I Think We Deserve An Answer To These Questions From Atheists, Secularists, Devotees of Materialism and Scientism Who Pretend To Uphold Liberalism

Atheists, secularists, anti-Christians, those who mock the wider Jewish-monotheistic traditions are always demanding that believers answer questions defending this or that aspect and consequence of their beliefs. holding them up against some purported real, reality so as to debunk that belief.  

Thinking about the passage from Marilynne Robinson that I posted yesterday afternoon, I think it contains two questions that any supposedly liberal*leftist even lukewarm quasi-democratic progressive atheist or secularist or anti-Christian needs to answer.  

"We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." 

What would a secular paraphrase of that sentence look like?  

In what nonreligious terms is human equality self evident?  

I think it's high time for those alleged leftists and liberals and progressives among the atheists and secularists to explain to us where in their ideological framing they find even the possibility of the equal rights contained in Jefferson's clearly essential foundation of egalitarian democracy.  Not to mention the assertion of other rights not listed by Jefferson as Marilynne Robinson discussed (see the last post below).  

The inability of science or mathematics or any other philosophy or ideology in any form to account for the reality of those rights in a potent enough strength to reform human character and so to make equal rights real in society, in the law and in politics, disqualifies any  ideological inclination from being genuinely democratic.  I would go so far as to say that any ideology or philosophy that can't find equal rights will at best carry the potential for their undermining as, in fact, materialism frequently does. 

If some atheist, secularist, devotee of philosophical materialism and scientism would like to identify how you assert the real reality of those in a way which might seem strong enough to produce that effect, they should do so, right now. 

I'm leaving this at the top of the page until at least Wednesday and will post any response to that challenge which seriously tries to answer it, no matter from who it comes.  If there is no answer given, I think we can confidently assert that, as Marilynne Robinson said, that" lacking the terms of religion, essential things cannot be said." In this case the unsayable thing is the potently effective assertion of the equality of all people and, through that inability,  atheism, secularism, scientism are all proven to be inadequate for that purpose. 

I think if American liberals had demanded an answer to those questions from Marxists, Darwinists**, etc. in the late 19th century a lot of the worst of the discrediting mistakes of liberals in the 20th century up till now could have been avoided and things may have been better, today.  Those anti-democratic ideologies should never have been mistaken for something compatible with American style liberalism when they were poison to it.  

Put it up or admit your philosophy can't find them. 

*  By "liberal" I mean a liberal in the traditional, American sense of the word, not the free market libertarian British-Continental meaning of it.   The American liberal tradition which asserts the real equal rights of all people and, as much as any other right, the right to an adequate life to ensure a decent life came out of a quiet serious reading of the Mosaic Law, the Prophets and the Gospels.  The British-Contiental meaning of the word comes out of 18th century libertarianism and was entirely compatible, with inequality, which it produced and even slavery. 

**  Meaning those who assert that Darwin's concept of natural selection is the ruling force of life, including of human life, NOT AS COMMONLY MISTAKEN, A BELIEF IN THE FACT OF EVOLUTION, which is not inherently incompatible with Jefferson's assertion.  Natural selection is incompatible with democracy, a statement made by Darwin's foremost German disciple, Ernst Haeckel,  which Darwin, as well as such of his colleagues as Thomas Huxley and Francis Galton, seem to have accepted.  I have never read any rejection of it from any of them.