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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Whether or not man is strictly material or both material and immaterial defines the meaning of his existence.  If he is only material, his end point is death.  If he is material and immaterial, his end point is not the death of his material self.  If he is only material, he has no intrinsic and inalienable worth.  If anything, he is worth more the more useful he is to other creatures undergoing similar physical processes, but he has no value unto himself.

So if any DCUMers believe in human rights, there is every reason to care whether or not there is a Creator, and whether or not man is solely a material being.[/quote]

A person does not cease to matter because they die. That's ridiculous. [b]Lincoln is dead, did he not make an important impact on human rights?[/b] What about everyone else? Even if it is not someone famous, a person matters to someone. My existence is not meaningless because I'm mortal. I don't need god to think I'm special to make my life important. [/quote]

Well, it depends on who you talk to.  Members of the KKK would strongly disagree with Lincoln's personal opinion about human rights.  How do you know who is right?

Some people matter to no one.  Do they still have human rights?

This is an either/or problem.  Either human beings have intrinsic worth, or they do not.  If they do not, we may choose to grant them worth, but then their worth may be taken away by someone else.

[/quote]

I think you're running into the wishful "thinking problem" again.  "Do people have human rights?  If so, God." That's not an argument.

[/quote]

I am not trying to make an argument.  I am simply observing that human beings do not have intrinsic value in a materialist universe.[/quote]

Did not one take high school history class?  Our country was founded upon the belief in Natural Law, which is to say that we can use reason to deduce the rules of moral behavior for people.  In this tradition, it does not matter whether one believes in God or not.  The universe is still the same, and so our observations about it can be made regardless.  Has everyone forgotten that this is in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution? The greeks, Hobbes, Locke?  None of this rings a bell?[/quote]

You've identified why the Founders of our country are none too popular with the theists.  They were wholly products of the godless Enlightenment.[/quote]

Well they did mention God, too.  But the point is that they did not believe that morality was a matter of faith.  They believed that one could apply reason to the world and to the human condition.  I'm rather surprised that in 20-odd pages of posts about morality and justice, no one brought up such a critical founding principle of our country.[/quote].

The most critical founding principle of our country was universal, inherent human rights from God:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that 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."

They did not say:

"We hold these opinions to be very persuasive, that all men should be seen as equal, and that we have decided based on our reason that men have the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Mentioning a Creator was not an accident or a rhetorical flourish.  It was absolutely essential.  Natural law is defined as the existence of perfect Justice, authored by absolute Authority, which can be known by human reason.  Have centuries of natural law theory really been so completely misstated?[/quote]

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