What Constitutes a "Right?"

[Diuretic]

Now, Pub, if you are capable of asking a straight question then do so. A straight question is one bereft of the bullshit that you usually spray around to obfuscate the fact that your reasoning is on shaky ground.

So strip the rhetorical crap out of your posting style long enough to send me a zinger that will flatten me once and for all in this thread.

That or give it a rest. Your choice.

Well Sis, I decide how I write... you decide how you respond...

Here's the last post I directed to you... respond or concede to the point... There's no third option.

There's no potential to ignore it and enjoy some status reserved to respondents... fail to respond, and you concede... Fail to address the point and you concede; fail to offer an intellectually sound, logically valid, well reasoned, cogent argument which speaks to the issue at hand; and you concede...

Now as it stands you ignored this 6 times, thus demonstrating you've no means to answer it; thus conceding to the argument; which granted is by simple default... but that is the best one can do when the opposition refuses to provide greater means.

Coloring your failure through empty rationalizations doesn't change it from a failure; at best it simply dresses up your failure to appear to be something else; and contrary to popular belief... perception is NOT reality; reality is reality.

So I ask you ONCE MORE... and purely to demonstrate your failure; to humiliate you and to discredit your entire anti-theist ideology... your religion:

Now what purpose does morality serve Diur, where there is no life beyond our meager mortality?

Be specific...

I mean using your reasoning; considering that humanity is adrift on a tiny insignificant rock which enjoys a steamy air-bubble... the solar system in which it orbits, could not be less noteworthy and rests beyond the means of an infinitesimal scale to notice...

In the scope of time, humanity will come and go in an imperceptible instant... leaving no trace; having served no purpose; and no one or nothing... will even know that we existed... let alone have benefited from that existence.

So what purpose does your atheist morality serve?

Perhaps you'll reduce us down to the biological imperative to survive... which is absurd... given that there is no chance that such will happen. Humanity will, when our sun expires; burn away... converted into something less than a blip of energy... This a cold hard fact, based upon the certainty established by the scale of space and time which precludes any chance of our colonizing other solar systems.

So biologically, we can survive only to the extent of our solar system and when that ends... we the human species... end with it.

But what's MORE... is that those who inhabit the Earth at that moment will simply be THEM... purely them and nothing BUT them. Any note of you will long since have perished from memory and for all intents and purposes, there will remain no biological trace... thus any good that you managed; any 'bad' that you advanced... will be as if it never occurred...

So what purpose does Morality serve Diur, for the Anti-theist; or using the anti-theist reasoning... what purpose does Morality serve... PERIOD?

Now friends, IF she musters the courage to respond at all, enjoy the indignation wherein she tries to explain why Morality is essential to a species which will, using her own reasoning, perish without notice; having served no purpose... wherein she will pride herself in what she claims is the reality that life is pointless... while she rationalizes a need for people to 'be nice,' while enduring the otherwise, pointless exercise.

Morality manages the very natural manifestations of the biological imperative in humans.

 

[Care4all]

Just a Reminder of where us Americans have stood in the past on this issue...

rereading this, gives goose bumps...

but at the same time...when mentioning the rights of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness....

ALL OF THIS pertains to each individual within a society... some even say this was regarding vocational rights....but i'll pass that by...

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

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.

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. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

 

[JW Frogen]

Interesting discussion but beyond rhetorical assertion I have read no convincing argument natural rights either exist or can be empirically proven.

I use the word empirically as no right can be proven to be derived from any other source other than nature itself and nature does not grant rights, that ***** Mother mandates survival or punishes with death. She may grant the former and she will inflict the latter.

The concept of natural rights might be a useful human invention to advance survival, or not, depending on the political and historical environment of the time, but that does not mean any human is entitled to them beyond their power to enforce that right. At least not from the perspective of the natural world.

I do believe that political, individual rights, or human rights are a worthy goal or aspiration, that we should attempt to cement them in custom or law, but the delusion that they are either derived from a natural state of the human condition or nature is a dangerous assumption (a- historical as well) that may lead one to slumber in a smug confidence that those rights are inherent, and thus render one less realistic in defense of those rights, rights which are invented, agreed upon, and can be extinguished or disagreed about.

Rights only exists if one has the power to exercise them and the will to defend them.

Nature or history are just as inclined to take them away as grant them.

There is no absolute or natural right to anything.

 

[rubberhead]

A solitary individual in a state of nature is not a society. Agreed?

Two solitary individuals in a state of nature who agree to combine for mutual support are just a pair of mutually supporting individuals. I think when the numbers get a little higher that there is a form of proto-society. That's when relationships between individuals in that grouping become more than implicit as they can be in a two-person grouping and have to be more explicit. The production of explicit rules of relationship is the beginning of the development of rights.

People aren't born with rights, I have to disagree with that. People are born with the potential to become adult human beings, there is no innate concept of rights in a simple biological fact. Rights don't exist outside of human society. I know I'm repeating myself but as yet I haven't been dissuaded otherwise.

To the argument that humans have rights given to them by a supernatural creator I have to say that while I can point to the existence of human society and human behaviour in individuals and collectively, the supernatural creator is an assumption only and has little evidentiary value simply because it is an assumption.

We already went through this.

A solitary individual is not a society. Any number of individuals who never cooperate and always compete is not a society. Right? Those individuals, having the ability to do so, will tend to spread out to the point where they have minimal interaction with their competitors. What effect does this have? They protect their lives. They maximize their freedom. They claim territory. Are they asserting their rights? Probably not in their minds. They're probably just doing what they need to do to survive. Ultimately this is each person's right: To do what is necessary to ensure survival.

Remember, since no one is cooperating it is not a society but still all are behaving in a manner consistent with asserting their rights. Can you present another outcome of this situation? Here are the parameters again:

1) Say 1,000 individuals who are in complete competition - i.e. they never cooperate
2) there is enough space for them to all spread out and have no contact with one another
3) resources are homogeneously distributed - there is no place where they are forced to go and interact
4) they are all equally physically and mentally well-endowed - if one decides to plunder from others they won't improve their chances of survival because it will require just as much if not more work to steal than it will to gather their own resources. Also, since there are no surpluses there is not much to steal.

Your example applies to wild animals as much as it does to the humans you've placed in it. Both wild animals and humans adhere to the biological imperative. And that's all that's happening in your example. Just like wild animals humans living in isolated conditions in your example will respond to the biological imperative. Wild animals don't need rights, I think you might agree that they probably have no conception of rights. The humans in your example have no need of rights either. They are free to survive as they can.

No society, no rights.

Ok, let's pretend that the people in my example are as intelligent as you or I, but for some reason they refuse to cooperate with one another (not so difficult to imagine is it?). Can they still not have a name for their right to survive in spite of not being a member of society?

No rights, no society.

 

[Setarcos]

I say we agree that Morality is a function of the natural order; what God says it is.

Whoe god?

And the anti-theist want to mouth a respect for Morality while leaving the door open to interpretating Morality relative to whatever circumstance is presenting at a given moment; which I feel sorta undermines the whole principle.

Like deciding which of God's laws you want to follow and which were :for another people in another time"?

Have you ever been a slave?

It's not complicated RH... There's God's law; which is the natural order which rests on the highest authority;

demonstrate

 

[rubberhead]

Rights only exists if one has the power to exercise them and the will to defend them.

Nature or history are just as inclined to take them away as grant them.

There is no absolute or natural right to anything.

The first statement I completely agree with.

Nature does not take away your right to defend your rights. It may take your means to protect them, but never your right. People may violate your rights, and if you do not defend them, then you tacitly forfeit them.

The third statement is presented as if it follows from the other two. I don't see how it does. Saying that a right is absolute is kind of suggestive and furthermore it's a bit of a straw man. Natural rights are not like gravity. If your natural rights are violated, there's no automatic reaction from the natural world that comes out of the ether to defend your rights. That's your job. If you don't react, and no one else is there to protect your rights then you tacitly forfeit your rights.

 

[rubberhead]

It's not complicated RH... There's God's law; which is the natural order which rests on the highest authority;

demonstrate

It's pointless, he's just going to quote the bible as evidence.

The Bible is God's Word => The Bible is Absolute Truth => The Bible is God's Word => The Bible is Absolute Truth ...

There's no escape!

 

[JW Frogen]

Rights only exists if one has the power to exercise them and the will to defend them.

Nature or history are just as inclined to take them away as grant them.

There is no absolute or natural right to anything.

The first statement I completely agree with.

Nature does not take away your right to defend your rights. It may take your means to protect them, but never your right. People may violate your rights, and if you do not defend them, then you tacitly forfeit them.

Nature can, indeed will take away any and all rights, it is called death. But even before that, infirmity can limit one’s rights, starvation, floods, disasters; viral infections all can affect how one lives and whether they can exercise their ‘perceived’ rights. And if we call society part of nature (as it is, simply collective human interaction in nature) it too can take away rights, countries can invade other countries and mandate their norms, restrict or eliminate customary rights with brute force. (Indeed this has been the rule in history rather than the exception.)

Revealing there is no such thing as a natural right, there are only rights that can be agreed upon (agreed upon is an important point as even democratic societies change the agreement on just what is a right and what is not all the time, revealing the subjective nature of the term “rights”) and then exercised and defended.

 

[Setarcos]

Nature does not take away your right to defend your rights. It may take your means to protect them, but never your right. People may violate your rights, and if you do not defend them, then you tacitly forfeit them.

The existence f such '"rights" has yet to be demonstrated.

You seem to confuse liberties with "rights".

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

Interesting discussion but beyond rhetorical assertion I have read no convincing argument natural rights either exist or can be empirically proven.

I use the word empirically as no right can be proven to be derived from any other source other than nature itself and nature does not grant rights, that ***** Mother mandates survival or punishes with death. She may grant the former and she will inflict the latter.

The concept of natural rights might be a useful human invention to advance survival, or not, depending on the political and historical environment of the time, but that does not mean any human is entitled to them beyond their power to enforce that right. At least not from the perspective of the natural world.

I do believe that political, individual rights, or human rights are a worthy goal or aspiration, that we should attempt to cement them in custom or law, but the delusion that they are either derived from a natural state of the human condition or nature is a dangerous assumption (a- historical as well) that may lead one to slumber in a smug confidence that those rights are inherent, and thus render one less realistic in defense of those rights, rights which are invented, agreed upon, and can be extinguished or disagreed about.

Rights only exists if one has the power to exercise them and the will to defend them.

Nature or history are just as inclined to take them away as grant them.

There is no absolute or natural right to anything.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Board...

I present you with...

^^^^^ The MODERATE! ^^^^^​

How about a big USMB hand for the the middle of the road; the fence sitters and those who represent that long yellow line!

​

 

[Intense]

Diuretic, What amazes me is that Anyone in Australia being so remote, even considering the history of your Country with England, could be so far removed from Natural Law, and Natural Rights. You will always be limited to what Others dictate that You may have or Keep, or Use, until You Open both Your Eyes and Your Mind. You are Your Own Being. Think about that. You exist as an Individual first, and have nothing of Value to contribute until You Live Self Reliance. You need to be able to stand with the Group and You need to learn to Stand alone when Truth Requires it. Then You have Something to Share out of Conviction. Until You understand the Value of Standing for What You believe to be True, against the Flow of the Mob, You have no Moral Compass, worth contributing. It is damaged goods, damaged for the Expediency of the Totalitarian. I pray You get it, with or without recognizing It's Source. You put not just Yourself, but Everyone around You at the Mercy of Tyranny, by Your Denial of Self, with Your Own Consent, The Dictator's Fantasy and Dream.

Intense - I'm always alert for the slightest indication of totalitarianism. I may not subscribe to others' ideas about natural law and natural rights but I've spent my career defending and protecting social rights and talking and thinking about them. My moral compass is functional - and also nice and shiny

What is the Source of that Moral Compass ...Grass-hopper????

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

I say we agree that Morality is a function of the natural order; what God says it is.

Whoe god?

God...

And the anti-theist want to mouth a respect for Morality while leaving the door open to interpretating Morality relative to whatever circumstance is presenting at a given moment; which I feel sorta undermines the whole principle.

Like deciding which of God's laws you want to follow and which were :for another people in another time"?

Well the laws are there and you've assuradely, the free will to respect and ignore them as you choose; for which you'll most assuraedly be held to account.

Have you ever been a slave?

Oh yeah...

It's not complicated RH... There's God's law; which is the natural order which rests on the highest authority;

demonstrate

Ok... God endows life... thus it follows that such a gift is advanced to be used to one's benefit; following that such would include the rightful entitlement to pursue the fulfillment of that life; the authority of which rests with the highest possible authority; ergo no entity short of that authority can rightfully usurp that right...

Need anything else?

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

Now, Pub, if you are capable of asking a straight question then do so. A straight question is one bereft of the bullshit that you usually spray around to obfuscate the fact that your reasoning is on shaky ground.

So strip the rhetorical crap out of your posting style long enough to send me a zinger that will flatten me once and for all in this thread.

That or give it a rest. Your choice.

Well Sis, I decide how I write... you decide how you respond...

Here's the last post I directed to you... respond or concede to the point... There's no third option.

There's no potential to ignore it and enjoy some status reserved to respondents... fail to respond, and you concede... Fail to address the point and you concede; fail to offer an intellectually sound, logically valid, well reasoned, cogent argument which speaks to the issue at hand; and you concede...

Now as it stands you ignored this 6 times, thus demonstrating you've no means to answer it; thus conceding to the argument; which granted is by simple default... but that is the best one can do when the opposition refuses to provide greater means.

Coloring your failure through empty rationalizations doesn't change it from a failure; at best it simply dresses up your failure to appear to be something else; and contrary to popular belief... perception is NOT reality; reality is reality.

So I ask you ONCE MORE... and purely to demonstrate your failure; to humiliate you and to discredit your entire anti-theist ideology... your religion:

Now what purpose does morality serve Diur, where there is no life beyond our meager mortality?

Be specific...

I mean using your reasoning; considering that humanity is adrift on a tiny insignificant rock which enjoys a steamy air-bubble... the solar system in which it orbits, could not be less noteworthy and rests beyond the means of an infinitesimal scale to notice...

In the scope of time, humanity will come and go in an imperceptible instant... leaving no trace; having served no purpose; and no one or nothing... will even know that we existed... let alone have benefited from that existence.

So what purpose does your atheist morality serve?

Perhaps you'll reduce us down to the biological imperative to survive... which is absurd... given that there is no chance that such will happen. Humanity will, when our sun expires; burn away... converted into something less than a blip of energy... This a cold hard fact, based upon the certainty established by the scale of space and time which precludes any chance of our colonizing other solar systems.

So biologically, we can survive only to the extent of our solar system and when that ends... we the human species... end with it.

But what's MORE... is that those who inhabit the Earth at that moment will simply be THEM... purely them and nothing BUT them. Any note of you will long since have perished from memory and for all intents and purposes, there will remain no biological trace... thus any good that you managed; any 'bad' that you advanced... will be as if it never occurred...

So what purpose does Morality serve Diur, for the Anti-theist; or using the anti-theist reasoning... what purpose does Morality serve... PERIOD?

Now friends, IF she musters the courage to respond at all, enjoy the indignation wherein she tries to explain why Morality is essential to a species which will, using her own reasoning, perish without notice; having served no purpose... wherein she will pride herself in what she claims is the reality that life is pointless... while she rationalizes a need for people to 'be nice,' while enduring the otherwise, pointless exercise.

Morality manages the very natural manifestations of the biological imperative in humans.

ROFLMNAO... As concessions go... that was a BEAUTY!

So we can dispense with the whole 'Theism is not essential to morality' tripe.

All that notion bears is that morality can be defined as being representative as anything to anyone... AKA: Moral relativism: OKA: Pure Evil...

 

[rubberhead]

Nature can, indeed will take away any and all rights, it is called death. But even before that, infirmity can limit one’s rights, starvation, floods, disasters; viral infections all can affect how one lives and whether they can exercise their ‘perceived’ rights. And if we call society part of nature (as it is, simply collective human interaction in nature) it too can take away rights, countries can invade other countries and mandate their norms, restrict or eliminate customary rights with brute force. (Indeed this has been the rule in history rather than the exception.)

Again, you're confused. We are all subject to nature. Since nature is not conscious (as far as we know) it does not 'take away' things. Even if nature is conscious (as in religion), natural death is not a violation of rights. One has the right to do what is in their power to avoid death (i.e. survive), but mortality is a certainty and we humans must operate within its limits. You're making a very lazy argument here. If what you're saying were true, then any rights that we construct would be moot because they too are subject to nature's whims.

Society doesn't take away rights either. Society's members or even leaders can violate the rights of others, but it is within the rights of those victims to defend their rights. A failure to do so is a tacit forfeiture of those rights (as I said in my first response). They are not eliminated until the victims no longer have a means to resist (i.e. they are dead). Even then, just because the violator had the power to deprive the victim of their rights it does not mean they had the right to do so.

Revealing there is no such thing as a natural right, there are only rights that can be agreed upon (agreed upon is an important point as even democratic societies change the agreement on just what is a right and what is not all the time, revealing the subjective nature of the term “rights”) and then exercised and defended.

Rights can be agreed upon. Those which can be agreed upon by all are natural rights. They are those rights which assign maximal responsibility to each person for their own survival while not threatening equal rights for others. The only parameters to which this set of rights are subject are those requisite to survival in a given context and how we define 'responsibility'. But then, any statement we make is subject to whatever axiomatic system within which we are operating. I have a feeling that my axioms are different than yours.

Please think before you post.

 

[rubberhead]

Diuretic, What amazes me is that Anyone in Australia being so remote, even considering the history of your Country with England, could be so far removed from Natural Law, and Natural Rights. You will always be limited to what Others dictate that You may have or Keep, or Use, until You Open both Your Eyes and Your Mind. You are Your Own Being. Think about that. You exist as an Individual first, and have nothing of Value to contribute until You Live Self Reliance. You need to be able to stand with the Group and You need to learn to Stand alone when Truth Requires it. Then You have Something to Share out of Conviction. Until You understand the Value of Standing for What You believe to be True, against the Flow of the Mob, You have no Moral Compass, worth contributing. It is damaged goods, damaged for the Expediency of the Totalitarian. I pray You get it, with or without recognizing It's Source. You put not just Yourself, but Everyone around You at the Mercy of Tyranny, by Your Denial of Self, with Your Own Consent, The Dictator's Fantasy and Dream.

Intense - I'm always alert for the slightest indication of totalitarianism. I may not subscribe to others' ideas about natural law and natural rights but I've spent my career defending and protecting social rights and talking and thinking about them. My moral compass is functional - and also nice and shiny

What is the Source of that Moral Compass ...Grass-hopper????

Yeah, which way is North on that compass? The magnetic poles in the moral world will lead you to the definition of natural rights. The poles may shift as the parameters of human existence change. There are things beyond our control that can affect our moral universe, but I wholeheartedly agree with Intense's implication that there must be a magnetic pole that draws the needle of your compass. At all times we stand between anarchy and fascism. I say that anarchy is what we need to evolve towards, but we will not be ready to live in it until we understand and abide and respect equal freedom and responsibility for all. So we are pulled toward fascism by our own shortcomings.

 

[Diuretic]

Diuretic, What amazes me is that Anyone in Australia being so remote, even considering the history of your Country with England, could be so far removed from Natural Law, and Natural Rights. You will always be limited to what Others dictate that You may have or Keep, or Use, until You Open both Your Eyes and Your Mind. You are Your Own Being. Think about that. You exist as an Individual first, and have nothing of Value to contribute until You Live Self Reliance. You need to be able to stand with the Group and You need to learn to Stand alone when Truth Requires it. Then You have Something to Share out of Conviction. Until You understand the Value of Standing for What You believe to be True, against the Flow of the Mob, You have no Moral Compass, worth contributing. It is damaged goods, damaged for the Expediency of the Totalitarian. I pray You get it, with or without recognizing It's Source. You put not just Yourself, but Everyone around You at the Mercy of Tyranny, by Your Denial of Self, with Your Own Consent, The Dictator's Fantasy and Dream.

Intense - I'm always alert for the slightest indication of totalitarianism. I may not subscribe to others' ideas about natural law and natural rights but I've spent my career defending and protecting social rights and talking and thinking about them. My moral compass is functional - and also nice and shiny

What is the Source of that Moral Compass ...Grass-hopper????

Society of course. I learned about the values of my society as a developing human being.

 

[Diuretic]

Well Sis, I decide how I write... you decide how you respond...

Here's the last post I directed to you... respond or concede to the point... There's no third option.

There's no potential to ignore it and enjoy some status reserved to respondents... fail to respond, and you concede... Fail to address the point and you concede; fail to offer an intellectually sound, logically valid, well reasoned, cogent argument which speaks to the issue at hand; and you concede...

Now as it stands you ignored this 6 times, thus demonstrating you've no means to answer it; thus conceding to the argument; which granted is by simple default... but that is the best one can do when the opposition refuses to provide greater means.

Coloring your failure through empty rationalizations doesn't change it from a failure; at best it simply dresses up your failure to appear to be something else; and contrary to popular belief... perception is NOT reality; reality is reality.

So I ask you ONCE MORE... and purely to demonstrate your failure; to humiliate you and to discredit your entire anti-theist ideology... your religion:

Now what purpose does morality serve Diur, where there is no life beyond our meager mortality?

Be specific...

I mean using your reasoning; considering that humanity is adrift on a tiny insignificant rock which enjoys a steamy air-bubble... the solar system in which it orbits, could not be less noteworthy and rests beyond the means of an infinitesimal scale to notice...

In the scope of time, humanity will come and go in an imperceptible instant... leaving no trace; having served no purpose; and no one or nothing... will even know that we existed... let alone have benefited from that existence.

So what purpose does your atheist morality serve?

Perhaps you'll reduce us down to the biological imperative to survive... which is absurd... given that there is no chance that such will happen. Humanity will, when our sun expires; burn away... converted into something less than a blip of energy... This a cold hard fact, based upon the certainty established by the scale of space and time which precludes any chance of our colonizing other solar systems.

So biologically, we can survive only to the extent of our solar system and when that ends... we the human species... end with it.

But what's MORE... is that those who inhabit the Earth at that moment will simply be THEM... purely them and nothing BUT them. Any note of you will long since have perished from memory and for all intents and purposes, there will remain no biological trace... thus any good that you managed; any 'bad' that you advanced... will be as if it never occurred...

So what purpose does Morality serve Diur, for the Anti-theist; or using the anti-theist reasoning... what purpose does Morality serve... PERIOD?

Now friends, IF she musters the courage to respond at all, enjoy the indignation wherein she tries to explain why Morality is essential to a species which will, using her own reasoning, perish without notice; having served no purpose... wherein she will pride herself in what she claims is the reality that life is pointless... while she rationalizes a need for people to 'be nice,' while enduring the otherwise, pointless exercise.

Morality manages the very natural manifestations of the biological imperative in humans.

ROFLMNAO... As concessions go... that was a BEAUTY!

So we can dispense with the whole 'Theism is not essential to morality' tripe.

All that notion bears is that morality can be defined as being representative as anything to anyone... AKA: Moral relativism: OKA: Pure Evil...

The gasps of the religious absolutist upon realising that morality doesn't depend on religion for its existence.

 

[rubberhead]

Nature does not take away your right to defend your rights. It may take your means to protect them, but never your right. People may violate your rights, and if you do not defend them, then you tacitly forfeit them.

The existence f such '"rights" has yet to be demonstrated.

You seem to confuse liberties with "rights".

Ok, then define both of those terms and explain why you believe that I'm confused. Until then...

Here's what I think:

rights: those things to which people are naturally entitled
liberties: those actions which people are free to perform

Note: certain liberties are rights. Namely those which don't deprive others of their rights.

These are off-the-cuff definitions and I'm sure we'll find some way of refining them. The key here is to argue constructively. Merely saying that I'm wrong isn't an argument. I think you're wrong. How about that? Where do we go from here? Should we just go back and forth saying that we disagree with each other? If that's what you want, then we can just ignore each other and you could go circle jerk with someone who agrees with you.

 

[rubberhead]

Intense - I'm always alert for the slightest indication of totalitarianism. I may not subscribe to others' ideas about natural law and natural rights but I've spent my career defending and protecting social rights and talking and thinking about them. My moral compass is functional - and also nice and shiny

What is the Source of that Moral Compass ...Grass-hopper????

Society of course. I learned about the values of my society as a developing human being.

Begging the question: What guides society's compass? There must be something. Clearly it is the members of society, but they do not merely randomly and individually choose how to shift the accepted ethos. There is something guiding them. Pray tell, what is it?

 

[Setarcos]

Interesting discussion but beyond rhetorical assertion I have read no convincing argument natural rights either exist or can be empirically proven.

I use the word empirically as no right can be proven to be derived from any other source other than nature itself and nature does not grant rights, that ***** Mother mandates survival or punishes with death. She may grant the former and she will inflict the latter.

The concept of natural rights might be a useful human invention to advance survival, or not, depending on the political and historical environment of the time, but that does not mean any human is entitled to them beyond their power to enforce that right. At least not from the perspective of the natural world.

I do believe that political, individual rights, or human rights are a worthy goal or aspiration, that we should attempt to cement them in custom or law, but the delusion that they are either derived from a natural state of the human condition or nature is a dangerous assumption (a- historical as well) that may lead one to slumber in a smug confidence that those rights are inherent, and thus render one less realistic in defense of those rights, rights which are invented, agreed upon, and can be extinguished or disagreed about.

Rights only exists if one has the power to exercise them and the will to defend them.

Nature or history are just as inclined to take them away as grant them.

There is no absolute or natural right to anything.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Board...

I present you with...

^^^^^ The MODERATE! ^^^^^​

How about a big USMB hand for the the middle of the road; the fence sitters and those who represent that long yellow line!

​

So you attack those who don't blindly follow dogma?