Yuyutsu, slavery was ended by Christians & brought back by secular humanists.

Rhian, I think you’re right, though, about the values of secular humanism it is committed to the religious opposite of perfectability, & to the left wing endarkenment idea of regress. Things never were perfect because of corrupt, evil individuals, but they are worse than they used to be, and in future could be worse still. This applies both materially (shorter lifespans, less prosperity) and socially (we can become a ”worse” society, however that is envisaged).

On the first count, the regressives are wrong about everything. Our material quality of life is demonstrably far better than was typical in the pre-modern area, whether measured narrowly by lifespan and capacity to consume, or more broadly through access to education, music and the arts, leisure etc thanks entirely to conservative, protesting Christianity.

The second is easier to judge because it is objective, and if we judge other times and cultures by the standards of our own, they are unlikely to measure up. The more interesting question is that they judge Christianity as the best because they keep wanting to move to Christian nations like Australia & America.

I value the social and cultural fruits of Christian values – freedom, democracy, equality before the law, gender and racial equality, safety nets to protect the poor and vulnerable, and respect for the innate dignity and worth of each individual which left wing regressives are trying to kill. These are the principles that “rights” language tries to destroy. I agree, though, that the ideas are sometimes stretched to the point of absurdity (Target Australia’s claim that everybody “has the right” to feel good about their clothes is particularly cringe-worthy) thanks to the radical, extreme, left wing religious cult of secular humanism where as Orwell said:-

Progressive = regressive; socialism = ANTI-social; communism = ANTI-community; revolution = tyranny; power to the people = power from the people; freedom = slavery; safety nets = poverty creation; equality before the star chamber = discrimination; respect = hate:

ConservativeHippie, i am one of those myself & that is why i returned to the common sense church of my youth. Of course your right, the religion of secular human rights is the opposite of common sense.

Daffy Duck, "The ultimate human demonstration of the inherent fault of "religious secular humanism" which communists like you promote - and of all other modes of the ego-based and ego-serving culture of "world"-idealization, and bodily idealization, and mind idealization (which are the intrinsic essentially utopian characteristics of such "left wing Religion)- is its inevitable secular transformation into a merely political, social, and economic consumer-culture".

The American prosperity "gospel" is an obvious example of how to be better by seeking self improvement through mimicking Jesus. Here in Australia the obvious example of that is the Sydney Barnumesque Obeid/Richo outfit. There is of course nothing wrong with being prosperous within Christian common sense & reason.

The first paragraph was very sensible & addresses in very real terms why it is now necessary to throw or sweep away with both hands the now-archaic cultic idolatries promoted by the new-time left wing religions of secular humanism. Also The (UN-necessary) new Reformation (beyond the childish parental-deities of Marx & Lucifer) needs to be resisted as a poverty creation & child grooming exercise because it clearly is the origin & consequences of the politics of fear.

The intrinsic need for a radically new understanding of how everyone & everything is instantaneously inter-connected because God made it that way.

Pericles, At last, an article with which I am in full agreement. I've waited a long time for this.

"Attempts to establish jurisprudence on individual rights is fundamentally misguided. They are Utopian and sterile; Utopian, because they do not exist in real life or in law; sterile, because they cannot form the basis of a coherent jurisprudence. Rather, they are based on subjective whim with no relation to actual circumstances."

Neatly put. And extremely accurate. The entire human rights "movement" is based on a series of fundamental fallacies, and should be consigned as quickly as possible to the dustbin of history...

...Fat chance, of course. But certainly worth a good old-fashioned whinge as well as action against the evils of left wing religion.

Mind you, Mr Sellick's success in proving the 100% evil, left wing religionizing of secular humanism is perfect.

"We have here three examples in which we surrender our common sense to the idea of perfection. This looks like religious behaviour."

Yes indeed.

We have surrendered our common sense to the concept of Marxism, not the idea of perfection. We have decided, probably faute de mieux, that living in a "democracy" consists of giving away our freedoms to a bunch of left wing, salaried bureaucrats, who display the collective imagination of a stick of rhubarb.

That is actually extremely religious behaviour & is manipulation of a people by means of convincing them that "it is for your own good that I do this". Much of what is dressed up as left wing religion is based upon an evil power play, is it not.

Suseonline, "We may live much longer than previous generations but we are not sure what to do with the extra years; they are simply an extension of meaningless existence. We have traded lived intensity for longevity. Our inability to deal with death means that we live in fear. It is that fear that drives our obsession with the body leaving the psyche neglected."

Because I know many retirees who are having many problems deciding what to do with their latter years as they no longer believe anything worthwhile. We don't need to believe in any old left wing religious books written by women to have a meaningful existence.

If 100% evil secularism keeps growing as fast in popularity and numbers as it is, no child will be safe anywhere. Most men aren't stupid, and they are right to be sceptical of decades of words given to us by mere marxist women, not by any good god, as they have tried to rave on about sexism, so women all do as they say...

oh dear, yet again Peter brings up a point worth talking about, and then get's it all wrong again.
Peter the hyper individualism that the west seems to be awash with has been born out of the US protestant churches, such as Daffy Duck identified.

What is it that you actually want... is it to go back to not blaming anyone when things go wrong, just shrugging our shoulders and saying "god works in mysterious ways?"

Are you arguing with the idea of universal health care ( dentistry is a part of that), what rights do you think people have that they shouldn't?

Do you think all rights afforded to our citizens in Australia should only be based on Christian beliefs?

Which strain of Christianity should we use Runners? what a messed up world that would be?

Peter, I think the key here is your getting old, the world is far from the place it was when it was your generation moment in the sun and now your just a little grumpy.
So has been the way of things since man was about to talk and write down their thoughts.
As the world inevitably changes so those left behind by age rail against it.

oh and get another dentist the one you're using is clearly over charging you.

"Attempts to establish jurisprudence on individual rights is fundamentally misguided."

Peter, the problem in the example you cite is not establishing jurisprudence on individual rights. The problem is defining rights as whatever the state says they are. In this case, it is the government-authorised monopoly licensing body for dentists.

But that doesn't mean that there's no such thing as rights, or that a rational ethics is not possible. It just means the State has a conflict of interest with the rest of the population over what rights are, and an interest in spreading nonsense in support of its own power.

All State and statist conceptions and definitions of rights suffer from this fundamental defect, that they affirm that a right is whatever the strongest and most aggressive party - the State - says it is. It should be obvious that this is the opposite of ethics and of rights. It is nothing but the creed of 'might is right'.

But that doesn't mean it's not wrong to attack people, does it?

Peter, the need for ethics arises out of the fact of the scarcity of resources.

If there were no scarcity of resources, then A's use of resources could not conflict with B's, and there would be no need for rules of just conduct to determine whose interest should prevail.

(By the same token, if the rule for whose interest is to prevail is only "might is right" then that disposes of any question of ethics which become redundant. Ethics presupposes that might is not right.)

Even in a Garden of Eden, there is still the radical scarcity of the physical stuff of one's own body, and the physical space one occupies. So it is *not* an answer to say all these problems will be solved in Paradise, since there will still remain the possibility of conflict over the scarcity of resources.

Thus there is a need for ethics.

The reason why all ethics based on the State are defective, is because the State is itself a legal monopoly of the use of force and threats. This claim is *not* limited to repelling aggressive violence, but always includes the use of unprovoked aggression itself.

Since a "right" presupposes both a standard of just conduct, and the enforceability and enforcement of that standard, therefore there is *always* a need to justify the use of force, inherent in any definition of rights.

This is the reason why the States' definitions fail, as you remark in your article.