What "rights" does nature give us?

[Cecilie1200]

That's all swell and noble, Cecil, but unless the 'rights' in question are supernatural, those arguing that said 'rights' are not absolutely endowed - that they are invented and pretended by man - are exactly right. That is the point of the godless OP.

Then they take their ridiculous contention further and pretend the Declaration of Independence is not a Founding document, trying to pretend that THE most important foundational principle of the United States of America is not that of inalienable rights granted by our Creator.

LOL

You didn't understand a word I said, did you?

No one said anything about "supernatural", although admittedly earlier philosophers tended to take as understood that humans had a Creator, who had made us with reason and morality, and thus given us the ability to understand the right and wrong of a society respecting these fundamentals.

However, there's no requirement to believe any of that in order to believe that there exists an ideal state of "equity, fairness, and reason, by which all man-made laws are to be measured and to which they must (as closely as possible) conform", as seen in the definition of "natural law". I went back and bolded THAT part for you, too.

You're still laboring under the mistaken impression that "inalienable right" and "natural right" somehow mean "cannot ever be ignored or violated".

Atheists keep telling us that they don't need God to be moral. Okay, well, if that's the case, then they should have no problem with any of this, and don't need to be bothering us with contentions that rights come from the government merely because they are - hopefully - respected and defended by the government.

That was not a claim I made, and I certainly did not say rights cannot be 'violated.'

What I said was that anything less than a supernaturally endowed right was just any man's opinion. Your view of an 'idea state' of equity and fairness and that held by Pol Pot differ considerable.

There is nothing immutable about a 'natural' right if it is simply an invention of a fertile imagination.

Sorry, but that's EXACTLY what all that stuff about "said 'rights' are not absolutely endowed - that they are invented and pretended by man - are exactly right" means. You said that natural rights had to be "supernatural", or they weren't really "absolutely endowed", ie. "inalienable" or "natural".

The sentence you highlighted contradicts that assertion. There is no need to believe our human rights are "supernatural" in order to believe that they are inalienable and exist simply because we do. All that is required is a belief in morality, and right and wrong, and atheists keep assuring us they can believe in those things without believing in the "supernatural". I tend to be skeptical of that claim, but . . .

Certainly people who are not atheists believe that morality is more than "imagination", and since atheists - as I've said - keep assuring us that THEY don't believe that, either, the only person here who appears to have an argument with the concept is you.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

In the age of enlightenment man discovered laws governed the heavens and earth-nature's laws. These laws were opposed to what religion taught, i.e. the sun revolved about the earth. Then some began asking did nature have laws regarding man and man's governments, they concluded nature did indeed have laws on how man was governed. The old divine right of kings, nobles etc. were not natures laws but man-laws. So what did nature have in mind for governments? Those laws are to be found in many places including Locke and the Declaration of Independence. Are they real laws like gravity or just what some men believe nature had intended?

The laws of nature were not in conflict with religion except in the minds of small minded modernists.

Tell that too Galileo.

Is he the guy that upset all the enlightened scientists of his age because he insisted that the Earth moved? Or are you one of those idiots that believe the revisionist history that the church initiated the prosecution because of his attack on Aristotelian dogma?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I would like to know that as well.

The only one I can think of is the right to live. To not be killed by another.

Other than that..........

Locke said they were life, liberty, and property. Jefferson rewrote them as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Still don't see what's natural about them. It's a rhetorical ploy, because without a force to back them up, they really don't exist.

I don't see anything unnatural about life, want to explain that to me?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Locke said they were life, liberty, and property. Jefferson rewrote them as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Still don't see what's natural about them. It's a rhetorical ploy, because without a force to back them up, they really don't exist.

Sounds like you're importing a lot with your definitions. 'Natural' in this context just means "innate". And "right" means freedom. Freedoms exist, conceptually, whether or not they are protected.

He apparently thinks that because force exists that is capable of killing that it invalidates the fact that people are alive.

 

[Two Thumbs]

With all this talk about "natural" rights..I was wondering. What are they?

There are no natural rights.

In nature your predator or prey. Almost all nature is based around killing.

inalienable rights are different.

 

[neomalthusian]

With all this talk about "natural" rights..I was wondering. What are they?

There are no natural rights.

In nature your predator or prey. Almost all nature is based around killing.

Everything that all 7 Billion of us eat was something that was, at one point not long ago, living, and so we killed it, and are therefore predators. We still live in the natural world in which we must kill what we eat, and are subject to natural laws. I think your point might thus be rendered unavailing.

 

[Cecilie1200]

With all this talk about "natural" rights..I was wondering. What are they?

There are no natural rights.

In nature your predator or prey. Almost all nature is based around killing.

inalienable rights are different.

Um . . . did you read the thread at all before posting?

 

[SniperFire]

You didn't understand a word I said, did you?

No one said anything about "supernatural", although admittedly earlier philosophers tended to take as understood that humans had a Creator, who had made us with reason and morality, and thus given us the ability to understand the right and wrong of a society respecting these fundamentals.

However, there's no requirement to believe any of that in order to believe that there exists an ideal state of "equity, fairness, and reason, by which all man-made laws are to be measured and to which they must (as closely as possible) conform", as seen in the definition of "natural law". I went back and bolded THAT part for you, too.

You're still laboring under the mistaken impression that "inalienable right" and "natural right" somehow mean "cannot ever be ignored or violated".

Atheists keep telling us that they don't need God to be moral. Okay, well, if that's the case, then they should have no problem with any of this, and don't need to be bothering us with contentions that rights come from the government merely because they are - hopefully - respected and defended by the government.

That was not a claim I made, and I certainly did not say rights cannot be 'violated.'

What I said was that anything less than a supernaturally endowed right was just any man's opinion. Your view of an 'idea state' of equity and fairness and that held by Pol Pot differ considerable.

There is nothing immutable about a 'natural' right if it is simply an invention of a fertile imagination.

Sorry, but that's EXACTLY what all that stuff about "said 'rights' are not absolutely endowed - that they are invented and pretended by man - are exactly right" means. You said that natural rights had to be "supernatural", or they weren't really "absolutely endowed", ie. "inalienable" or "natural".

The sentence you highlighted contradicts that assertion. There is no need to believe our human rights are "supernatural" in order to believe that they are inalienable and exist simply because we do. All that is required is a belief in morality, and right and wrong, and atheists keep assuring us they can believe in those things without believing in the "supernatural". I tend to be skeptical of that claim, but . . .

Certainly people who are not atheists believe that morality is more than "imagination", and since atheists - as I've said - keep assuring us that THEY don't believe that, either, the only person here who appears to have an argument with the concept is you.

'Morality'... 'idea state'... 'rights'.... all just pretended in a Universe of random particles careening about for no particular purpose. And the interpretation of any one man's pretense of such is no more or less valid than anyone else's. It is all a ruse to pass the time until our curiously-arranged atoms return to glorious and inevitable entropy.

No, without the supernatural statis of being endowed to mankind by the Creator for his benevolence, the notion of inalienable rights does not pass the smell test.

Logic dictates you cannot have it both ways. An existence with no innate purpose or intrinsic meaning belies the silly notion that an abstraction such as 'rights' actually exists in an absolute. It is just pretended. It is mental masturbation.

 

[Contumacious]

With all this talk about "natural" rights..I was wondering. What are they?

I am glad you asked

1- the right to enslave my neighbor and compelled him/her to support me and mine

2- the right to disarm my neighbor

3- the right to read my neighbors email and monitor his/her internet activity

4- the right to bomb the fuck out of every country on the face of mother earth

5- more to come

.

 

[Cecilie1200]

That was not a claim I made, and I certainly did not say rights cannot be 'violated.'

What I said was that anything less than a supernaturally endowed right was just any man's opinion. Your view of an 'idea state' of equity and fairness and that held by Pol Pot differ considerable.

There is nothing immutable about a 'natural' right if it is simply an invention of a fertile imagination.

Sorry, but that's EXACTLY what all that stuff about "said 'rights' are not absolutely endowed - that they are invented and pretended by man - are exactly right" means. You said that natural rights had to be "supernatural", or they weren't really "absolutely endowed", ie. "inalienable" or "natural".

The sentence you highlighted contradicts that assertion. There is no need to believe our human rights are "supernatural" in order to believe that they are inalienable and exist simply because we do. All that is required is a belief in morality, and right and wrong, and atheists keep assuring us they can believe in those things without believing in the "supernatural". I tend to be skeptical of that claim, but . . .

Certainly people who are not atheists believe that morality is more than "imagination", and since atheists - as I've said - keep assuring us that THEY don't believe that, either, the only person here who appears to have an argument with the concept is you.

'Morality'... 'idea state'... 'rights'.... all just pretended in a Universe of random particles careening about for no particular purpose. And the interpretation of any one man's pretense of such is no more or less valid than anyone else's. It is all a ruse to pass the time until our curiously-arranged atoms return to glorious and inevitable entropy.

No, without the supernatural statis of being endowed to mankind by the Creator for his benevolence, the notion of inalienable rights does not pass the smell test.

Logic dictates you cannot have it both ways. An existence with no innate purpose or intrinsic meaning belies the silly notion that an abstraction such as 'rights' actually exists in an absolute. It is just pretended. It is mental masturbation.

If you want to debate whether or not it is possible to be moral without believing in God or some other higher power, you need to go start a thread for it. THIS is not the place for "If you don't believe in God, you CAN'T believe in human rights." THIS is the place for discussing what people who believe in natural, inalienable rights as enshrined in our laws mean by those phrases.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Moving right along . . .

For those who keep insisting on believing that "natural law" refers to the "law of the jungle", CS Lewis offered this explanation of what was meant by philosophers when they talk about "natural law".

It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behaviour or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really agreed. And they have. If they had not, they might, of course, fight like animals, but they could not quarrel in the human sense of the word. Quarrelling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do taht unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are; just as there would be no sense in saying that a footballer had committed a foul unless there was some agreement about the rules of football.

Now this Law or Rule about Right and Wrong used to be called the Law of Nature. Nowadays, when we talk of the "laws of nature" we usually mean things like gravitation, or heredity, or the laws of chemistry. But when the older thinkers called the Law of Right and Wrong "the Law of Nature", they really meant the Law of Human Nature. The idea was that, just as all bodies are governed by the law of gravitation, and all organisms by biological laws, so the creature called man also had his law - with this great difference, that a body could not choose whether it obeyed the law of gravitation or not, but a human could choose either to obey the Law of Human Nature or to disobey it.

We may put this in another way. Each man is at every moment subjected to several different sets of law but there is only one of these which he is free to disobey. As a body, he is subjected to gravitation and cannot disobey it; if you leave him unsupported in mid-air, he has no more choice about falling than a stone has. As an organism, he is subjected to various biological laws which he cannot disobey any more than an animal can. That is, he cannot disobey those laws which he shares with other things; but the law which is peculiar to his human nature, the law he does not share with animals or vegetables or inorganic things, is the one he can disobey if he chooses.

This law was called the Law of Nature because people thought that everyone knew it by nature and did not need to be taught it. They did not mean, of course, that you might not find an odd individual here and there who did not know it, just as you find a few people who are colour-blind or have no ear for a tune. But taking the race as a whole, they thought that the human idea of decent behaviour was obvious to everyone. - CS Lewis, "Mere Christianity"

 

[SniperFire]

Sorry, but that's EXACTLY what all that stuff about "said 'rights' are not absolutely endowed - that they are invented and pretended by man - are exactly right" means. You said that natural rights had to be "supernatural", or they weren't really "absolutely endowed", ie. "inalienable" or "natural".

The sentence you highlighted contradicts that assertion. There is no need to believe our human rights are "supernatural" in order to believe that they are inalienable and exist simply because we do. All that is required is a belief in morality, and right and wrong, and atheists keep assuring us they can believe in those things without believing in the "supernatural". I tend to be skeptical of that claim, but . . .

Certainly people who are not atheists believe that morality is more than "imagination", and since atheists - as I've said - keep assuring us that THEY don't believe that, either, the only person here who appears to have an argument with the concept is you.

'Morality'... 'idea state'... 'rights'.... all just pretended in a Universe of random particles careening about for no particular purpose. And the interpretation of any one man's pretense of such is no more or less valid than anyone else's. It is all a ruse to pass the time until our curiously-arranged atoms return to glorious and inevitable entropy.

No, without the supernatural statis of being endowed to mankind by the Creator for his benevolence, the notion of inalienable rights does not pass the smell test.

Logic dictates you cannot have it both ways. An existence with no innate purpose or intrinsic meaning belies the silly notion that an abstraction such as 'rights' actually exists in an absolute. It is just pretended. It is mental masturbation.

If you want to debate whether or not it is possible to be moral without believing in God or some other higher power, you need to go start a thread for it. THIS is not the place for "If you don't believe in God, you CAN'T believe in human rights." THIS is the place for discussing what people who believe in natural, inalienable rights as enshrined in our laws mean by those phrases.

Sorry, but the premise was 'what are natural rights,' and the OP reasons there is no such thing. I agree with him and gave the logic behind it. If that gives you butthurt, put some ice on it.

 

[Cecilie1200]

'Morality'... 'idea state'... 'rights'.... all just pretended in a Universe of random particles careening about for no particular purpose. And the interpretation of any one man's pretense of such is no more or less valid than anyone else's. It is all a ruse to pass the time until our curiously-arranged atoms return to glorious and inevitable entropy.

No, without the supernatural statis of being endowed to mankind by the Creator for his benevolence, the notion of inalienable rights does not pass the smell test.

Logic dictates you cannot have it both ways. An existence with no innate purpose or intrinsic meaning belies the silly notion that an abstraction such as 'rights' actually exists in an absolute. It is just pretended. It is mental masturbation.

If you want to debate whether or not it is possible to be moral without believing in God or some other higher power, you need to go start a thread for it. THIS is not the place for "If you don't believe in God, you CAN'T believe in human rights." THIS is the place for discussing what people who believe in natural, inalienable rights as enshrined in our laws mean by those phrases.

Sorry, but the premise was 'what are natural rights,' and the OP reasons there is no such thing. I agree with him and gave the logic behind it. If that gives you butthurt, put some ice on it.

Sorry, but "what are natural rights" is the same thing as "what do you mean when you say 'natural rights'", so apologizing because the topic is exactly what I said it was is unnecessary.

The OP reasons there's no such thing because he doesn't understand what is meant by the phrase. Whether or not he also happens to believe there's no such thing as morality is something you'll have to ask him.

Why would I be butthurt because you don't understand what you're talking about, and thus came to an erroneous conclusion? Your mistake is not really my problem.

 

[Two Thumbs]

With all this talk about "natural" rights..I was wondering. What are they?

There are no natural rights.

In nature your predator or prey. Almost all nature is based around killing.

Everything that all 7 Billion of us eat was something that was, at one point not long ago, living, and so we killed it, and are therefore predators. We still live in the natural world in which we must kill what we eat, and are subject to natural laws. I think your point might thus be rendered unavailing.

How so?

We eat or get eaten, and we have been eaten, that makes us prey to some.

 

[Two Thumbs]

With all this talk about "natural" rights..I was wondering. What are they?

There are no natural rights.

In nature your predator or prey. Almost all nature is based around killing.

inalienable rights are different.

Um . . . did you read the thread at all before posting?

first page, then responded to the op

 

[Sallow]

With all this talk about "natural" rights..I was wondering. What are they?

There are no natural rights.

In nature your predator or prey. Almost all nature is based around killing.

inalienable rights are different.

Those don't exist either..except as a human construct.

Unless of course you believe in the supernatural.

 

[konradv]

Locke said they were life, liberty, and property. Jefferson rewrote them as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Still don't see what's natural about them. It's a rhetorical ploy, because without a force to back them up, they really don't exist.

Sounds like you're importing a lot with your definitions. 'Natural' in this context just means "innate". And "right" means freedom. Freedoms exist, conceptually, whether or not they are protected.

I'm using 'natural' is in "in nature". If you're using a different definition, who's doing the importing? Just saying they're "innate" doesn't mean a thing, IMO. Concepts aren't enforceable, which to me is the bottom line. It sounds good, but that's about it.

 

[AVG-JOE]

What "rights" does nature give us?

The right to breathe. Every other 'right' comes from agreements with other Monkeys.

 

[Two Thumbs]

With all this talk about "natural" rights..I was wondering. What are they?

There are no natural rights.

In nature your predator or prey. Almost all nature is based around killing.

inalienable rights are different.

Those don't exist either..except as a human construct.

Unless of course you believe in the supernatural.

Well since the Founders all did, I'm working with what I inherited.


plz tell me you're not one of those nutters that want to do away with the Constitution b/c it's old

 

[AVG-JOE]

Even the right to breathe clean air instead of pollution comes from agreements with other Monkeys that are enforced by government.