Quote from: dippididodaday on January 07, 2017, 06:42:38 PM

I am naturally human. As such, I display traits that some want to attribute to a transcendental (constructed) being. In doing so, these characters claim control over others, in claiming they act on behalf of the transcendental being by forcing laws on others and thereby forfeit their true nature, as humans. These characters have become artificial and unnatural.

You assumption that religion by "forcing" laws on humans voids our true nature. I assume you mean our human nature is forfeit because our freedom of action becomes restricted.

This approach is flawed as it represents a fundamental misunderstanding of freedom.

Quote from: CoinCube on December 27, 2016, 10:46:56 PM

Freedom and God

Quote from: Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph April 14,1958

Freedom is neither license nor anarchy: It does not mean chaos or the use of tooth and nail. Freedom does not give any man or group the right to steal, to use fraud or aggressive force or threats of same to get what one wants.

Freedom is the right of the individual to choose how he controls himself, so long as he respects the equal rights of every other individual to control and plan his own life. Freedom is thus not the ability to do whatever you want. It is self-control, and self-government, no more, no less.

Quote from: Wendy McElroy

Thus "freedom is self-control" leads to the conclusion that as acting individuals, we must respect the rights and boundaries of others. In other words, every individual should control his or her actions such that they do not aggress or invade against other individuals or their rightfully owned properties. "Freedom" as "self-control" points up the dual nature of human existence: of the Self (mind, soul, and spirit) housed in a physical body. Human beings require both spiritual freedom and physical liberty

The evolution of the social contract is a progressive climb to systems with increased overall freedom. The state of nature begat tribalism. Tribalism grew into despotism. Despotism advanced into monarchy. Monarchies were replaced by republics. Each iteration has a common theme for each advance increased the overall cooperative activity and freedom the system permitted.

The ultimate driver behind this process is Ethical Monotheism for this is the underappreciated foundation that freedom rests upon. The Ten Commandments are often misunderstood as as restrictions. In reality they are the road map to freedom. To better understand this I highly recommend the following 5 minute video clip from Prager University.

God Wants Us To Be Free

Freedom out-competes slavery. This is why the Odin worshiping vikings were replaced by Christian vikings. It is the ultimate reason why Arab polytheism was replaced by Islam and why the Jews who who's traditions demand an individual understanding and observance of scripture have so excelled.

Quote from: Bob LeFevre

A person is responsible for every action he takes and for every action he refuses to take. Thus, he is responsible for commissions and omissions, and whether these are good or bad. The individual is the responsible unit. Responsibility cannot be collectively delegated. Each person is responsible in exactly the same way and to the same degree that every other person is.

At the level of the individual we again return to choice. Do we truly care about freedom or do we care about our cravings and wants? If we choose freedom we must embrace that which makes freedom possible. If we choose whims and desires we should admit to ourselves that we do not prioritize freedom and are most concerned with our ability to sate our appetites.

Quote from: CoinCube on December 31, 2016, 10:49:22 PM

Freedom is something that is maximized and approached not something that is ever achieved. We are much freer today than the ancient Egyptian society where the majority of people were enslaved by their Pharaoh. Why is that? I would argue it is due to the following rules that have entered our culture. Rules that when followed minimize the need for top down control and maximize freedom.

Rules:
1 ) I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
2 ) You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol.
3 ) You shall not take the name of God in vain.
4 ) Remember and observe the Sabbath and keep it holy.
5 ) Honor your father and mother.
6 ) You shall not murder.
7 ) You shall not commit adultery.
8 ) You shall not steal.
9 ) You shall not bear false witness.
10) You shall not covet your neighbors wife or house or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

The Ten Commandments: Still The Best Moral Code
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00USBMEX2/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Quote from: Dennis Prager

Imagine for a moment a world in which there was no murder or theft. In such a world, there would be no need for armies, or police, or weapons. Men and women and children could walk anywhere, at any time of day or night, without any fear of being killed or robbed. Imagine further a world in which no one coveted what belonged to their neighbor; a world in which children honored their mother and father and the family unit thrived; a world in which people obeyed the injunction not to lie. The recipe for a good world is all therein these ten sublime commandments.

But there is a catch. The Ten Commandments are predicated on the belief that they were given by an Authority higher than any man, any king, or any government. Thats why the sentence preceding the Ten Commandments asserts the following: God spoke all these words.

You see, if the Ten Commandments, as great as they are, were given by any human authority, then any person could say: Who is this man Moses, who is this king or queen, who is this government to tell me how I should behave? Okay, so why is God indispensable to the Ten Commandments? Because, to put it as directly as possible, if it isnt God who declares murder wrong, murder isnt wrong. Yes, this strikes many people today as incomprehensible, even absurd. Many of you are thinking, Is this guy saying you cant be a good person if you dont believe in God?

Let me respond as clearly as possible: I am not saying that. Of course there are good people who dont believe in God, just as there are bad people who do. And many of you are also thinking, I believe murder is wrong. I dont need God to tell me. Now that response is only half true. I have no doubt that if youre an atheist and you say you believe murder is wrong, you believe murder is wrong. But, forgive me, you do need God to tell you. We all need God to tell us. You see, even if you figured out murder is wrong on your own, without God and the Ten Commandments, how do you know its wrong? Not believe its wrong, I mean know its wrong? The fact is that you cant.

Because without God, right and wrong are just personal beliefs. Personal opinions. I think shoplifting is okay, you dont. Unless there is a God, all morality is just opinion and belief. And virtually every atheist philosopher has acknowledged this.

Another problem with the view that you dont need God to believe that murder is wrong is that a lot of people havent shared your view. And you dont have to go back very far in history to prove this. In the twentieth century millions of people in Communist societies and under Nazism killed about one hundred million peopleand that doesnt count a single soldier killed in war.

So, dont get too confident about peoples ability to figure out right from wrong without a Higher Authority. Its all too easy to be swayed by a government or a demagogue or an ideology or to rationalize that the wrong you are doing isnt really wrong. And even if you do figure out what is right and wrong, God is still necessary. People who know the difference between right and wrong do the wrong thing all the time. You know why? Because they can. They can because they think no one is watching. But if you recognize that God is the source of moral law, you believe that He is always watching.

So, even if youre an atheist, you would want people to live by the moral laws of the Ten Commandments. And even an atheist has to admit that the more people who believe God gave themand therefore they are not just opinionthe better the world would be.

In three thousand years no one has ever come up with a better system than the God-based Ten Commandments for making a better world. And no one ever will.