I Know That God Does Not Exist

You go wrong in two ways here. First, the Declaration of Independence is a reflection of the writing styles and beliefs of men of that time period. It is not an authoritative document on the existence of God. You can find tons of documents of the period making reference to God and Creator.Second, the part you comment on is mere prelude and you ignore the significant portion that follows where it says that governments exist to secure certain unalienable rights to the governed from whom governments derive their powers. It's referring to representative government, lack of which was one of the colonists central complaints, "No taxation without representation."If you're looking for evidence of the existence of God you won't find it in the Declaration of Independence. At best it can be said to assume the existence of God, reflecting the beliefs of the men who wrote it.God isn't mentioned in the Constitution, our governing document.While I don't subscribe to this thread's title, I will say that I've never encountered any evidence of God.--Percy

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here, but if feels like you're trying to assign a value to human beings. That seems like an impossible exercise. You're also still claiming the Declaration of Independence is authoritative on matters of religion. It isn't, no more than many other documents of the time written in the same style.But the rest of what you say is true, that there is no agreement on our worth as human beings. Some love us and others blow us away.--Percy

He didn't "give" His life. It was taken - because He ran His mouth a bit too much. He tried to be clever, claiming and not claiming to be King of the Jews - but He didn't fool the Jews. No.

Now who is lying? You know darn well He gave His life!

Oh bull.He took a few days off the Earth thing and came right back, right? He took a damned nap.

NO I do NOT. His life was TAKEN by force.

Where do you get the idea that His life was taken from Him by force?

Uh, ... Romans???Right now I'm watching Ken Burns' The US and the Holocaust, so that is part of where my head is at at this moment."Where do you get the idea that Jews have been murdered?" "Uh, ... Nazis???" If you ever visit Germany and do a Rhein tour, be sure to visit the beautiful and rather well-preserved Rhein town of Bacharach -- yeah, just like Burt Bacharach the popular musician, though pronounced differently (when I saw it on the train's "nächster Halt" ("next stop") display and heard the recorded voice announcing it,in proper German (which is entirely different from how the musician's name sounds in English) my brain did a momentary flip-flop which for others can induce motion sickness).That town is the very first time that I learned about the Stolpersteine, "stumbling stones", because for the first time I was seeing them for myself after never having heard of them. The streets are cobblestone, but in front of homes the stones have been replaced with metal (brass? bronze? gold-anodized?) "cobblestones" (same size and shape) with information about that residence's former inhabitants: who they were, when they were rounded up, when and where they were murdered (or if they had simply died of starvation, medical experiments, or whatever -- Germany's branch of IBM provided the data processing equipment to run the entire Holocaust (as one pundit commented about the MAGAt insurrection having published its plans, the only good thing about Nazis is how well they document their atrocities)).Across this country we have monuments erected to traitors to the Union, but when those Confederate monuments to treason are to be removed, people get into an uproar over it. And how many monuments to we find in the South for the victim of the KKK and lynchings? Very few indeed.Care to guess how many monuments to Nazis there are in Germany? Pretty much none. Monuments to those whom the Nazis had murdered? Many.  ABE:The town of Bacharach has other significance as well; from Wikpedia:

quote:

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Widely visible is the Wernerkapelle, a Rheinromantik landmark of the town, lying on the way up to Stahleck Castle from the town. It is the expanded Kunibertkapelle, and is still an unfinished Gothic ruin today. Its namesake is Werner of Oberwesel, known in connection with pogroms triggered by his death. According to the Christian blood libel, which was typical of the times, a 16-year-old Werner was murdered on Maundy Thursday 1287 by members of the local Jewish community, who then used his blood for Passover observances. On the grounds of this alleged ritual murder, there arose an anti-Semitic mob who waged a pogrom, wiping out Jewish communities in the Middle and Lower Rhine and Moselle regions. In folk Christianity arose the cult of Werner, which was only stricken from the Bishopric of Trier calendar in 1963.

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I first learned of the blood libel in 1971 in my Rabbinic Literature class. Our professor, Rabbi Kalir, explained the Seder custom of opening the door just in case Elijah was in the neighborhood as being a response to the Christian blood libel that Jews kidnapped Christian children in order to drink their blood in their "secret rituals" like the Seder. So, as per Rabbi Kalir, they would open their front door to reveal to the entire community that they had nothing to hide as well as to allow anybody to test whether those glasses are filled with wine ... or blood.And, of course, QAnon and the GQP have resurrected the blood libel.Will those idiots never learn?

Edited by dwise1, : ABE:

He was taken by force by the equivalent of the police. He stopped Peter from resisting but they would have lost that fight anyway. He was taken by force before the Sanhedrin. He was taken by force before Pilate. He didn't put up much of a defense but He couldn't, could He? He DID claim to be King of the Jews. He was guilty.Now YOU tell us where you got the idea that "He laid His life down of Himself". He didn't march voluntarily up to Pilate and say, "Please crucify me."

"For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again.  No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father.” (John 10:17-18)

John lied.

He didn't though, did He? He didn't go and turn Himself in. They had to come and arrest Him. And even when they did come to arrest Him, He didn't step up. Judas had to point Him out.

The father of lies must have told you that. You really need to pick better spirits as sources of information and/or inspiration

Why should He step up? That would be admitting that His critics were right. And they were. Not!

Why should He give in to them? They fabricated lies about Him. He owed them no apology nor need to surrender to demons