Steve Schear wrote:

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Steve Schear wrote:

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If you read the US declaration of Independence it is very clear that its authors rejected natural law arguments. The rights that they hold to be "self evident" are extreemly abstract principles which could be justified within almost any ethical system. The removal of the word "God" was deliberate and reflects a concious rejection of the natural law argument.

I read the DOI, and its meaning was clear. It stated that while people are disposed to put up with the excesses of govt. to a certain bearable extent, that when the govt. tilted toward totalitarianism, the people should revolt. How can you say "Self Evident" and "extremely abstract" in the same context? Self evident merely means that when you subtract out the factors of disinformation that are applied in political/economic areas to guarantee the cash flow to the bosses, you can see clearly that nobody has a Right, "divine" or whatever, to rule someone else. It's not abstract, religious, or anything. Think of the analogy in sound reproduction. The salesman is trying to tell you that perfect reproduction doesn't exist, so you should consider that $20,000 system to be like a "very fine musical instrument". On the other hand, your finely-tuned mind is aware that there is an "true original" sound that you're trying to reproduce, and whether it's 100% attainable is not the relevant issue. In other words, don't let the bosses confuse you with their rhetoric, if you're well-read and intelligent, you should be able to trust your own instincts. That's what self-evident means. As to the removal of "God", they said "...endowed by their Creator...", and I think that Creator when capitalized is more than clear, i.e., "God". Almost all of the signers were Freemasons, whose membership requires belief in God (although I don't know that they require extensive testing as to how their members conceptualize God), and so it would appear that the exclusion of the term God would be more an act of conciliation or even superstition than a rejection of anything.