Interesting Points

From http://www.theamericanview.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12732&PHPSESSID=8a91d1a93084ccefc486e79b25d464fc


exmarine: Buckner's position is illogical and unsupportable. He is in a non-rational no-man's land here. There are TWO and ONLY TWO possible sources for intrinsic rights - man or God (rationally and logically speaking). There are no other choices (aliens from outer space is not a rational choice). Objective, intrinsic, essential, universal MORAL principles do not exist on their own in thin air - they must come from a MIND. Buckner's position represents a FALSE CHOICE. If he cannot name a source, then there ISN'T ONE! And secular-humanists say Christians have a pie-in-the-sky faith! It takes some kind of faith (or darkened heart) to believe that rights just self-exist on their own. It doesn't get any more absurd than this.I have debated this many, many times, and this gets them every single time. If a secular humanist says rights come from man, or from society (collectively), then they are trapped by the fact that no one person's (or one group's, or one culture's, or one society's) morals can logically be superior to another. Some person or PERSONS must decide these rights by arbitrary decree. Thus, such rights do not emanate from mid-air - they have a human source. This is the very essence of MORAL RELATIVISM. If one taKes the position that rights come from cultures, then MIGHT MAKES RIGHT comes into play because different cultures have different rights (e.g. the Nazis).Moral relativism is indefensible on many fronts, not the least of which is the fact that man's moral decrees carry no moral force, as there is no fear of eternal punishment. Without God as the source for right and wrong, there can logically be no universal moral principles. Period.


exmarine: There has been substantial discussion of this topic before in this forum, however, this is really a tangent, as this thread is about the source of inalienable rights and the non-rational views of an atheist. Speaking of inalienable rights, one thing is certain: The Declaration of Independence codifies the universal truth of the inalienable Right to Liberty. Southern slavery was a protracted and blatant violation of this biblical moral principle. In fact, at least a significant minority of the slaves in the antebellum South were Christian (Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson himself taught many of them in Sunday school in pre-war Virginia). It is an egregious sin against God to keep enslaved a brother or sister who has been freed by the Son of God. And I see David alluded to the fact that southern slavery was commonly brutal and hateful, notwithstanding the fact that there also existed kinder and gentler slaveholders."Man-stealing" is merely scratching the surface. There was also torture and murder involved. I wouldn't treat swine as badly as many of the Africans were treated. Nothing in the bible justifies anything about southern slavery. I am convinced that the War (call it whatever you want) was God's judgment on the entire nation (north and south), but especially on the South. If it were not, then the Confederacy would have been protected and would have survived, just as the American colonies survived the Revolutionary War against all odds under the protection of God.