our constitution says that "we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights." Also our government states that "all men are created equal." Clearly, these are religious ideals. My Creator values all people equally--my soul is worth exactly the same as the pope's and the president's and a drug dealer's. From a naturalistic standpoint, it is sheer nonsense to say, even in this country, that "all men are created equal." My genetics goes a LONG way to determine my size and strength and intelligence. The situation into which I am born also plays a HUGE role into my potential.

How can one justify a naturalistic viewpoint (randomness/evolution/survival of the fittest, etc.) and the belief that all men are created equal?

Jefferson was stating that all people are created with equal rights. Not equal abilities or talents.

"all men are created (with) equal (rights)."

The second paragraph of the United States Declaration of Independence starts as follows:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, t
hat all men are created equal
, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;
"

Everybody has seen Jefferson's quote before. I mean, come on. What are your thoughts on fiscal equality and how do they relate to Jefferson's quote?

The only relationship between what Jefferson and other wrote about equal rights and fiscal equality is that you have a right to to attempt and compete with others. You will come up against others that have more talents, are better at using them, or there is more public demand for a certain talent over another. Free market competition. However, the government does sometimes interfere in that competition to try and provide closer fiscal equality.

If you are a student at a college or high school you have a right to try out for the football team, but there is no guarantee that your talent and abilities will allow you to join the team. A 110 pound male freshman probably will not make a football team or a female either, unless they have some unique skill such as field goal kicking.

Government often entered rules into the competition to try an direct an outcome based on race, gender, ethnicity, etc. Sometimes government even creates a separate but equal outcome based on gender such as the number of college athletic scholarships for men and women. Even then the marketplace takes over and awards large money contracts to many male athletics in professional sports based on ability and performance, but very few to women in professional sports.

Do you not also recognize government as a force that can and does promote inequality?

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This is intended to be a serious question, even though it is probably somewhat simplistic. Feel free to flame away, but my intent in posting is, in my mind, sincere.

Our constitution says that "we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights." Also our government states that "all men are created equal." Clearly, these are religious ideals. My Creator values all people equally--my soul is worth exactly the same as the pope's and the president's and a drug dealer's. From a naturalistic standpoint, it is sheer nonsense to say, even in this country, that "all men are created equal." My genetics goes a LONG way to determine my size and strength and intelligence. The situation into which I am born also plays a HUGE role into my potential.

How can one justify a naturalistic viewpoint (randomness/evolution/survival of the fittest, etc.) and the belief that all men are created equal?

Jefferson was stating that all people are created with equal rights. Not equal abilities or talents.

"all men are created (with) equal (rights)."

The second paragraph of the United States Declaration of Independence starts as follows:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, t
hat all men are created equal
, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;
"

Everybody has seen Jefferson's quote before. I mean, come on. What are your thoughts on fiscal equality and how do they relate to Jefferson's quote?

The only relationship between what Jefferson and other wrote about equal rights and fiscal equality is that you have a right to to attempt and compete with others. You will come up against others that have more talents, are better at using them, or there is more public demand for a certain talent over another. Free market competition. However, the government does sometimes interfere in that competition to try and provide closer fiscal equality.

If you are a student at a college or high school you have a right to try out for the football team, but there is no guarantee that your talent and abilities will allow you to join the team. A 110 pound male freshman probably will not make a football team or a female either, unless they have some unique skill such as field goal kicking.

Government often entered rules into the competition to try an direct an outcome based on race, gender, ethnicity, etc. Sometimes government even creates a separate but equal outcome based on gender such as the number of college athletic scholarships for men and women. Even then the marketplace takes over and awards large money contracts to many male athletics in professional sports based on ability and performance, but very few to women in professional sports.

Do you not also recognize government as a force that can and does promote inequality?

Interesting point.
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This is intended to be a serious question, even though it is probably somewhat simplistic. Feel free to flame away, but my intent in posting is, in my mind, sincere.

Our constitution says that "we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights." Also our government states that "all men are created equal." Clearly, these are religious ideals. My Creator values all people equally--my soul is worth exactly the same as the pope's and the president's and a drug dealer's. From a naturalistic standpoint, it is sheer nonsense to say, even in this country, that "all men are created equal." My genetics goes a LONG way to determine my size and strength and intelligence. The situation into which I am born also plays a HUGE role into my potential.

How can one justify a naturalistic viewpoint (randomness/evolution/survival of the fittest, etc.) and the belief that all men are created equal?

Jefferson was stating that all people are created with equal rights. Not equal abilities or talents.

"all men are created (with) equal (rights)."

The second paragraph of the United States Declaration of Independence starts as follows:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, t
hat all men are created equal
, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;
"

Everybody has seen Jefferson's quote before. I mean, come on. What are your thoughts on fiscal equality and how do they relate to Jefferson's quote?

The only relationship between what Jefferson and other wrote about equal rights and fiscal equality is that you have a right to to attempt and compete with others. You will come up against others that have more talents, are better at using them, or there is more public demand for a certain talent over another. Free market competition. However, the government does sometimes interfere in that competition to try and provide closer fiscal equality.

If you are a student at a college or high school you have a right to try out for the football team, but there is no guarantee that your talent and abilities will allow you to join the team. A 110 pound male freshman probably will not make a football team or a female either, unless they have some unique skill such as field goal kicking.

Government often entered rules into the competition to try an direct an outcome based on race, gender, ethnicity, etc. Sometimes government even creates a separate but equal outcome based on gender such as the number of college athletic scholarships for men and women. Even then the marketplace takes over and awards large money contracts to many male athletics in professional sports based on ability and performance, but very few to women in professional sports.

Do you not also recognize government as a force that can and does promote inequality?

Certainly, remember that's what started the country and the war of Independence. The British crown allowed taxation without representation, loss of the rights of Englishmen, etc. The Declaration, Articles of Confederation, Constitution and Bill of Rights documented the effort to put recognize them again.

The same government is evolving still. Ensuring rights for those that were deprived of them in the past but unfortunately also depriving others of their rights. It is a never ending effort to correct.

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Thomas Jefferson was no idiot, nor were the men who endorsed his ideas by signing the Declaration of Independence. They were certainly not stupid enough to suggest that human beings were all clones sharing the exact same physical attributes, talents, or intelligence from birth. Jefferson himself was a part of a physical minority: redheads.

Obviously then, the equality of which they spoke must be equality of a different sort, to wit: Equality of rights under the law, a concept not widely accepted by the feudal/aristocratic/"divine rights" monarchic systems practiced in most European nations at the time.

And of course, the Declaration of Independence was intended as a propaganda piece explaining/defending the Colonies' actions in rebelling and seeking independence. It had/has no legal standing. I don't generally expect propaganda to be necessarily absolute truth or unbiased. Certainly even Jefferson and many of the signers didn't take those words as completely and 100% literal at face value as they did not consider slaves equal, legally or physically. It's not even necessary to take any reference to a creator/creation as an absolute endorsement of the existence of a Divinity: Rather it can be viewed as simply good wording for the predominant mindset of those they were trying to sway with their propaganda, or a rebuttal of the "divine rights" belief that a Deity did create some families/bloodlines as unique and superior to others. I think Jefferson's point was equality of rights, not theology or biology.

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Thomas Jefferson was no idiot, nor were the men who endorsed his ideas by signing the Declaration of Independence. They were certainly not stupid enough to suggest that human beings were all clones sharing the exact same physical attributes, talents, or intelligence from birth. Jefferson himself was a part of a physical minority: redheads.

Obviously then, the equality of which they spoke must be equality of a different sort, to wit: Equality of rights under the law, a concept not widely accepted by the feudal/aristocratic/"divine rights" monarchic systems practiced in most European nations at the time.

And of course, the Declaration of Independence was intended as a propaganda piece explaining/defending the Colonies' actions in rebelling and seeking independence. It had/has no legal standing. I don't generally expect propaganda to be necessarily absolute truth or unbiased. Certainly even Jefferson and many of the signers didn't take those words as completely and 100% literal at face value as they did not consider slaves equal, legally or physically. It's not even necessary to take any reference to a creator/creation as an absolute endorsement of the existence of a Divinity: Rather it can be viewed as simply good wording for the predominant mindset of those they were trying to sway with their propaganda, or a rebuttal of the "divine rights" belief that a Deity did create some families/bloodlines as unique and superior to others. I think Jefferson's point was equality of rights, not theology or biology.

:starorange: :starorange: :starorange: :starorange: :starorange:

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This is intended to be a serious question, even though it is probably somewhat simplistic. Feel free to flame away, but my intent in posting is, in my mind, sincere.

Our constitution says that "we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights." Also our government states that "all men are created equal." Clearly, these are religious ideals. My Creator values all people equally--my soul is worth exactly the same as the pope's and the president's and a drug dealer's. From a naturalistic standpoint, it is sheer nonsense to say, even in this country, that "all men are created equal." My genetics goes a LONG way to determine my size and strength and intelligence. The situation into which I am born also plays a HUGE role into my potential.

How can one justify a naturalistic viewpoint (randomness/evolution/survival of the fittest, etc.) and the belief that all men are created equal?

Jefferson was stating that all people are created with equal rights. Not equal abilities or talents.

"all men are created (with) equal (rights)."

The second paragraph of the United States Declaration of Independence starts as follows:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, t
hat all men are created equal
, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;
"

Everybody has seen Jefferson's quote before. I mean, come on. What are your thoughts on fiscal equality and how do they relate to Jefferson's quote?

The only relationship between what Jefferson and other wrote about equal rights and fiscal equality is that you have a right to to attempt and compete with others. You will come up against others that have more talents, are better at using them, or there is more public demand for a certain talent over another. Free market competition. However, the government does sometimes interfere in that competition to try and provide closer fiscal equality.

If you are a student at a college or high school you have a right to try out for the football team, but there is no guarantee that your talent and abilities will allow you to join the team. A 110 pound male freshman probably will not make a football team or a female either, unless they have some unique skill such as field goal kicking.

Government often entered rules into the competition to try an direct an outcome based on race, gender, ethnicity, etc. Sometimes government even creates a separate but equal outcome based on gender such as the number of college athletic scholarships for men and women. Even then the marketplace takes over and awards large money contracts to many male athletics in professional sports based on ability and performance, but very few to women in professional sports.

Do you not also recognize government as a force that can and does promote inequality?

Interesting point.

A point that I think we must seriously consider particularly in times when relative equality is so unequal. I think we have to examine laws and policies that, intentionally or inadvertently discourage entrepreneurs and, encourage consolidation/concentration.

Perhaps, considering the observation of reality, we should not be philosophically, or ideologically arguing whether or not the government should promote equality but rather, whether or not the government has promoted inequality?

I find it interesting that we are so predisposed to the fear of government that, we forget that some hold such immense power that they can affect government. Perhaps we have allowed our paranoia to get the better of us? Perhaps we are so consumed by the fear of government that, we forgot to protect the government from the powerful? Perhaps these basic rights were not simply to protect us from government but, from any form of power that seeks to exploit us as human beings by virtue of power alone?

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The DoI is intended to be much more proscriptive than prescriptive. To properly interperet, you must consider the context: the monarchy, divine right of kings, etc.

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