dk

dk: Nothing like good old fashioned denial. Please explain the difference between quasi-religious and religious sects?
dk: Theocracy describes a form of government, and the tribes of Israel under Moses’ leadership ware slaves and refugees. The term theocrat doesn’t describe Moses. Moses lead the Israeli tribes out of slavery and into exile, it was Joshua (successor of Moses) that crossed the Jordan to establish a sovereign nation. Joshua was more of a General than a Theocrat because the Levites were given the Ark and the law to rule over the tribes. The Levites were a tribe, so if anything between Moses and Saul Israel was ruled by a theocratic republic from a Senate composed of Levites. On occasion the Levites united the tribes under the rule of the Judges to meet some immediate and dire threat. The Judges weren’t Levites, and neither was Joshua. I don’t know why you want to bring the Bible into the discussion when its apparent you’re almost completely ignorant of Israel’s history.

dk: Who is it you seem to think rejects Monarchy as a legitimate form of government, certainly not the UN DoIHR or the Ten Commandments. Between Moses and Saul, Israel can be best described as a theocratic republic, that became a Monarchy under King David.

dk: I can’t make head or tails out of this statement. I seems to me you’re fixated on concepts that don’t apply.
dk: I didn’t use the words impersonal, or aristocrat.
Comte authored the modern view of scientific history, though be it under the precepts of a religious scientism. Comte viewed society, culture and history through a sociological lens, as a phenomenon that evolved from one state to the next in stages. In the third stage of knowledge all explanations are confined to verifiable phenomena, tested empirically by science. To Hegel and Marx the modern secular state becomes the embodiment of progress, and the constitution of the modern secular state becomes the collective spirit of the people. .Hegel and Marx were two peas from the same pod, both subscribed to an idealized version of positivism. From a historical perspective In the first two stages the family served as the essential model of society from necessity. In the Third Stage the Nation-State evolves as the ideal upon which the individual’s liberty, rights and happiness becomes the central focus. Nietzsche took the opposite view of the Third Stage focusing upon the superior individual’s ability to personify the ideals of nationalism apart from the herd mentality of the masses.
dk: There’s nothing in the UN DoHR that condemns monarchy, or the member nations of the UN ruled by monarchs. Even so, Israel isn’t a monarchy so I don’t have a clue about what you so passionately object. My explanation links the First Commandment with the historical tradition of limited government. This seems pretty straight forward to me, for example the Bill of Rights amended the US Constitution to limit the powers of federal government in the tradition of the principle of subsidiarity. For example Amendment X, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” In fact the US Constitution was first interpreted as a purely secular document in the mid 20th Century to make the Great Society possible. It has been the failure of the Great Society, especially a nationalized form of welfare and education, that has brought state rights back into focus, along with judicial descriptors like Strict Constructionist, States Right and Judicial Activism.
dk: I mean demagoguery, the use of fear, mass prejudice, popular myth, false claims and unsubstantial promises by elected officials to accumulate and centralize power.
dk: You’re interpretation of Roman’s 13 is pretext, in fact Paul lists in Romans 13:8-10 the relevant commandments, and subscribes them to the golden rule. The ancient kings of the Davidic Kingdom are clearly held under God’s Law, and most are specifically condemned for breaking the 1st Commandment. I’m not sure why you bend your mind into a pretzel trying to rationalize such nonsense. There are so many better arguments to support your viewpoint.

Ion

I am not sure why you focus so much on the 1st Commandment:
Because I wrote this about the Bible:

lpetrich

Again, dk does not get the point. My point is that, for whatever reason, Anglo-Saxon countries are much more fond of jury trials than most other countries. Which is something that is difficult to derive from the Bible. But if one can derive evolution from the Bible, one might be able to derive that from the Bible also.

But you are the one who had claimed that the Bible clearly states that monarchy is a dangerous system of government, meaning that it is not truly legitimate.

Like the Roman Catholic Church? That's a centralized organization if there ever was one. Which means that dk is denouncing others for allegedly being just like his favorite organization.

Which has no connection with dk's great villain, a government that acts just like his beloved Church.

Which is almost too absurd to be worth mentioning. It seems to me that dk has only read right-wing-Catholic caricatures of their views.

Except that there is no connection whatsoever.

Pure right-wing demonology. And what is especially curious here is that "states' rights" consists of liking governments when they are state governments and not the national one.

I fail to see what's the difference between that and the entire history of Christianity.

Except that Romans 13:1 does not make exceptions for bad governments.

dk

Ion this tangent we have taken began when I asked the source of human rights. I've yet to get a response.

Ion

The answer that I already gave you, is that the source of the UN Code of Human Rights cannot be the Bible, since the Bible is allegedly 'divine', absolute and eternal.

No human can alter the human rights described in the 'divine' Bible.

For example, the allegedly 'divine' Bible cannot possibly be improved by humans from say the pitiful Exodus 21:4 in the Bible to the better Article 4 in the UN Code of Human Rights.

Therefore, the source of the UN Code of Human Rights must be different than what's in the Bible.

The topic of this thread is comparing the end result of two different sources for human rights:
the 'divine' Bible, versus the secular UN Code of Human Rights.

The Bible is bad -thus downgrades from 'divine', to superstitions-, while the secular UN Code of Human Rights is better.

Bumble Bee Tuna

Not to respond to something many many posts ago that is entirely irrelevant, but...
From dk:
ass directional vectors? Is this some sort of demented flatulence physics problem?

-B

dk

dk: I don’t know where you’re coming from, or going. The Magna Cara of 1215 “Chapter xxxix prescribes that ‘no freeman shall be arrested or detained in prison or deprived of his freehold . . .or in any way molested . .unless by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land’" What you perceive as Anglo-Saxon’s fondness for trial by peers was likely a response to bluebloods tendency to execute people without trail.
The most famous ancient trial was probably that of Jesus or Socrates, followed by Solomon’s judgment of two women claiming the same baby. There are only two kinds of trials 1) inquisition 2) adversary; and of the two, an inquisition is by far the more economical and efficient, while the adversarial is more dramatic and entertaining. I don’t know which serves justice better, but a finer points of law and available resources probably determine the method of trial, not justice. In the Book of Exodus Israel was but a group of refugees, and justice reduced to an “eye for an eye”. I think you’re stretched the Anglo-Saxon love for justice to far, it seems me more likely Shakespearean dramas wet the appetite of Anglo-Saxon’s for drama, and courtroom justice provided the stage.
dk: No, and as I said earlier, the Levites kept the Arc and the Law from Joshua to Samuel, and during that expanse of time Israel resembled a republic, not a monarchy. What I’m really trying to point out is that the Bible tells a history, whereas the UN DoHR contains a list of articles. A one to one stare and compare produces nonsense. We can compare the Ten Commandments, the Two Greatest Commandments, The Golden Rule or the Beatitudes mentioned in the Bible to the UN DoHR. But The UN DoHR being a list of articles can only be compared with another list of articles.
dk: Clearly the RCC is a hierarchical body with its own laws articulated in Canon Law. Which means that dk could trace the development of human rights within Canon Law to the Bible New Testament, through Roman Laws. For starters the Catholic Church’s Vulgate Bible is a translation of the Septuagint and Hebrew texts of the Bible into Latin. I would say the Magna Carta reflects a Catholic understanding of human dignity that foreshadowed the development of human rights from natural law.
dk: I beg to differ. The word catholic means universal, just as the UN DoHR means universal human rights. The Magna Carta is catholic only to the extent it transcends national, temporal, cultural, and racial differences. The US Bill of Rights integrates a constitutional republic with inalienable rights. Inalienable rights even under a constitutional republic walk a narrow path between inextricable and reasonable. For example, when a person commits a crime they can be deprived of inalienable rights, but only for reasons articulated by the rule of law then ordered by a writ of habeas corpus.
dk: Catholic means universal, not right wing, so the universal theme of human rights is catholic. If you think I’ve mischaracterized Hegel/Marx as ideal or positive thinkers, then pray tell why? It was not my intent to disparage them, only to answer the question you asked.
dk: I’ve offered several verses that you’ve dismissed out of hand. But I’ll restate a few I find most persuasive.
Samuel 8:6-9 who (the Lord) said in answer: “Grant the people’s every request, it is not you they reject, they are rejecting me as their King. As they have treated me since I brought them up from Egypt to this day, deserting Me and worshipping strange gods, so do they treat you to. Now grant their request, but at the same time, warn them solemnly, and inform them of the rights of the king who will rule them.“

In Deuteronomy 17:14-20 the kings of Israel were prefigured under the law, and the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles rail against kings for breaking the 1st Commandment. The Covenants of the OT were blood oaths that preconfigured Israel as God's chosen people , so in breaking the Law Israel as a kingdom, nation, tribe, household and family, and children violated the future.

Further, human rights provide moral justification for bigger more centralized government, but only to a point. The UN houses a negotiation between member nations to focus a moral consensus, not moral law. The nuclear family remains the substance of moral law, and the UN by deed and policy have over the last 40 years undermined their own moral authority with a multitude of abuses. For example the UN’s silence on the of mass sterilization of impoverished 3rd world people, the Dalkon Shield fiasco, white slavery, child labor, genocide, corporate abuse and the spread of MDR microbes by UN Peacekeeping Troops are but a few of the more prominent abuses the UN has tolerated. In fact the crisis in culture, family, corporate ethics and education in the US and Western Europe should be a primary moral concern of the UN, but they remain virtually silent afraid to offend the hand that feeds them.

dk: I don’t follow you here. On a world theatre the demise of States Rights in the USA symbolizes the demise of national sovereignty in the shadow of a US superpower. I’m not sure what the UN DoHR meant in 1948, but fundamental terms like family, spirit of the law, equal treatment under the Law mean something else. The European Union, expansion of NATO, Islamic Fundamentalism, international terrorism and Pakistan’ & India’ nuclear power all represent resistance to the US hegemony. I submit the UN DoHR may have been a source of moral doctrine in 1948, but I‘m not sure what it has become today. I would love to engage an informative discussion on the meaning of UN DoHR, but I feel like I’m being met by a wall of denial.

dk

You're not answering the question by trashing the Bible, the question deserves a serious answer.

Ion

Exodus 21:4 and Exodus 21:6 are thrashing the Bible, not me.

My serious answer only highlights how Exodus 21:4 and Exodus 21:6 are thrashing the Bible.

dk

If bible thrashing is the best you got to bring to the table, then you got nothing but cynicism and blame to offer. Take a happy pill and you'll feel better.