Jefferson's Declaration of Independence

[suijurisfreeman]

Has anyone here read Jefferson's Declaration of Independence (Origins, Philosophy, & Theology) by Allen Jayne?

Why did he use the phrase 'nature's god'?

Was the 'creator' referred to in this document the God of Christianity?

[Jack]

The humanist's say this while the Unitarian's say this.

With so little direct evidence and what evidence there is being reinterpreted with modern biases I don't know that we'll ever reach a definitive conclusion. History is an inexact science.

[gallo]

Quote by: suijurisfreeman Has anyone here read Jefferson's Declaration of Independence (Origins, Philosophy, & Theology) by Allen Jayne? Why did he use the phrase 'nature's god'? Was the 'creator' referred to in this document the God of Christianity?

There was considerable debate about independence carried on in the 1760s and 1770s. The ideas were expressed in phamphlets that had wide distribution throughout the colonies. They were greatly influenced by writers of the Enlightenment such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Beccaria, Montesquieu, Delolme, and others, even to the extent that long passages were quoted in the American pamphlets. The ideas thus developed were about the nature of government and the relationship of that government to citizens. Some of these ideas were extremely critical of the clergy and the established churches. There was much talk about natural rights. The phrase about which you ask is a statement of such natural rights, "...the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them..." It is nature that is most important because that is the source of the rights.

The ideas were typically Deist in nature. Deists sometimes used the word "God", as in "Nature's God", but more often spoke of the Deity, Providence, the Creator, and other terms. While Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams probably did not intend a reference to the Christian God, "Creator" was broad enough that the Chirstians could take it to mean their understanding and offer no objection. However, my bet is that they understood exactly what Jefferson meant. They too were quite familiar with the writers of the Enlightment.

[Technosoul]

People often employ the word God to give a sense of authority to what they are claiming. I think that Jefferson thought that we have natural rights and those things are just part of human nature. There are some things ( wishes or desires ) that are common to most anyone.

The desire to be secure and happy, a desire to be free from too much domination if that domination is unjust and starts to demand more then it should. As well as the basic idea that if we work for something it should be ours, private ownership, and no one should lay hands on our property without our consent.

Nowadays we have vitrual "my space" but we should all have our space which is our natural right.

When any inalienable right is violated by another we darn well know it. Such violation is down right self evident to us. The sad thing is that not everyone in the world has much respect for the rights of others, just their own. And so a government was so formed to insure that each individual has equal rights to everyone else. That ideal is still a dream waiting to happen for some people. But at least they got the intent down on paper.

I think the intent that was orginated is that it does not matter what you think is a God or god, (goddess) or even if you just agree that we have natural rights common to all humans who are fairly intelligent and aware of such things. Now in the purest version all living things would have inalienable rights and we would respect the rights of all humans, animals, plants, and even whole ecosystems. The right of each part to do it's thing for the whole of nature as we know it on the planet.

But we are nutty people and if we are not careful machines and other man-made things will have more rights then we do.