If "Our Creator" endowed us with rights...

Yes, constitutional law. You wouldn’t understand.

 

Well, there is only one creator and every government in the world has had their own particular views on what rights you get. And, those were decisions made by humans - not a god or nature.

One can say that humans have an inate need for certain rights - that we are built that way.

But, we say we have rights if and when we are actually allowed to exercise them.

We had (have) a civil rights movement - BECAUSE we have people who do not have those rights.

There are billions of humans on Earth and only some of them have the rights we recognized as necessary. The others don't have those rights.

This can't be written off as a terminology thing. We continue to have a serious need for governments (here and abroad) to grant and protect the rights of their citizens on an ongoing basis.

 

And, if you exercise those rights you can be put to death?

I just think your terminology is mixed up. A right isn't a NEED for a right - it's an actual right.

There aren't multile creators - one for white Christian Americans and others for other places and religions or ne for now and others for times past. Puritans didn't have their own separate creator.

Yet the citizens of Earth have now and have had monumentally different rights - BECAUSE they had different governmnets.

Your claim does't work until you can explain how those living under Puritan rule in the US did not have rights of religious freedom.

Your claim doesn't work until you can explain how those living in North Korea don't have rights of speech.

 

By "denomination" I assume you mean denomination of ANY religion. And, by "legislature" you mean the federal government as a whole.

The parts of our government that were serious advancements didn't come from Christianity. They came from years of experience in government - philosophy on the rights of man, experience with kings, experience with government and religion being joined, of civil war for religious dominance, of service to popes in remote locations, etc.

So, we got a three part government with checks and balances. We got a government that excludes religion (the only way to have religious freedom) We got enumerated rights that neither governmnet nor citizens may abrogate without demonstrating serious need. We got government of/by/for the people - requiring democracy.

Those are the major advancements (did I miss something?) and they didn't come from the Bible.

Laws enforcing what is right and wrong (theft, murder, property, taxation, etc.) have formed in every nation, regardless of religion.

The Bible is about duty. It's about how our time on Earth is 0% of total existence and thus is of no consequence other than as a testing ground to see how we face our mortality, our original sin, and our duties.

 

[QUOTE="WillReadmore, post: 1071706766, member: 64140"]Well, there is only one creator and every government in the world has had their own particular views on what rights you get. And, those were decisions made by humans - not a god or nature.

One can say that humans have an inate need for certain rights - that we are built that way.

But, we say we have rights if and when we are actually allowed to exercise them.

We had (have) a civil rights movement - BECAUSE we have people who do not have those rights.

There are billions of humans on Earth and only some of them have the rights we recognized as necessary. The others don't have those rights.

This can't be written off as a terminology thing. We continue to have a serious need for governments (here and abroad) to grant and protect the rights of their citizens on an ongoing basis.[/QUOTE]

Non-responsive.
Go back and read the OP and try again.

 

Non-responsive.
Go back and read the OP and try again.[/QUOTE]
I think my post answered that.

We don't actually need to bring the question of god into this discussion at all.

It's pretty clear that humans are constructed such that they have a need for certain rights.

Whether one believes god created Adam and Eve, that mankind evolved, or that man came about due to alien seeding of the planet or some other event from some other religion doesn't really matter, since we know that humans have a need for certain rights due to their nature.

 

Non-responsive.
Go back and read the OP and try again.[/QUOTE]
I think my post answered that.

We don't actually need to bring the question of god into this discussion at all.

It's pretty clear that humans are constructed such that they have a need for certain rights.

Whether one believes god created Adam and Eve, that mankind evolved, or that man came about due to alien seeding of the planet or some other event from some other religion doesn't really matter, since we know that humans have a need for certain rights due to their nature.

 

According to the laws of this country, the government did not grant nor create Rights:

“By the "absolute rights" of individuals is meant those which are so in their primary and strictest sense, such as would belong to their persons merely in a state of nature, and which every man is entitled to enjoy, whether out of society or in it. The rights of personal security, of personal liberty, and private property do not depend upon the Constitution for their existence. They existed before the Constitution was made, or the government was organized. These are what are termed the "absolute rights" of individuals, which belong to them independently of all government, and which all governments which derive their power from the consent of the governed were instituted to protect.” People v. Berberrich (N. Y.) 20 Barb. 224, 229; McCartee v. Orphan Asylum Soc. (N. Y.) 9 Cow. 437, 511, 513, 18 Am. Dec. 516; People v. Toynbee (N. Y.) 2 Parker, Cr. R. 329, 369, 370 (quoting 1 Bl. Comm. 123) - {1855}


“The absolute rights of individuals may be resolved into the right of personal security, the right of personal liberty, and the right to acquire and enjoy property. These rights are declared to be natural, inherent, and unalienable.” Atchison & N. R. Co. v. Baty, 6 Neb. 37, 40, 29 Am. Rep. 356 (1877)

“Men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,-'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;'and to 'secure,'not grant or create, these rights, governments are instituted." BUDD v. PEOPLE OF STATE OF NEW YORK, 143 U.S. 517 (1892)

Do you know something that the United States Supreme Court didn't know?

 

That verbiage is so nonsensical that it cannot logically be responded to. Any one of your questions is a thread unto itself - at least those that have a meaning in English.

The way you worded your post needs to be worked on. I'll take a swag at what I can:

All of the founders / framers wanted to establish a nation consistent with the fact that they rightly believed that America was the New Jerusalem. In order for that to work, they did not name our ONE Creator by name. And, again, some people dared not just say God NOR did they want to unravel their efforts by mentioning God under many of the names man has given him. No country has ever had their unalienable, God given, inherent, absolute, irrevocable, natural Rights guaranteed by law under a Constitution.

That sets the United States apart from the rest of the nations of the world. It is destiny - a prophecy made in the Bible. Why don't people all over the world enjoy these Rights?

"... and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.." Genesis 12: 3

Do the countries that you have concerns about worship a Christian God, as matter of their customs? It's a rhetorical question. People still have Rights. That does not mean that another individual can't take them from you. You have a Right to Life. That does not mean that another human being cannot murder you. When you conflate destiny, the people of the Book, and individual Rights, you are merely creating a word salad designed to create smoke and mirrors in an effort to avoid what is obvious. I know your next set of criticisms will be a little more articulate.

 

Of course not.

And, I note the point that these rights are not related to any religion - they would be there regardless. So, I appreciate that you would recognize that.

As is said in your cite, these rights are rights "which every man is entitled to enjoy".

It doesn't say that every man actually enjoy those rights. And, we certainly know it would be ridiculous to say that they do.

Taken as a complete statement of the situation, your interpretation of the cite would mean that those in most other countries have their full set of rights. They are humans - the only requirement.

I think this may be a matter of terminology, and I'm willing to be flexible on that.


As a terminology issue, I think that's just not how we talk about this issue. We say those in China don't have rights. We notice that those in Palestine do not have rights. Those in our original colonies didn't have rights.

I believe the court is saying that by the very composition of humans, we are entitled to enjoy these rights. We can't be made as we are and then have these rights denied.

 

I don't believe ANYONE thinks that the New Jerusalem movement is independent of religion.

The above can't be responded to until you figure out how to remove your religion from it.

Madison, our constitution's author, had a strong record of doing just that. Our founders clearly understood that to have freedom of religion, our government would have to stay out of religion entirely.

 

When I began this discussion with you, I told you that you wanted an argument. You toss out what non-believers want to believe in the hopes of NOT discussing the issue at hand.

I went back over this entire thread, reading all the posts therein, especially those where you and I interacted. I'm going to give you a summation of what it is you are arguing and the facts that refute your positions. Actually, you don't even know what you are arguing about. In post # 143 I refuted one myth that you were perpetuating. Maybe that is what is causing you to double down on this, but I digress. the OP asked in post # 1:

"If there is no "Creator" or "God" then do any "rights" actually exist or is this construct merely an illusion used to claim a special status when no such status actually exists?"

You tried taking us down some side streets by bringing up slavery in post # 229. You then commented on it in posts # 239, 250, 277, 353, and 406. Each time I responded, you claimed it was not what the thread was about. You brought up racism and segregation in posts # 258 and 341. You have denied the irrefutable facts regarding our Rights in the United States. The Declaration of Independence states:

"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."

Furthermore, I quoted the author on the meaning of Creator and we find it associated with a Christian God in the Virginia Constitution of 1776.

The rulings of many courts have been used to show that your unalienable Rights were NOT granted by government, but are presumed to be preexisting Rights that are above the government. This is the foundational principle upon which our REPUBLIC rests. America was founded on the presupposition that there IS a God, a Christian God as no Christian would sign a document giving any other God control over their lives. IF they did, all of them would have been in violation of the FIRST COMMANDMENT. If you want to make any other argument, your argument is with the founders, framers, and the earliest Court holdings up to and including the United States Supreme Court which RULED that :

“Men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,-'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;'and to 'secure,'not grant or create, these rights, governments are instituted. BUDD v. PEOPLE OF STATE OF NEW YORK, 143 U.S. 517 (1892)

Plain and simple. The United States Supreme Court ruled that government does not grant nor create unalienable Rights. If you disagree, your argument is with the United States Supreme Court. I feel that you have been adequately responded to and the only thing you're doing is to rehash the points we've already made more than three times in this thread. I have fully refuted your arguments in posts # 254, 25, 260, 346, 377, and 446. According to the founders, framers, and the early Court decisions you are WRONG. So, what I'm saying is honest, accurate, and documented within the above posts. Despite all of that, you may deny it, so I will leave anyone else with an analogy here:

If a man bursts into a restaurant where you and your family are having a meal and he demands your cell phones, wallets, jewelry, purses, cash and other valuables at the point of a gun, you will comply. He has the POWER to make you give up what you own. It might be illegal, immoral, and a violation of your Rights, but that is reality. He had the POWER to take what you own, but he lacked the AUTHORITY. WillReadmore's argument falls on that analogy. Might makes right. IF that is the case, you may want them to go ahead and abolish any laws that make armed robbery a crime if you don't have any Rights. THAT is all that WillReadmore's argument boils down to. In the United States, the founders and framers believed that you had God given Rights and they guaranteed them via the Bill of Rights. Contrary to WillReadmore's filibustering, Christianity remained an integral part of our laws (especially in defining what should be legal and illegal.) That way, no matter what the majority of people said, the government is obligated to guarantee those Rights. If you enjoy those Rights, then this discussion is over. If you hate the concept of Rights, stick with WillReadmore. If you want to read my view see the posts on this thread that are listed in the above paragraph.

I do NOT agree with the name of this group, but found this revealing and worthy of mention:

http://lgirs.org/rights.html

 

The Constitution was written by deists who believed in reason over revelation and dropped the notion of an active God who intervened in human affairs. They were informed by secular attitudes of the Enlightenment with principals of religious tolerance, rule by consent of the people, economic liberty, equality among men and protection of man's natural rights.

"God-given" rights of the 21st century are different than the 18th century. Back then, all "free men" were created equal, but not women and certainly not slaves. They believed in freedom of religion unless you were a pagan, heathen or a savage.

So "God-given" rights imply immutable rights and that has never been the case. They evolve and change. The godly ignore that fact to assign heavenly weight to the rights they want to get behind and other rights like same-sex marriage may be the product of the devil.

To answer your question, rights are a construct that are an important social framework agreed upon by the participants so society functions smoothly. That is, until enough of them get sick of the status quo and change it.

 

If a man bursts into a restraunt and makes demands of you it certainly is a power issue, but it is also a law issue.

What happens could be covered by various aspects of our law - such as if the demand is made by authority. That athority could actually allow you to be shot dead (the ultimate denial of rights) if it is consistet with due process of law.

Our laws are made by legislatures. These laws can't have the Christian concept of sin as their sole basis or they would be susceptible to challenge.

 

"principals?": Okay. Label it any way you like, but those who hold to what they were taught in public school get it wrong most of the time. Now, this conversation strays away from "IF" the Creator endowed us with Rights to the age old argument over whether or not America was founded as a Christian nation... and that opens the door for non-believers to make this conversation over whether America was designed to have no values because the founders / framers did not found a theocracy.

edna kawabata what you say is, at best, a half truth. The fact that you write about pagans, heathen and savages not being inclusive of the Republic shows that you understand we were not founded as a multicultural country. You are to commended in understanding that. Since America was founded on Christian principles, women did not have the privilege of voting. That is because we were founded on those Christian principles, voting was a privilege of land ownership, and the husband is the head of the house. There are some biblical precepts for you. Then non-believers want to go back to the slavery issue.

The United States of America - once they won the War of Independence and ratified their own Constitution, they began phasing out slavery. IT'S IN THE CONSTITUTION! The colonists that hammered out the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution had no direct say in slavery. They were under the jurisdiction of Great Britain. It's not rocket science. No, they did not just set the slaves free. That would have been irresponsible, inhumane, counterproductive and probably would have ended with most slaves being killed by Indians and property owners because homeless slaves would had to raid the haves in order to eat. The politicians of the day did as much as they could gradually eliminate the institution of slavery. And the reality is that, despite the fact that we only allowed whites to become citizens, people from every corner of the world came to take advantage of the economic opportunities. The Jews invested in the building of the government and even helped finance the war effort; the Chinese built the railroad for the most part. But, we still incorporated the Anglo Saxon system of jurisprudence / English common law and the Preamble of the Constitution still announces its purpose:

"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."

The terminology "ourselves and our Posterity" is the white race. That is indisputable. Our first naturalization law written only months after the ratification of the Constitution in 1790 limited citizenship to whites. But NONE of that is relevant. Voting is not a Right. It's a privilege. Citizenship is not a Right. It is a privilege. You conflate privileges with Rights and that is why you have to make a bogus argument that our country was strictly secular with no reflection of the values of its people. Well, when you began to learn the difference between principals and principles, you might begin understanding the difference between Rights and privileges.

 

The more desperate you become to remain relevant in this conversation, the more bizarre your replies.

If the government ever gives anybody the authority to run into a restaurant with a loaded firearm and demand the patrons valuables - and then call it due process, that should be the day you figure out why the framers left us with a Second Amendment.

 

I really don't see the phasing out of slavery is relating to this topic in any serous way. Slavery has been considered wrong by various societies since way BC. And, that's just one example of civil rights progress that took a civil war and continues today as we gradually attempt to see beyond irrelevancies such as religion, skin color, sexual preferences, etc. toward actual recognition of equality.

The thing about privileges is based on the requirement on government for equal treatment. If some white dude (like me) gets a privilege from government then everyone else has a right to that, too - because of the requirement for equal treatment under the law.

There can be exceptions to that, but that requires a significant justification that passes court scrutiny.

 

As I specified, the case I mentioned would be legal only if the person runnig into the restaurant had authority to do so - such as arresting the diner.

The constitution gave us gun rights beause our defense was dependant on having well organized militia capability that required individuals to be armed. Today, our defense is not predicated on that. We have a DoD, National Guard, Coast Guard, extensive policing and investigative power, etc. And, those don't have anything to do with individual arms ownership.

 

you do realize if humans decide what rights people have then they don't have any. You just have privileges until humans decide you don't anymore.

I wonder why atheists are so incredibly committed to they're not being a god existing that they're willing to throw out philosophy because it contains a god concept.

Is your belief system really that fragile?

that's exactly what is meant by endowed by your creator.

How can humans be built that way but not created that way?

Your parsing some really funny words.

Created you have a problem with but don't you don't. Is it because create sounds too much like creationism?

and if we want to we can just take them away.

oh but we people can be built that way but not created because created is a bad word but built is okay even though in this context there synonyms.

I know everybody has these rights it's just whether or not the government recognizes it.

I don't think people in North Korea are any less people than people in Florida. If you're saying they don't have those rights because of their in North Korea you are saying they aren't as good as Americans. I save people in North Korea don't have rights it's because their government is a bastard.

but then again I have a consistent philosophy and it's not clouded with my angst over the word create.

I don't think you really grasp the concept of Rights. You are confusing them with privileges. They are not granted by governments. They are limits on government. It is a rule is that the government cannot do something such as put you in jail for practicing your religion.

if it's something the government just grants it's something the government can just take away kind of like your driver's license.

I think you're just like a religious person mostly because you believe in magic words you're perfectly happy with a synonym as long as it's not the magic word.

 

yes it absolutely is. Defense against what? Do you know what the militia in the Second Amendment was defense against?

that's federal government, the militia is to fight federal government. The Second Amendment isn't there to defend the country from foreign enemies. It's so the people can defend themselves against the government of this country. I would say the Second Amendment is far more necessary now than it ever has been because of people like you you don't understand what the point of the militia is.

 

It identifies that a "well ordered" militia is necessary for the "security of a free state" makes it quite clear that these militias were for the defense of the state.

If it were necessary for opposing that acts of a free state it would not matter whethher the milita were "well ordered" and it wouldnt have to do with "security".

The founders didn't believe that theirs was the last revolution in the US, but the 2nd amendment wasn't there to facility more revolutions or to facilitate attacks on the state from within.

 

no it's is a well regulated militia. Regulated in this sense means supplied. Not ordered.

Yes it is about the defense of the state from the federal government.

the amendments still doesn't say well-ordered, it says well regulated. Are you agree with you well ordered wouldn't have anything to do with security that's why the amendment doesn't say that.

Regulated means supplied not ordered.

False. It is exactly for the purpose of freeing the state from its government.

It's not about military if it was it would say so.

 

Ensuing armed insurrection is well supplied certainly makes no sense to me as something so important that it much be enabled as a top level absolute for the nation.

Also, the use of "State" in that one sentence amendment is referring to the USA. When the constitution refers to individual state it uses the plural, uses a number of states (like "nine states") uses "several states", etc.

Suggesting that the 2nd amendment is a call for each state to be armed in order to defend itself against the federal government isn't a rational interpretation. It would have specified "each state" or "the several states", or some other formalism that identified that the defense of the USA as a whole isn't the issue. Besides, at that time militias are how we had defended ourselves from external threats, and assuring that such capability still existed WAS a issue.

 

Oops, I spelled principle wrong. What a dumb mistake. Speaking of dumb mistakes, I did not make the "bogus argument that our country was strictly secular with no reflection of the values of its people". You pulled that out of thin air and where did you get non-believers believe America was designed to be without values? Strange.

I won't get into your elaborate rationalizations about slavery that wiffs of racism or your view that voting is not a right (see Amendments 15, 19, 26). I won't say anything about the obviously racist interpretation of "ourselves and our Posterity" as meaning the "white race" and not the "People of the United States".

All of that is beside the point of the OP. He asked "If there is no "Creator" or "God" then do any "rights" actually exist or is this construct merely an illusion used to claim a special status when no such status actually exists?" As I wrote before, rights do exist and giving them "god-given" weight is an attempt to give them special status. If they were created by an all seeing powerful God they would be immutable, writ in stone or change through revelation, but as the deists of the 18th Century knew they do change and that it was up to them to delineate them. They drew them from what they considered the best governing ideas of the culture they came from.

 

who cares if it doesn't make sense to you?

the founding fathers were not trying to create another empire they just fought against one.

no really what the state means is the people. That's what the state is not government officials

I'm not interested in your opinion on what's rational.

you are being a bit pedantic here. The state means the people.

It still is. it is more important now than it ever has been because it's people like you who don't understand your own rights you don't even understand what rights are.

The reason we have the Second Amendment is so that we have the ability to kill people within our own government should we have to. A free state must be free from its own government officials.

In this country the people are governed at the consent of the governed the ownership of firearms is the ability to withdraw consent.

If you don't understand this then you have no idea what a republic is.