Re: church/state seperation

"dpr" <&^%@&^%.com> wrote:
>But below is what you cannot refute, and it states very clearly that it is
>our duty to abolish our government when it no longer has our interests in
>mind.
>
>When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to
>dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to
>assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to
>which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect
>to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes
>which impel them to the separation.
>...

>Main Entry: re·fute 
>Pronunciation: ri-'fyüt
>Function: transitive verb
>Inflected Form(s): re·fut·ed; re·fut·ing
>Etymology: Latin refutare to check, suppress, refute
>Date: 1597
>1 : to prove wrong by argument or evidence : show to be false or erroneous
>2 : to deny the truth or accuracy of <refuted the allegations>
>- re·fut·able  /-'fyü-t&-b&l/ adjective
>- re·fut·ably  /-blE/ adverb
>- re·fut·er noun 

Since the D of I is a statement of opinion, and opinions by their
nature cannot be "proven" wrong or false or erroneous, because one is
not required to opine logically, meaning 2 must be the appropriate
definition applicable to your usage.

That being the case, by the fact that JTEM stated that
>The second blatantly obvious fact that you're ignoring is that,
>had the English crown granted the rights in our constitution,
>there wouldn't have been a revolution. The crown simply did
>not offer any alternatives to a revolution.

It is quite apparent that JTEM *does* "deny the truth or accuracy of"
the D of I.  Furthermore s/he denies that it is true or accurate for
the later time when the constitution was in effect:
>The first blatantly obvious fact that you're ignoring is that
>the Declaration of Independence came more than a decade
>before our constitutional government, and they did some
>thinking during those years.

>The third blatantly obvious fact that you're ignoring is the
>constitution itself. It does provide an alternative.

Therefore in fact by the definition of the word, JTEM has indeed
"refuted" the quoted text.

lojbab
-- 
lojbab                                             [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bob LeChevalier, Founder, The Logical Language Group
(Opinions are my own; I do not speak for the organization.)
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:                 http://www.lojban.org