The Only God Given Right

[Working Poor]

Is the right to choose

 

[squarepusher]

interesting, sounds like philosophical discussion.

Does a baby have the right to choose?

 

[KAYA]

Is the right to choose

Like the right to choose to torture, beat your wife and kids, or behead non-believers? How about the right to choose to kidnap and rape?

Also, before one has the right to choose they have to be alive to choose. Therefore, the right to one's own life would trump the right to choose to kill someone else even if that someone else is one's own child.

 

[WClint]

 

[Dieseler]

You have the guaranteed right to die and remain dead until God decides you will be otherwise.
Now go and live while he still wishes you to do so.
I win.

 

[jmdrake]

I saw this bumper sticker the other day. Interesting.

 

[RyanRSheets]

Like the right to choose to torture, beat your wife and kids, or behead non-believers? How about the right to choose to kidnap and rape?

Also, before one has the right to choose they have to be alive to choose. Therefore, the right to one's own life would trump the right to choose to kill someone else even if that someone else is one's own child.

You always have the right to do these things, but that doesn't mean there won't be a consequence. A right is nothing more than an ability, and a right can only be justly limited if its exercise causes undue harm to other human beings.

 

[Dieseler]

You always have the right to do these things, but that doesn't mean there won't be a consequence. A right is nothing more than an ability, and a right can only be justly limited if its exercise causes undue harm to other human beings.

A right is something you are allowed to do without question or consequence.
You do not have the right to do these things
torture
beat your wife and kid
behead non-believers
kidnap and rape
choose to kill
There are many other things you do not have the right to do.
People still do these things but more often than not they are brought forward to bear the consequences of their actions.
Thus, they are not rights.

 

[InterestedParticipant]

Is the right to choose

Perhaps the most perceptive thread ever posted at RPF.

This is precisely why so much effort is made to limit and preselect your "choices" through the management of perception.

 

[Solidus]

Let's say "Free Agency" as opposed to "right to choose" neh?

 

[fisharmor]

Huh, I spend quite a lot of time trying to discern what God has to say, and I've never come across this.
It's certainly not in anything written which is ascribed to him, that I've so far seen.
Do you have some other text I haven't heard of?
Or does God speak to you directly?

Or... wait a second... are YOU God?

 

[NYgs23]

I think all rights boil down to the sovereign earthly authority one has over oneself.

 

[andrewh817]

Huh, I spend quite a lot of time trying to discern what God has to say, and I've never come across this.
It's certainly not in anything written which is ascribed to him, that I've so far seen.
Do you have some other text I haven't heard of?
Or does God speak to you directly?

Or... wait a second... are YOU God?

There are no such thing as rights. There are no God-given rights because there is no God and you aren't born knowing you have "rights."

You don't have a "right" to free speech, you have the physical ability to speak and write.

 

[KAYA]

There are no such thing as rights. There are no God-given rights because there is no God and you aren't born knowing you have "rights."

You don't have a "right" to free speech, you have the physical ability to speak and write.

You haven't the slightest clue whether or not God exist. To say with certainty that there is no God is to take at least as great a leap of faith as to say with certainty there is a God.

 

[newbitech]

I think we are born with EVERY "right". Some reference for this thread.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=right

right (adj.1) "morally correct," O.E. riht "just, good, fair, proper, fitting, straight," from P.Gmc. *rekhtaz (cf. O.H.G. reht, Ger. recht, O.N. rettr, Goth. raihts), from PIE base *reg- "move in a straight line," also "to rule, to lead straight, to put right" (see regal; cf. Gk. orektos "stretched out, upright;" L. rectus "straight, right;" O.Pers. rasta- "straight, right," aršta- "rectitude;" O.Ir. recht "law;" Welsh rhaith, Breton reiz "just, righteous, wise"). Cf. slang straight "honest, morally upright," and L. rectus "right," lit. "straight," Lith. teisus "right, true," lit. "straight." Gk. dikaios "just" (in the moral and legal sense) is from dike "custom." The noun sense of "just claim" was in O.E. and P.Gmc. As an emphatic, meaning "you are right," it is recorded from 1588; use as a question meaning "am I not right?" is from 1961. The phrase to rights "at once, straightway" is 1663, from sense "in a proper manner" (M.E.). The sense in right whale is "justly entitled to the name." Phrase right off the bat is 1914, earlier hot from the bat (1888), probably a baseball metaphor; right stuff "best human ingredients" is from 1848, popularized by Tom Wolfe's 1979 book about the first astronauts. Right on! as an exclamation of approval first recorded 1925 in black slang, popularized mid-1960s by Black Panther movement. Right of way is attested from 1768.right (adj.2) "opposite of left," 1125, riht, from O.E. riht, which did not have this sense but meant "good, proper, fitting, straight" (see right (adj.1) ). The notion is of the right hand as the "correct" hand. The O.E. word for this was swiþra, lit. "stronger." "The history of words for 'right' and 'left' shows that they were used primarily with reference to the hands" [Buck]. Cf. similar sense evolution in Du. recht, Ger. recht "right (not left)," from O.H.G. reht, which meant only "straight, just." The usual PIE root (*deks(i)-) is represented by Skt. daksina-, Gk. dexios, L. dexter (cf. O.Fr. destre, Sp. diestro, etc.), Ir. dess, Welsh deheu, Goth. taihswa, Lith. desinas, O.C.S. desnu, Rus. desnoj. Other derivations on a similar pattern to Eng. right are Fr. droit, from L. directus "straight;" Lith. labas, lit. "good;" and Slavic words (Boh. pravy, Pol. prawy, Rus. pravyj) from O.C.S. pravu, lit. "straight." The political sense of "conservative" is first recorded 1794 (adj.), 1825 (n.), a translation of Fr. Droit "the Right, Conservative Party" in the Fr. National Assembly (1789; see left). Right wing in political sense is first recorded 1905. Right hand, fig. for "indispensable person" is recorded from 1528; right-hand man first attested 1665.right (v.) O.E. rihtan "to straighten, rule, set up," from riht (adj.); see right (adj.1). Cf. O.N. retta "to straighten," Ger. richten, Goth. garaihtjan.

 

[Krugerrand]

There are no such thing as rights. There are no God-given rights because there is no God and you aren't born knowing you have "rights."

You don't have a "right" to free speech, you have the physical ability to speak and write.

I wasn't born with the ability to speak and write.

 

[newbitech]

Like the right to choose to torture, beat your wife and kids, or behead non-believers? How about the right to choose to kidnap and rape?

Also, before one has the right to choose they have to be alive to choose. Therefore, the right to one's own life would trump the right to choose to kill someone else even if that someone else is one's own child.

those aren't rights, much less "god given".

 

[KAYA]

those aren't rights, much less "god given".

That's exactly my point, thus the originator of this topic is wrong.

 

[newbitech]

A right is something you are allowed to do without question or consequence.
You do not have the right to do these things
torture
beat your wife and kid
behead non-believers
kidnap and rape
choose to kill
There are many other things you do not have the right to do.
People still do these things but more often than not they are brought forward to bear the consequences of their actions.
Thus, they are not rights.

A "right" is what is true, moral, just, straight, fitting, correct. My phrase would be similar to yours, but it would go like this. I will do anything that is true, moral, just, straight, fitting and correct without question or consequence, that is my right.

 

[Dieseler]

A "right" is what is true, moral, just, straight, fitting, correct. My phrase would be similar to yours, but it would go like this. I will do anything that is true, moral, just, straight, fitting and correct without question or consequence, that is my right.

You have a point but in this world some of those things that fall under your true, moral, just, straight, fitting and correct standards might for some odd reason become unlawful or unacceptable by the State and then according the the law you wouldn't have a right to do them any more.
Therefore I created my own definition which fits the ideal better for me,
A right is something you are allowed to do without question or consequence.
It's simple and straight forward.
If it falls outside that definition, then you do not have that right any longer.
That doesn't have a thing to do with what might be right or wrong however.
That is an entirely different ball of wax.