Do Natural Rights Exist Without Government ?

[Asclepias]

IMO there is no such thing as evil. There are only bad behaviors that are anti-social, detrimental, and frightening to our instinct to belong to a group.

I would quibble here. Nature is not perfect. Many traits and mechanisms that have some evolutionary value may also have severely deleterious results. When any such counterproductive mechanism gets established with regularity, some belief systems treat it as "evil" requiring conscious effort to avoid or overcome.

Take for example anger. You stub your toe and shout an expletive. It hurts. You are in a foul mood. As you pass your dog you are tempted to kick it too if it barks. You are having a bad day. If you don't make an effort to avoid it, you kick the barking dog. The dog in turn bites the mailman. To a Hindu or Buddhist this is passing on bad karma. Abrahamic faiths label it bad behavior or evil. Taoists and Confucians simply call it stupid.

But my point is that all mammals (at least) seemed programmed to react this way when encountering unexpected pain. There is something about the mechanism itself which is self-perpetuating and leads to negative outcomes. On an individual and social level it takes some affirmative recognition and action to stop the chain of events.

Maybe "evil" is too loaded a word for this kind of thing, but it exists and acts like a force of nature. With humans it is incomparably worse because we think about how we think and act. Most of our behaviors are habitual, or random, or instinctive; but we have a need to provide a rational justification after the fact for actions we took with no forethought at all. So we kicked the dog because he was "lazy and wouldn't get out of the way" etc. Do this often enough and you create a fantasy world of how you justify your own unthinking behavior.

And those fantasy worlds are what is truly dangerous. Maybe even evil.

Take for example anger. You stub your toe and shout an expletive. It hurts. You are in a foul mood. As you pass your dog you are tempted to kick it too if it barks. You are having a bad day. If you don't make an effort to avoid it, you kick the barking dog. The dog in turn bites the mailman.

Do you see what you did here? Did the dog bite the mailman because you kicked it or did the dog bite the mailman because the dog was protecting its turf?

Maybe perfect is not the right word for something a divine entity would create or be as in the term "nature" as it is not perfect in terms of the human belief. It supplies all of our needs but not our wants because our particular life form evolved dependent on what was supplied. That would really concern me if there was an imperfect entity making up rights for me and they didn't provide for all of my wants.

I feel that humans are lucky or unlucky enough to have developed the ability to think about what we think about. In doing so we have come up with some really good things for humans along with some really bad ones.

 

[Foxfyre]

In the definition of value you will find the word worth. It is a inherent part of value. If it is in abundance it is worth less. If it is scarce and your need for it is greater it becomes more valuable. It is a natural need not a want.

Undiscovered penicillin has zero value as it is not needed nor is its presence detected. Inalienable rights are akin to penicillin. Once discovered they have some value but if it is taken you don't die because it is not needed in order to maintain the ability. Rights are things people want to have in order to empower themselves to exercise their abilities.

Well if you argue that there is no difference between 'value' and 'worth' then we are back to arguing silly semantics--like some want to argue that the definition of unalienable is the same thing as unalienable rights--even though some do use the two terms of 'value' and 'worth', usually erroneously, interchangeably.

The way I see it:

"Worth" indicates a quantitative or tangible price that one is willing to pay or attribute to something. And that indeed can rise and fall depending on supply and demand.

"Value" is the importance or significance of something. The importance may increase or decrease depending on the urgency of any given situation--for example, how much I value my 'right to life' would not be important in the moments when I risk my life to save my child from imminent danger. And some memento given to us by a parent or grandparent or some other significant person might be worthless as far as what it could be sold for, yet have great value to us personally.

For those who would benefit from it, penicillin is just as important and has value whether it is free or priced like gold, whether it is available or unavailable to us, whether it is discovered or undiscovered. And it exists.

For those who value liberty, unalienable rights have incalculable value as liberty cannot exist without them. Whatever 'rights' aka permissions are granted by a government are not the same thing as what the government allows can be just as easily disallowed.

The U.S Constitution is based on the concept that unalienable rights exist and it is the role of government to recognize and secure them and must never interfere or prohibit the free exercise of them. It is the concept that unalieanble rights exist and cannot be invented or ordained by any government..

And what is an unalienable right? It is whatever requires no contribution or participation by any other and does not infringe on anybody else's ability to enjoy and exercise their rights.

I agree it is not the same thing. I believe worth is inherent in the term value. Thats not semantics thats the smoking gun I saw in the dictionary. If worth was not inherent in the word value who would care about what you value? Its just a starting point. An idea you have in your mind to convey the worth. You may value your home at 1 million but if it will only sale for 500k then that is what it is worth. You are correct inalienable and inalienable rights are 2 different things. In the case of inalienable rights the inalienable is an adj. describing the right.

I dont get why we don't decree certain rights are not up for discussion and stop claiming these rights came from something invisible. It is an argument that shortly will hold no water as people start figuring out they are the victims of their instincts and over active imaginations.

Well that is one perspective, though I think you might have a difficult time providing a logical rationale for why you are right about that.

Some of the more devout believers here, for their own reasons, believe our natural rights do come from God. The Founders expressed it that way. Many/most of the great philosophers who preceded them did not express it that way. A concept of natural rights is not dependent on any form of deity.

But regardless of how they came to be--why is it so difficult to grasp/accept that some things just are? We create words to distinguish or identify them, but we do nothing to create them. Instincts. Appreciation/pleasure. Desire. Hope. A yearning for liberty. Thought.

Nobody taught us to know what is or is not pleasurable for us. Nobody taught us to know what is ugly or beautiful to us. Nobody taught us to desire. Nobody taught us to fall in love. Nobody taught us to imagine. All these come naturally to the human reality as does the desire for liberty. And as with all other components of humankind that exists whether we are aware of them or have words to designate them, liberty, as the Founders understood it, is expressed in natural rights that exist whether or not we are aware of them or have words to define them.

In my opinion, the prejudiced and tunnel visioned and close minded demand that natural rights be a human invention. The enlightened, the one who understands and appreciates what liberty is, knows better.

 

[Asclepias]

Are you sure you are not observing the behavior and labeling it moral? If you are sure can you prove it to me? There is a construct and order to the universe. That is apparent. We cant jump the gun and say it is a divine force that created this perfection and put us very imperfect humans in charge without proof. If i was God there would be no way I would put humans in charge of something I created.

I think you have stumbled into the Taoist view of the universe. In Taoist thought, Tao is perfect, but it is not good. It just is. When humans adjust their behavior in concert with Tao they do better than when they resist Tao. Tao is eternal and no one created it. In one sense, it is simply the basic principles that govern the operation of all things. You can swim upstream or downstream (one being obviously easier than the other) but you cannot change the direction of the river.

Never studied Tao before. Thats pretty much spot on with what I see. i will have to look into the Taoist view.

 

[dilloduck]

Well if you argue that there is no difference between 'value' and 'worth' then we are back to arguing silly semantics--like some want to argue that the definition of unalienable is the same thing as unalienable rights--even though some do use the two terms of 'value' and 'worth', usually erroneously, interchangeably.

The way I see it:

"Worth" indicates a quantitative or tangible price that one is willing to pay or attribute to something. And that indeed can rise and fall depending on supply and demand.

"Value" is the importance or significance of something. The importance may increase or decrease depending on the urgency of any given situation--for example, how much I value my 'right to life' would not be important in the moments when I risk my life to save my child from imminent danger. And some memento given to us by a parent or grandparent or some other significant person might be worthless as far as what it could be sold for, yet have great value to us personally.

For those who would benefit from it, penicillin is just as important and has value whether it is free or priced like gold, whether it is available or unavailable to us, whether it is discovered or undiscovered. And it exists.

For those who value liberty, unalienable rights have incalculable value as liberty cannot exist without them. Whatever 'rights' aka permissions are granted by a government are not the same thing as what the government allows can be just as easily disallowed.

The U.S Constitution is based on the concept that unalienable rights exist and it is the role of government to recognize and secure them and must never interfere or prohibit the free exercise of them. It is the concept that unalieanble rights exist and cannot be invented or ordained by any government..

And what is an unalienable right? It is whatever requires no contribution or participation by any other and does not infringe on anybody else's ability to enjoy and exercise their rights.

I agree it is not the same thing. I believe worth is inherent in the term value. Thats not semantics thats the smoking gun I saw in the dictionary. If worth was not inherent in the word value who would care about what you value? Its just a starting point. An idea you have in your mind to convey the worth. You may value your home at 1 million but if it will only sale for 500k then that is what it is worth. You are correct inalienable and inalienable rights are 2 different things. In the case of inalienable rights the inalienable is an adj. describing the right.

I dont get why we don't decree certain rights are not up for discussion and stop claiming these rights came from something invisible. It is an argument that shortly will hold no water as people start figuring out they are the victims of their instincts and over active imaginations.

Well that is one perspective, though I think you might have a difficult time providing a logical rationale for why you are right about that.

Some of the more devout believers here, for their own reasons, believe our natural rights do come from God. The Founders expressed it that way. Many/most of the great philosophers who preceded them did not express it that way. A concept of natural rights is not dependent on any form of deity.

But regardless of how they came to be--why is it so difficult to grasp/accept that some things just are? We create words to distinguish or identify them, but we do nothing to create them. Instincts. Appreciation/pleasure. Desire. Hope. A yearning for liberty. Thought.

Nobody taught us to know what is or is not pleasurable for us. Nobody taught us to know what is ugly or beautiful to us. Nobody taught us to desire. Nobody taught us to fall in love. Nobody taught us to imagine. All these come naturally to the human reality as does the desire for liberty. And as with all other components of humankind that exists whether we are aware of them or have words to designate them, liberty, as the Founders understood it, is expressed in natural rights that exist whether or not we are aware of them or have words to define them.

In my opinion, the prejudiced and tunnel visioned and close minded demand that natural rights be a human invention. The enlightened, the one who understands and appreciates what liberty is, knows better.

You vastly underestimate the degree that social pressure has on people. Social pressure teaches us pretty, ugly, good ,bad etc etc etc. Without adult humans to teach us, we are like animals.

 

[Asclepias]

Well if you argue that there is no difference between 'value' and 'worth' then we are back to arguing silly semantics--like some want to argue that the definition of unalienable is the same thing as unalienable rights--even though some do use the two terms of 'value' and 'worth', usually erroneously, interchangeably.

The way I see it:

"Worth" indicates a quantitative or tangible price that one is willing to pay or attribute to something. And that indeed can rise and fall depending on supply and demand.

"Value" is the importance or significance of something. The importance may increase or decrease depending on the urgency of any given situation--for example, how much I value my 'right to life' would not be important in the moments when I risk my life to save my child from imminent danger. And some memento given to us by a parent or grandparent or some other significant person might be worthless as far as what it could be sold for, yet have great value to us personally.

For those who would benefit from it, penicillin is just as important and has value whether it is free or priced like gold, whether it is available or unavailable to us, whether it is discovered or undiscovered. And it exists.

For those who value liberty, unalienable rights have incalculable value as liberty cannot exist without them. Whatever 'rights' aka permissions are granted by a government are not the same thing as what the government allows can be just as easily disallowed.

The U.S Constitution is based on the concept that unalienable rights exist and it is the role of government to recognize and secure them and must never interfere or prohibit the free exercise of them. It is the concept that unalieanble rights exist and cannot be invented or ordained by any government..

And what is an unalienable right? It is whatever requires no contribution or participation by any other and does not infringe on anybody else's ability to enjoy and exercise their rights.

I agree it is not the same thing. I believe worth is inherent in the term value. Thats not semantics thats the smoking gun I saw in the dictionary. If worth was not inherent in the word value who would care about what you value? Its just a starting point. An idea you have in your mind to convey the worth. You may value your home at 1 million but if it will only sale for 500k then that is what it is worth. You are correct inalienable and inalienable rights are 2 different things. In the case of inalienable rights the inalienable is an adj. describing the right.

I dont get why we don't decree certain rights are not up for discussion and stop claiming these rights came from something invisible. It is an argument that shortly will hold no water as people start figuring out they are the victims of their instincts and over active imaginations.

Well that is one perspective, though I think you might have a difficult time providing a logical rationale for why you are right about that.

Some of the more devout believers here, for their own reasons, believe our natural rights do come from God. The Founders expressed it that way. Many/most of the great philosophers who preceded them did not express it that way. A concept of natural rights is not dependent on any form of deity.

But regardless of how they came to be--why is it so difficult to grasp/accept that some things just are? We create words to distinguish or identify them, but we do nothing to create them. Instincts. Appreciation/pleasure. Desire. Hope. A yearning for liberty. Thought.

Nobody taught us to know what is or is not pleasurable for us. Nobody taught us to know what is ugly or beautiful to us. Nobody taught us to desire. Nobody taught us to fall in love. Nobody taught us to imagine. All these come naturally to the human reality as does the desire for liberty. And as with all other components of humankind that exists whether we are aware of them or have words to designate them, liberty, as the Founders understood it, is expressed in natural rights that exist whether or not we are aware of them or have words to define them.

In my opinion, the prejudiced and tunnel visioned and close minded demand that natural rights be a human invention. The enlightened, the one who understands and appreciates what liberty is, knows better.

I may well be wrong but I think you would be hard pressed to come up with a logical explanation as to why.

Its not so hard of a concept to believe. Its actually quite comforting and easy to believe because I want to believe it. Nature, air, God...It makes no difference really if you endow these abstract entities with the qualities of invisibility and "all knowing" in the minds of the people you are speaking to. The net effect is that they are deities in the emotional response elicited from the people being convinced of the concept.

I disagree with your assertions that we are not taught quite a few things you seem to believe we just know. For example, we are taught what is beautiful and what is ugly. That is a entirely different thread though. You keep forgetting the founders were humans like everyone else. Just because they founded the country doesn't make them anymore correct about rights than a bum in the street.

Who told you that you were enlightened and I was prejudiced and close minded? Why did you believe them?

 

[Foxfyre]

I agree it is not the same thing. I believe worth is inherent in the term value. Thats not semantics thats the smoking gun I saw in the dictionary. If worth was not inherent in the word value who would care about what you value? Its just a starting point. An idea you have in your mind to convey the worth. You may value your home at 1 million but if it will only sale for 500k then that is what it is worth. You are correct inalienable and inalienable rights are 2 different things. In the case of inalienable rights the inalienable is an adj. describing the right.

I dont get why we don't decree certain rights are not up for discussion and stop claiming these rights came from something invisible. It is an argument that shortly will hold no water as people start figuring out they are the victims of their instincts and over active imaginations.

Well that is one perspective, though I think you might have a difficult time providing a logical rationale for why you are right about that.

Some of the more devout believers here, for their own reasons, believe our natural rights do come from God. The Founders expressed it that way. Many/most of the great philosophers who preceded them did not express it that way. A concept of natural rights is not dependent on any form of deity.

But regardless of how they came to be--why is it so difficult to grasp/accept that some things just are? We create words to distinguish or identify them, but we do nothing to create them. Instincts. Appreciation/pleasure. Desire. Hope. A yearning for liberty. Thought.

Nobody taught us to know what is or is not pleasurable for us. Nobody taught us to know what is ugly or beautiful to us. Nobody taught us to desire. Nobody taught us to fall in love. Nobody taught us to imagine. All these come naturally to the human reality as does the desire for liberty. And as with all other components of humankind that exists whether we are aware of them or have words to designate them, liberty, as the Founders understood it, is expressed in natural rights that exist whether or not we are aware of them or have words to define them.

In my opinion, the prejudiced and tunnel visioned and close minded demand that natural rights be a human invention. The enlightened, the one who understands and appreciates what liberty is, knows better.

I may well be wrong but I think you would be hard pressed to come up with a logical explanation as to why.

Its not so hard of a concept to believe. Its actually quite comforting and easy to believe because I want to believe it. Nature, air, God...It makes no difference really if you endow these abstract entities with the qualities of invisibility and "all knowing" in the minds of the people you are speaking to. The net effect is that they are deities in the emotional response elicited from the people being convinced of the concept.

I disagree with your assertions that we are not taught quite a few things you seem to believe we just know. For example, we are taught what is beautiful and what is ugly. That is a entirely different thread though. You keep forgetting the founders were humans like everyone else. Just because they founded the country doesn't make them anymore correct about rights than a bum in the street.

Who told you that you were enlightened and I was prejudiced and close minded? Why did you believe them?

Nobody told me that. I figured it out all on my own. LOL. And I really didn't intend to get ad hominem and apologize for that lapse into an ad hominem comment.

But accusing me of what I am 'forgetting' is also ad hominem and an unfair comment. I have never said the Founders were incapable of being human or incapable of error or incapable of any other natural failing of humankind. They were fallable beings as much as anybody is going to be fallable.

But in the case of natural rights, I see them as being right, because to me there is no reasonable or logical argument to dispute that concept and their observations about it that I know personally to be true. And the naysayers have nothing, absolutely nothing, equally reasonable or logical with which to dispute their observations about that.

 

[dilloduck]

Well that is one perspective, though I think you might have a difficult time providing a logical rationale for why you are right about that.

Some of the more devout believers here, for their own reasons, believe our natural rights do come from God. The Founders expressed it that way. Many/most of the great philosophers who preceded them did not express it that way. A concept of natural rights is not dependent on any form of deity.

But regardless of how they came to be--why is it so difficult to grasp/accept that some things just are? We create words to distinguish or identify them, but we do nothing to create them. Instincts. Appreciation/pleasure. Desire. Hope. A yearning for liberty. Thought.

Nobody taught us to know what is or is not pleasurable for us. Nobody taught us to know what is ugly or beautiful to us. Nobody taught us to desire. Nobody taught us to fall in love. Nobody taught us to imagine. All these come naturally to the human reality as does the desire for liberty. And as with all other components of humankind that exists whether we are aware of them or have words to designate them, liberty, as the Founders understood it, is expressed in natural rights that exist whether or not we are aware of them or have words to define them.

In my opinion, the prejudiced and tunnel visioned and close minded demand that natural rights be a human invention. The enlightened, the one who understands and appreciates what liberty is, knows better.

I may well be wrong but I think you would be hard pressed to come up with a logical explanation as to why.

Its not so hard of a concept to believe. Its actually quite comforting and easy to believe because I want to believe it. Nature, air, God...It makes no difference really if you endow these abstract entities with the qualities of invisibility and "all knowing" in the minds of the people you are speaking to. The net effect is that they are deities in the emotional response elicited from the people being convinced of the concept.

I disagree with your assertions that we are not taught quite a few things you seem to believe we just know. For example, we are taught what is beautiful and what is ugly. That is a entirely different thread though. You keep forgetting the founders were humans like everyone else. Just because they founded the country doesn't make them anymore correct about rights than a bum in the street.

Who told you that you were enlightened and I was prejudiced and close minded? Why did you believe them?

Nobody told me that. I figured it out all on my own. LOL. And I really didn't intend to get ad hominem and apologize for that lapse into an ad hominem comment.

But accusing me of what I am 'forgetting' is also ad hominem and an unfair comment. I have never said the Founders were incapable of being human or incapable of error or incapable of any other natural failing of humankind. They were fallable beings as much as anybody is going to be fallable.

But in the case of natural rights, I see them as being right, because to me there is no reasonable or logical argument to dispute that concept and their observations about it that I know personally to be true. And the naysayers have nothing, absolutely nothing, equally reasonable or logical with which to dispute their observations about that.

Our Founding Fathers stated that rights were God given. That is not the same as being derived from nature as natural rights.

 

[Foxfyre]

I agree it is not the same thing. I believe worth is inherent in the term value. Thats not semantics thats the smoking gun I saw in the dictionary. If worth was not inherent in the word value who would care about what you value? Its just a starting point. An idea you have in your mind to convey the worth. You may value your home at 1 million but if it will only sale for 500k then that is what it is worth. You are correct inalienable and inalienable rights are 2 different things. In the case of inalienable rights the inalienable is an adj. describing the right.

I dont get why we don't decree certain rights are not up for discussion and stop claiming these rights came from something invisible. It is an argument that shortly will hold no water as people start figuring out they are the victims of their instincts and over active imaginations.

Well that is one perspective, though I think you might have a difficult time providing a logical rationale for why you are right about that.

Some of the more devout believers here, for their own reasons, believe our natural rights do come from God. The Founders expressed it that way. Many/most of the great philosophers who preceded them did not express it that way. A concept of natural rights is not dependent on any form of deity.

But regardless of how they came to be--why is it so difficult to grasp/accept that some things just are? We create words to distinguish or identify them, but we do nothing to create them. Instincts. Appreciation/pleasure. Desire. Hope. A yearning for liberty. Thought.

Nobody taught us to know what is or is not pleasurable for us. Nobody taught us to know what is ugly or beautiful to us. Nobody taught us to desire. Nobody taught us to fall in love. Nobody taught us to imagine. All these come naturally to the human reality as does the desire for liberty. And as with all other components of humankind that exists whether we are aware of them or have words to designate them, liberty, as the Founders understood it, is expressed in natural rights that exist whether or not we are aware of them or have words to define them.

In my opinion, the prejudiced and tunnel visioned and close minded demand that natural rights be a human invention. The enlightened, the one who understands and appreciates what liberty is, knows better.

You vastly underestimate the degree that social pressure has on people. Social pressure teaches us pretty, ugly, good ,bad etc etc etc. Without adult humans to teach us, we are like animals.

I have not underestimated social pressure at all. But I also know that the human spirit is capable of awareness, understanding, and conceptual perceptions that nobody has to teach it. Both my husband and I chose to be something other than what our parents intended for us or that they ever understood. I have observed it in my own children. Neither chose directions for their lives that my husband or I would have chosen for them or that we guided them into. Nor did anybody else. They both, however, had their own inate creativity, abilities, desires, and interests. To recognize that this exists in no way negates or dismisses that cultural conditioning is also a factor in who or what we are.

Each human being is as individual as a snowflake with or without somebody else involving themselves in how somebody else chooses or develops.

I would think it most unfortunate if you see youself as being purely what others have made of you. How sad would that be?

 

[Asclepias]

Well that is one perspective, though I think you might have a difficult time providing a logical rationale for why you are right about that.

Some of the more devout believers here, for their own reasons, believe our natural rights do come from God. The Founders expressed it that way. Many/most of the great philosophers who preceded them did not express it that way. A concept of natural rights is not dependent on any form of deity.

But regardless of how they came to be--why is it so difficult to grasp/accept that some things just are? We create words to distinguish or identify them, but we do nothing to create them. Instincts. Appreciation/pleasure. Desire. Hope. A yearning for liberty. Thought.

Nobody taught us to know what is or is not pleasurable for us. Nobody taught us to know what is ugly or beautiful to us. Nobody taught us to desire. Nobody taught us to fall in love. Nobody taught us to imagine. All these come naturally to the human reality as does the desire for liberty. And as with all other components of humankind that exists whether we are aware of them or have words to designate them, liberty, as the Founders understood it, is expressed in natural rights that exist whether or not we are aware of them or have words to define them.

In my opinion, the prejudiced and tunnel visioned and close minded demand that natural rights be a human invention. The enlightened, the one who understands and appreciates what liberty is, knows better.

I may well be wrong but I think you would be hard pressed to come up with a logical explanation as to why.

Its not so hard of a concept to believe. Its actually quite comforting and easy to believe because I want to believe it. Nature, air, God...It makes no difference really if you endow these abstract entities with the qualities of invisibility and "all knowing" in the minds of the people you are speaking to. The net effect is that they are deities in the emotional response elicited from the people being convinced of the concept.

I disagree with your assertions that we are not taught quite a few things you seem to believe we just know. For example, we are taught what is beautiful and what is ugly. That is a entirely different thread though. You keep forgetting the founders were humans like everyone else. Just because they founded the country doesn't make them anymore correct about rights than a bum in the street.

Who told you that you were enlightened and I was prejudiced and close minded? Why did you believe them?

Nobody told me that. I figured it out all on my own. LOL. And I really didn't intend to get ad hominem and apologize for that lapse into an ad hominem comment.

But accusing me of what I am 'forgetting' is also ad hominem and an unfair comment. I have never said the Founders were incapable of being human or incapable of error or incapable of any other natural failing of humankind. They were fallable beings as much as anybody is going to be fallable.

But in the case of natural rights, I see them as being right, because to me there is no reasonable or logical argument to dispute that concept and their observations about it that I know personally to be true. And the naysayers have nothing, absolutely nothing, equally reasonable or logical with which to dispute their observations about that.

I pretty much thought you were the one that came up with the idea. I too apologize for lapsing into the ad hominem.

So what you are saying is that it is merely your opinion that they were right in saying a creator granted us these rights. Is this a correct assumption on my part or do you have proof?

I see the concept as nothing more than the power of suggestion. There is an abundance of proof that this is exactly what the concept of natural/inalienable/god-given rights operates on.

 

[Asclepias]

Well that is one perspective, though I think you might have a difficult time providing a logical rationale for why you are right about that.

Some of the more devout believers here, for their own reasons, believe our natural rights do come from God. The Founders expressed it that way. Many/most of the great philosophers who preceded them did not express it that way. A concept of natural rights is not dependent on any form of deity.

But regardless of how they came to be--why is it so difficult to grasp/accept that some things just are? We create words to distinguish or identify them, but we do nothing to create them. Instincts. Appreciation/pleasure. Desire. Hope. A yearning for liberty. Thought.

Nobody taught us to know what is or is not pleasurable for us. Nobody taught us to know what is ugly or beautiful to us. Nobody taught us to desire. Nobody taught us to fall in love. Nobody taught us to imagine. All these come naturally to the human reality as does the desire for liberty. And as with all other components of humankind that exists whether we are aware of them or have words to designate them, liberty, as the Founders understood it, is expressed in natural rights that exist whether or not we are aware of them or have words to define them.

In my opinion, the prejudiced and tunnel visioned and close minded demand that natural rights be a human invention. The enlightened, the one who understands and appreciates what liberty is, knows better.

You vastly underestimate the degree that social pressure has on people. Social pressure teaches us pretty, ugly, good ,bad etc etc etc. Without adult humans to teach us, we are like animals.

I have not underestimated social pressure at all. But I also know that the human spirit is capable of awareness, understanding, and conceptual perceptions that nobody has to teach it. Both my husband and I chose to be something other than what our parents intended for us or that they ever understood. I have observed it in my own children. Neither chose directions for their lives that my husband or I would have chosen for them or that we guided them into. Nor did anybody else. They both, however, had their own inate creativity, abilities, desires, and interests. To recognize that this exists in no way negates or dismisses that cultural conditioning is also a factor in who or what we are.

Each human being is as individual as a snowflake with or without somebody else involving themselves in how somebody else chooses or develops.

I would think it most unfortunate if you see youself as being purely what others have made of you. How sad would that be?

What part of you is your own original design? While you are at it please supply me with a completely original thought.

 

[dilloduck]

Well that is one perspective, though I think you might have a difficult time providing a logical rationale for why you are right about that.

Some of the more devout believers here, for their own reasons, believe our natural rights do come from God. The Founders expressed it that way. Many/most of the great philosophers who preceded them did not express it that way. A concept of natural rights is not dependent on any form of deity.

But regardless of how they came to be--why is it so difficult to grasp/accept that some things just are? We create words to distinguish or identify them, but we do nothing to create them. Instincts. Appreciation/pleasure. Desire. Hope. A yearning for liberty. Thought.

Nobody taught us to know what is or is not pleasurable for us. Nobody taught us to know what is ugly or beautiful to us. Nobody taught us to desire. Nobody taught us to fall in love. Nobody taught us to imagine. All these come naturally to the human reality as does the desire for liberty. And as with all other components of humankind that exists whether we are aware of them or have words to designate them, liberty, as the Founders understood it, is expressed in natural rights that exist whether or not we are aware of them or have words to define them.

In my opinion, the prejudiced and tunnel visioned and close minded demand that natural rights be a human invention. The enlightened, the one who understands and appreciates what liberty is, knows better.

You vastly underestimate the degree that social pressure has on people. Social pressure teaches us pretty, ugly, good ,bad etc etc etc. Without adult humans to teach us, we are like animals.

I have not underestimated social pressure at all. But I also know that the human spirit is capable of awareness, understanding, and conceptual perceptions that nobody has to teach it. Both my husband and I chose to be something other than what our parents intended for us or that they ever understood. I have observed it in my own children. Neither chose directions for their lives that my husband or I would have chosen for them or that we guided them into. Nor did anybody else. They both, however, had their own inate creativity, abilities, desires, and interests. To recognize that this exists in no way negates or dismisses that cultural conditioning is also a factor in who or what we are.

Each human being is as individual as a snowflake with or without somebody else involving themselves in how somebody else chooses or develops.

I would think it most unfortunate if you see youself as being purely what others have made of you. How sad would that be?

I never said anything close to being purely what others have made me. Humans have incredible learning capacity but what they learn is dependent on their teachers. We are able to make choices that are different from our parents because they aren't our only teachers. You don't think society taught you good from bad--pretty from ugly ?

 

[Foxfyre]

I may well be wrong but I think you would be hard pressed to come up with a logical explanation as to why.

Its not so hard of a concept to believe. Its actually quite comforting and easy to believe because I want to believe it. Nature, air, God...It makes no difference really if you endow these abstract entities with the qualities of invisibility and "all knowing" in the minds of the people you are speaking to. The net effect is that they are deities in the emotional response elicited from the people being convinced of the concept.

I disagree with your assertions that we are not taught quite a few things you seem to believe we just know. For example, we are taught what is beautiful and what is ugly. That is a entirely different thread though. You keep forgetting the founders were humans like everyone else. Just because they founded the country doesn't make them anymore correct about rights than a bum in the street.

Who told you that you were enlightened and I was prejudiced and close minded? Why did you believe them?

Nobody told me that. I figured it out all on my own. LOL. And I really didn't intend to get ad hominem and apologize for that lapse into an ad hominem comment.

But accusing me of what I am 'forgetting' is also ad hominem and an unfair comment. I have never said the Founders were incapable of being human or incapable of error or incapable of any other natural failing of humankind. They were fallable beings as much as anybody is going to be fallable.

But in the case of natural rights, I see them as being right, because to me there is no reasonable or logical argument to dispute that concept and their observations about it that I know personally to be true. And the naysayers have nothing, absolutely nothing, equally reasonable or logical with which to dispute their observations about that.

Our Founding Fathers stated that rights were God given. That is not the same as being derived from nature as natural rights.

Yes dear. It is exactly the same. It is the name the Founders gave those rights. But it was the very same rights, no different, nor did they perceive them as different, from the 'natural rights' which is the name others gave them.

Too many are so anti-religious or anti-Christian that they get their shorts in a wad over the terminology and are emotionally or mentally incapable of separating that from the concept. And that is unfortunate.

 

[dilloduck]

Nobody told me that. I figured it out all on my own. LOL. And I really didn't intend to get ad hominem and apologize for that lapse into an ad hominem comment.

But accusing me of what I am 'forgetting' is also ad hominem and an unfair comment. I have never said the Founders were incapable of being human or incapable of error or incapable of any other natural failing of humankind. They were fallable beings as much as anybody is going to be fallable.

But in the case of natural rights, I see them as being right, because to me there is no reasonable or logical argument to dispute that concept and their observations about it that I know personally to be true. And the naysayers have nothing, absolutely nothing, equally reasonable or logical with which to dispute their observations about that.

Our Founding Fathers stated that rights were God given. That is not the same as being derived from nature as natural rights.

Yes dear. It is exactly the same. It is the name the Founders gave those rights. But it was the very same rights, no different, nor did they perceive them as different, from the 'natural rights' which is the name others gave them.

Too many are so anti-religious or anti-Christian that they get their shorts in a wad over the terminology and are emotionally or mentally incapable of separating that from the concept. And that is unfortunate.

You mean of course that you think they are the same-----natural rights advocates and theorists would vehemently disagree with you. To them God is supernatural.

 

[Foxfyre]

Our Founding Fathers stated that rights were God given. That is not the same as being derived from nature as natural rights.

Yes dear. It is exactly the same. It is the name the Founders gave those rights. But it was the very same rights, no different, nor did they perceive them as different, from the 'natural rights' which is the name others gave them.

Too many are so anti-religious or anti-Christian that they get their shorts in a wad over the terminology and are emotionally or mentally incapable of separating that from the concept. And that is unfortunate.

You mean of course that you think they are the same-----natural rights advocates and theorists would vehemently disagree with you. To them God is supernatural.

Sigh. Whatever. As I said some simply don't have the emotional temperament or the intellect to separate their prejudice against religion from a universal truth or concept. I don't think they are the same. I KNOW they are the same because I have studied and taught the concept and am very secure in how the Founders and those great philosophers who the Founders studied defined them.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

No feral children ever existed ? Is that the claim ?

Does the fact that I found a fake story in your link somehow prove I believe that no children were ever lost or abandoned? Somehow, I don't thinks so, but they are extremely rare, and your list contains at least one hoax, and claims, like the sharpened teeth thing, that make me question the veracity of other stories. I hate to blow your mind here, but Tarzan is fiction.

 

[dilloduck]

Yes dear. It is exactly the same. It is the name the Founders gave those rights. But it was the very same rights, no different, nor did they perceive them as different, from the 'natural rights' which is the name others gave them.

Too many are so anti-religious or anti-Christian that they get their shorts in a wad over the terminology and are emotionally or mentally incapable of separating that from the concept. And that is unfortunate.

You mean of course that you think they are the same-----natural rights advocates and theorists would vehemently disagree with you. To them God is supernatural.

Sigh. Whatever. As I said some simply don't have the emotional temperament or the intellect to separate their prejudice against religion from a universal truth or concept. I don't think they are the same. I KNOW they are the same because I have studied and taught the concept and am very secure in how the Founders and those great philosophers who the Founders studied defined them.

ahhh those who disagree who are intellectually inferior and have the wrong emotional temperament ? How truly humble of you..

check this out and tell me who the inferior intellects are.

Human Rights*[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Yes we do know 2+2 =4 is beyond the constraints of our mind. We can pile up 2 rocks then go get 2 more and call the entire group 4 or 7 or 19 or even 100 if we want to. Its provable and observable. What we cant do is go get a right and prove it exists. So innate/inalienable/natural rights exist in mans mind which is the point I have been showing all along.

Tell me something, if natural rights do not exist, what possible objection could you logically mount to slavery? Or even discrimination and racism?

Who said I couldn't mount a logical argument and why would I have to mount a logical argument in the first place?

Remember all those comments you made about natural rights being an oxymoron? Any argument against slavery based on anything other than economics, which you don't understand, or natural rights will end up being an oxymoron.

As for your questions, I say you can't mount a logical argument against it, and you have to because you claim to be smarter than I am.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Can anyone prove it did not come from the mind of a human?

Did I miss your responses to all the times I pointed out the fact that animals exhibit moral behavior?

Yes you must have missed them like you usually do. Animals don't exhibit moral behavior. Humans say animals exhibit moral behavior because they want to pretend animals feel the way they do. Never heard my dog tell me it was morally wrong he has to sleep outside in his run while I sleep in my bed.

The scientists are wrong?

Do you have evidence of that, or are we just supposed to take your word for it?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

even a blind wild hog finds an acorn now and then

Well then, that wild hog has an advantage over you, being able to reason and think for itself, with or without government direction. You on the other hand need government sanction, first, in all things.

Question.... What actually, in truth, does government give, that it did not first, acquire from someone else? Be it a thought or concept, or something material? Why do you confuse government with being the author or source, rather than the steward or administrator? Truth, in something government can lead, but, more often, it lags, adapting to trends already in heavy practice. Why do you think that is?

That hog is not reasoning--it's operating on pure instinct. I've never claimed the government is the source of anything. it's basically a civilized mob that attempts to be the good guys and protect certain behavior while punishing others in order to create a greater good.

Funny thing, science has found evidence that fruit flies have free will. Yet, for some reason, you still insist that the only operative is instinct.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Yes you must have missed them like you usually do. Animals don't exhibit moral behavior. Humans say animals exhibit moral behavior because they want to pretend animals feel the way they do. Never heard my dog tell me it was morally wrong he has to sleep outside in his run while I sleep in my bed.

I respectfully disagree. Animals do exhibit moral behavior. Consider the possibility that there may be, or is, a structure to the Universe, to Creation, beyond our understanding and perception. In all things there is a right and wrong.

and a good and a bad ? Are these concepts universal and identical in every culture in the world ?

Do you have an example of a culture that doesn't believe in good and evil?