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Why does everyone have a different set of rights? If rights come from god, how the hell do we know which rights god intends for us to have? Did they consult god for his opinion every 27 times they amended the constitution? Did god speak to them in visions and outline it for them? Even if rights come from god, if god doesn't specify which rights he wants us to have then ultimately it is just humans making the decisions.
Rights as a concept are inventions by the various human communities who enforce them. They are good inventions, yes, but inventions nonetheless. Groups of people got together and said that society would function better if the state absolutely could not do this that and the other. "God" did not tell them that.
As has been said, rights can be and are stepped on all the time. Just because we don't like the reality that we are ultimately at the mercy of our fellow man doesn't mean that we can invent an alternate reality.
Jefferson chose the words "their creator" carefully.
It was so not to alienate any religion, or those who didn't believe in a creator. Thats why its "their" creator.
At any point, the Declaration of Independence isn't an official United States document.
Actually they didn't. The phrase was not present in either Jefferson's or Adams' original drafts of the Declaration.
We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable, that all men are created equal and independent; that from that equal creation they derive in rights inherent and unalienables, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty and the pursuit of happiness;
Where the wording, "their creator" originated is anyone's guess at this point.
strange, the documents that the USA was founded upon believed that our rights were god given rights, not rights given to the people via goverment.
See the post above.
As for document(s) the only document that mentions anything that could be construed as being a reference to god is the Declaration of Independence and even then it refers to a ambiguous creator, not a god. The Constitution makes no mention of either god or a creator, and it is the only document which enumerates what rights Americans have or don't have.
By the way, if life and liberty are ordained by god and granted upon "his children". Then it stands to reason that only god can revoke those rights. If that is the case then we have a lot of celestial explaining to do when it comes to capital punishment and deprivations that result from imprisonment.
Yes there are. The ones you ensure for yourself, like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Ah, but if they only happen because you ensure them through your own efforts, they aren't "rights" but something you worked to get. As I said, you only have such "rights" as you can personally defend.
strange, the documents that the USA was founded upon believed that our rights were god given rights, not rights given to the people via goverment.
The operative word in your post is "believed" that does not make it a fact. A belief is a matter of personal opinion.
Also nobody gives you rights. Government in most cases is more interested in taking away your rights than preserving them. As a citizen it's up to YOU to protect your rights. A fact most Americans increasingly fail to regard at their own peril.
What is god, like what ought be, is different to different people. The one thing I hope people would believe is that their right to life and liberty is not because of the will of other people but more important than that.
In that too, you are ultimately hoping that community consensus will reach that conclusion. Because that is the only avenue for rights to arise and become accepted as "true."
Quote:
Originally Posted by lionking
God or higher power, or faith in something that is beyond is not always a bad thing. It is all in context. The "will of god" has been misused that yes, had people being a tyranny over others. But the will of "the people" can be misused just as much.
Welcome to the human condition.
I, however, will always have a marked preference for decisions that are fact based and reasoned to over decisions that derive from "holy writ" or the whispering of the "Holy Spirit" into some evangelist's ear.
Exclusive monotheism (read Islamo-Christianity) is arguably the single most destructive conception of the human imagination. No other human endeavor from Maoism to nuclear weapons can claim as many victims across all of human history. The Islamic conquest of the Indian sub-continent alone killed more than 80 million people... and they did it the old fashioned way with swords, spears and knives.
I believe my antipathy towards a "divine" origin of human rights is honestly reached.
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