I agree with your article. Excellent piece and I particularly liked the community - individual precedent discussion. I haven't heard that before.

the mention of 'taking' oath..brought to mind a comment i heard on talk-back radio..[re kevin rudd not holding a bible when he took oath]
the bible of course FORBIDS..the taking of oath..[3 times]

anyhow back to your article

there is a link beteen god and truth
[im not taking about religion which is about control/creed]
god is love grace mercy,,thus truth..BUT those who call oath before god..are being abused..[as god needs no oath]..

he knows all truth..plus all lies..its man that abuses..
nay..demands..not god..good/god who allows even the most vile their living..proving his infinite love..to be true.

anyhow..thats my comment on the first paragraph
our rights come from god..all abuses by deceivers..[ie man-kind][and the fake constitutions of men..that have turned rights into privledges

"They should be concerned about what is true, a major topic in the gospels..."

Peter, anyone who is concerned about what is true would never read the gospels which are nothing more than a collection of old wives tales and scraps of wishful thinking and bizarre imaginings by those who, without conscience, advantage themselves by defrauding the gullible.

Truth and theology are mutually exclusive and you, well-meaning and misguided though you may be, are nothing but a conman.

" . . . individual choice is king . . . Truth is relativised to the individual. . . various new rights are invented . . ."

When people reject belief in God it is inevitable that the above become the new reality.

If there really is no God then there is no logical reason why each individual should not live their life entirely for their own ends according to their own chosen conception of truth and rights.

We are seeing a generation growing up for whom this is their reality. It is going to be 'interesting'.

We are “in a secular society that refuses to recognise the connection between God and truth.”
If this point is your primary reason for writing the article, David G shows you are right - but I think your effort might have been directed at uncovering more important truths. Unfortunately, in David G’s case (“anyone who is concerned about what is true would never read the gospels”) and as you acknowledge in regard to our secular society generally, I think that in trying to communicate things of great importance you have shot yourself in the foot by your attempt to proselytize.

I think this is regrettable because otherwise your article had a great deal to offer.

While I agree that “Christians do not or should not reduce faith to utilitarianism in the hope that belief will provide some benefit.”, in trying to communicate about matters of truth, I think it would have been wiser to recognise that not all readers would be Christian. The statement “… we believe … that the truth in Scripture is a touchstone of all truth” is pretty alienating. It's hard to understand why you would do that at the outset, or at any stage.That approach is not gentle or wise.

There is also truth to be recognised and developed through a more pragmatic and utilitarian pathway. I think your otherwise excellent and thought provoking article could have used this path to bring all readers to wonder more about the fullness of truth.

@landrights4all
Chris Baulman

I think Peter, albeit unconsciously, thinks the goal of creation was to create us, i.e. the human race, to me this appears as conceit.

Peter likes to reflect and write about human self evaluation; in this case I think it has little to do with reality.

Peter fails to understand the natural world in which we live and the artificial world humans have created. Religion per se is classic case of this misunderstanding.

Recent psychological studies have shown for the first time the brain regions associated with the successful spread of ideas. The research has a broad range of implications.

The results of the study clearly show people are regularly attuned to how the things they're seeing will be useful and interesting, not just to themselves but to other people.

The study also suggests humans always seem to be on the lookout for whom else will find this helpful, amusing or interesting, therefore Peter is always looking for how his ideas can be interesting or somehow useful to other people.

A very interesting concept if you ask me.

If this is true I think it is remarkable, however in Peter’s case he will be writing despite the fact that his idea or ideas may not make sense or whether he is right or wrong. Therefore his reality has nothing to do with the popularity or rationality of his ideas.

I think Peter’s post is a classic case in point. Humans love fantasy.

"The language of human rights has come to dominate our world because we cannot any longer talk about truth. This is another way of saying that we can no longer, in the public square, talk about God."

Wow, Peter, you just broke my irony meter. At least you would have, if I thought you actually believed this and weren't merely rabbiting on for polemical purposes as usual.

In the first place, what are we doing right here, right now? If we're not 'talking in the public square about God', then I have no idea what you actually mean by this convenient phrase.

In the second place, it's you, not us, who has demonstrated a desperate reluctance to talk about your God, and to hedge and back and dodge with articles about Jesus and art and writing and everything under the sun rather than to come out with a clear straightforward description of what you think your Sky Daddy is actually like, and an explanation of how you know this.

And in the third place, there are numerous forums on which people are allowed -- in fact encouraged -- to talk about God, and to respond honestly to critical questions and comments. I've never seen you on any of them. Perhaps that's because the theists who participate usually realise fairly soon that unsupported claims and Biblical nonsense don't go over well in a genuinely 'public square', and have very little to do with the truth.

I'm sure you're a good chap at heart, Peter, so please drop the Jeremiads about how awful to theists the modern world is. It only makes you look like a blind fool.

Those who have privilege at a given point in time are the ones who determine the truth by which the rest of us are obliged to live. In any era, it’s the privileged who control the mouthpieces of ‘truth’ – usually by creating a set of beliefs that portrays them as indispensable to the livelihoods and wellbeing of those they exploit and dispossess.

If human rights has now become a ‘hot’ issue in the modern era, it’s more than likely a natural correction to many centuries of unbalanced control by the privileged to hog the natural world for their own benefit, usually to the detriment of everyone else. Rabbiting on about the perils of moral relativism creates a sense of righteousness among the privileged, but ignores the growing necessity to bring the natural world back into balance with human need.

Three Truth telling references in response to Sell's usual nonsense re the presumed superiority of applied ethics and justice in times past when Christian-ISM "informed" the actions and murderously reasonable intentions of the powers-that-be in Christian Europe and the various European colonies

As far as I remember I havent posted this one before.
http://www.aboutadidam.org/readings/birthday_message/index.html

An essay on Justice - it was written in response to the execution of the former bad guy leader of Iraq.
http://www.dabase.org/p9rightness.htm

Plus Truth when fully Realized sets you free
http://global.adidam.org/books/eleutherios.html

Plus why not check out Britain's Empire by Richard Gott to find out how old-time "justice" was really applied to the uppity yellow and brown skinned peoples, or rather victims of Christian based European "civilization".

I think liberalism’s respect for the dignity and value of the individual person, on which the concept of human rights is based, derives largely from Christianity and its insistence that each person is loved and valued by God. Our modern egalitarian worldview can underestimate what a strange and unnatural view this would be for most cultures in history.

This Sunday, churches that follow the lectionary will hear the story of the Good Samaritan. It affirms that a person’s worth is not determined by their class, sect, racial group or religious observance. Quintessentially liberal, in many respects.

They still hold ridiculous rules about contraception. Also they think marriage is a God construct, instead of a societal one, instituted for the protection of children and society, by leaders and society in earlier centuries, when families were large.

Children had to be provided for financially and cared for. The people having the children had to be forced to stay together and provide that care and financial support or once again it would have placed a huge burden on the rest of society if children were just abandoned on doorsteps in droves.

Just because they had their delusional beaks in the performing of the ceremony they think marriage is all about God and them. Honestly these
people can't think 2centimetres outside their square.

Law and order and protection of citizens is about common sense
measures to ensure the survival of a strong co-hesive community.

Common Sense, something church leaders seem to not have much of.

Of course society can't allow open-slather murder in communities,
communities and societies fall apart without law and order, it has
nothing to do with God and all to do with common sense and community
cohesion and survival. Read my Lips-"common sense, not God.

Facts and religious dogma make uneasy bedfellows -- best they sleep in separate rooms.

Thank you Peter,
I find this work to be vital and refreshing. I am reminded of Budziszewski's thoughts about what we can't not know - what is written on the heart. I look forward to your future contributions.

This is the first part of a longer article. The rest is published today under the title: Human rights have no foundation.

Dear Peter,

I get the feeling that many of the respondents to your articles find it difficult to put a case without resorting to abuse of your faith and even the faith of other OLO’ers. I am no different.

Since you have acknowledged the progress and contribution to human society made by natural sciences, it is worth addressing the progression of the two main threads in human society, those of the sciences and humanities.

It’s clear that the sciences have been responsible for most if not all the great leaps in the discovery and application of knowledge, granted not always a benefit to society.

There are clearly victims of the application of science. IMHO the application of the products of science for their own gain by politics, investment banks, resource conglomerates and the big end of town generally, has not always lead directly to improvements in social justice and equity.

Adverse effects are not so much the fault of sciences, rather than the application of this knowledge by other humans seeking advantage. This I think has lead to the victims seeking to redress the balance and/or seeking truths.

The truth of the sciences is in the form of empirical proofs whereas the truths of faiths are not really truths at all; they are simply a belief that the faith is true.

As the rift between the science and the faith becomes clearer, the faiths seek to close the gap by assigning “truths” to their faith with ever increasing complexity. This process is increasingly identified as “narrative theory”. Nothing new to religion as this has been the primary tool for thousands of years, they invented it.

The problem for the 34,000 registered religions on our planet is that your narrative theory has been high jacked by the UN, EU, thousands of NGO’s, university academics, politics and much of our media.

Your problem is that as humans become increasingly sensitized to narrative theory and begin to question it, so too will your mantra be challenged by association.

Their truth is your truth, but it cannot be sold as empirical reality.