Letter: Belief in Deism is revealing

Friday, April 1, 2005 | 9:17 a.m.

In his March 25 letter Ken Lucas accused Terry Peele of imagining that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were rights derived from nature. Let me clarify with a few facts.

Many of the Founding Fathers were Deists, main among them Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Deists believed God created nature based on rational laws and then created rational beings to understand those laws. He then stepped back to allow humans to figure the world out for themselves through logic and science.

So when Jefferson wrote "to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitled them" in the Declaration of Independence, he meant that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were rights derived from the rational laws of nature.

Lucas then went on to claim that absolute truth and morality exist and if we don't adhere to them we will become like the Nazis. If that is true, then what does he think of conservative George W. Bush, a man who lied to Congress to go to war and who now blithely allows innocents to die every day in Iraq?

SONDRA COSGROVE

Live chat: Tuesday, noon PST; Chat with Problem Gambling Center executive director Krista Creelman; Problem Gambling Center executive director Krista Creelman will answer questions about gambling addiction from Las Vegas Sun readers from noon to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. ... Submit question