Do athiests have rights?
posted by: jofa
March 22, 2008
8:49 pm
I recently heard a great cd titled "Was Hitler Right?" and subtitled "Do Athiests have rights?". It's put out by the Bible Christian Society (John Martignoni). The question he poses to athiests and even liberals is "What is the objective reason Hitler was wrong to kill six million Jews?". Of course, without God in the equation there is no objective moral reason that Hitler was wrong. Without the absolute of God having endowed us with intrinsic value, there is nothing but subjective opinion to battle genocide. Our nation's constitution/bill of rights guarentees says that we have been endowed with certain inalienable rights "by our Creator". So, John Martignoni asks (philosophically), do athiests have rights? :-)
posted by: Winslow
March 23, 2008
12:00 pm
Is that a serious question? Of course they have rights, which are enumerated in the Constitution you refer to. Among their rights is the right to believe in God or not to believe in God.
Peace
posted by: sainthenry
March 23, 2008
12:25 pm
Jofa, I believe the rights you are referring to is the right to kill humans. This is a very interesting question for me particularly because the United States has claimed the right to kill people as well. Of course no one has a right to kill after the coming of Christ. Prior to Christ, the Bible recounts many tribes and nations killing people, some even in the name of God. It is my opinion that the 10 commandments changed the course of history while making, "Thou shall not kill" a sin against the command of God. Humankind disobeys all of the 10 commandments at all times, however popular beleif [such as Nazism also Democracy in the USA] gives governments and people a "right" to kill persons. Only Christ can determine at judgement day who had a "right" to kill for all eternity while governments and peoples determine who has a "right" to kill persons for a very limited timeframe [when war is authorized by Congress]. Ultimately the law of God determines right or wrong while punishment for disobedience to the law of God is entirely in the hands of Jesus Christ. In the meantime however the "right" to kill is entirely in the hands of people and popular belief.
King Henry 11 Holy Roman Emporer of Germany, Italy and Switzerland of the 10th Century: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ and May God Bless Us All!
posted by: bhokuto
March 24, 2008
2:01 am
I think we can go back further than the "Law" given by God to Moses.
Cain killed Abel. Free will. Cain killed Abel after the dreaded Tree infestation into Man.
Prior to that God created man and said "it is good."
"Knowing" from Holy Scriptures that God is Good also the Catechism reiterates, when God made Adam and Eve, they were Good little boys and girls. They did not know Evil.
When they ate from the Tree of Knowledge, they were infused with the knowledge "or" to know Evil, and the "poison of the Serpent."
Gensis 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the earth which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman: Why hath God commanded you, that you should not eat of every tree of paradise?
Notice: The words "God commanded you".
God made "rules", they broke it, before they knew Evil. They were lured, enticed, what does
St. James say about being lured?
1:14 But every man is tempted by his own concupiscence, being drawn away and allured.
In this case they had "no concupiscence" but a desire to "know" because they had not yet been inundated by Satan's poison and knowledge of Evil. The flesh is weak. Satan, a stronger than we, enticed Eve wth the "knowledge to know like God". That was their achiles heal. They had already wanted to know more! Otherwise they would have told the Serpent to take a hike!
Isn't that what you would do? Tell the Devil to get thee behind me! (this is just to see where you're thinking)
All men have the like senses. God created all mankind. We do not come from another mold, another creation.
I only use Douay Rheims because it comes from the Latin Vulgate, which some do not care for.
But is the most accurate and authorative version in existence today. Which helps one to understand Authority in my opinion.
To kill is not of God, it is of the Evil one. We can know evil and do lower evils like steal a piece of bread or kick a hole in the wall instead of killing. Killing is probably the greatest sin against another human being. But there are numerable ways to kill, besides killing the obvious way.
St. John explains this in his first letter about murder.
1 John 3: 15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in himself.
Jesus says this in Matthew 5:22 But I say to you, that whosoever is angry with his brother, shall be in danger of the judgment. And whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council. And whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
Commentary
"Raca... A word expressing great indignation or contempt. Shall be in danger of the council... That is, shall deserve to be punished by the highest court of judicature, called the Council, or Sanhedrim, consisting of seventy-two persons, where the highest causes were tried and judged, which was at Jerusalem. Thou fool... This was then looked upon as a heinous injury, when uttered with contempt, spite, or malice: and therefore is here so severely condemned. Shall be in danger of hell fire... Literally, according to the Greek, shall deserve to be cast into the Gehenna of fire. Which words our Saviour made use of to express the fire and punishments of hell."
Everyone is born with a God given right to live and breath and eat and work and find peace and happiness. It is up to the governments to discern and make this happen for all God's children.
First, they have to realize they are God's creatures otherwise it's back to prayer closet.
Happy Easter
Peace
posted by: jofa
March 27, 2008
3:48 pm
Winslow- don't worry, I wasn't really asking whether atheists have rights. I was posing a philisophical question as food for thought regarding how we come by our intrinsic value as human beings.... from God alone!
God Bless! :-)
posted by: sainthenry
March 27, 2008
4:35 pm
jofa, Aethists not only have rights, they also have greater access to the Divine Mercy of Christ than any others. In Sr. Faustina's diary she said Christ told her that the more a person sins, the greater is the love of Christ for that person and his desire to help them overcome what sin is holding them in posession.
King Henry 11 Holy Roman Emporer of Germany, Italy and Switzerland of the 10th Century: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ and May God Bless Us All!
posted by: lpioch
March 27, 2008
5:52 pm
I think you guys are missing what jofa was asking.
We, as Christians, do not deny that atheists have rights. But we recognize that these rights are intrinsic to the existence of God.
Her question is...do Atheists believe in the existence of rights eventhough they do not believe in the existence of God. And I'm assuming the next question is...if so...from where do these rights that atheists believe exist derive?
posted by: Protect the Rock
March 27, 2008
6:41 pm
Yes, this seems like an appeal to the existence of a moral law.
There is a classic argument from Philosophy 101: if there is no objective truth — but morality is relative — then why is it wrong to murder?
The answer would be there is apparently a universal moral standard.
The question then is, where does it come from? If one is an atheist, believing there is no God, then it must come from somewhere else.
A gene perhaps?
Either that, or Hitler was right, there is no moral law, no universal moral standard, and we can come up with our own rules.
posted by: mkochan
March 28, 2008
6:28 pm
This is similar to a provocative talk title I once heard "Why Not Burn Witches?" The entire point was that the arguments for treating practicioners of Wicca, et al, with human respect depended, not upon their arbitrary "goddess" but upon the kind of moral universe created by the kind of God we Christians worship.
posted by: OMalley
April 4, 2008
2:01 pm
O'Malley
Secular law or positive law, I think, cannot pretend to
differentiate killing from murder. We need God's revelation, a
vantage point beyond the human condition, to guide us to certain
knowledge of human rights, especially the right to life.
The philosophy of legal positivism prevents arguing for human
rights outside the legal system per se. Legal systems cannot criticize
each other. Under legal positivism, if legal system A, claims that
legal system B is immoral it must do so only from a reference to itself. System B does not recognize the validity of system A, so the criticism by system A of system B is correctly disregarded as baseless by system B.
The Nazis leaders used legal positivism to defend themselves at
Nuremberg. The only reason, the Nazis claimed, that they found
themselves in the defendants' chair at Nuremberg was that they had
the misfortune of losing the war.
The Nazis granted that their legal system was different than the
Allies, and granted that fundamental German values were different
than the Allies, one of which was the supremacy of the Aryan race.
They incorporated their values into their laws that included the de-
valuing of Jews relative to Aryans. The Nazis argued, therefore,
that the systematic elimination of Jews was, in the German legal
system, entirely valid. And, since, under legal positivism, the
Allies could not judge the Nazis legal system as invalid, the
Allies could they judge the defendants acts as criminal.
Jackson, the lead prosecutor, had to depart from and ultimately
debunk the philosophy of legal positivism and proceed to a higher
authority, a new and higher vantage point to prosecute the legal
system of another country. He appealed to the basic principles of
civilization in order to prosecute the jurisprudence of the Nazi
legal system. To transcend human law, Jackson, of course, had to
take recourse to religion, to revelation.
Peace,
O'Malley
posted by: fishman
April 5, 2008
10:07 pm
bringing the discussion easily back round to the begining. From an athiestic standpoint thier is not such thing as a right. So survival of the fittest is the only rule left.