March 12, 2010 My previous entry may not be entirely clear. I added a summary at the bottom but I’ll try to say it in different words here. The State of Nature is stimulus/response, big fish eats little fish, and entropy. The Law of Nature is what we, the conscious part of nature, seek to impose on nature to avert entropy. We are aware of the State of Nature and its ultimate end so we impose Laws to preserve and protect progress. We recognize the value of things, therefore we delay and revise our response to stimulus when possible, we judge and correct the course of the little and big fish, we pursue order over disorder, and mostly, we preserve the freedom of conscience wherever consciousness is found because that is our only hope for survival. We are equal as long as we exercise our consciousness to this end. If you reject the conscience with which you were born and seek to damage or destroy order or consciousness, which is the source of order, you become an enemy to all, an eventual partaker of complete entropy. This is my understanding of natural law and our equality. It appears to me that these basic concepts divide humanity. One part embraces the State of Nature in various ways such as destruction, disorder, subjugation, and submission. The other part values consciousness, uses it to evaluate the flaws in the state of nature, and pursues equality and order thus establishing the Laws of Nature. Some of the greatest fallacies of our time are the promotion of destruction for the sake of order and subjugation for the sake of equality. March 7, 2010 Recently, a friend of mine asked me to critique The Mount Vernon Statement … “specifically, what do they mean by the laws of nature? Is it big fish eats little fish? Is it entropy? Or is it something else?” From the character of The Mount Vernon Statement, especially as compared to The Sharon Statement and more especially as compared to principles expressed by our founding fathers, I do not care to speculate on the authors’ or signers’ definitions of “the laws of nature”. Rather, I will comment on my understanding of the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God as referenced in the Declaration of Independence. A brilliant definition of the state of nature and an extrapolation of the laws of nature can be found in the second of Two Treatises on Government by John Locke written almost a century prior to the American Revolution. Locke defines the state of nature as separate from the laws of nature, the state of nature including “big fish eats little fish”, entropy, and us. At first glance one sees that the state of nature for man is “a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit … without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man”. However, with humans in the picture, another factor is introduced, being the degree to which we may direct our actions according to thought and reason. This capacity to reason is designated by Locke as the source of Natural Law in the following statement, “The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it, … and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it”. Locke then proceeds to describe the laws which his capacity to reason makes apparent to him. If this explanation of the Laws of Nature is that intended in the Declaration of Independence, I am not surprised by the concurrent reference to the Laws of Nature’s God. Perhaps the author recognized the apparent fallibility of man’s reason in so many cases in history and saw the need to appeal also to that which is good and right to guide our reason. From his writings, it appears Locke took divine influence for granted and thus determines that our reason will lead us to conclude that the Law of Nature is first “that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions … as if we were made for one another's uses”. The Declaration of Independence echoes this with reference to “the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them”. It is my hope that the authors and signers of The Mount Vernon Statement have this principle in mind. However, I am dissuaded significantly by the authors’ claim that their statement is modeled on the Sharon Statement while eliminating the best of that statement, retaining the worst, and adding feel‑good, meaningless, or even dangerous filler. I may address more of this later, but in summary: Without our capacity to reason and act according to our reason, there is no Law of Nature. As reasoning beings we create this Law. The more perfect our reasoning, the more perfect the Law. For those who believe in a perfect God with perfect reasoning, the Laws of Nature and the Laws of Nature’s God are synonymous. It is our natural capacity to reason and act that also make us equal, for though we may differ somewhat in that capacity, the fact of its existence differentiates all of us from our observable environment.

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