I love my country.
Understand me. I am not talking about flag waving pseudo political bullshit where I wrap myself in a flag and march down Main Street. I'm talking about what really is unique about America. We, as Americans, formed a government out of whole cloth and built it on the fundamental principle that people matter.
I literally grew up with the names of the people and places on my walls. Lexington and Concord. Valley Forge. Ben Franklin. Thomas Jefferson. Crispus Attucks. George Washington. Cowpens. The Old Wagoneer, Daniel Morgan and his riflemen. Colonel John Glover and his Marbleheaders.
These are the names that come down to us through the centuries of the people who struggled to give us our freedom and the places where they fought and died, ultimately, because people matter.
I think we all know that people aren't perfect. You're not. I'm not. The people that wrote the Constitution weren't. As flawed people they put together a flawed document to help other flawed people lead a nation of flawed people. Many were left behind in that original document. Women, of course, were ignored entirely and what's worse black Americans--even though they fought and died to give us our liberty--were considered less than a person and relegated to the worst kind of human bondage. The blueprint for the nation that would serve as a beacon for liberty throughout the world was tainted with the execrable stain of slavery. It was--and is--our original sin and like Lady Macbeth we've never been able to wash the blood out.
But we have returned, time and time again to the fundamental principle that people matter.
When men starved and died at Valley Forge, they did it because people matter.
When the pioneers of American feminism met at Seneca Falls they did it because people matter.
When the best young men of a generation gave the last full measure of devotion on Little Round Top, at Pittsburg Landing, and in that last terrible charge at Cold Harbor, they did it because people matter.
When workers rallied in Haymarket Square on the First of May they did it because people matter.
When nine black students enrolled in Little Rock Central High, they did it because people matter.
When the National Guard escorted those students past the howling mob they did it because people matter.
Tonight, we take a big step. Barack Obama has clinched the Democratic Party's nomination for the Presidency. A black man stands closer to the Presidency than any has ever stood before.
Obama will accept the nomination on the 25th of August, forty-five years to the day since Martin Luther King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and told the world about his dream of an America free from prejudice.
Tonight, we're a little bit closer to realizing that dream.
Tonight should send a message to every young black man and woman in America. You matter. When you're told that you can accomplish anything you can believe it.
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12 comments:
You do believe in God.How else do you explain the fact that you think there is good and evil.Without God there is only opinion.Only a collection of events that lead to our existence. Your opinion is that people matter.Now you have no reason to be hostile towards God since you believe in his laws.
I don't believe in any gods or their laws. You don't need gods to have good and evil. They exist as adjectives regardless of whether they exist as nouns.
So what is evil then?Is murder evil?You might have the opinion that it is.Others may have the opinion it isnt.How do you know whos right?In a world that has no meaning and no God, neither is right or wrong.Murder is just an event that happens.Just like all the other random events that happened to create the world.None are good or evil then.Just events.Your belief,and most peoples belief that murder is wrong points to the existence of God.Otherwise everything is just opinion.
Two things.
First, you can't say that without god everything is opinion. Regardless of whether there's a deity, gravity is not just someone's opinion.
As for moral issues, yes they are opinions. I make that determination because I am a thinking, feeling creature. There are other thinking, feeling, creatures who can take the same circumstances and come to another conclusion.
Im talking about opinion of what is right and wrong.Gravity is another completely different subject and the existence of God doesnt effect it at all.Gravity is not debateable because you can prove it exists.You cant prove something is right or wrong.That depends on how you view the world as being created.By meaningless random acts or being created by a God.If by meaningless random events,then the view that people somehow matter when nothing else does,is irrational.Thinking that people matter when the fact of it would be that they live their lives and then die,thats all there is.That pain and suffering are meaningless events no different than love and joy.They would be just sensations that we experience in our meaningless existence.Its not that we need God to tell us what is right and wrong.We already know what is right and wrong because God exists.He made us that way.
According to you, your life only has meaning if your god says so.
Don't you feel you yourself are enough to give your life meaning? Don't you think you can make something of your life?
You say that without god, pain and suffering are the equal of joy and love. I assume you know this is utterly absurd. Pain and suffering feel bad. Joy and love feel good.
If god told us the difference between good and evil why is it that so much evil is done by the most religious people around?
Its not that I need God to tell me my life has meaning.Its the implicatins of there being no God.I dont think you completely understand the implications of saying there is no God or creator.By saying that, you are saying that the world is here because of nothing more than chance.There is no meaning and no purpose for the world.It is merely 1 random event after another that resulted in your existence.Do you realize then that nothing matters?Sure you can pretend things matter.But they dont.You can pretend your family matters but all it doesnt.Its like making a pot of chicken soup and sticking your hand in and pulling out a handful of mush and slapping it on the table and saying "This pile of mush has meaning because I thin it does".And it has even more meaning because its the only pile of mush I have.The chicken soup is the universe that somehow churned out a pile of mush that can think and talk.Now the pile of mush thinks its something other than mush and assigns a meaning to its existence which is no more valid than the next pile of mushes opinion.
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"You say that without god, pain and suffering are the equal of joy and love. I assume you know this is utterly absurd. Pain and suffering feel bad. Joy and love feel good."
Youre right.But they make no difference.What does it matter what you feel. When you die youre done.You wont ever remember what you felt.It doesnt matter anyways.You view life like there is a God but you dont believe there is one.
Youve made it clear that people matter because thats your opinion.I cant argue with that.I can argue with a person that thinks there is meaning without a God having created the world.And thats where you and all the atheists make no sense at all.Its contradicitory.
Okay, I am now convinced you're just screwing with me.
You can't possibly be dumb enough to think that experiencing less pain or more joy isn't inherently a good thing. Regardless of whether there is an afterlife, having a more enjoyable life is better.
Well maybe you cant grasp what Im saying.It seems like you ignore it and go directly to your opinion about things.I dont mean that as an insult.It just seems that you cant grasp the fact that a meaningless creation means a meaningless existence.If I was you Id start with figuring out what I believe about how we got here,Then base your beliefs on that.Just about the whole word bases their beliefs on being created by chance and that there is no God.Take a look at the world.What does it believe?It believes get rich at any cost.Do what you have to to get ahead.You only live once so have fun while your here.Thats a logical position for them to have.Not...Ill sacrafice my life for someone elses.Or Ill be honest and only make enough to live on instead of raping people and scamming them.I dont know how to explain it any better anymore.And I dont know ow you arrive at your conclusions since you present no reasons except opinions.
A meaningless creation does not mean a meaningless existence. I understand your perspective. I just reject it utterly and I do so because it is completely absurd.
Do you have a family? Do you love them? If you found out with certainty that there was no god would you love them any less?
I know what I think about the origins of the universe and our species. What this has to say about whether I care about my fellow man is precisely zero.
Why would you care about another mass of atoms?No different from a tree except it thinks and feels.
And I agree ...you can create meaning regardeless of how the universe was created.That meaning is just an illusion though.And not only that but will be different from person to person and worthless.
So the only meaning the matters is one that comes from your god and this is true because you said so.
Gotcha.
Stop wasting my time.
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