Where do your rights come from?

[RikWriter]

G-Raptor said:
So God only objects to slavery when it applies to his chosen people? I was taught that he was everybody's God. But I guess you're saying that if one of the "unchosen" people enslaves some other "unchosen" people, that's ok with him? Considering the difficulty in getting chosen, I guess that pretty much leaves the rest of us out.


I am not arguing religion with you. I was responding to SOMEONE ELSE who was using religious arguments. If you want to argue with him, feel free.


IMO, slavery in an institution of man, not God. As has been pointed out, it was the "normal" state of affair in ancient time. However, the fact that it existed did not justify it. If you want to believe that God sanctions it, you're free to do so.


I don't believe God had anything to do with it. I AM stating that you CANNOT use the Bible to condemn the institution of slavery, as it most certainly does not do so.


However, my original argument was not about the nature of God or a particular set of religious beliefs. As I said, the founders invoked God as a political statement, not a religious one.


Perhaps so.

 

[nualle]

G-Raptor: answered in PM as too far afield of topic.

 

[Wiz]

IMHO, your rights are "allowed" by your society. If you were alone on the planet, or on an island, you would have the "right" to do what ever you please, because no one else would be there to care. Since we live in a society, we have that society's values imposed upon us. Thus, to carry that thought a bit further, when you are born (created), you only have the rights that other people GIVE you. If you were not born in the US, for example, you might not have the "right" to voice your opinion on a forum such as this. Just my .02.

- Wiz

 

[nualle]

mack wrote a thoughtful post... here are parts of it:

Jim and nualle, I appreciate your responses. I have been off line the last couple of days due to electrical problems; half the power to our house was off and on due to a bad line connection.

Glad to see you back online, mack. I hope the technical problem has been resolved safely and permanently.

[snip] Unfortunately, I see all secular arguments in favor of individual rights as doomed to fall to the behaviorists and Prozac if you will.

This is a valid worry, but one that can be alleviated by defining "human" physically and grant the full quota of rights to all humans. Obviously, those humans who cannot answer for themselves (e.g., infants, those with severe mental deficiencies...) must have someone with full capacities protect and answer for them. But they don't lose all rights to the guardian. They must retain legal standing against an abusive guardian, even if initiative against the abuser must come from a third party.

If by “behaviorism,†I understand you correctly to mean “nurture determinism†or the “blank slate†theory of human development… I think we’d disagree as to how that connects with religion. We might even disagree about how much of a danger it is (that is, how well or badly it, as a theory, reflects reality.) It’d be a fascinating discussion, but OT here.

[snip] Governments worldwide will move more and more to the corporate state model, where the unholy alliance of business and government will continue with their gradual encroachment on individual rights and liberties, marginalizing the individual.

I share your distress at seeing this happening. I also look back on literally thousands of years of abuses shown by the unholy alliance of religion and government. Neither is acceptable. But the problem with corporations, large as it looms now, is orders of magnitude less than the problem with religions. Let me explain how.

Corporations are human inventions, devised to serve human, real-world ends. They are tools. The problem is that they have been granted legal capacities beyond those of tools. By means of these, their wielders and beneficiaries accrue more profit to themselves while protecting themselves from the harm they do through their corporate practices. This is wrong, but it stems from a wrong understanding of who is a human and some people's use of the "corporation" tool, not from anything inherent in the nature of the tool.

Most religions (especially the modern ones) are essentially other-world focused. All the best efforts of their best believers are aimed somewhere other than this world.

Matthew 6:19-24
19 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! 24 "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

This means that, soon or late, all their believers (except those in theocracies run by their own sect) end up in conflicts of interest.

As far as the rest of us go, that's not really a problem until, in order to reduce their conflicts of interest, believers start "establishing" their own religion, moving the government toward theocracy. Governments, like corporations, are tools devised and designed by humans toward human ends. Insofar as a government favors one religious view over others, it disfavors the humans within it who have other views. It is therefore not serving its function relative to them.

I am not a Utilitarian. I do not believe that the desire of the many outweighs the need of one. All humans have rights that all humans are bound by ethics to respect. No majority can ethically overwhelm that.

[lots of good, but archived, background snipped] No concern for individuals, just a purely behavioral approach, this pitch with this product will net this number of dollars or votes. The concept of the individual is being deconstructed and with it individual rights.

When only individuals have legal rights—when individuals who make decisions are held liable for the harm their decisions cause, regardless of the fact that the actors were employees following orders—end o’ problem.

I hope I am wrong about the direction things are going, but when man is the measure, and science is the judge, then I fear we will truly find ourselves beyond freedom and dignity – with nothing is sacred or forbidden and individuals are merely collections of DNA and physiological responses to be manipulated.

Science is not a judge. Science is a collection of methods. We each are judges and we choose the tools we find work best for us. Only by centering our public interactions on the principle of humans as ends in themselves, not as means—even God’s means—will we be deterred from thinking ourselves ethical while stepping on our neighbors’ rights.

 

[G-Raptor]

I don't believe God had anything to do with it. I AM stating that you CANNOT use the Bible to condemn the institution of slavery...

That... I agree with.

 

[mack]

nualle, thanks for the thoughtful post, I know that we probably agree on more things than we disagree.

Since my last post wandered into some off topic ground, I will try to bring this back to topic.

I believe that the primary problem is that the concept of the individual, and therefore individual rights, is increasingly marginalized.

While I agree that organized religion and the synergy of organized religion and government has lead to terrible atrocities, I also find that so called secular philosophy and government has lead to the equal or greater atrocities - witness the soviet union, communist china, fascism, and pol pot.

The solution as always is a set of shared unchanging values that respect the rights of the individual. Our society is big on espousing individual freedoms, but as you point out fails miserably when it comes to accepting or demanding individual accountability. Like children we want everything we desire, but don't want to be held accountable for our choices. That is a prescription for disaster and the note is coming ever closer to being due.

Obviously, I find those unchanging values, which proclaim the primacy of individual liberty and responsibility through my faith in God. In my way of thinking, if God gives us the freedom to choose him or to reject him, (the most important decision one can make), then individual liberty must be respected in all those areas of life that involve lesser decisions; essentially the rest of life.

Therefore individuals who reject God, must be respected to make that choice, and one should have no issue with them or their choice, as it is not any other person's to judge.

This ties into individual rights when people from a secular or from a religious viewpoint decide to violate another individuals right to choose and to reap the rewards or consequences of their choices.

This is where individuals who respect individual liberty can agree, regardless of their belief or nonbelief in God.

My concern is that with the advance of science, we will use that knowledge without constraint. When I alluded to science as the judge, I did not mean that science made moral judgements, quite the opposite, science makes no moral judgement. But that is the problem, in a society that is increasingly unable to make moral judgements or reach a moral consensus, whatever science makes possible, will come to fruition. Our absence of judgement becomes our judgement.

An amoral man with sticks, stones, or a gun can kill a few of his fellow humans. An amoral man with a nuclear or biological weapon can kill millions. The death of individual liberty lies in that equation, many will claim we can no longer afford to live in a world which respects inalienable rights, when the cost of respecting those rights could result in the death of millions. They already make the argument when it comes to the right to keep and bear arms, where the cost, (per their point of view), is in the thousands of lives nationwide, not in millions.

Science will also enable governments to access the information they need to keep the majority fat and happy, identify potential troublemakers and keep tabs on them and their activities. Laws will be passed and corporate polices enacted that are for the good of the people and that will through advances in technology be minimally intrusive to the uneducated because technology will make them transparent and just a part of daily life.

By behaviorism I generally mean the amoral application of science, that views human beings as no more than a collection of DNA and a combination of innate and learned behaviors. Not a blank slate, but a combination of hardware and software, that can through the informed use of the right stimulus and chemicals be made to respond in the preferred manner ninety percent plus of the time. This is a viewpoint that is increasingly being adopted at all levels of society, particularly secular society; life and individual liberty are no longer sacred.

The pervasive attitude in government, in business, and in society in general is not whether something is right or wrong, but does it yield the desired result. That is the Holy Grail of business, government, and much of secular society. Religious faith that values right and wrong, that rejects relative values, that concerns itself with why; is seen as quaint at best and dangerous if it leads to a challenge of the powers that be. See what happens when homeschooling is viewed as a threat to the education establishment, or people try to actually live by their faith. I half joke with my wife that because we live in the country in an old farm home, have guns, and believe in God, that we per current newspeak, are religious fanatics with an arsenal of weapons living in an isolated compound.

Fight the good fight.