God given unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

Inalienable (or “unalienable”) means “incapable of being alienated, surrendered, or transferred” (Merriam-Webster) and “incapable of being removed” (Cambridge Dictionary).

An “unalienable right” is a right that “can’t be transferred to someone else, taken away, or denied”.

Unalienable and inalienable are synonyms, although some have argued that “unalienable” is something which is inalienable from birth (as opposed to something granted, that is, something ontological to the personhood of man). But the difference here does not matter as the Declaration of Independence describes these unalienable rights as being endowed by God and applicable to all man.


So let’s look at these “unalienable rights” that we are supposedly given by God.


The right to life:

The Declaration of Independence claims that God has endowed man with the unalienable right to life (that man has a right to his life and that this life cannot be removed or surrendered).

Is this true? Is the execution of a murderer a violation of the criminal’s right to life – a right that cannot be removed, alienated, or surrendered?

Why does man have a intrinsic right to life? Why do we think that God has given man this right? Why does Scripture tend to shy away from this idea, favoring instead that God created man not for man’s own purposes but for His glory – existing on this earth at the will of God rather than an unalienable right?

The right to liberty:

We are told that men have a right to liberty that is both unalienable and God given.

Liberty means “the power to do as one pleases; freedom from physical restraint, freedom from arbitrary or despotic control, a positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges; the power to choose” (Merriam-Webster).

Yet Scripture does not afford man this type of liberty, so is this really “endowed by our Creator”?


The right to the pursuit of happiness:

The Declaration of Independence declares that God has endowed men with the right to pursue happiness. This is perhaps the most obviously inconsistent “right” when we examine the list against Scripture. The reason is the context of the Declaration of Independence. The document is not a theological dissertation dealing with the Christian’s joy in Christ, but rather a document describing why a country is proclaiming its independence. It is a secular document. Do men have an unalienable right given by God since their birth to seek after their own happiness? No, of course not.


The irony is that the U.S. Constitution violates these rights. Where the Declaration of Independence proclaims the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to be God given and unalienable rights the U.S. Constitution allows for secular governmental laws to remove from its citizens these rights endowed by God which cannot be removed.

I am grateful the government seeks to give us these rights. But these are not God given, unalienable rights.

 

True. Implied are other unalienable rights.

Once we confirm that God has given men the unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness then perhaps it would be interesting to explore those others.

How exactly does men have those three unalienable rights, given to all men by God, yet the government is able to alienate men from those rights per the Constitution?

 

Supposedly they are to all men (they are supposedly given by God) yet although these are God endowed unalienable rights they can be removed by the government per our Constitution.

It is interesting.

In the US there is no distinction between races (as far as the law and government goes). All citizens have the sane rights. But these are not Hod given and they are not unalienable.

Does the UK provide rights based on naturalization vs natural born, or by race (there is no distinction here)?

 

You are incorrect. Those are prohibitions. Man is prohibited from murder, theft, ect. That does not give the other person an unalienable right to those things.

We live by God's grace, not our right. We have a responsibility to pursue God's will, not our desires.

 

They do not exist in Scripture. The reason murder is prohibited is not because of man but God (man is created in the image of God).

When we murder we sin against God. When we steal we sin against God. When we lie about someone we sin against God.

It is not about man and man's "unalienable rights" but about God and His Righteousness.

And that is what Scripture teaches over and over again....to include those verses you interpret as God giving men unalienable rights.

Read those passages again. They are how we are to conduct ourselves. They are prohibitions. They are instructions. NOT implying given rights of men but showing God's righteousness - what God requires of man NOT what men have a right to.

 

???

If you want to change my mind you need to provide Scripturr. The Reformation does not quite cut it with me.

 

But Scripture does not present God making man in His image as a right given to man. Murder is prohibited because it is against God, not because it violates man's rights.

That said, I agree that these unalienable rights are based on Christian values (albeit secularized). Liberty, for example, is not a personal right in Scripture either. Neither is the pursuit of happiness (we are to be obedient to God, to be submit our will to His - not to pursue our own happiness). What is worse is the Declaration of Independents gives these "God bestowed unalienable rights" to the World.

 

I agree. The Constitution recognizes instances where the Government may take away these "God given unalienable rights". Yet "unalienable" means that the Government cannot take these rights away. They are, per the Declaration of Independence, divinely bestowed on all men as unalienable rights.

 

You have misunderstood, brother. In the United States there are no rights available to one group of citizens that are not available to all groups of citizens.

What right did you think that a non-European immigrant citizen of the United States does not have that European descended citizens have?

In the United States even non-citizens are afforded the same rights (even military/ government service, should they so choose....I have done a lot of security clearances for non-citizens).

The only legal discrimination that we have in the United States is minority programs. An organization cannot give preference to White people but they can to minority groups (that is how we have colleges and organizations that are set aside for minorities and none set aside for White people). The reason this type of discrimination is allowed is it was a Supreme Court decision to help correct discrimination of the past that targeted minorities (it is/ was an attempt to help reverse damage done).

 

True. I was thinking more along the lines of these "unalienable rights" that God supposedly gave every human being....which given the post I addressed was a mistake on my part.

But, other than legal majority prejudices, rights are not determined by race or ethnicities for US citizens.