'Christian nationalists believe rights come from God'

[seer]

Oh the horror! Hasn't this idiot ever read the Declaration? I guess the Founders were Christian Nationalists...

Reporter lashes out after blowback for claiming 'Christian nationalists' believe rights 'come from God'

Politico's Heidi Przybyla says Christian nationalists believe American rights 'come from God,' not Congress nor the Supreme Court.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/report...ubmit=Continue

[Mountain Man]

I suspect every theist, not just Christians, believes human rights come from their creator.

The danger of believing they are bestowed on us by the government is that logically, it would not be wrong for the government to take them away.

[seer]

I suspect every theist, not just Christians, believes human rights come from their creator.

The danger of believing they are bestowed on us by the government is that logically, it would not be wrong for the government to take them away.

I can't believe she is this dense...

[Sparko]

Oh the horror! Hasn't this idiot ever read the Declaration? I guess the Founders were Christian Nationalists...

The rights definitely DON'T come from the government. In fact the constitution is about "the People" granting powers to government and reserving the rights for themselves as natural rights.

[Ronson]

Human rights, in the current sense, started during the age of enlightenment and then combined with modern sensibilities.

IMO

[Starlight]

Shall we leave it to God to enforce them then? See how far that gets us.

Self-evidently, in practice, the government does the enforcing, and it also does the declaration as to what is and isn't a right (i.e. what it is going to enforce), and thus the rights undeniably come from the government, not God.

If the question then becomes, "why does any particular government declare certain things as a right and not others?" then the answer becomes really complicated political, social, and historical reasons. Some of those reasons may involve some of the population's religious beliefs, but they also may not. I live in a majority-non-religious country, and I've never heard a person say anything remotely along the lines of "since I am non-religious, I don't think we should have rights in this country".

[Faber]

Outside of the right of Christians to be called the children of God, what othr rights have been granted to us by God, according to the Scriptures?

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but of God. (John 1:12-13, NASB)

[Starlight]

Out of interest, I did a quick check of how US rights line up with the bible. Taking the Bill of Rights list given here as the list of rights, and relying on my vague memories of the entire bible...

---
1. Freedom of speech
Bible against: Blasphemy is punishable by death (Lev 24:16), also blasphemy is condemned in the 10 commandments.

2. Freedom of press
Bible doesn't cover.

3. Freedom of religion
Bible against: Not worshipping other Gods is in 10 commandments, and emphasized throughout the bible.

4. Freedom of assembly
Bible doesn't cover?

5. Right to petition the government
Bible doesn't cover?

6. Right to bear arms
Bible doesn't cover

7. Protection against housing soldiers in civilian homes
Bible doesn't cover

8. Protection against unreasonable search and seizure
Bible doesn't cover?

9. Protection against the issuing of warrants without probable cause
Maybe someone could make an argument that the crime rules in the bible imply probable cause?

10. Protection against trial without indictment
Bible against: Biblical law codes do not mandate grand juries and imply people in biblical times were charged without such indictments.

11. Protection against double jeopardy
Bible doesn't cover?

12. Protection against self-incrimination
Bible doesn't cover.

13. Protection against property seizure
Not sure.

14. Right to a speedy trial
Bible doesn't cover

15. Right to be informed of charges
Not sure.

16. Right to be confronted by witnesses
Not sure.

17. Right to call witnesses
I guess maybe it's implied in the bible? There are certainly passages about witnesses.

18. Right to a legal counsel
Bible doesn't cover.

19. Right to trial by jury
Bible doesn't provide such a right. It seems to have allowed for a variety of judges. Hence it's implicitly against a jury being a defendant's right.

20. Protection against excessive bail
Bible doesn't cover.

21. Protection against excessive fines
Bible implicitly covers as it specifies amounts of fines for most fine-based punishments. Although I guess it could be argued that it never says the concept of excessive fines is bad, and therefore it's implicitly okay with it?

22. Protection against cruel and unusual punishment
Bible implicitly covers as it specifies punishments. Although, again, it never explicitly or implicitly condemns torture, so arguably that implies against such a right?

---

By my count, of the 22 rights in the US Bill of Rights, that's:
3 that the bible is explicitly against.
1 that it's implicitly against.
11 that the bible doesn't cover.
3 I'm not sure about, but leaning towards the bible not covering them.
2 arguable for or against.
2 weakly implied by the bible.
0 explicitly stated by the bible.

In summary: It looks like the rights in the US Bill of Rights are very much not based on the bible. Most of them are simply not covered by the bible at all, and for those that are, the bible is more against them than for them.

[Starlight]

The above reminds me of a discussion I had with Sparko about the fact that (pre-Christian) Roman law was the influence on modern Western law, not Biblical law.

All our technical legal terms are in Latin, none are in Hebrew. Of the 10 commandments, only 3 have parallels in modern law (murder, theft, and false-witness) and those 3 are generic rules that can be found in almost every law code in any society and do not trace their origins to the bible.

Of the actions we think are most bad in the modern day - "crimes against humanity" - genocide, slavery, mass torture, apartheid - none of those are explicitly condemned in the bible.

Basically the bible had little to no impact on what are and aren't crimes according to modern law, and (as we saw in my previous post) little to no impact on what are and aren't "rights" in modern law.

[seer]

Shall we leave it to God to enforce them then? See how far that gets us.

Self-evidently, in practice, the government does the enforcing, and it also does the declaration as to what is and isn't a right (i.e. what it is going to enforce), and thus the rights undeniably come from the government, not God.

If the question then becomes, "why does any particular government declare certain things as a right and not others?" then the answer becomes really complicated political, social, and historical reasons. Some of those reasons may involve some of the population's religious beliefs, but they also may not. I live in a majority-non-religious country, and I've never heard a person say anything remotely along the lines of "since I am non-religious, I don't think we should have rights in this country".

God is the only possible source or channel for universal human rights or human worth. Without that human rights are no more than a fiction.

[Sparko]

Out of interest, I did a quick check of how US rights line up with the bible. Taking the Bill of Rights list given here as the list of rights, and relying on my vague memories of the entire bible...

---
1. Freedom of speech
Bible against: Blasphemy is punishable by death (Lev 24:16), also blasphemy is condemned in the 10 commandments.

2. Freedom of press
Bible doesn't cover.

3. Freedom of religion
Bible against: Not worshipping other Gods is in 10 commandments, and emphasized throughout the bible.

4. Freedom of assembly
Bible doesn't cover?

5. Right to petition the government
Bible doesn't cover?

6. Right to bear arms
Bible doesn't cover

7. Protection against housing soldiers in civilian homes
Bible doesn't cover

8. Protection against unreasonable search and seizure
Bible doesn't cover?

9. Protection against the issuing of warrants without probable cause
Maybe someone could make an argument that the crime rules in the bible imply probable cause?

10. Protection against trial without indictment
Bible against: Biblical law codes do not mandate grand juries and imply people in biblical times were charged without such indictments.

11. Protection against double jeopardy
Bible doesn't cover?

12. Protection against self-incrimination
Bible doesn't cover.

13. Protection against property seizure
Not sure.

14. Right to a speedy trial
Bible doesn't cover

15. Right to be informed of charges
Not sure.

16. Right to be confronted by witnesses
Not sure.

17. Right to call witnesses
I guess maybe it's implied in the bible? There are certainly passages about witnesses.

18. Right to a legal counsel
Bible doesn't cover.

19. Right to trial by jury
Bible doesn't provide such a right. It seems to have allowed for a variety of judges. Hence it's implicitly against a jury being a defendant's right.

20. Protection against excessive bail
Bible doesn't cover.

21. Protection against excessive fines
Bible implicitly covers as it specifies amounts of fines for most fine-based punishments. Although I guess it could be argued that it never says the concept of excessive fines is bad, and therefore it's implicitly okay with it?

22. Protection against cruel and unusual punishment
Bible implicitly covers as it specifies punishments. Although, again, it never explicitly or implicitly condemns torture, so arguably that implies against such a right?

---

By my count, of the 22 rights in the US Bill of Rights, that's:
3 that the bible is explicitly against.
1 that it's implicitly against.
11 that the bible doesn't cover.
3 I'm not sure about, but leaning towards the bible not covering them.
2 arguable for or against.
2 weakly implied by the bible.
0 explicitly stated by the bible.

In summary: It looks like the rights in the US Bill of Rights are very much not based on the bible. Most of them are simply not covered by the bible at all, and for those that are, the bible is more against them than for them.

It isn't each right listed being based on the bible and God, but he entire idea of unalienable rights are from God that is brought forth in the DoI.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

The concept is that the people have rights from God that nobody can take away, and that the people allow the government to protect them and give the government their powers, not the government giving the people their rights. So that concept is the basis for things like freedom of speech and religion, carrying arms to protect yourself and your family.

[Starlight]

God is the only possible source or channel for universal human rights or human worth. Without that human rights are no more than a fiction.

Convince me. Let's start from what we can observe:

- God does not enforce rights
- The bible does not declare what things are rights
- The government does enforce rights
- The government does declare what things are rights

[Starlight]

It isn't each right listed being based on the bible and God, but he entire idea of unalienable rights are from God that is brought forth in the DoI.

I know, the argument is very vague and abstract. I am trying to look at it in more concrete terms: The rights in the bill of rights, on the whole, disagree with the bible and are not provided in the bible.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

Its nice flowery language, a verbally pretty document.

If you want me to assess its truth value, then I would say that's a little mean to do to a poetic document, but that it's obviously false.

Did such rights exist in biblical times? If yes, why doesn't the bible mention them, or governments in biblical times follow them?

Do you view the Declaration of Independence act as a supplement to the Bible, giving further revelations? Is the DoI inerrant and inspired, or were the men who wrote it totally fallible?

The concept is that the people have rights from God that nobody can take away

Given the Bible doesn't reveal God providing any such rights (nobody's quoted a single bible passage that comes remotely close to suggesting such anything like this), I've got to wonder how it was revealed to you that God gave such rights? Are you a prophet, was it revealed to you in a dream? Is the DoI supplementary scripture?

So that concept is the basis for things like freedom of speech and religion, carrying arms to protect yourself and your family.

Most of the world, including most Christians on earth, would view the carrying arms 'right' as complete garbage, and view it as an Americans-are-delusional thing.

If the rights come from God, how do we then know what is a 'right' and what is not? As I demonstrated in my earlier post the answers are not given in the bible. Is it up to you to make up the answers? If you say "carrying arms" is a right, and the rest of the world laughs at you for that, how could someone determine who is correct on that subject?

[seer]

Convince me. Let's start from what we can observe:

- God does not enforce rights
- The bible does not declare what things are rights
- The government does enforce rights
- The government does declare what things are rights

So you agree that human rights are fictions? Rights are not universal or unalienable?

[Starlight]

So you agree that human rights are fictions?

Try telling that to the police when they are arresting you and see how far it gets you. In the sense that they are actively enforced in the real world, they are clearly not fictional.

Rights are not universal or unalienable?

I stated some basic observable facts. Do you disagree with anything I stated? Can we agree on those observed facts? If we can agree, then please state that, and then put forth your own argument building on them and I will review it. If you disagree with what I said, please explain what you disagree with.