Why do Americans celebrate the 4th of July?
This message appeared in my mailbox yesterday:
"Since you have always had a closed mind you have never been touched by the
Lord, Hence you will probably never understand God". The subject line read,
"Re: Why do Americans celebrate the 4th of July?" At first I didn't understand
what motivated this, but then I remembered that I posted a message with that
title two years
ago. Since it is still being read, I thought
I would repost it:
July 4, 1776 is the date on the
Declaration of
Independence. That document is based on such
dubious philosophical premises, it is a wonder that educated people would
celebrate its signing.
The
Declaration
opens with the notion that the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" can entitle
a group of people to a "separate and equal station". The laws of nature do not
have political implications and there is no such thing as "nature's god". At
least no one has discovered such an entity in the natural
world.
The notion of "nature's god"
becomes the notion of a "creator" in the second paragraph, where it is asserted
that it is self-evident that all men (which apparently meant "white males") are
created equal and that they are endowed by their creator with certain
inalienable rights. If it were self-evident that men were endowed with certain
rights by a creator, then it would be self-evident that there was a creator
capable of making such an endowment. If the existence of such a creator were
self-evident, it would be almost universally accepted by rational, educated
people, but that is not the case; so it is not self-evident that men were
endowed with rights by a creator.
The
Declaration
ends with "a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence", a notion
just as dubious as those other religious notions with which it begins.
Fortunately, this religious nonsense was removed when the Constitution was
written.
Posted: Friday - July 06, 2007 at 12:56 AM