As for answering your questions directly I cannot do so honestly because I think they’re based on beliefs/views I don’t hold, fully understand and/or agree with
Wouldn't the circumstance of those not having to invest in themselves the mental effort while achieving the same results bother you? — kudos
It's not just western. All around the world certain jobs have higher prestige - doctors and lawyers usually being up there.
Oh ok, I hope this is PG-rated.The FACTS OF LIFE:
Some people will have much better experiences in life than others.
In my daily experience there are common references to the familiar adage of 'all men and women are created equal.' — kudos
This language is clear - All people are created equal. All people are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights. We're not equal in height, wealth, strength, or any other physical or social measure. We are all equal in moral value.
Though some may disagree, as far as I'm concerned there is clear Judeo-Christian ideological baggage in this idea of being endowed by a Creator with unalienable rights and liberties. — kudos
More recently, the idea came to mind about individualism in general, and how one individual can be superior to another in intellect or performance. — kudos
Just because Jefferson used a term associated with religion is no reason to quibble.
Jefferson could have referenced 'nature' as the source of our equality; or some philosopher, or something else--executive fiat, maybe. Rhetorically, 'creator' is still the best choice, given past and current contexts.
I'm not sure whether you said what you meant to say. Clarify, please.
Judeo-Christian ideological baggage — kudos
I don't think this to be something that always existed chronologically either, but something we sometimes take for granted in modern times. — kudos
I see it as irrelevant if Jefferson himself believed personally and individually in a G-d. The basis of the matter is there is nothing evidently binding the liberal idea to religion, but we can then not easily conclude that these two are fully separate and distinct.
You seem to consider it an accident that there are themes and references in the writing that refer explicitly to a Creator. There is still undeniably something implicit in the writing that implies religious ideas and contingencies. For instance, the concept of liberty itself. Why should we have had this idea without carrying along with it a notion that we were each a valued individual with a personal internal relationship with G-d, each deserving as such a right to our own freedom of will? Before this notion much of the West lived in a state that was a great deal less centred around freedom of private individual desires and choice and a little more deterministic, wouldn’t you agree? I think if you didn’t you’d be a little out of step with the commonly held vision of what the lifestyles of antiquity were like. — kudos
You seem to consider it an accident that there are themes and references in the writing that refer explicitly to a Creator. — kudos
How seriously do you think we should take the 'rat race' of the natural world? — kudos
An equality of caring I guess it would resemble, though it may sound corny, is a missing link with the modern equality of wealth and employment and so forth. — kudos
Do you think that a system like the caste system they have in India, or the classist system in Europe are good, or bad?
Do you find that the upper class should despise the lower classes, and the lower classes should internalize that contempt, considering it righteous?
Bringing this back to the original topic, if when we consider all men and women to be equal in terms of civil liberty and simultaneously assent to an implicit notion of an extended spiritual equality on which this is based, I just can't help but find this situation so utterly absurd and dysfunctional. — kudos
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