God-given rights?

Post Reply New Topic

This issue has been kicked around in a couple disparate threads, but I wanted to break it off into its own discussion.

A common claim is that human rights come from God. Is this true? Is there any solid theological basis for such a belief? Do any major religions or religious texts show a strong emphasis on human rights, and make any claim that those rights are granted by God?

Discuss.

The Decalogue.

Phrased as commands and prohibitions - as is the "Bill of Rights" - but a divinely sourced sketch of basic rights.

I would say the only "God-given 'right'" we have is something like "a right to breathe" for as long as we are able. Beyond that, everything is subject to interactions with other willing people.

If you want to kick "God" out of the equation, the simple concept is that where does a man's rights come from?

In practical application, rights are determined from the barrel of a gun. Whoever has the firepower decides who has any rights, but that is not the mark of a civilized society.

Prior civilizations held that the leadership caste ruled with "divine power"....put in place by a supreme being to rule over all. That mentality still rules today in many cultures. In America, the Founding Fathers rejected the idea that any man had a right to rule over another man. Rights come from man's creator and all share equally in these rights. No one man is better than another, and the only just society is one that respects the inherent sovereignty of each individual.

No, human rights come from other humans.

The only right God gave us is the right to choose, whether to live for ourselves, for our fellow men, for life in general, or for him.

I honestly am interested in hearing from people who uphold notions of God-given rights. It seems such a popular stance, and yet I can think of no basis for it in Scripture. If anyone has some notion of divinely-ordained rights from the framework of a non-Christian religion, I would be interested in hearing about that as well.

"Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,
Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

Awesomely Glorious, perhaps you do not value the right not to be murdered - I prefer to claim it. Yes, they are commandments. So? We want God to establish "rights" but not pass laws to provide sanctions for infringements of those rights? Unlike every human governing body? Of what use then the "right"?

No, freedom of speech is not in there. Human "biulls of rights" are rather down on freedom of speech." The question was not "where does God decree the right to free speech", was it?

As for the Enlightenment concept of rights well. I have to say I have never had any sense of whence the Enlightenment to the degree it was monolithic thought rights might come. But that was not the question either. Unless I misread and still misread, it was "where stands it written a divine entity established rights?"

This I tried to answer and still believe my answer valid, though I would not claim that it is comprehensive.

Orwell -

Except for the Abrahamic Big Three and come of their offshoots, I do not know of belief systems postulating divinely sourced rights. But my knowledge base is limited in these areas. I would by no means be surprised if Buddhism postulated rights, but then major streams of Buddhism are not strictly theist.

The issue is really very similar to the understanding of truth. We see here the contingent claiming that rights are what the government or one's fellow citizens deign to grant. This causes some conflict within a society. If I say my wife has no right to vote and your wife says you have no right to vote, has the extended family the right to override us?

If rights come from society, there are no droits de l'homme.

In the same way, we have seen some maintaining that what enough people, or the right people, accept IS truth. So that "your truth" and "my truth" are possible concepts, and the truth of the engineer and the physicist, the Christian and the Muslim may differ and yet be true.

With which we contrast those who assume an ultmate truth that may be approximated.

Needless to say at this point but that never stopped me, I assume rights given by God but not always respected by men, and a fully rounded truth with God but not in toto accessible to men.

It's like the term "act of god" with insurance companies. Their basic humane rights that don't come from anywhere but simply are.