Do "rights" really exist or are they imaginary?

[mconder]

Honestly, I think humanism was the beginning of the end where liberty is concerned.

Quite logically, if there is no creator, then there are no innate rights. In the absence of a God, might makes right.

 

[Theocrat]

Rights and the Giver of Rights

Yes, rights do exist, but they necessitate an ultimate Authority Who gives those rights. Without such an Authority, there can be no rights because rights then become arbitrary with no standard to establish them by. In that case, rights would then only be imaginary. Of course, the Authority Which I refer to is the triune God, as revealed to us in the Bible (There is no other God than He). Without acknowledging and living unto this God, rights disappear, and human autonomy steps in to establish what rights men have and what ones can be taken away via civil government.

Just in passing, I would say that rights are also conditional. Though the State can (or should) never take away an individual's rights (unless they commit a crime), God has the only Authority to establish rights and to take those rights away when people violate His eternal laws, whether they be moral or civil. Righteousness and obedience to God are keystones to the preservation and blessing of rights within a given society.

Today, we no longer understand that nor teach that as American people. Yet, all of the ills we face today in our political culture and societal norms come from the fact that we refuse to live unto our Creator and rely on Him for sustaining our rights. Instead, we forget about Him and try to "feel around" for what we think rights might be based on our sinful, finite human understanding of the universe. That's why we have an almost impossible time trying to discuss what rights are in threads like this. Each person, making himself the standard of truth, pontificates what he thinks rights are or should be, but no one ever (or rarely) comes with a more sure foundation of how rights are justified in an absolute sense. We become even more confused.

However, our Founding Fathers had a more sure foundation to what rights are, and they viewed them as being self-evident because they believed in an eternal, loving God Who made Himself known to humanity. If we would ever get back to that track of thinking about the nature of rights and how they function in society and government, we would see a great awakening in our political institutions, educational establishments, and everywhere else. Yet, we increasingly hold ourselves in bondage by our need to be autonomous and refusing to acknowledge that there is an Authority out there higher than we Who makes rights intelligible. So, until we make peace with our Creator, we will never have peace, and rights will become all the more imaginary to those who deny the giver of those rights.

 

[Mesogen]

Sure, try to infringe upon those rights and see what this glock does to you.
If you walk into a wall and you hit it... you know it is there.
When you try to walk on my rights, and I hit you... you know where that line is...
Thus, my willingness to define and defend my soveriengty, creates it.

I agree with what you say. Your rights are what you can claim through force or the indifference of others.

I own me, I should have the right to do what I please as long as I do no harm to others or their property.

You no longer own yourself if torchbearer can use his glock to force you to do his bidding, and then you do it.

If rights are imaginary then what becomes of the "legitimate" ( so called ) PURPOSE for government?

POOF!

Collective self-protection. You don't need rights for that, just a will to survive and to live the way you choose. Good luck with everyone else's lifestyle choices getting in the way.

I understand what George is saying, but the entire premise of this country is that we do have rights. Those rights may be disregarded or infringed on, but that doesn't mean we don't rightfully have them.

Just because you feel entitled to something doesn't mean it is yours. Just because you feel like you should be allowed to speak and think anything you want doesn't mean that you can in all circumstances. Some other people will try to stop you.

The rights are still there, just not enforced.
A slave is still human, and still has potential of sovereignty.
BUt that potential doesn't become kinetic until the slave rises up and claims them.
Thus, the right was always there... but isn't realized until you claim it. (just because you didn't know about that extra bank account with a million dollars in it, doesn't mean it didn't exist)
I was giving a tangible. You can use empirical data to point to the evidence of rights existing.

This goes back to your earlier post.

The "right" doesn't exist until you make it exist through force (or others' indifference).

Quite logically, if there is no creator, then there are no innate rights. In the absence of a God, might makes right.

Might makes what happens. Right and wrong are a matter of opinion. Welcome to the real world.

 

[Theocrat]

Fighting for Nothing

I think you are asking the wrong question. If rights are self-evident and exist, then why do some countries have more rights then others, freer then others. If rights do exist then wouldn't it be impossible to break them. If rights exist shouldn't everyone know there rights? I would have to agree with Carlin, rights are imaginary. Also, if you do not fight for your rights you wont have any, if you do then you will. These days rights are slowly becoming extinct.

[Emphasis mine]

So, even though rights are imaginary (according to you and George Carlin), we still have to fight for them? Why fight for something which you believe doesn't exist? Is that not superstition of the highest sort?

 

[Mesogen]

[Emphasis mine]

So, even though rights are imaginary (according to you and George Carlin), we still have to fight for them? Why fight for something which you believe doesn't exist? Is that not superstition of the highest sort?

You fight for what you want. You can call them rights if you want.

 

[mczerone]

Yes, rights do exist, but they necessitate an ultimate Authority Who gives those rights. Without such an Authority, there can be no rights because rights then become arbitrary with no standard to establish them by.

Reason? Logic?

Rights given by a Creator are no rights at all, and if that is your stance, then why would a Creator give something as a "right" when he gives others the power to trample on them?


I don't want to question your personal beliefs, as I do believe we are each entitled to his own, but to claim that rights are part of what a Creator imbued to us is a very large leap in logic, and seems to undercut the notion of "equality" of rights unless every man subscribes to your beliefs.

Bottom line from your post: "Rights" are as real as "God". I agree with that, but I would add that they are independent concepts: one can have found their God but still not respect other's "rights", and one can develop a coherent system of rights without the need for a Creator.

 

[Truth Warrior]

Collective self-protection. You don't need rights for that, just a will to survive and to live the way you choose. Good luck with everyone else's lifestyle choices getting in the way.

Thanks!

BTW, that's a non-responsive reply to my question.<IMHO>

Another question. Why are YOUR "collective self-protection" agencies allowed to violate my choices to live the way I choose?

 

[Theocrat]

To God His Own

Reason? Logic?

Rights given by a Creator are no rights at all, and if that is your stance, then why would a Creator give something as a "right" when he gives others the power to trample on them?


I don't want to question your personal beliefs, as I do believe we are each entitled to his own, but to claim that rights are part of what a Creator imbued to us is a very large leap in logic, and seems to undercut the notion of "equality" of rights unless every man subscribes to your beliefs.

Bottom line from your post: "Rights" are as real as "God". I agree with that, but I would add that they are independent concepts: one can have found their God but still not respect other's "rights", and one can develop a coherent system of rights without the need for a Creator.

Maybe you missed what I said in that post, but I made the point that rights can only be taken away by God. When men and women act contrary to God's ways, one of the consequences is that rights will be taken from them in punishment (just as a parent might send his child to his room for not completing chores). Since God is eternally sovereign, He sometimes uses civil governments as a means to take rights away from a disobedient people (those committing violations of God's moral and civil laws, "criminals," in that sense). This is how God sometimes reckons His power and reveals His righteousness to people in a civil arena, and there are many examples of that in the Bible.

Reason and logic do not justify themselves. They can only make sense by an eternal Being, and that Being is God. He defines what reason and logic are (as He is called the Logos in John's Gospel), and therefore, they are based on God's nature and thinking.

As far as your notion of there being an "equality of rights," I do not deny it. However, you have to realize that because we live in a sinful world, those rights will not always be administered or preserved equally when men live in rebellion to God's revelation. Those who reject God will, oftentimes, not experience such an equality of rights. As I've said before, rights are conditional on righteousness. Without God, the concept of rights cannot be justified consistently, no matter what system is used precluding God's existence. This is the inevitable consequence of trying to formulate theories of "rights" without God in the picture. "Rights" then only become as real as the person who speaks about them, and ultimately, the person with the strongest voice (or largest army) will be the foundation for those rights to life, liberty, property, transportation, etc.

 

[diggronpaul]

Quite logically, if there is no creator, then there are no innate rights. In the absence of a God, might makes right.

Hence, the elite's continual attack on our belief in God.

This is an incredibly scary thread. Why is the OP asking this? Why am I seeing more and more threads recently challenging basic belief systems for which our liberties are founded? This is not a positive trend.

 

[jack555]

I think Carlin hit it right on the nail and said what I've been thinking for a while. Only he is a lot more eloquent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWiBt-pqp0E#t=4m10s

Its obvious that inalienable rights are in our head. However, that doesn't mean we don't have them. All humans more or less know what is reasonable. However, it takes a disciplined man to be reasonable when he doesn't need to be.

It is reasonable to assume everyone has the inalienable right to do whatever they want as long as they harm no one else. Its unreasonable to say otherwise. However if someone points a gun at my head and says I don't have freedom of speech. I no longer have freedom of speech untill the gun is moved.

I have the rights because I say I have them and because its reasonable. Also our government (supposedly) protects our inalienable rights listed in the constitution.

 

[torchbearer]

I agree with what you say. Your rights are what you can claim through force or the indifference of others.



You no longer own yourself if torchbearer can use his glock to force you to do his bidding, and then you do it.



Collective self-protection. You don't need rights for that, just a will to survive and to live the way you choose. Good luck with everyone else's lifestyle choices getting in the way.



Just because you feel entitled to something doesn't mean it is yours. Just because you feel like you should be allowed to speak and think anything you want doesn't mean that you can in all circumstances. Some other people will try to stop you.



This goes back to your earlier post.

The "right" doesn't exist until you make it exist through force (or others' indifference).



Might makes what happens. Right and wrong are a matter of opinion. Welcome to the real world.

force can be used in two ways.
aggression and defense. get a brain.. they should be cheap.(not in high demand these days)

If you step on my rights, and I use force, it is a defense of that right.
Did you fail kindergarten?

 

[mconder]

Might makes what happens.

That may be a better way to put it, but in the absence of a creator and communication between him and man, who is the ultimate authority on was is right? Doesn't right and wrong become relative? Perhaps those with the power to rule with an iron fist are in the right because they help with the natural selection process. Perhaps nature is right and those smarter and stronger should rule over us any way they see fit.

 

[jack555]

You know we can't, yet us people of faith continue to believe and the atheists will never understand something that can only be understood spiritually. We believers understand that there are rights and a God because we don't silence or destroy our spiritual natures. I think an atheist/agnostic has a chance to discover these things if they soften their hard hearts. There is an understanding greater than intellect.

Where in the bible does it say you have inalienable rights?

 

[jack555]

dp

 

[mconder]

Where in the bible does it say you have inalienable rights?

I'm Mormon. I don't believe the Bible to be everything that God has ever said to man. We have 3 other works of Scripture which speak to this topic. Though, I think from the Bible you can make the case that people are children of a God and as such have infinite value. Also, from the bible I think you can make the case that God's chosen have a right to defend themselves with force. Living under totalitarian rule is obviously at odds with biblical teachings. The God of the Bible always liberated his chosen when they were righteous and allowed them to enter bondage when they didn't listen. That is certainly biblical, is it not?


"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible" --George Washington

"So great is my veneration for the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read it the more confident will be my hope that they will prove useful citizens of their country and respectable members of society..." --John Quincy Adams

"That book, sir, is the rock on which our republic rests" --Andrew Jackson

"I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given man. All the good from the Savior of the world is communicated to us through this book. But for it we could not know right from wrong" --Abraham Lincoln

President Lincoln was also noted as saying: "It is the duty of nations as well as men to recognize the truth announced in Holy Scripture and proven by all of history that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord."

"Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of your liberties. Write its precepts in your hearts, and practice them in your lives. To the influence of this book are we indebted for all the progress made in true civilization, and to this we must look as our guide in the future. Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a 2 reproach to any people" --Ulysses S. Grant

"If you take out of your statutes, your constitution, your family life all that is taken from the Sacred Book, what would there be left to bind society together?" --Benjamin Harrison

"Almost every man who has by his life-work added to the sum of human achievement of which the race is proud, of which our people are proud, almost every such man has based his life-work largely upon the teachings of the Bible" --Theodore Roosevelt

"We have staked the whole future of American civilization not on the power of government ... not in the Constitution... (but) upon the capacity of each and every one of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments" --James Madison

"The government of a country never gets ahead of the religion of a country. There is no way by which we can substitute the authority of the law for the virtues of men" --Calvin Coolidge

I could find hundreds more quotes like this from almost every founding father, but you all know how to use Google.

 

[Mesogen]

force can be used in two ways.
aggression and defense. get a brain.. they should be cheap.(not in high demand these days)

If you step on my rights, and I use force, it is a defense of that right.
Did you fail kindergarten?

You are defending something you want. You can call it rights if you like. You may feel entitled to these things that you want. It is immaterial.

 

[Mesogen]

Thanks!

BTW, that's a non-responsive reply to my question.<IMHO>

Another question. Why are YOUR "collective self-protection" agencies allowed to violate my choices to live the way I choose?

They are not MY collective self-protection agencies. I'm explaining what government is, not what it should be.

People are stupid and cannot come up with a system of collective self-protection that actually protects them and allows people to do what they want all the time.

 

[mconder]

Please excuse the inclusion of Abraham Lincoln who I view as a traitor to the Republic. It was just a quick cut and paste job.

 

[Truth Warrior]

They are not MY collective self-protection agencies. I'm explaining what government is, not what it should be.

People are stupid and cannot come up with a system of collective self-protection that actually protects them and allows people to do what they want all the time.

Which is WHY your reply was non-responsive, as is this one BTW.

Well the aren't mine either, which is EXACTLY PART of my questions.

Care to try them again?

 

[Mesogen]

Which is WHY your reply was non-responsive, as is this one BTW.

Well the aren't mine either, which is EXACTLY PART of my questions.

Care to try them again?

You asked one question, "If rights are imaginary, then what is the legitimate purpose of government?"

My answer:

The legitimate purpose of government is to protect people from each other. It is to protect what I want from interfering with those things that you want and vice versa.

Some people think that we can live in a "voluntary" society. But, they usually begin to invoke some sort of mechanism intended to protect life and property. Whatever form that mechanism takes, it is by the above definition government.