----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Pensinger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2003 10:52 PM Subject: Re: christian dreams of murder...
> Gautam Mukunda wrote: > > > > Here's a question for you, if you think the > > Declaration should guide our actions. You supported > > Judge Roy Moore, right? "Endowed _by their Creator_ > > with certain inalienable rights..." Not so good for > > separation of church and state, is it? > > Sufficiently ambiguous. Evolution is my creator. First, that wasn't Jefferson's idea. The idea of the enlightenment did not include the idea of human rights being a meme that evolved because it worked. Until the US Civil War was won by the North, democracies were considered very suspect. Second, Social Darwinism, even in its latest incarnation, is not science. There have been two distinct variations on this, the historical dialectic and the "law of the jungle" that have come out in the last 150 years, and both now have been discredited. There is no reason that the third, which has no better basis in science, will do any better. If you want to claim it as a faith statement, that's not unreasonable. But it is certainly not science. The main advantage that we have over the people 2000 years ago is that we are far richer, due to technology. We can have machines that lift us above subsistence existence. In ancient times, only slaves or serfs could do that. Yet, even though slaves were no longer required, we had massive socio-political systems in the 20th century that had horrendous human rights records, much worse than that of Ancient Rome, (at the very least if you take the atrocities/citizen/year as your measure). Yes, the US defeated these countries, but that was not inevitable. Indeed, the continued existence of the US during the middle of the 19th century was predicated on Lincoln's diplomatic ability. So, the fact that the US won the last two great battles doesn't mean that our system of human rights is a logical byproduct of evolution, any more than extreme nationalism would have been proven by a German victory or the historical dialectic by a Communist victory. It was a lucky break, just as the existence of New York, Washington, Boston, etc.** was a result of us catching a lucky break in 10-62. Dan M. ** The destruction of these cities was more certain than LA or San Francisco IIRC. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
