Do rights come from God?

[Banach-Tarski Paradox]

I'm not familiar with that assertion.

Regardless, rights come from the way humans organize their societies. We're tribal creatures at heart ─ ask any football fan ─ and we organize our conduct in a variety of ways. We've evolved to have certain moral tendencies ─ dislike of the one who harms, like of fairness and reciprocity, respect for authority, loyalty to the group, and a sense of self-worth through self-denial. But on top of that instinctive base go a range of learnt behaviors, which may vary greatly from group to group ─ how to meet with family, with relatives, with strangers, those who are older, those who are younger, authority figures (parents, teachers, doctors, police &c), observation of milestones such as birth, pairing, and death ─ and so on.

That this mix contains rights as well as obligations is only as true as the recognition of those rights by the people you're dealing with, and rights were associated with chiefs and leaders long before they were associated with Everyman. But varieties of them have been known in Western societies since the time of the Greeks and their successors the Romans. In the US slaves were property hence had no rights until 1865, though in many cases nothing like equality until the social movements and marches of the 1960s and later.

I have run across an important instance in Cauca while reading a little history.

As I understand it, the Divine Rights of Kings to mediate disputes between a master and his slaves was a hotly contested political issue back in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

This is Cauca, by the way:

Gobernación del Cauca- Mi Cauca​

 

[Banach-Tarski Paradox]

Yes, and it is my God given right to think that.


Rights come from people based on their moral and ethical standards.

That said, those who have based these rights on a belief in God will say these rights come from God.

That makes sense to me.

The Holy Bible must have rules about how to treat your slaves, given the complains of the Bishop of Popayán back in 1771, and the Idolatrous behavior of the mine owners in the treatment of slaves.

The scanty accounts of Christianization suggest that conversion and consolidation of belief remained little more than a formality throughout the entire epoch of slavery. Indeed, Sandoval (1956:198) echoed the common observation that the slave owners regarded Christianized slaves as more rebellious and as poorer workers than those not indoctrinated and would pay less for them (Sandoval, 1956:198; cf., Bowser, 1974:79; King, 1939:16-17). Whites were not only disinclined to buy Christianized slaves but tried to prevent their conversion, at times telling them that baptism was bad. According to Jose Toribio Medina, slave owners, reluctant to pay the costs of lengthy inquiries and penalties, encouraged their slaves to disappear if they were on the Inquisition's wanted list (1889). As a result, an underground African or quasi-African religion seems to have flourished, at least during the early years, syncretized with ardent faith in the miracle powers of Christ and the saints—powerful spirits who could be appealed to for earthly succor.

In 1771 the Bishop of Popayan, capital of the Cauca region of south-west Colombia, complained bitterly that his attempts to catechize the slaves and prevent their being worked on Sundays and feast days encountered the firm opposition of the slave owners. He believed that clerical mine speculators were identifying too closely with the exploiters of their slave flocks (King, 1939:217). The right of the slaves to rest on feast days, of which there was at least one a week in addition to Sundays, was hotly disputed by the Cauca mine owners during the eighteenth century. Yet, in a study of the health of slaves in New Granada, David Lee Chandler concludes that for many slaves the Church's insistence on rest days "must have . . . prolonged their lives" (1972:238). On these days they could also earn the wherewithal to buy their freedom, but many Cauca slave owners responded by reducing the food and clothing ration of the slaves. In these circumstances the feast days may have inclined the slaves favorably toward the Church and added a religious rationale to their opposition to their masters.

(pages 44-45)

The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America

Michael T. Taussig

PDF: https://selforganizedseminar.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/taussig_devil_commodity.pdf

 

[Ponder This]

Quite right, I hope I didn't give the impression that they did

I did get that impression from you because:

Is stealing wrong?

find a situation where stealing isn't wrong.

You're talking about whether or not stealing is "wrong" in the context of asserting that rights are values.

Again, quite right, but I'm not certain why you decided to point this out?

These examples support the notion that rights are not simply statements of values or mores (or guarantee moral behavior). To wit: rights are not simply values.

No, that's not what I mean at all. If you were alone and there were no other people, the idea of rights would no sooner occur to you any more than the concept of marriage or words like team.

Whether or not rights "occur to you" is irrelevant.

Again, quite right, but rights are conceptual abstract concepts and kidneys are organs with a specific and well understood purpose, not to mention that kidneys are real physical objects and rights are not. Respectfully, it's intellectually dishonest trying to compare the two, on purpose or by accident, attempt to make connections where none exist.

The point here is that your reasoning that people don't have rights simply because it does not occur to them that they have rights is fallacious reasoning.

Now if you want to argue that humans have an innate sense of justice and fairness, that I would be willing to concede.

I don't argue that humans have an innate sense of justice and fairness.

Justice and the innate sense of fairness give rise to rights in the presence of human social interaction. Without it, there is chaos.

I don't regard order as necessarily being just or fair.

It is and I concede that asserting there exists an unseen authority is very cleaver. I myself as a child often thought that my misfortune was caused by my misdeeds. It has the benefit of self-reinforcement. However, I don't believe that as an adult and I wouldn't want to live in a world where the only meaningful constraint on peoples behavior was fear of punishment after death.

"misfortune" and "misdeeds" is certainly vague enough that I have no thoughts about your anecdotal childhood thoughts.
And I don't know why you would believe that the only meaningful constraint on people's behaviors is the fear of punishment after death. I do concede that fear of punishment after death is a deterrent on some people's behaviors.
Furthermore, I question your belief in justice and fairness, if you also claim that some injustices ultimately go without fair consequence or remission.

Agreed, but it only works when people can convince others it's an idea that has value. Otherwise, their just words.

Truth doesn't become true or untrue simply because people believe or don't believe. By "works", you seem to be arguing about whether or not you can convince other people of the truth or falsity of a statement rather than arguing as to whether or not the statement is actually true or false... Or are you arguing that the statement has value as a lie?

I take things seriously that are supported by the preponderance of the evidence. Those things that can be said to be true because they are the best explanation at the time, at least until a better explanation comes forth. Now, how I act on my beliefs of the truth of a claim are in line with the consequences of that belief.

But you don't take the consequences of life after death seriously. One of the consequences of your belief is that some injustices are without consequence. In fact, it would seem that you believe that it is possible for you, personally, to commit unfair injustices without consequence.

The proposition that a person should or should not do something (like stealing) has no more or less weight to me because it's in the Bible.

In other words, you easily dismiss evidence. Even if a commandment is clearly written in the Bible and even says it came from God, you do not accept it as coming from God.

That's easy, the people of a society that see value in living together where stealing is considered to be wrong. Violation of that rule results in some sort of punishment.

I'd argue that Church is nothing more than a community of people who congregate to share their faith and community. When it becomes more than that, I think it runs contrary to to the teachings of Christianity.

Is this a confession that you don't think the Church or the teachings of Christ have anything to do with God?

Not at all, the point is that you are forced to admit, from your perspective, that there are a plethora of rights that do not come from god. They are created, from my perspective, just like every other right. As a social contract between the majority of people (in a free society).

From your point of view Christian society and the Church have nothing to do with God? I disagree.

And yet most of the Christians in the world at the time the Constitution was created lived under oppressive theocracies or monarchies.

... a big reason many Christians emigrated to the Americas was the suppression of their (religious) rights. Even the monarchies and the theocracies argued that the authority of their oppressive rulerships was granted to them by God. At the end of the day, it came back to the question of Divine Right.

No, the Constitution was created by people who were largely Christian, but to say it was because they were Christian ignores Centuries of evidence to the contrary.

? Many of them left oppressive governments infringing their religious freedoms. They wrote, "endowed by their Creator" in their Declaration of Independence. How are you arguing that that's not to do with them being Christian?

Yes, and I find it somewhat ironic that you can read past the glaring omission of that statement. It says "creator", not god. In fact, the word God, a being central to Christian faith, does not appear ONCE in the Constitution.

It seems the Founders wrote the Constitution in spite of their Christian heritage, not in support of it.

It was the Declaration of Independence, and to refer to God as the Creator is entirely appropriate to the topic of where (or from Whom) rights come. The entire point is that you are created with them; they are inherent. What is your non-Christian reason why it says "Creator" in the Declaration of Independence?

I'm reminded of a quote attributed to Madison: "The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries."

Now, I don't know if he really said that, but regardless it's 100% correct.

I don't know about the quote, but people (Christians) did actually leave behind the "soil of Europe", because their rights (in particular their religious freedoms) were being oppressed there.

In so far as "unalienable rights". That's a great quote and I hope that people believe it. But I find when people believe without knowledge of their beliefs, they are free to be persuaded to believe anything, be it the death of a race of people like the jews under Hitler, or the conquering of the middle east during the Crusades.

Hmm, when people believe that their rights come from the government or come from other people, instead of being inherent to all (as they actually are), then it does seem that people can easily fall into the trap of allowing governments to take away those rights.

 

[Banach-Tarski Paradox]

Ask Black or Hispanic whether the government and its agencies pick and choose.

Ha!

 

[Banach-Tarski Paradox]

Respectfully, that's wrong. Rights are not self-evident, values are.

Is stealing wrong?

Stealing is a very particular act, specifically taking something that belongs to another with the intention of owning that thing and all that ownership confers. To steal is to violate another persons right to private property. However, all we have to do dispel the notion that this notion is self-evident is find a situation where stealing isn't wrong.

To steal something trivial (trivial, in this context being that the loss of a thing does not put at risk the lives of others), when no other reasonable alternative exists in order to save a life, isn't wrong.

Why?

Because we value life more than property, specifically when stealing can save the life of another. We value things in a hierarchy, where as rights are simply conferred.

If I steal from you to save my life (again, where no other reasonable alternatives exist), it is not my right to life that is greater than your right to property, rather, within the boundaries of a legal and ethical framework, I did violate your rights to private property, but when evaluating the punishment for my crime, that we acknowledge the value of my life over your property and set the consequences (presumably little to none other than perhaps restitution for your lost property) accordingly.

It is value that is self-evident, not rights. Rights are attempts to codify our values into law to create social consequences for failing to adhere to established values which is why rights are different in different areas of the world, because what people value differs based mostly on culture, religion and environment.

-Cheers

There’s a traditional cultural and religious practice (Catholic) called “abigeato” or “descarne” in the 1700s that was considered by the colonial state as the crime of cattle rustling.

Abigeato is a huge part of anfropatiano identity due to its historical importance.

Vaqueria​

 

[IndigoChild5559]

I've repeatedly heard the assertion that rights come from God. Do you think rights come from God? If not, then where do you think they come from, or how do we have them?

Certainly the signers of the Declaration of Independence thought so.

 

[anotherneil]

Certainly the signers of the Declaration of Independence thought so.

How do you figure? It doesn't say "God" anywhere in the Declaration of Independence.

 

[McBell]

How do you figure? It doesn't say "God" anywhere in the Declaration of Independence.

The very first sentence of the Declaration of Independence:

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.​

 

[anotherneil]

The very first sentence of the Declaration of Independence:

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.​

Right, I forgot about that part. LOL

 

[Kfox]

I've repeatedly heard the assertion that rights come from God. Do you think rights come from God? If not, then where do you think they come from, or how do we have them?

I think the Holocaust proved rights do not come from God, they come from the society of which you live,.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

How do you figure? It doesn't say "God" anywhere in the Declaration of Independence.

It says "endowed by OUR CREATOR with certain inalienable rights." Did you think it was referring to Matel?

 

[anotherneil]

It says "endowed by OUR CREATOR with certain inalienable rights." Did you think it was referring to Matel?

No it doesn't! It says "unalienable", not "inalienable"; it also says "their Creator", not "OUR CREATOR". None of that says "God". What's Matel & why would I think it's referring to that?

 

[IndigoChild5559]

No it doesn't! It says "unalienable", not "inalienable"; it also says "their Creator", not "OUR CREATOR". None of that says "God". What's Matel & why would I think it's referring to that?

Check the meanings of "in" and "un" and you will find that both prefixes mean the same thing. Also "non."

"Their Creator" most certainly does refer to God. Again, if not God, then who would the Creator be? The word "Creator" was used so as to not show preference for either the Christian notion of God or the Deist notion of God.

The Matel question was RHETORICAL. It was designed to show you how silly you are being. Matel is a well known toy manufacturer. I didn't think you were referring to Matel. I was using Matel to show you that any synonym for Creator besides God was ridiculous.