From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Thu Sep 21 2000 - 13:01:00 MDT
Dehede011@aol.com wrote:
>
> In a message dated 9/21/00 8:03:14 AM Pacific Daylight Time, hal@finney.org
> writes: << Okay, but you started off with this stuff about being created by
> God who gave us rights. >>
>
> Hal,
> Given that we know the Washington, Jefferson and many others were
> somewhat indifferent to organized religion was that phrasing literal or just
> exhoratory?
>
A mix I would guess. This was the age of Enlightenment. Many of the
founders were at most Deist, believing that a God may have been required
to start creation rolling and perhaps to create us but after that only
natural forces were at work. Remember this was well before the theory
of evolution. Arguably, if that theory had existed then far more of the
founders would have been fully atheist. But it is legalistic sophistry
to claim that natural rights depend on being created by God just because
these documents use such language. Either human rights can be derived
naturally or they cannot.
- samantha
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