“Unbelievable Courage” triggers unbelievably pointless and futile argument

Against my better judgment, I was silly enough earlier to get involved in a Facebook discussion arose over a Western tourist’s unfurling of the now-banned Rainbow flag in Russia.

HE: Great courage no doubt, but was she stupid in so doing? Is the celebration and practice of homosexuality a basic human right, or is it an affront to “nature and nature’d God”?

ME: Just as worshiping the wrong god (or no god) is “an affront” to other people’s gods, it is also a basic human right. Why would it surprise anyone that certain basic human rights are in conflict with various religious opinions?

HE: Do “basic human rights” emerge from the self evidence of “nature and nature’s God” or do these rights emerge from the utterances of Darwinian post-modernists?

ME: The basic human right involved here is free speech — the right to advocate and express one’s views whether they are an “affront” or not — which is guaranteed by our First Amendment.Whether it emerged from nature or nature’s god, it exists in a dwindlling number of countries. That the Russian state would criminalize speech it does not like should surprise no one, but to the extent such odious laws are are grounded in the views being “an affront to nature and nature’s god,” then it would seem that nature and nature’s god hardly supply a solid basis for the emergence of the right to free speech and free expression. I fail to understand what “the utterances of Darwinian post-modernists” have to do with this.

HE: If the second amendment were interpreted as the first, we could all possess nuclear weapons. If the right to free speech is based on the self-evidency of natural law (“nature and nature’s God”) then such rights should be exercised with respect to God and natural law. Fortunately, the God enjoys submission in a context of freedom (“It is for FREEDOM that Christ has set youFREE” Gal. 5:1). The alternative is to invite a kingdom divided against itself. Eventually there is a break in the stretching that the first amendment, constructed on this basis, can support. The point about “the utterances of Darwinian post-modernists” is to challenge you to articulate a basis for rights. If rights are derived from thin air or from caprice then perhaps the legitimacy and enforcement of such rights should be questioned. Or perhaps you can articulate the basis for something be “odious.” Does that basis lie in “the utterances of Darwinian post-modernists”?

ME: The Second Amendment refers to the right to keep and bear arms. Nuclear weapons are not capable of being kept about the person and borne. Saying that the right to free speech comes from God limits free speech, because as you have all but admitted, any right said to come from God, can then be limited or overruled by God, because the “word” of God in practice consists of words of men claiming to speak for God. But for the Bill of Rights (which remains the law of the land), we would not have free speech. There are too many people who would cancel it in the name of God. Thanks to the First Amendment, your religious views are no more dispositive than mine. You can say nature’s god is an angry, jealous, pleasure-limiting Yahweh, and I can say nature’s god is a happy, tolerant, pleasure-loving Pan, and each of us has just as much right to be wrong as the other.

HE: If your rights come from a document, then why should one document be better than another? In order to resolve our theological conflict, perhaps we should find residence in countries (at this point, perhaps imagined countries) which subscribes to a view of God that we subscribe to and then remain coherent to said theology with the further outworking of that country’s laws. But would the “pleasure-loving Pan” sanction elective abortion? Wealth redistribution? Made-made global warming? Evolutionism as the foundation for science?

ME: The Constitution is what we have. As to Pan’s position on these issues, how the heck should I know? My point is, if we resort to argument by deity (ies), we can just make them up as we go along. At least with a written Constitution as the law of the land (which it is), we have a clear reference point, and it can be amended.

HE: But if the teaching of “nature and nature’s God” (i.e., natural law) is “self evident,” then — unlike the invention of permissive gods–it is not capricious. Doesn’t ink on a page strike you as a fragile and capricious foundation for justice?

ME: It was stated in the Declaration that certain truths were self evident — that all men are created equal, and among their rights are “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” That is a document too — ink on a page — subject to interpretation, and unlike the Constitution never formally made the law of the land. There is no mention of free speech or the right to bear arms. I fail to see how your argument — that speech should be limited according to the dictates of nature and nature’s god — flows from any “self evident” truth, nor do I think Jefferson intended to list all self evident truths. What other truths are self evident? Words in the Bible? Is that not also ink on a page?

And so on.

I’m sure it will never be over, because arguments never are.

Perhaps I should avoid the place.