The Declaration of Independence declares that inalienable rights come from God

All the more reason to doubt that they meant to refer to God, and especially to any particular god such as Yahweh.

 

I'll bet you've never read a complete sentence from the DoI.

 

Regretfully I reply. NO, if they wanted it "pretty obvious" they would have use God somewhere in the declaration. I am willing to bet, after much discussion, they left him/her/them/it out purposely.


Glad you and durandai covered it and it is settled.

 

That would be the ultimate sucker bet, seeing they didn't leave it out at all.

 

Still a basic fact....

the Constitution (including the Bill of RIGHTS) is the prime basis for our laws and interpretations that reflect on the rights of the citizenry.....not the DOI.

And there is NO mention of "God" or even "Creator" in it.

 

But I will chime in again with the suggestion that we actually have more 'constitution" than is written down in the Constitution. For example, the Constitution has no provision at all for popular voting for the President. Constitutionally, the electors of the Electoral College vote. The states are free to designate their electors in any way they choose. If a state's laws & constitution said so, the governor could appoint all the electors.

But what would happen if some state tried to do away with the presidential election in their state, and go with something like that? The people of the state would not stand for it. There would be riots, extreme unrest, the state government would totally lose all legitimacy. So I say, popular voting for the president is now part of the U.S. "constitution." The unwritten part. On reflection, perhaps you can think of other such examples.

Heck, the whole entire British Constitution is unwritten, so you can look there and see how it works.

Anyway, I say the Declaration of Independence language on rights, by unwritten convention, is and should be of constitutional stature in the American political culture.

 

Does it really matter what the subjective moral values of even Religion are, since our Founding Fathers, Ordained and Established our temporal and secular morals for modern times.

 

There are no moral absolutes anyway, except in the fevered imagination of goddists; and they cant name any.

When they try its always specific instances, not any general rules we could go be.

I kinda thing your founding fathers were very bright guys who knew that.

 

You miss the point of the entire DOI.............

QUOTE=danielpalos;1062746971]Does it really matter what the subjective moral values of even Religion are, since our Founding Fathers, Ordained and Established our temporal and secular morals for modern times.[/QUOTE]

You too miss the point! The DOI was never a foundational document nor was it a constitutional foundation.....it's not even a legally binding document!

 

Perhaps you miss the point. The DOI was not such things by original intent, to be sure. But it is what we make of it.

Edison originally intended the phonograph as a way of preserving 'important moments,' and as a business machine. Recording music was to him a silly and trivial idea.

 

Actually it's pretty obvious the Framers thought otherwise:

Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth. In Witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names.​

IOW, the DoI is not just a founding document, it is THE founding document.

 

It's more a style of speech than a statement of belief in the supernatural. The idea of rights being natural is what they are trying to get across.
John Adams put it better in Article 1 of the Massachusetts Constitution, "All Men are born free and equal".

But just like if someone sneezes and someone else says "God Bless You", it's not a profound declaration of a belief in the supernatural, it's a style of speech to acknowledge the sneeze.

And here's the difference, the Declaration of Independence has no legal weight, it isn't a part of the law.
The constitution is part of the law, and it doesn't mention god, because the language is more precise.

 

To paraphrase Al Capone, who allegedly said "You can achieve more with just a few kind words and a gun than you can with just a few kind words:" You can protect yourself better in a dark alley with just the God-given rights to life and liberty and a gun than just the God-given rights to life and liberty.

 

There are no rights which are inalienable.

 

That a lot of people won't respect these rights doesn't mean that they are not inalienable.

 

Al Capone-type people certainly need guns. But you know, I recall a time when it was practically unknown for respectable people to go about armed. One is safe even in dark alleys if most folks agree that everyone has rights to life and liberty. These conditions exist even today in some localities. There are whole counties with murder rates approaching zero. Highly-populous suburban counties.

 

Thomas Jefferson wanted to outlaw slavery in the Declaration of Independence. However, pressure was put on him to take that section out so as to not thwart the establishment of the Republic. So Jefferson did what politicians do, he reached across the isle and compromised in the most moderate fashion possible.

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Are you saying that you should have no rights or that the rights that you have are baseless?

 

I think the idea is that rights are what we give to each other. They are not some inherent law of the universe.

 

By in large laws operate on the premise of the Golden Rule. Basically, don't violate your neighbors space. Treat others they way you wish to be treated. This is the natural law of man.

Granted, this law is continually violated by man, but it still speaks to us via our conscience and reflected in our universal laws. Don't murder. Don't steal etc..

There are a wide variety of ways to silence this voice. From what I have seen, the most dangerous method is to dehumanize the other person. This happened in the deep south during the 1800's in the US by making blacks nothing but glorified apes. It happened in Nazi Germany as Jews were compared to vermin. And it happens today with nonMuslims being called "infidels" and Jews apes and pigs. In fact, I think the same for the unborn. They are not unborn babies, they are a "fetus". For you see, once the other person is not your equal, then you can treat them as a beast of burden.

 

The Declaration of Independence declares that inalienable rights come from God

Who he?

 

This goes out to all the big government atheist dead heads.

1. I don't recognize a "fair" tax.

2. I don't recognize the "collective good".

3. I don't recognize spreading your version of democracy as the ultimate virtue.

4. How about leaving treating me the way you want to be treated, namely, leave me the freak alone so long as I'm a law abiding citizen that leaves you alone.

 

So if I choose not to give you the right to life, you don't have it. Right?

 

So why didn't he free his own slaves in 1776 then???

 

Putting your money where your mouth is can be very expensive.

 

Odd.....conservatives make the exact OPPOSITE argument....when it comes to abortion rights.

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And your "booty call"....aka Sally Hemings.

Apparentlhy the myth is "Jefferson wanted slavery outlawed"....but he didn't want to free them himself or stop effing them???