Could you rephrase that? I'm not sure what you're getting at.

Basically that the connotation of dependent on the will of the people is arguable if one truly believes in rights given by God. What I was going on about at least. Of course since you mentioned 'seems' it doesn't specifically apply. As well as it being a document by men it very well could be a fallacy and exactly as you described. Per intent of those responsible for it. I was arguing more about the concept of such rights in a religiously absolute sense based on doctrine. Which of course is not necessarily here nor there.

When I read 'G-d-given rights,' I'm inclined to read it as men are a creation of G-d and they have rights. That is, including with it an idea that in the natural state into which G-d made them they should have rights. For most Christians would think that everything comes from G-d and not just their rights. It could also mean that G-d is responsible for their rights, but if it was meant that way it probably would have explained more about how they were more important than other G-d-given things.

Your final framing of the question reveals your bias on the question. You state unless a right can be enforced, it's not a right. I would argue that a right remains a right even without a remedy. The definition of "right" implicates ethics and the fundamental question of whether we should do the right thing even when there is no penalty for doing the wrong thing. There simply are not enough laws that can be enacted, enough courts to be funded, nor enough police to be hired, to provide a remedy for every wrong. Right conduct is based not primarily on the fear of penalties, but an ethical system that becomes part of a citizen's character. Imagine instead a society in which people just did whatever they could get away with.

But to address the political statement of rights in the Declaration of Independence, the Declaration assumes the protection of these rights is not with God, but with governments. So if we use the Declaration as the source document for the controlling premise, it does not allow for cross-examination of God, but rather the accountability of governments formed under God.

Finally, the word "inalienable" is both a legal term of art and a theological premise. The document has a bold literary flair, with overreaching terms that could be argued endlessly. For example, if your happiness entails stealing my property, that is not the inalienable right referenced in the Declaration. The Document's unstated boundaries on "life, liberty and happiness" become articulated by the civil and criminal codes of the individual united states addressing specific situations.

The document is just what it says it is: A Declaration of Independence. The Government to which it was addressed was King George's, and the audience was intended to be the world. What better way to make your case than to plant your argument squarely within the design and will of God? It isn't the first time God has been used for political purposes.

And an unenforced right doesn’t cease to exist, — Pfhorrest

True. It just becomes meaningless. A wish list.

The first duty of anyone with a right, is to insure that he enforces it for others, who reply in kind.

Regards
DL

Rights are freedoms that the State allows you to have. We don't need rights, we need freedom to the individual. God is just an early phase of the embodiment of the State. — Gus Lamarch

Yes. A childish one.

I do not use the term "freedom".

You nor I can ever be free of the tribe. We have liberty, as your Statue of Liberty shows. It is not a statue of freedom.

As Socrates said of freedom when he scraped any notions of it, who will make your shoes?

Regards
DL

On those grounds I think everyone, by virtue of their existence, is endowed with enough worth and dignity and value to warrant a certain amount of respect and honor. — NOS4A2

Do you apply this respect and honor to Hitler, Stalin and Yahweh?

Regards
DL

Human relationship is one of egoism, a competition for power, and in some cases, aggressive behavior is acceptable. — Gus Lamarch

Yes, and sometimes demanded.

Regards
DL

Rights say nothing about bureaucracy. — Pfhorrest

Who protects and enforces your will when you wish to exercise your rights?

Who do you call when being robbed.

A bureaucracy. Right?

Regards
DL

Given? Is not anything of that sort taken?
Taken by people who accept other claims to authority than given by a State?
Christianity argued there was such a point of leverage before it became the State. — Valentinus

Which they enforced with inquisitions and murder. This aside.

Right can be taken once offered by the state.

IE. Governments give us the right to go at a given speed limit. Go over that and you come under a no right to exceed that limit law.

You swear your allegiance to the state and should not lie about it or just mouth the words without meaning them.

What state tells you to hold an allegiance to some other power or stste?

Regards
DL

And then I do think they think that rights do get enforced in the long run — Coben

I agree. A faith based garbage belief.

I also agree that the (cough), holy books need a lot of revisions.

So does the thinking of the homophobes and misogynous.

Regards
DL

Being that, I see it (rights) as an intersection of all that's good about the heart and the brain and that, my friend, is the mark of god's love and wisdom. — TheMadFool

Hmm.

Yet god so hated his son that he had him purposelessly killed.

One would really have to be a mad fool to see Yahweh, the genocidal Yahweh, as love and wisdom.

Regards
DL

No expert, but that sounds like a serious misreading. I don't think the founders sought a world free of religions, they just wanted government to stay out of the religion business. — Nuke

Yes, and also wanted the religious to keep their religions out of politics. That did not work given your political faith test.

I used the word secular as the world will go to a more laïcité form of secularism, and the U.S. would be well advised to do the same.

Regards
DL

God given rights? Do the Easter Bunny or Father Christmas have any responsibilities? — Hot Potato

Yes they do as I enforce their right and do them when they fail to produce properly.

All parents do.

Regards
DL

It would be sort of laughable to actually think people thought G-d literally descended from the heavens to bequeath them rights in some type of material form. — kudos

Yet so many there for us to laugh at.

The problem with a monarch is that if he is good, all is good. If he is more like a Trump, then the country becomes the laughing stock of the world.

Regards
DL

What better way to make your case than to plant your argument squarely within the design and will of God? It isn't the first time God has been used for political purposes. — Frank Pray

No argument on your last.

As to your first, I prefer to keep political documents political with the crown having the final say and not some invisible guy in the sky.

I might feel differently if Yahweh was not such a satanic god.

but rather the accountability of governments formed under God. — Frank Pray

That rather excludes atheists from ever seeking office.

The U.S. has elected religious fools instead of intelligent and moral atheists as leaders in the past, and will likely do so till you have your next revolution to rid yourself of your vile two party polarized system.

Regards
DL

Yes, and also wanted the religious to keep their religions out of politics. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

What do you mean by "religious to keep their religions out of politics"?

Are religious people not supposed to organize, advocate and vote like the rest of us? One rule for them, another for us?

I can agree that all laws should apply to everybody, and that there shouldn't be carve outs for religious people. If that's your complaint, I can share it.

What do you mean by "religious to keep their religions out of politics"? — Nuke

Things like when Bush went to war with Iraq because god told him to.
I also would include the faith test that your politicians have to lie about in order to gain support.

Are religious people not supposed to organize, advocate and vote like the rest of us? One rule for them, another for us? — Nuke

I do not care what the religious do except for picking my pocket with their un-earned tax breaks that you end I have to pay, thanks to the down fall religious exemptions create.

There should not be any difference in the law of the land they follow and what you and I follow.

J Ws for instance, cannot let their children die for want of a blood transfusion. I like that your government has forced your vile churches to pay for birth control even if they do not like it.

I assume you are an American and showed what they have done.

Regards
DL

There should not be any difference in the law of the land they follow and what you and I follow. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Agree with you here.

Hmm.

Yet god so hated his son that he had him purposelessly killed.

One would really have to be a mad fool to see Yahweh, the genocidal Yahweh, as love and wisdom.

Regards
DL — Gnostic Christian Bishop

1. The good book is god's word
2. If the good book is god's word then the good book is true
3. The good book is true (1, 2)
4. God is all good
5. If god is all good then god can't command genocide
6. God can't command genocide (4, 5)
7. If the good book is true and god can't command genoicde then we've misunderstood the good book
8. We've misunderstood the good book (7, 8)

Not much sense in what you say. I am a parent myself and I do not let my children believe in such nonsense > > > God, Easter Bunny, Father Christmas ... each of them fantasy hence no power to allot any "rights" to anyone.

It just becomes meaningless. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Only as meaningless as any other moral claim. If someone grievously harms someone else and nobody stops it, does it become meaningless to say it was wrong? Saying the victim had a right not to be harmed is just saying it was wrong to harm her, so is only meaningless if that is meaningless too.

Arguing about previous arguments always has the problem of not being about a claim upon the present.
But some of those previous arguments tried to address that problem and not blow it off.
There is a certainty of self righteousness in your point of view that makes it as boring as other examples of self righteousness.
Of the kind you militate against.

We've misunderstood the good book — TheMadFool

Correct, by the literal reading of myths.

If god is all good, then genocide and infanticide, homophobia and misogyny, are all good.

Only the evil minded will see a good god come out of the bible.

Regards
DL

Not much sense in what you say. I am a parent myself and I do not let my children believe in such nonsense — Hot Potato

You have never let your children celebrate Christmas!

I see that as cruel.

Regards
DL

If someone grievously harms someone else and nobody stops it, does it become meaningless to say it was wrong? — Pfhorrest

No. It shows a decent moral sense. That does not take away from the fact that if we do not all protect each others rights, they become meaningless.

Regards
DL

There is a certainty of self righteousness in your point of view — Valentinus

Correct. Morality is my forte and I proudly state my case and open myself to criticism.

I am not here to hide. If you do not like it, and think you have a better moral stance, share it.

Otherwise take your personal off topic criticisms and shove them back from where you got them..

Regards
DL

I find it cruel to make children believe a load of lies.

I agree.Boasting morality is a filthy business.

I find it cruel to make children believe a load of lies. — Hot Potato

It is. The religious should stop lying to their children.

One does not lie to those we are supposed to love.

Regards
DL