What does "God-Given Rights" mean?

it should be obvious that "we the people" have created our rights through the Constitution and many processes such as the American Revolution and people giving their lives for freedom in various conflicts and struggeles in this country and elsewhere. If God is the one who gave us our rights, then I'd say the framers wanting to separate from England and the church indicates the opposite because the church told people what their rights were. Our founders did exactly the opposite, separating church from state and making our rights secular. Creator could mean many things and it doesn't automatically men God.

Countries around the world are also proof that God didn't give people rights because there is so much oppression and dictate from MEN in countries where freedoms are rare. Enlightened citizens are the ones who create the environments and the conditions conducive to our freedoms and rights and it quite obviously has been an evolutionary process over centuries--from slavery to more freedoms for all.

Preamble to the US Constitution:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
 
How can 'rights' be inherit to a fairly random assortment of carbon atoms?


Could you be any more absurd or illogical?

How can gravitation be inherent to a fairly random assortment of carbon atoms? You've repeatedly asked me whether inalienable rights are an abstract. I evaded the question as a false dichotomy, exactly because I knew where you would try to lead with it, and I knew exactly how wrong and backwards you were. So, I gave you a length of rope, and now you've hung yourself with it.

Inalienable rights are not an abstract. They are inherent to the existence of the being, just like gravitation is inherent to the existence of matter. You thought that I might answer that they were an abstract, and thought that you could argue that the only way for them to not be an abstract was to appeal to Divinity. However, that position is entirely absurd, because such appeal to divinity actually makes inalienable rights into an abstract. If inalienable rights are divine providence, then they can be revoked by the Divine as well. They are, therefore, creations of some being, and can be destroyed by some being.

Gravitation exists, and is an inherent quality of matter. This is true without appeal to the Divine. So too do inalienable rights, as an inherent quality of the being.


That is completely absurd and illogical.
 
it should be obvious that "we the people" have created our rights through the Constitution and many processes such as the American Revolution and people giving their lives for freedom in various conflicts and struggeles in this country and elsewhere. If God is the one who gave us our rights, then I'd say the framers wanting to separate from England and the church indicates the opposite because the church told people what their rights were. Our founders did exactly the opposite, separating church from state and making our rights secular. Creator could mean many things and it doesn't automatically men God.

Countries around the world are also proof that God didn't give people rights because there is so much oppression and dictate from MEN in countries where freedoms are rare. Enlightened citizens are the ones who create the environments and the conditions conducive to our freedoms and rights and it quite obviously has been an evolutionary process over centuries--from slavery to more freedoms for all.

Preamble to the US Constitution:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Wow! Everything you type is so important it comes out bold!
 
Do insects have unalienable rights ' inherent to existence of the being,' or do such mystical rights only apply to carbon atoms curiously-arranged as humans?

Do you even think about the stupid shit you post?
 
You are arguing that rights are supernatural, then, just not from 'God.'

Quite a mystic, you are!

LOL

No, you continue to posit this false dichotomy because you are intellectually dishonest, and with this post I am done with you in this conversation. I have discussed details of my personal spirituality here that I am not inclined to usually discuss with most people, because dblack opened what was otherwise a polite and sensible conversation on an intriguing topic. You, however, insist on being so disrespectful as to belittle the beliefs of others, by trying to force them into your own box, in which they don't fit in the first place, so as to try to gain some kind of grounds for ridicule.

You began with the definition of "inalienable" rights as being inherently divine in origin, and now all you're doing is insisting that others describe them within your own terms. I have clearly said that inalienable rights are not supernatural and that they exist separately of Divinity. Until you are willing to be honest enough to contemplate that, and to leave your false dichotomy behind, you are unworthy of any further consideration on the matter.
 
We've seen five or six different threads on this topic over the last week and, in my view, they've been an unproductive mess. Mostly we're talking past each other without a very clear understanding what it is we're really talking about.

So, just what is meant by God-given rights? In most of the debates on here, the discussion breaks down into a debate over the "source" of rights (God, government, neither?) and I think that fundamentally misses the point. When Jefferson wrote that people are ...
... endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men
..., what did he mean?

His purpose was to lay out a justification for government. Here he's saying that governments are instituted to secure "unalieanable rights". That term is actually very specific and narrow. It's meant to refer only to certain kinds of "rights" - those that are unalienable.

'Unalieanable' means they can't be taken away. It doesn't mean the shouldn't be taken away. It doesn't mean they can't be violated. It means that they are innate to a person's existence, and that, even if you were left on a desert island by yourself, you'd still have them.

So, the key thing here is that he's describing a particular kind of right. Some rights are unalieanable, some aren't. Keep in mind, this isn't by decree - it's just inherent in the nature of the right in question. If the right can't be taken away, if you'd have the freedom to exercise it regardless of whether anyone "gave" it to you or not, then it is, by definition, an unalieanable right.

Freedom of speech, for example, is an unalienable right. It's a freedom that you can exercise without anyone's permission or cooperation. You'd have it whether government existed or not. It's a right that can be violated, to be sure. Someone can pin you down and put their hand over your mouth. But as soon as they leave, you have that right again. It's a freedom of action that doesn't require a grant from anyone, or anything, else.

Contractual rights are not unalienable. They require the active participation of other people or institutions to exist. Many have proposed that government recognize a "right to health care". While we could create this "right" and establish it as an entitlement, it wouldn't be an unalienable right. It depends on the active cooperation of other people. Again, it's not a matter of declaring it to be unalienable, or not. It's inherent in the nature of the right being discussed.

Jefferson wasn't making a statement about where rights come from. He was making a statement about the kinds of rights government should secure. He wanted a government that protected our innate freedoms, not one that granted privilege. Unfortunately, that point seems to get lost as people get preoccupied with debating the supremacy of God vs the supremacy of government.

Jefferson was most certainly making a statement about where rights come from.

It is in plain language. It is important and critical.

'endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.'

If rights were granted by any constructs of man, they would always be subject to reconstruction and would thus be alienable.

Yeah and he was definantly ambiguous about it too!
 
You are arguing that rights are supernatural, then, just not from 'God.'

Quite a mystic, you are!

LOL

No, you continue to posit this false dichotomy because you are intellectually dishonest, and with this post I am done with you in this conversation. I have discussed details of my personal spirituality here that I am not inclined to usually discuss with most people, because dblack opened what was otherwise a polite and sensible conversation on an intriguing topic. You, however, insist on being so disrespectful as to belittle the beliefs of others, by trying to force them into your own box, in which they don't fit in the first place, so as to try to gain some kind of grounds for ridicule.

You began with the definition of "inalienable" rights as being inherently divine in origin, and now all you're doing is insisting that others describe them within your own terms. I have clearly said that inalienable rights are not supernatural and that they exist separately of Divinity. Until you are willing to be honest enough to contemplate that, and to leave your false dichotomy behind, you are unworthy of any further consideration on the matter.



You have been crushed.

It is absurd on its face to pretend rights are 'unalienable' if they are simply an abstract of the active imagination of mankind.

But you aren't the first atheist I have disturbed to your very core using logic and reason.
 
it should be obvious that "we the people" have created our rights through the Constitution and many processes such as the American Revolution and people giving their lives for freedom in various conflicts and struggeles in this country and elsewhere. If God is the one who gave us our rights, then I'd say the framers wanting to separate from England and the church indicates the opposite because the church told people what their rights were. Our founders did exactly the opposite, separating church from state and making our rights secular. Creator could mean many things and it doesn't automatically men God.

Countries around the world are also proof that God didn't give people rights because there is so much oppression and dictate from MEN in countries where freedoms are rare. Enlightened citizens are the ones who create the environments and the conditions conducive to our freedoms and rights and it quite obviously has been an evolutionary process over centuries--from slavery to more freedoms for all.

Preamble to the US Constitution:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Wow! Everything you type is so important it comes out bold!

It comes out bold not because it's so important but because I have a vision problem and I can read the type better. I have to enlarge other posts that aren't that way in order to read them. Jumping to erroneous conclusions about people is your forte' I suppose?
 
We've seen five or six different threads on this topic over the last week and, in my view, they've been an unproductive mess. Mostly we're talking past each other without a very clear understanding what it is we're really talking about.

So, just what is meant by God-given rights? In most of the debates on here, the discussion breaks down into a debate over the "source" of rights (God, government, neither?) and I think that fundamentally misses the point. When Jefferson wrote that people are ...
... endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men
..., what did he mean?

His purpose was to lay out a justification for government. Here he's saying that governments are instituted to secure "unalieanable rights". That term is actually very specific and narrow. It's meant to refer only to certain kinds of "rights" - those that are unalienable.

'Unalieanable' means they can't be taken away. It doesn't mean the shouldn't be taken away. It doesn't mean they can't be violated. It means that they are innate to a person's existence, and that, even if you were left on a desert island by yourself, you'd still have them.

So, the key thing here is that he's describing a particular kind of right. Some rights are unalieanable, some aren't. Keep in mind, this isn't by decree - it's just inherent in the nature of the right in question. If the right can't be taken away, if you'd have the freedom to exercise it regardless of whether anyone "gave" it to you or not, then it is, by definition, an unalieanable right.

Freedom of speech, for example, is an unalienable right. It's a freedom that you can exercise without anyone's permission or cooperation. You'd have it whether government existed or not. It's a right that can be violated, to be sure. Someone can pin you down and put their hand over your mouth. But as soon as they leave, you have that right again. It's a freedom of action that doesn't require a grant from anyone, or anything, else.

Contractual rights are not unalienable. They require the active participation of other people or institutions to exist. Many have proposed that government recognize a "right to health care". While we could create this "right" and establish it as an entitlement, it wouldn't be an unalienable right. It depends on the active cooperation of other people. Again, it's not a matter of declaring it to be unalienable, or not. It's inherent in the nature of the right being discussed.

Jefferson wasn't making a statement about where rights come from. He was making a statement about the kinds of rights government should secure. He wanted a government that protected our innate freedoms, not one that granted privilege. Unfortunately, that point seems to get lost as people get preoccupied with debating the supremacy of God vs the supremacy of government.

He meant that we all were born with these rights and Government was instituted to secure those rights. Simple stuff really, nothing to do with the supernatural or supernatural creatures or scientist Jackson Roykirk.

Star Trek Changeling, The
 
He meant that we all were born with these rights and Government was instituted to secure those rights. Simple stuff really, nothing to do with the supernatural or supernatural creatures or scientist Jackson Roykirk.

Yeah. I think, for a lot of people here, it's just an excuse to have a dumb pissing match on whether we should worship government or a god. I'm rolling with neither, but it's irrelevant to the topic.
 
We've seen five or six different threads on this topic over the last week and, in my view, they've been an unproductive mess. Mostly we're talking past each other without a very clear understanding what it is we're really talking about.

So, just what is meant by God-given rights? In most of the debates on here, the discussion breaks down into a debate over the "source" of rights (God, government, neither?) and I think that fundamentally misses the point. When Jefferson wrote that people are ...
... endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men
..., what did he mean?

His purpose was to lay out a justification for government. Here he's saying that governments are instituted to secure "unalieanable rights". That term is actually very specific and narrow. It's meant to refer only to certain kinds of "rights" - those that are unalienable.

'Unalieanable' means they can't be taken away. It doesn't mean the shouldn't be taken away. It doesn't mean they can't be violated. It means that they are innate to a person's existence, and that, even if you were left on a desert island by yourself, you'd still have them.

So, the key thing here is that he's describing a particular kind of right. Some rights are unalieanable, some aren't. Keep in mind, this isn't by decree - it's just inherent in the nature of the right in question. If the right can't be taken away, if you'd have the freedom to exercise it regardless of whether anyone "gave" it to you or not, then it is, by definition, an unalieanable right.

Freedom of speech, for example, is an unalienable right. It's a freedom that you can exercise without anyone's permission or cooperation. You'd have it whether government existed or not. It's a right that can be violated, to be sure. Someone can pin you down and put their hand over your mouth. But as soon as they leave, you have that right again. It's a freedom of action that doesn't require a grant from anyone, or anything, else.

Contractual rights are not unalienable. They require the active participation of other people or institutions to exist. Many have proposed that government recognize a "right to health care". While we could create this "right" and establish it as an entitlement, it wouldn't be an unalienable right. It depends on the active cooperation of other people. Again, it's not a matter of declaring it to be unalienable, or not. It's inherent in the nature of the right being discussed.

Jefferson wasn't making a statement about where rights come from. He was making a statement about the kinds of rights government should secure. He wanted a government that protected our innate freedoms, not one that granted privilege. Unfortunately, that point seems to get lost as people get preoccupied with debating the supremacy of God vs the supremacy of government.

He meant that we all were born with these rights and Government was instituted to secure those rights. Simple stuff really, nothing to do with the supernatural or supernatural creatures or scientist Jackson Roykirk.

Star Trek Changeling, The

Illogical.

God/ Creator was acknowledged are the endower, which is the only possible way to have rights which are 'unalienable - or above the as the whims of mankind.

Not only are you ignoring the direct statement of the origin of our rights, but you also ignore the reason behind it.
 
Why do conservatives want to amend the Constitution to assure that same sex marriage is not a God given right, but that man/woman marriage is?

When did God send down that order?

Read the bible... homosexuality is addressed in very clear terms.

Personally, I don't want to amend the constitution... I think this sort of issues is best left at the local level.

The right to pursue happiness via marital bliss is not natural right endowed to us by the Creator?
 
We've seen five or six different threads on this topic over the last week and, in my view, they've been an unproductive mess. Mostly we're talking past each other without a very clear understanding what it is we're really talking about.

So, just what is meant by God-given rights? In most of the debates on here, the discussion breaks down into a debate over the "source" of rights (God, government, neither?) and I think that fundamentally misses the point. When Jefferson wrote that people are ...

..., what did he mean?

His purpose was to lay out a justification for government. Here he's saying that governments are instituted to secure "unalieanable rights". That term is actually very specific and narrow. It's meant to refer only to certain kinds of "rights" - those that are unalienable.

'Unalieanable' means they can't be taken away. It doesn't mean the shouldn't be taken away. It doesn't mean they can't be violated. It means that they are innate to a person's existence, and that, even if you were left on a desert island by yourself, you'd still have them.

So, the key thing here is that he's describing a particular kind of right. Some rights are unalieanable, some aren't. Keep in mind, this isn't by decree - it's just inherent in the nature of the right in question. If the right can't be taken away, if you'd have the freedom to exercise it regardless of whether anyone "gave" it to you or not, then it is, by definition, an unalieanable right.

Freedom of speech, for example, is an unalienable right. It's a freedom that you can exercise without anyone's permission or cooperation. You'd have it whether government existed or not. It's a right that can be violated, to be sure. Someone can pin you down and put their hand over your mouth. But as soon as they leave, you have that right again. It's a freedom of action that doesn't require a grant from anyone, or anything, else.

Contractual rights are not unalienable. They require the active participation of other people or institutions to exist. Many have proposed that government recognize a "right to health care". While we could create this "right" and establish it as an entitlement, it wouldn't be an unalienable right. It depends on the active cooperation of other people. Again, it's not a matter of declaring it to be unalienable, or not. It's inherent in the nature of the right being discussed.

Jefferson wasn't making a statement about where rights come from. He was making a statement about the kinds of rights government should secure. He wanted a government that protected our innate freedoms, not one that granted privilege. Unfortunately, that point seems to get lost as people get preoccupied with debating the supremacy of God vs the supremacy of government.

He meant that we all were born with these rights and Government was instituted to secure those rights. Simple stuff really, nothing to do with the supernatural or supernatural creatures or scientist Jackson Roykirk.

Star Trek Changeling, The

Illogical.

God/ Creator was acknowledged are the endower, which is the only possible way to have rights which are 'unalienable - or above the as the whims of mankind.

Not only are you ignoring the direct statement of the origin of our rights, but you also ignore the reason behind it.

That God even exists is nothing more than opinion,

so any proclamations that are dependent on an opinion for their basis can only be opinions themselves.
 
For purposes of comparison, what to say about an undeserving individual gains the White House but does not believe in free speech...??


Obama nominated a Supreme Court who does not subscribe to free speech as an unalienable right...

Without getting into the specifics of the court case, I don't think Jefferson was saying government should protect all unalienable rights in all cases. Certainly if exercising a right violates someone else's rights it's not protected, or is at least limited to the extent that it does violate others' rights.

If you are referring to speech, outside of the well accorded 'fire in a crowded theatre,' what example do you have in mind where one's speech "violates someone else's rights"?
 
Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton:


'The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms, and false reasonings, is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to a parity of privileges.

You would be convinced, that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator, to the whole human race; and that civil liberty is founded in that; and cannot be wrested from any people, without the most manifest violation of justice.'


There is and was no ambiguity as to the source of our rights, and to what makes them unalienable above the whims of man.
 
Without getting into the specifics of the court case, I don't think Jefferson was saying government should protect all unalienable rights in all cases. Certainly if exercising a right violates someone else's rights it's not protected, or is at least limited to the extent that it does violate others' rights.

I think the litmus test on limiting an unalienable right though has to be whether or not another Individual citizen is harmed, or will predictably be harmed. When we remove the Individual, we leave ourselves open to social engineering by the political class.

Agreed. Certainly Kagan's "societal costs" is not justification. But arguably speech can harm individuals in some contexts.

?
 
He meant that we all were born with these rights and Government was instituted to secure those rights. Simple stuff really, nothing to do with the supernatural or supernatural creatures or scientist Jackson Roykirk.

Star Trek Changeling, The

Illogical.

God/ Creator was acknowledged are the endower, which is the only possible way to have rights which are 'unalienable - or above the as the whims of mankind.

Not only are you ignoring the direct statement of the origin of our rights, but you also ignore the reason behind it.

That God even exists is nothing more than opinion,

so any proclamations that are dependent on an opinion for their basis can only be opinions themselves.

That is not the issue. The issue is that it is stupid on its face, and absurdly illogical, to pretend that 'unalienable' rights exist if man came up with them using his fertile imagination.
 

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