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God given rights. Do you really have any?

Gnostic Bishop

Gnostic Bishop

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God given rights. Do you really have any?

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.

When a right is given to us by governments, they assume and have a duty to ensure that they are never taken from us. If governments do not accept and do this enforcement duty, then citizens have a corrupted government.

If a right is given to a soul, by god, he would have a duty to ensure that they are never taken from us. The fact that they often are, indicates that he is shirking his duty.

To me, rights are like laws, completely useless and worthless unless they can be enforced by a given power when they are breached.

Do you have any real god given rights, or are god given rights just a feel-good lie that we tell ourselves we have so as to ignore that we have none?

Regards
DL
 
Rights only exist when you exercise them. It's like religion. You only have religion if you practise

As soon as you speak, you make promises
 
The right to experience life, yea it may be a temporary right (or maybe we re incarnate) but something is better than nothing
 
I think technically, life is awareness rather than a divine right given by God. God couldn't provide a right to live if everyone has a freewill. That would mean everyone is autonomous and I don't believe that

I think we're spiritually connected by fate
 
"Rights" can be taken away at any moment at the arbitrary whims of nation-states and incompetent public servants.

I don't believe God has anything to do with it, but there are rights that we as humans deserve, to take if we have to. Especially if we are going to say we live in a moral or just society.
 
Gnostic Bishop said:
God given rights. Do you really have any?

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.

When a right is given to us by governments, they assume and have a duty to ensure that they are never taken from us. If governments do not accept and do this enforcement duty, then citizens have a corrupted government.

If a right is given to a soul, by god, he would have a duty to ensure that they are never taken from us. The fact that they often are, indicates that he is shirking his duty.

To me, rights are like laws, completely useless and worthless unless they can be enforced by a given power when they are breached.

Do you have any real god given rights, or are god given rights just a feel-good lie that we tell ourselves we have so as to ignore that we have none?

Regards
DL
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You have that backwards, rights are not granted by any government, though they can be infringed by governments.

God has nothing to do with it.

The duty to ensure that rights are maintained are the responsibility of you, me and everyone. If you don't fight to maintain your rights then you are failing in your duty.
 
It's not so abstract, idealistic, or even spiritual. The basis of the argument is formed on the historical knowledge of what humans will and won't tolerate, and that in turn is based on our nature itself. So yes, "nature" determines it, but not as some third party. It's enacted by the living who are compelled to prop up or tear down certain virtues.

Put another way... if you take away human rights, people will eventually rebel. People will not tolerate certain levels of oppression forever. Most oppression is tolerated because a status quo is being maintained. In other words, it's convenient for now, or the benefits outweigh the downsides. No matter how complex a human system of oppression is, people will outsmart it because they have inherent drives to do so.

Our rights and our nature are pretty much synonymous.
 
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Foreigner said:
It's not so abstract, idealistic, or even spiritual. The basis of the argument is formed on the historical knowledge of what humans will and won't tolerate, and that in turn is based on our nature itself. So yes, "nature" determines it, but not as some third party. It's enacted by living who are compelled to prop up or tear down certain virtues.

Put another way... if you take away human rights, people will eventually rebel. People will not tolerate certain levels of oppression forever. Most oppression is tolerated because a status quo is being maintained. In other words, it's convenient for now, or the benefits outweigh the downsides. No matter how complex a human system of oppression is, people will outsmart it because they have inherent drives to do so.

Our rights and our nature are pretty much synonymous.
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oh look it's the two fruitcake s again

ONLY JOKING ;)
 
novaveritas said:
You have that backwards, rights are not granted by any government, though they can be infringed by governments.

God has nothing to do with it.

The duty to ensure that rights are maintained are the responsibility of you, me and everyone. If you don't fight to maintain your rights then you are failing in your duty.
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i mostly agree with this.

But without God there, or some universally agreed-on moral foundation, it's not clear to me that a human has any "rights" beyond what they can carve out with their actions and weapons. Where is the basis for rights without God? I think in that case "rights" devolve into "things people want" or "things people have negotiated."
 
The only right, as I see it, is the same right that every species on this planet has: a shot to reproduce and to pass on your genes in an attempt to keep your species alive. In other words, you have a right to try to survive.

If we're talking about rights in societal constructs only unique to homo sapiens, then we are given the rights that each individual is afforded by the country you are born into - but that deals with the rights we have in a social construct and only governs homo sapiens.

I'm not sure how to respond to "God given", so I'll just leave that be.

MountainTrails said:
But without God there, or some universally agreed-on moral foundation
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That's correct, religion was used early on to control human behavior. Nowadays, we have laws and religion, among other social constructs (both of them are not physically real - they are just something our species agrees upon and thus controls our behavior). Human beings have used religion of some sort for over 10,000 years for this exact purpose. It may sound nefarious, but it's really not. It allowed us to build societies and achieve something no other species has been able to.

Without it, we would be nothing more than animals trying not to be eaten alive every day for the many other animals that could easily kill and eat us.
 
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I believe that we do. And I think that they include the right of the use of any plant, use of drugs, freedom, and the right to exercise life. That’s because the basic needs or wants of human life are these.
 
Foreigner said:
It's not so abstract, idealistic, or even spiritual. The basis of the argument is formed on the historical knowledge of what humans will and won't tolerate, and that in turn is based on our nature itself. So yes, "nature" determines it, but not as some third party. It's enacted by the living who are compelled to prop up or tear down certain virtues.

Put another way... if you take away human rights, people will eventually rebel. People will not tolerate certain levels of oppression forever. Most oppression is tolerated because a status quo is being maintained. In other words, it's convenient for now, or the benefits outweigh the downsides. No matter how complex a human system of oppression is, people will outsmart it because they have inherent drives to do so.

Our rights and our nature are pretty much synonymous.
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Probably me being picky, but you can't separate nature and spirituality from me. They're one and the same :)
 
71. One might say that the concept 'game' is a concept with blurred edges.--"But is a blurred concept a concept at all?"--Is an indistinct photograph a picture of a person at all? Is it even always an advantage to replace an indistinct picture by a sharp one? Isn't the indistinct one often exactly what we need?

It is a well-worn path of adolescent philosophy to demand a precise axiomatization of "rights"... it rarely leads anywhere fruitful.
 
I think we're born with rights and knowing what they are. I feel I've always known my rights on Earth. However, I do know my limits and can figure out what belongs to me and what doesn't. That's a different issue

I think people can confuse rights with entitlement. I never have but there you have it
 
Righ
Gnostic Bishop said:
God given rights. Do you really have any?

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.

When a right is given to us by governments, they assume and have a duty to ensure that they are never taken from us. If governments do not accept and do this enforcement duty, then citizens have a corrupted government.

If a right is given to a soul, by god, he would have a duty to ensure that they are never taken from us. The fact that they often are, indicates that he is shirking his duty.

To me, rights are like laws, completely useless and worthless unless they can be enforced by a given power when they are breached.

Do you have any real god given rights, or are god given rights just a feel-good lie that we tell ourselves we have so as to ignore that we have none?

Regards
DL
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I look at a concept based on performance rather than rights, that is, God performed by giving me life, and the issue I struggle with is my return performance, living life more or less in line as a Gentile.
 
Gormur said:
Probably me being picky, but you can't separate nature and spirituality from me. They're one and the same :)
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I agree with you, but on the every-day social level people divide them. Also, when they talk about god given unalienable rights (like the words of the founding father), these seem to be enforced through the concept of God, which is spiritual... i.e. God gave us these rights and therefore humans can't take them from one another. To me this causes problems because the concept of God varies so widely among cultures that we can't even decide what "God is". Not to mention we have atheists who don't believe in God at all, so how are human rights explained through that lens?

Conversely, if we define it through human nature, then it means that the desire for fair treatment is in-born and unalienable. To deny humans such rights would lead to societal collapse, eventually.
 
I don´t believe in God but I also don't separate nature from nurture. I'm not sure what other people think. Maybe they're wrong
 
Foreigner said:
Not to mention we have atheists who don't believe in God at all, so how are human rights explained through that lens?
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It's simply really, religion was what was used to govern human behavior prior to most governments. Once governments started making laws, they had to incorporate religion at the time to create the bridge between the two for the people at the time. Now it's mostly laws that govern our behavior - which was the inevitable process.

Laws or religion, doesn't matter much, different means to the same end.
 
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