Given how little political news there is and how all is quiet, peaceful and agreeable all over the world, it seems to me that the Playpen should join in this trend and avoid any angry affrays. With this in mind, this week I would like to get some feedback on a long obsession of mine. Specifically, the interplay between human/civil rights and the question of the existence of some supreme being.
The first sentence of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence reads:
“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 such was a profound thought when it was written is too often ignored and replaced with debates about whether the author, or any signatories to the document, really meant the “equal” part. To me that obscures the significance of the argument put forth that our existence itself entitles us to certain things that no authority can justifiably take away. It also suggests that such existence was brought forth by some undefined entity.
I am not terribly interested in a debate today about the breadth and scope of what those “unalienable rights” are either within the Constitution as written or what the breadth of those rights ought to be. Those would be best left to individual consideration. I do assume that we all agree that one or more Rights fits neatly within the assertion.
Now I am no religious fanatic or Bible beater. I have my own personal beliefs that aren’t anyone’s damn business. However, in the context of the declaration the questions I have long pondered are these:
If you are a dedicated, absolute atheist, how exactly are any Rights ever guaranteed to any of us? Does such a person assume that our Rights are only as good as they can be defended, or not? If what Jefferson wrote were true is it not true that our Rights exist even if we were overrun tomorrow by a heathen horde, denied them all, and then lie would dormant until they could once again be reclaimed?
It seems to me that while pure power in a practical sense controls the exercise of Rights, power can never establish the existence of any Rights or what those Rights may be. I, for one, would rather look at a tyrant and say “I can do X, because God, so fuck off!” and accept the consequences, then to concede that my Rights only extend as far as that tyrant decides that they do.
To put it another way, are humans really endowed with inalienable rights from a Creator, and thus a Creator of some type and nature must be acknowledged OR is our “God” in reality the strongest worldly person/entity capable of enforcing those Rights or to take them away? Personally, as inadequate as we humans may be in discerning and agreeing upon what those specific Rights are, I prefer the concept that the ultimate arbiter of these things is not some other person or persons, but derives from something bigger and stronger than all of us combined.
Discuss.
Are you getting too blinded by the Forest (God and the creator) that you can’t see past the trees. Weren’t the authors just trying their best to ensure that no government could …EVER… take away the things and rights we all need to be as free as humanly possible without infringing on his/her neighbors pursuit of the same freedom?
And can you think of any entity, for lack of better terms or description, than God or Creator to serve as the ultimate authority? Neither could they.
And I am fine with that. I’m not making a religious argument or promoting any particular type or version of God. I’m proposing that extracting the concept of a “whatever brung us here and will soon take us away, for reasons we will never grasp” from the human experience is inconsistent with, or a threat to, a free society. Whatever one’s concept of that entity is, its better, for the purposes of maintaining a free society, that we all have some concept, even in multitudes of various versions, than for us all to be in agreement that we’re all alone down here. Without that concept what is there to temper pure power for its own sake and benefit?
It’s a great question. In our current environment, I need to take God and religion out of the equation because we’ve experienced a degredation of a state where religion is no longer clollectivelly accepted and respected. I hate that fact personnally. However, until we are all operating off the same set of rules in terms of one collective authority or supreme being you mentioned in your first paragraph, Im not sure we can answer your question. It’s unfortunate. I hope the next generations can find a solution to said authority, be it religious or other, i don’t see us solving it in the near future. God Bless!
To be clear, I am not for a mix of religion and government. I don’t believe sectarianism tends to be helpful either. States that don’t make that separation between church and state or favor one religion over another tend not to be very free, especially not for those who aren’t in the favored sect.
A belief in a creator does not presuppose that any existing religion is more meritorious than any other or that they all aren’t flawed in some degree. I don’t think that the Founders were by and large deeply religious people. I think they were challenging the notion that any King or Pope could be the final arbiter of the Rights of man. Further, if man is to truly be free his Rights must be protected by or derived from a source greater than any man. Can that structure survive if you are someone that believes that there is no God/Creator/Natural force or whatever. If its all just random and meaningless, wouldn’t any form of government be it a dictatorship or Kingship be perfectly acceptable for as long as the leader can keep it together? And if part of ruling effectively is depriving some of speech or of voting or anything else, as deemed necessary, well its tough luck that you’re relatively weak.
Yawn. These Playpen posts are poorly written, long-winded, BORING, and entirely off-topic for a UGA/college football blog. Like my comment if you agree. Let’s send a message to the folks that run this website.
Cue Derek’s terribly unwitty reply to my comment and poor attempt at humor. This guy must be dreadful at parties, if he ever gets invited to one. Guess what, Derek? I’m not reading your replies. Please go take a writing class at the local community shelter. Thanks in advance.
Thank you for very much for your contribution to the discussion.
Come back anytime!
Here’s some material that can assist you in anticipation of your next visit:
Yes, I believe what Jefferson wrote. Yes, there is a Creator who made us in His image. He created us to be free. Then that little thing we call evil or sin crept in and created the desire for one person to dominate another or for us to be selfish through exercise of free will. Do I wish the Founding Fathers had dealt with the issue of slavery during the writing of the Constitution? Absolutely. Do I wish our southern ancestors in particular had seen the error of their ways, freed their slaves and avoided a war in which 600,000 men died and left untold numbers maimed, disfigured and displaced? Absolutely. Do I wish we had truly recognized that all of us should be treated equally before the 1960s? Absolutely. None of that history invalidates the words written by Jefferson.
Our right to life, liberty and the pursuit (not achievement) of happiness is unalienable. No one of these can exist without the other 2. Any government who tries to take these away from one or all without due process is illegitimate. I tend to think the rights in the first 10 amendments (plus the 14th) to the Constitution are there to make sure these unalienable rights are protected.
Not sure I answered your question, Derek, but it’s really hard for me to see how a constitutional republic can continue to exist without recognition of this concept.
I think of the Declaration as an aspirational document upon which the Constitution was built.
I tend to agree. Whether intentional or not. Which is why I think we do ourselves a disservice when we don’t carry those values with us in international affairs. Ultimately, it is in our economic and security interests for other nations to follow our example as closely as possible. We are too often act indifferent or even hostile to those ideals in international affairs which I think inhibits the aspiration.
I would also note that when it came to writing down what the rights in the Constitution would be they weren’t asking preachers or praying or sacrificing, they were negotiating with each other.
I generally agree with your first point. I think that’s really going to be tested some day when the leadership of the CCP decides that Taiwan is going to be annexed by diplomacy or by force.
Yes, the Constitution was negotiated. The decision on slavery was an outcome that was a casualty of that.
I suppose I am analyzing the question from the perspective of: its all gone wrong. Domestically or internationally those rights are in jeopardy or non-existent or no one recognizes them. You write on a piece of cardboard “Fuck (enter name of person in charge)!” and take it to the town square or park and display it. Jack booted goons arrest you. Take you to a tribunal. “What do you have to say for yourself! You can’t disrespect our leaders! It is against the law! What gives you the right to violate the law?!”
What is the answer?
Is there any available answer without some concept of a Creator?
“Is there any available answer without some concept of a Creator?”
The short answer is no. MLK, Rosa Parks, John Lewis and the civil rights movement showed that in the 60s. None of the people who led the movement were “silly” as the commenter below calls people who believe in a Creator.
EE, in your last paragraph there are those that are trying to tear down this concept.
May God strike down the Playpen. Much rather have off season posts about favorite books, movies and streaming series to watch.
Are they rights or are they privileges? Japanese Americans thought they had unalienable rights prior to WWII.
Seems religious conservatives have no issue taking away women’s reproductive rights.
The idea we have god given rights is great for a newly forming society. Actually believing some supernatural force gives a shit about our “rights” is silly.
Its all just a means to control a population for good and bad.
Whether you believe it intellectually or not, is there not some utility in adhering to the concept that there is something more powerful than the strongest man on Earth? I just really don’t like the idea that someone walking the Earth could take dominion over me and all I can say is: “well since I can’t whip your ass, I suppose I have to accept this as my fate.” I’d rather be able to say:
“you are violating the damn rules and you will pay in this life or the next!”
If you’ve watched the movie The Death of Stalin, and everyone should, there is a scene where he is drafting a list of people to be yanked out of their homes and shipped to gulags or worse. Not because they had actually done anything. It was just a way of intimidating the public because well you could be next so act accordingly.
If you are an old man who KNOWS he is going to die and then worm food, period, why does he give a fuck? Why would he treat it any differently than stepping on a few ants? If your mindset is that an orderly safe nation benefits the group and a few eggs just have to be cracked, so why not? It sucks for the few, but there is a greater good achieved and I can do this because I can do this, end of discussion.
I can’t prove a God, but it seems like one would come in really handy there.
“If you are an old man who KNOWS he is going to die and then worm food, period, why does he give a fuck? “
Maybe because he has morals? And spare me any of the “There’s no morals without God” arguments. Our society’s most popular made-up superstitions are full of the most immoral shit you can imagine.
In modern times, now that we know what is good and bad for society in general, there is no need for a celestial dictator to protect us from ourselves by scaring us talking apes into thinking we’re headed to a lake of fire if we fail to honor they mother and father.
There is a difference between morals and consequences.
I certainly would never say that believers are more moral than nonbelievers. You’d have a damn hard time proving that up.
I do wonder what an ardent atheist would say if they found themselves both in the absence of rights and facing down the full weight of the state.
Which brings me to a question that was raised in the Nuremberg trials. If the defendants followed orders and those orders were “lawful” in Germany, why did they deserve to be punished? There was no secular or man made rule or statute prohibiting their conduct at the time the acts were committed. Where did the authority come from to mete out punishment?
You can say either from some concept of natural law, that cannot be disconnected from some concept of a Creator OR you can criticize the Allies for just making it up and thereby violated the executed Nazis due process rights. I know which I prefer.
You should know as much as anyone that consequences are not a great deterrent in preventing people from performing immoral acts.
I think that calculation is a bit different for leaders of nations than random citizens. Deterrence down here is impacted by thoughts of “getting away with it” and of course for crimes of passion they are irrelevant. If you’re Truman in August 1945, you’re thinking about it. In a nuclear age we’d better hope posterity is a thing…
I love having sex, but I can’t be bothered with this thing growing inside me right now, so let’s get rid of it.
Japanese Americans did have unalienable rights, and our government violated those after Pearl Harbor. The detention of those citizens should be a mark of shame on us.
The question of abortion is a hell of lot deeper than your talking point that it’s “religious conservatives.” There is absolutely science to deal with there in addition to the moral question. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
On your last point, I would suggest you take a look at Pascal’s wager. I have no problem if you don’t believe in a higher power, but your comment calling people “silly” is exactly the type of thing that doomed the Senator’s version of the Playpen in the past.
Pascal’s Wager is also “silly” IMO. Would the same god who murdered every life on earth, except for one 600-year-old dude and his family, allow someone in his paradise who he knew was just hedging their bet?
This seem like good place to leave this…
Who the fuck is Sturgill Simpson?
My favorite line of his is:
“Woke up today and decided to kill my ego
It wadn’t doing me no good, no how.”
Buying tickets to his Nashville show (its our off week in Oct) in about an hour or so…
I’m not a concert fan (mostly because my hearing is so bad) but I’m seriously thinking about going to the October show in Duluth. My daughter tends bar at the steakhouse next door to the arena and that’s a good excuse to go that way as well.
Going a little sideways. Wouldn’t an infinite being with infinite power have created beings that didn’t need a document outlining their unalienable rights? Weren’t the founders just doing cleanup for the “Creator?” Use of the word Creator was an editing choice to avoid writing out God, Allah, Jehovah, Vishnu, etc. and leaving out the one group of fanatics that would someday feel marginalized. We all know how that turns out.
I don’t think anybody had any notions that a supreme being was going to be involved in the day to day minutiae… Experience had long showed such an expectation was unwarranted.
According to Yuval Harari in “Homo Deus” we’re all simply biologic algorithms, AI is the net evolutionary step, and the Homo Sapien is on the same path as the Neandertal.
According to Ben Carson supreme alien beings are behind it all…
Thanks for the book reference, 36,000 Amazon reviews can’t be wrong.
The Ben Carson reference sent me sideways. Do you mean the Ben Carson that has an oil painting of himself with a black Jesus in his home? Gives a different perspective to “created in His image.”
My tinnitus is so bad I have to have some background noise (or copious amounts of alcohol) to fall asleep, usually an audiobook or podcast. Joe Rogan’s podcast is usually great for a snooze but when I woke up Carson was being interviewed. It’s worth a listen. Kaleidoscopic is the best way I can describe it and I could smell some seriously sticky ganga though my earbuds. LMAO
Apologies, budlite. The guy’s name is BILLY Carson. Still far out and funny.
My bad, Ben…
The Declaration was written in the Age of the Enlightenment, so it was a product of the age. It was a call to the American colonies to not let the King in far away England take advantage of them. Thomas Jefferson, no matter his flaws, was a heck of a writer. How the document has been interpreted over 200 years has not always been as it was intended.
Charles Carroll is my favorite signatory of the D of I because he was the single one of my clan to sign it.
I am glad to be from a country where everyone is free to be religious or not be.
We were late to the abolish slavery party but it is not like the USA was the only country to participate in it. Doesn’t justify or make it right but putting today’s values into 17th century values doesn’t make sense to me. Since the dawn of time (and including today), slavery has been used by countries. I believe Jefferson said slavery will be the death of the USA?
The way I look at my country and my religion(Catholic)…it has its flaws and dark periods but at its core there is the « manifest/motto » to be a force for good in the world.
My best contribution to this post: Publix has Hatfield bacon on a buy one, get one sale. Whether you like the Classic Cut, Thick Cut or Applewood Smoked it’s dang good bacon. Might want to stock up.
Derek, your question is easily answered. This country, The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, etc. is based on Judeo-Christian ethics and English common law. Without those two things there is no United States of America. Do you have any more questions?
Do you have any idea of how many things you glossed over to come to that declaration of complete certitude? Moreover, the question is not about the historical underpinnings of how those words came to be, which is far more complex and complicated than you suggest, the question is whether you could make any assertion of unalienable rights without presupposing some extraterrestrial grantor, and guarantor, of those rights? That question would exist with or without the existence of this continent much less the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. For our purposes today those words in that document were used to illustrate.
I do wonder how you would solve the puzzle of how the fuck England, and consequently the Colonies, were ruled by an intolerable tyrant given that the place overflowed with both “Judeo-Christian ethics and English common law.” Given the advantages of proximity, and quite a few more “Judeos” btw, how did the English avoid coming to the same conclusion and ridding themselves of King George and save us all the trouble in the meantime? Ffs you do know that they still got one, right? It is the United KINGDOM ya know?
You are a lawyer so I shouldn’t be surprised by all of your silly drivel. unfortunately, for you, it doesn’t change the facts at all.
As someone who doesn’t believe in a Creator, I must admit that I’d never given this much thought. I guess I’d have to concede that our rights are “only as good as can be defended”, either by logic or by force. Or they’re only as good as we, as a society, agree that they are. Either way, it would make them privileges, not rights.
Along the same line of thought, did we gain more rights by rejecting the monarchy via the Revolutionary War? Or were those rights always there, unalienable, lying dormant as suggested above, and we simply gained access to those rights by fighting for them?
I think the founding fathers were trying to express a series of ideals and aspirations, and that language was the best they could do to put that into words (and it’s pretty darn good). But those words are undercut to a degree by the fact that they didn’t take them literally. At the time of our nation’s founding, all men (and women) were not treated equally. They did not all have liberty nor the ability to pursue their own happiness. If those rights were indeed “unalienable”, then how could those same founding fathers justify withholding those rights from large portions of the populace for years and years? This would also suggest that the rights are “only as good as can be defended”.
In all practical senses you are correct. If they are not fought for and defended, once gained, the source is pretty irrelevant in terms of their exercise. Its also arguable that people have “invented” rights in the same way people “invented” God(s) for their own purposes. Where I quibble is in the fact that just because people invented these things does not mean there is no Creator. And if there is one, presumably It/He/Her, has certain preferences for us OR if the entity is not so engaged, our choices will still do honor or dishonor to this temporary/permanent gift. As a far wiser man than I will ever be observed:
You can pretend all you want, and most of us do, but while we are here, we are serving one side or the other, in everything we do, no matter how insignificant we may or may not be. There are no opt outs. So coming full circle, as I tried to clarify in one of the responses, the test of the proposition comes when the rights have been wrested away and you are arguing for them to be reinstated, recognized or observed. At that point you do have to consider whether or not that shield of a Creator is essential. As far as the sincerity at the time? I hate to discount the notion that the author was any less optimistic about the future than I am. I personally don’t think that if you asked the more intellectual of the founders at the time that they would have insisted that “men” would always be limited to land-holding, Protestant white men. I think they saw that what they were fighting for was a beginning, not an end.