What is a Christian nationalist?

[Pam Cummings 9553]

Christian nationalist = white supremacist

 

Doesn't want the government telling them what to do but wants to use the government to suppress and exact cruelty on others.

 

Run of the mill fascists, really.

[TexArcher 37455]

11 hours ago, Boss Hogg said:

This appears to be a relatively new term, at least to me. This lady acts like this stuff wasn't the basis of the Declaration of Independence. Am I a Christian Nationalist to believe there are natural rights not dependent on approval of the government?

Christianity absolutely was not the basis of the Declaration of Independence.  Most of the Founders weren't even Christians, and they most certainly did not establish a Christian nation.

As for "Christian Nationalism," that's nothing more than a recruiting buzzword.  The wealthy and powerful have used religion and patriotism to convince the poor and stupid to help them win elections and to serve as meat in their armies since the beginning of, well, religion and patriotism.  This new-ish term is just a recruiting buzzword that sounds noble to the stupid.  They can't just call it fascism, can they?

[Captainant 27311]

Whats wild is there's a number of posters on Surly that proudly claim and own the moniker of "christian nationalist"

Edited February 24 by Captainant

[BevoAbyss 2055]

59 minutes ago, TexArcher said:

Christianity absolutely was not the basis of the Declaration of Independence.

This is 100% spot on. Many of the Founders were "Deist" -- a worldview counter to mere "faith" and "revelation", in favor of rational thinking, empirical evidence, and overall general Enlightenment ideals of the era. The Founders were very imperfect, to be sure, and rife with contradictions (ie, slavery and conquest of indigenous peoples).

However, science played a key role in the overall thought of the Founders and how they set up of the Constitution/Division of Powers, etc. See the book, Science and the Founding Fathers by Bernard Cohen (in Amazon, the summary is excellent).

That belief in general science and evidence is one reason the VERY FIRST LINE in the First Amendment mandates "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." The Christian Nationalists utterly ignore that line, like they ignore any evidence that counters their fanaticism. 

Let me add to the posts above:

1) "Christian Nationalists" are, in fact and deed, Christian theocrats. They hide behind the seemingly patriotic term of "nationalists." They 100% want an American theocracy, in which they rule the nation under the Bible. For them, in their historical ignorance, the Bible is the foundation for America and trumps any secular laws or science.

-- Hence, we will see much more anti-science lunacy followed by tyranny based in the lunacy and madness.

2) These are not fake Christians. They believe that God ordained that America be a Christian nation ruled by the church, at the very outset. That can only mean that God/Christianity approved of the genocide/ethic cleansing of the indigenous peoples living in the "Americas" prior to 1492. Racism and White Supremacy are 100% at the very start of America. It was never about peace and love, until after conquest, colonization, and conversion to Christianity. In their irrational conquest for "purity," they have proven to be barbaric and blood thirsty. 

-- Surly posters, please spare the apologia based in cherry-picking verses from the Bible and Sunday School, and noting a few good deeds done for those already colonized. MAGA-GQP-Evangelicals-Fundamentalists-Creationists are not fake Christians. 

Edited February 24 by BevoAbyss

[Huckleberry 32685]

12 hours ago, Boss Hogg said:

 

Since you brought it up. I assumed you were an atheist to be so aggressively anti-Christian. I guess I didn't think you could adhere to another faith and be so antagonistic. 

Others covered it just fine but that's not antagonistic. You're just being sensitive. If one believes that Jesus Christ's claim to be the Son of God (or for some people his very existence) is fraudulent then by description is straightforward. The vast majority of the world believes Christianity is fraudulent. 

Speaking of existence, this thread's and then the above exchange should be big clues to you that your real issue is getting your feelings hurt so quickly if someone seems to be questioning your beliefs. I believe this is what people who share a lot of your beliefs, and perhaps even you, call being a snowflake. 

[troph 24548]

2 hours ago, formermav43 said:

If you can stand a little theological discussion, here’s a pretty good article critical of the concept from the evangelical historian Thomas Kidd. And if you don’t want to read it, his short definition is similar to what 956 said above: “an understanding of American identity and significance held by Christians wherein the nation is a central actor in the world-historical purposes of the Christian God.“

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/christian-nationalism-patriotism/?amp

Its success is a rather new phenomenon. It started with the replacement of the scripture mandate of the great commission - preach the gospel to the ends of the earth with win elections and change the laws to be in Christ’s image. That was started in the 80s surprisingly right after one of the greatest organic revivals in modern history, the Jesus movement of the 70s.
 

ultimately it is an adoption of the Pharisees view in scripture of the world that Jesus roundly rejected. In fact the only time you see Christ outwardly upset in the texts is when dealing with the Pharisees who used the law to control. This Christian nationalist movement has rejected the gospel, and instead decided they are a political party.
 

it’s fundamentally shocking to me that the entire American Christian movement which I grew up in turned from Lottie Moon Christmas offerings, Jesus loves the little children of the world, and invite your friends to church to an absolute war on humans. But this is what they have become.

onward Christian soldiers is right. 

Edited February 24 by troph

[RomaVicta 29756]

10 hours ago, David Dennison said:

All rights are man made. Full stop.

I agree. Rights must be won and defended after they are declared. 

Nature is the last place you can expect any right at all to privacy, safety, or happiness. You may discover a place of solitude where you can protect those "rights" (conditions) yourself, but that's about it.

God didn't run the British out of the colonies.

[SimonBolivar 10898]

13 hours ago, Boss Hogg said:

This appears to be a relatively new term, at least to me. 

Yeah, no there are decades and decades of research on the term and meaning and how it interacts with things like civil religion which is a relatively new historiographical construct even if Rousseau did invent the term. 

[BrickHorn 18176]

Natural rights do not exist. Absent the state or another form of governance that agrees to enforce them, rights are just moral propositions. You can argue that you should have the rights to do x, y, and z. Unless the rest of us agree to or are compelled to behave in such a way that you may do x, y, or z (or to punish those who prevent you from doing x, y, or x), however, you have no such rights.  

[Mrs Whiggins 13049]

4 hours ago, HenryJames said:

A just asking questions thread from 52nd username guy. Surely we won’t fall for it again.

Thank you.

The tweet/video clip from an account that retweets RW influencer Ian Miles Cheong (from Malaysia) w/o irony and total innocence. Who me?

 

[956 Worldwide 34314]

One of my least favorite recurring themes is how often well-meaning progressives placidly announce that naturalism vs. positivism has been obviously and definitively settled in favor of positivism; then react with utter horror when their ideological opponents immediately grasp the implications and eagerly implement. 

[safe sex 11659]

23 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

One of my least favorite recurring themes is how often well-meaning progressives placidly announce that naturalism vs. positivism has been obviously and definitively settled in favor of positivism; then react with utter horror when their ideological opponents immediately grasp the implications and eagerly implement. 

I don't follow

[formermav43 4599]

1 hour ago, Huckleberry said:

Others covered it just fine but that's not antagonistic. You're just being sensitive. If one believes that Jesus Christ's claim to be the Son of God (or for some people his very existence) is fraudulent then by description is straightforward. The vast majority of the world believes Christianity is fraudulent.  

[Thread derail incoming:] We laugh flat-earthers, anti-vaxers, and the like right off this board. That view has precisely the same degree of credibility in mainstream scholarship. It’s amazing that otherwise serious posters can claim that and then just have it accepted at face value as legitimate, as here.

[956 Worldwide 34314]

12 minutes ago, safe sex said:

I don't follow

Well, if you follow BrickHorn’s reasoning (rights only exist if the state enforces them or if we all “agree” to them), then if I am a Christian ethno-nationalist my ear perk right up.  What my well-meaning progressive opponents may mean is that the right to free speech can be constrained in ways to avoid harm to larger groups and people, especially if we can achieve consensus that we want to. And that works pretty well in high-consensus, cohesive societies.

But what I mean is I am a Christian ethno-nationalist is this: You may think you have the right to contraception, but I disagree.  And I am going to display a stronger will to power and the state I will control will compel my opinion to prevail.  So let’s go at it and see who comes out on top, may the stronger of us rule and the weaker submit (this is fascism in a nutshell). You had a right, but it went away, I’m stronger. 
 

To bring this back around, you can disagree with the founders that natural rights exist but the idea of natural rights basically underpins the entire concept of our Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, or even the idea of “limited government.”

 If all that preserves them is majoritarian consensus that thereby exercises power and maintains them, they hang by a pretty thin thread.  You’re better served by trying to keep the Christian nationalists paying lip-service to the idea of natural rights than talking them out of the concept. 

[LCHorn 2582]

@956 Worldwide is bringing it today.  I feel like I need more coffee.

[David Dennison 18606]

28 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Well, if you follow BrickHorn’s reasoning (rights only exist if the state enforces them or if we all “agree” to them), then if I am a Christian ethno-nationalist my ear perk right up.  What my well-meaning progressive opponents may mean is that the right to free speech can be constrained in ways to avoid harm to larger groups and people, especially if we can achieve consensus that we want to. And that works pretty well in high-consensus, cohesive societies.

But what I mean is I am a Christian ethno-nationalist is this: You may think you have the right to contraception, but I disagree.  And I am going to display a stronger will to power and the state I will control will compel my opinion to prevail.  So let’s go at it and see who comes out on top, may the stronger of us rule and the weaker submit (this is fascism in a nutshell). You had a right, but it went away, I’m stronger. 

To bring this back around, you can disagree with the founders that natural rights exist but the idea of natural rights basically underpins the entire concept of our Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, or even the idea of “limited government.”

 If all that preserves them is majoritarian consensus that thereby exercises power and maintains them, they hang by a pretty thin thread.  You’re better served by trying to keep the Christian nationalists paying lip-service to the idea of natural rights than talking them out of the concept. 

You're describing politics.

[956 Worldwide 34314]

6 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

You're describing politics.

Well, if I’m describing politics then I’m also eventually describing war. Which is kind of my whole point.  And we’ve run this thought experiment on both the left and the right.  We know the result of deciding that the first and most basic right (to life) is question of politics and power ends. “Life unworthy of life” was a political and not moral or ethical statement. This concept is pretty seductive on both the far left and right and ends the same place. 
 

And back to @safe sex— I’d quote this passage of Obergfell as we think about whether we want to toss natural rights as the basis of our system overboard:

Quote

It is most often through democracy that liberty is preserved and protected in our lives. 

Yet, there has been substantial public deliberation over the past decades and it is a central premise of our Constitution that fundamental rights depend on the outcome of no elections. 

The dynamic of our constitutional system is that individuals need not await legislative action before asserting a fundamental right.

In short, the democratic process defends rights and doesn’t create them in our conception of government. Virtually every expansion of liberty we celebrate from women’s rights to civil rights to gay rights came by arguing that natural rights exist and were being inadequately recognized and not by announcing that might makes right. 

[David Dennison 18606]

7 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Well, if I’m describing politics then I’m also eventually describing war. Which is kind of my whole point.  And we’ve run this thought experiment on both the left and the right.  We know the result of deciding that the first and most basic right (to life) is question of politics and power ends. “Life unworthy of life” was a political and not moral or ethical statement. This concept is pretty seductive on both the far left and right and ends the same place. 

And back to @safe sex— I’d quote this passage of Obergfell as we think about whether we want to toss natural rights as the basis of our system overboard:

In short, the democratic process defends rights and doesn’t create them in our conception of government. Virtually every expansion of liberty we celebrate from women’s rights to civil rights to gay rights came by arguing that natural rights exist and were being inadequately recognized and not by announcing that might makes right. 

War is politics by other means, so it makes sense that's where politics ends up.

And we can argue all day about the existence of natural rights, but natural rights only exist because man labels them as such. They only exist because we say they do.

[BrickHorn 18176]

1 hour ago, safe sex said:

I don't follow

He’s saying we must pretend there’s a ghost in the machine for the sake of controlling overgrown children incapable of behaving themselves without fearing the judgment of a bearded sky god. Which is idiotic, because (a) reality isn’t defined by the delusions of the lowest common denominator; and (b) naturalism is far more malleable to the nefarious aims of christofascism than is positivism. Pretending natural rights exist and are handed down to us from on high only fuels abuse by theocratic assholes. One can claim any moral edict as a command from God. It’s far more productive to discuss rights as merely a means to achieve positive outcomes for society. 

Edited February 24 by BrickHorn

[Celery Man 20874]

15 hours ago, Boss Hogg said:

That's a great CR definition but the chick I cited on msnbc that got no pushback says it's someone who agrees with the founding principles of our country. That's messed up to me. 

The clip of her getting no pushback cut off abruptly. Are you saying there was more context?

[safe sex 11659]

I didn't pick up "natural rights come from God" from his post. My understanding of the term is just, these rights exist because we exist. 

[BrickHorn 18176]

Just now, safe sex said:

I didn't pick up "natural rights come from God" from his post. My understanding of the term is just, these rights exist because we exist. 

That is equally arbitrary.

[956 Worldwide 34314]

3 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

He’s saying we must pretend there’s a ghost in the machine for the sake of controlling overgrown children incapable of behaving themselves without fearing the judgment of a bearded sky god. Which is dumb, because (a) reality isn’t defined by the delusions of the lowest common denominator; and (b) naturalism is far more malleable to the nefarious aims of christofascism than is positivism. Pretending natural rights exist and are handed down to us from on high only fuels abuse by theocratic assholes. One can claim any moral edict as a command from God. It’s far more productive to discuss rights as merely a means to achieve positive outcomes for society. 

Natural rights are not inherently tied to theological systems and (as mentioned on this thread) neither the framers or modern natural rights advocates point to God as their source.

Your last sentence is the most concise route to totalitarianism I may have seen, so thanks for adding that on.  This is without even beginning to ask “who decides what is a positive outcome and who gets to decide what is ‘society.’” 

[safe sex 11659]

4 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

That is equally arbitrary.

I don't think I can properly express myself in this conversation, and don't really want to try more than I have. Sorry.

[956 Worldwide 34314]

Every time I hear “let’s toss the philosophy that underpins the UN Declaration of Human Rights, our Bill of Rights, and most of liberal thought general” I get these vibes:

[Huckleberry 32685]

I understand the theory, but when your theory of rights means that in a society where child rape is legal and common nobody is doing anything wrong and nobody's rights are being violated then your theory is questionable at best. 

And natural law predates Christ and the originators didn't believe in the Abrahamic God so attempting to reduce it to Sky Man logic is facile.

[David Dennison 18606]

Or we can understand that all rights are man made and therefore precarious insofar as they are dependent on politics. 

[Hermanator 6916]

3 hours ago, RomaVicta said:

God didn't run the British out of the colonies.

This reminds me of a day when I was 10 or 11 years old in my Catholic CCD class when I asked why Jesus doesn't seem to give a crap about Kosovo or Bosnia but he's always helping these NFL and NBA players win games. 

My dad got a call the next day

[956 Worldwide 34314]

A lot of people like to say there’s no such thing as right or wrong but very few people actually live like that’s true. And when we meet them we call them psychopaths, the dumb ones are in prison and the smart ones never break a law. 
 

Pull on this thread long enough and it’s either Warhammer 40k or fighting for potato peels in a gulag. That’s the “lived experience.”  Even if they don’t exist we have gotten the best overall results by collectively acting like we believe they do. 

Edited February 24 by 956 Worldwide

[Anastasis 23375]

Interesting discussion.

11 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Every time I hear “let’s toss the philosophy that underpins the UN Declaration of Human Rights, our Bill of Rights, and most of liberal thought general” I get these vibes:

This is the crux of it. Natural rights underlie the essential notion of fundamental human rights, and the intrinsic value of human life. Start chipping away and that and see where we end up. 
 

 

[David Dennison 18606]

1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

Interesting discussion.

This is the crux of it. Natural rights underlie the essential notion of fundamental human rights, and the intrinsic value of human life. Start chipping away and that and see where we end up. 

Still doesn't change the fact that they are a creation of man.

[BrickHorn 18176]

12 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

I understand the theory, but when your theory of rights means that in a society where child rape is legal and common nobody is doing anything wrong and nobody's rights are being violated then your theory is questionable at best. 

And natural law predates Christ and the originators didn't believe in the Abrahamic God so attempting to reduce it to Sky Man logic is facile.

Sky man or no, it’s magical thinking. I’m kind of shocked you of all posters are promoting it.

And it’s far easier to declare child rape a “natural right” than it is to justify it on utilitarian grounds. How do you think the societies where such odious practices are legal justify it? They claim it as a right, naturally or divinely derived.

I’m not sure why yall seem to believe natural rights are some sort of solution to evil. Maybe it’s because the ones you focus on are generally good. But you have to ignore all the horrible, immoral shit that societies have justified on the basis of some natural right claim, like slavery, rape, genocide, the divine right of moron offspring of kings to do whatever the fuck they want, etc. You can argue now that those who believed such practices were natural rights were wrong, but such claims don’t do anything for those victimized by the exercise of such rights for millennia.

Edited February 24 by BrickHorn

[safe sex 11659]

Nm

Edited February 24 by safe sex

[David Dennison 18606]

7 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

A lot of people like to say there’s no such thing as right or wrong but very few people actually live like that’s true. And when we meet them we call them psychopaths, the dumb ones are in prison and the smart ones never break a law. 

Pull on this thread long enough and it’s either Warhammer 40k or fighting for potato peels in a gulag. That’s the “lived experience.”  Even if they don’t exist we have gotten the best overall results by collectively acting like we believe they do. 

Natural rights exist; man created them.

[956 Worldwide 34314]

6 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

Sky man or no, it’s magical thinking. I’m kind of shocked you of all posters are promoting it.

And it’s far easier to declare child rape a “natural right” than it is to justify it on utilitarian grounds. How do you think the societies where such odious practices are legal justify it? They claim it as a right, naturally or divinely derived.

I’m not sure why yall seem to believe natural rights are some sort of solution to evil. Maybe it’s because the ones you focus on are generally good. But you have to ignore all the horrible, immoral shit that societies have justified on the basis of some natural right claim, like slavery, rape, genocide, the divine right of moron offspring of kings to do whatever the fuck they want, etc. You can argue now that those who believed such practices were natural rights were wrong, but such claims don’t do anything for those victimized by the exercise of such rights for millennia.

Why does your historical analysis only go one way?  You can say that it’s far easier to get to a good place with pure utilitarianism and positivism and politics, but what happens when people have tried? 
 

 

[Celery Man 20874]

Nice marmot.

[Anastasis 23375]

8 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Natural rights exist; man created them.

Words also apparently have no meaning. 

[David Dennison 18606]

1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

Words also apparently have no meaning. 

Words have meanings, but those meanings change more often than we care to admit.

[statsman 5406]

I suspect this is akin to “nationalist conservatism”, the ideology (such as it is) behind Republican populism and Trumpism. As I understand it, it’s the idea that there are fundamental values in our nation, and only conservatives will protect them now. (They say to old school Republicans, “Don’t you know what time it is?”)
 
I’m an old school conservative- values of limited government, and free markets; policies of strong defense and economic growth. Also, inalienable rights, especially the negative rights (the things government cannot do to you). 
 
I believe nationalist conservatism is a dead end, because the idea that the force of government is required to enforce ideas is anathema to the concept that ideas are what really matter, and good ideas don’t require enforcement; they just need freedom. 
 
I would say the same about nationalist Christianity; the last thing Christ needs is the government working for Him. 

[Willfully Horn 7913]

13 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

This is almost accidentally a good thread. I kind of struggle to get my arms around the concept myself, not least because the faith traditions this movement springs from tend to be pretty unruly and “democratic” themselves. There’s no pope of American Conservative Protestantism who can give me the definitive skinny.  
 

I think at a minimum “Christian nationalism” holds that the secular authority in the United States is only legitimate so long as it is advancing (or at least not at odds with) the social practice of Christianity as understood by conservative Protestants.  I think that it holds that any rights are endowed not by a “Creator” (which could be nature or reason or God or other interpretations) but instead by the Christian God AND such rights are properly meant to be understood as given in order to advance that God’s commands. And I think at the more extreme ends, it holds that the exercise of those rights in opposition to “God’s Will” is an illegitimate use of those rights, in other words “you have the right to do the things He wants.” And I also think at a minimum that a Christian nationalist believes that in some way the secular authority must make clear that it derives legitimacy from the Christian God and no other, and that while the practice of other faiths (or no faith) may be tolerated and allowed, the secular authority privileges the exercise of conservative Protestantism. 
 

One reason this is is interesting and fascinating is that the struggle between the role of the secular and religious authorities and where one stops and the other begins is unique to Christian and post-Christian societies, at least when it comes to the big monotheisms.  A unified temporal and religious government is baked into the cake for Islam or Judaism and purely secular governance arose as a concept only after encounters with the West. This is not at all the case and never has been because of how Christianity developed and spread and so has been one of the major bones of contention.  Aside from some of the Papal States or territories controlled by religious orders, full-fledged theocracy has never been a thing; our societies have been trying to sort out where the authorities stop and start since Constantine. 
 

Then when you add into this the fact that our American Christian nationalism was born from faith traditions that have their origin in a rejection of a blended or synchronized secular and religious power— things get super fucking weird. 

Given that these folks see Trump as an instrument of God’s will despite his life of depravity, it is clear the Christian Nationalists believe Christianity is just another chance to play Calvinball. (I understand that many other people believe it has always been Calvinball). So the tfg’s current message is to frame the 2024 election as a Christian battle, akin to D-Day.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-portrays-2024-race-christian-battle-akin-d-day-2024-02-23/

 

As to individual rights, a patriot knows the ninth and tenth Amendments secure every right, enumerated or not.  Once the right to privacy was acknowledged, and codified into law, a patriot knows that under the Bill of Rights it cannot be taken away, absent a Constitutional Amendment. Hence, whatever a Christian Nationalist is, they are not patriots. Fuck them.

 

 

Edited February 24 by Willfully Horn

[Satchel 6908]

Obrey M. Hendricks writes extensively about Christian nationalism in his book, Christians Against Christianity-How Right Wing Evangelicals are Destroying our Nation and our Faith. He writes the following:

“What distinguishes right wing evangelicalism from more main stream evangelicalism is that right wing evangelicalism contains an unabashed substratum of Christian nationalism. Christian nationalism is the engine that drives white American evangelical politics. It is the ideology…that the United States is intended by God to be a Christian nation. This movement is a form of nationalism, explains  Catherine Stewart, because it purports to derive its legitimacy from its claim to represent a specific identity unique to and representative of the American nation. Christian nationalism, not only purveys the myth that America was founded as a Christian nation, but also that it should be governed, according to biblical precepts that Christian nationalist themselves identify as germane.. They routinely ignore all evidence to the contrary, so no matter how compelling, including the testimony of founding fathers, like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams that America was not founded as a Christian nation.  Thus, Christian nationalism is best, understood as a political ideology, that holds that America’s government is not legitimate, nor can it be until its laws and policies are thoroughly consistent with the Christian nationalist, narrow, sometimes idiosyncratic, and at times convoluted reading of the biblical text. 

[RDCanecutter 26239]

1 hour ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Pull on this thread long enough and it’s either Warhammer 40k 

So we stand shoulder-to-shouder in full armor shooting at each other with blasters but our most important guys don't wear helmets?

[Anastasis 23375]

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7370/7370-h/7370-h.htm#

SECOND TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT

by JOHN LOCKE

 

 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

The fucking puritans are at it again. 

[RomaVicta 29756]

2 hours ago, safe sex said:

I didn't pick up "natural rights come from God" from his post. My understanding of the term is just, these rights exist because we exist. 

Solid discussion going on here. It's a pleasure to read either side.

The op stated that rights were God-given and he related it specifically to Christian Nationalism. Although Christian Nationalists neither understand nor attempt to adhere it, they believe God has sent them a Letter telling them who to be and how to act. If you're not obeying The Letter or lying about obeying The Letter, you're dangerous enemy. 

I and others (I'll presume to say) spoke of natural rights and laws because nature is the only thing we all can experience that may have been created by a god. Nature would be the expression of any rights founded in God. We argue that there are no rights in nature. Rights were conceptualized and generated by the humans. They were supersticious humans who had their idea of the sacred, but it was nothing like the revealed religions which later came.

Rights exist as a result of human existence and intellectual development over time. The notion of rights would have been as strange to early humans as they would be to ants, tigers, trees, and birds. To quote from Northern Exposure, a show I didn't particularly like, Adam Arkin's character says to someone wanting to be idealistice about nature:

Out there it's feeding time 24 hourse a day.

[DixonHur 11074]

2 hours ago, David Dennison said:

Natural rights exist; man created them.

I disagree, because you're looking at it from a modern lens.

Natural rights had existed in many cultures around the globe for 1,000s of years

[mchookem 16095]

haha thread started as some sort of 'oh aren't i clever' gotcha and now i'm imagining the originator like this 😄

 

[David Dennison 18606]

3 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

I disagree, because you're looking at it from a modern lens.

Natural rights had existed in many cultures around the globe for 1,000s of years

Which rights exist independent of man?

[nbmishoid 930]

What abstractions exist absent of man?

[David Dennison 18606]

1 minute ago, nbmishoid said:

What abstractions exist absent of man?

Exactly.