Conservative vs Liberal

As far as I know nobody believes those things.

So why do you dedicate a post to argue against them??

I am saying that life is not an inalienable human right -per Scripture.

We exist by God's grace, not our right to exist.

Same with liberty. God did not command that a person caught by the IRS cheating on taxes lose his liberty. Man determined that. That man's liberty is taken. It is not inalienable.

 

Ok.....let's walk through a senerio.

Jim gets caught with heroin. The judge sentences Jim to 2 years in prison. Jim explains that he has an inalienable right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The judge, of course, must let Jim go as he cannot alienate Jim from his rights if they are inalienable.

Matt runs into one of his enemies and kills him. It wasn't planned. He was just in the moment. Scripture says Matt cannot be killed for the murder but can take refuge in an appointed place. Yet that deprives Matt of liberty (he is essentially a prisioner), his pursuit of happiness, and if he does leave his life.

Ben is caught drinking and driving in SC. This was the 3rd time. He was not in an accident but was pulled over for swerving. The judge sentences him to 3 years.....but wait....that would alienate Ben of his right to liberty. Judge must let him go.

 

I agree the right to do something isn't the same as that something or having it.

That is kinda my point.

The DOI is in the context of "dissolving the political bands which have connected [one people] with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them"

Governments are established to secure these unalienable rights.

The context is a people and government.

The DOI is a political declaration. It is not theological.

Living among men we have the right to exist without another taking our life.

But theologically we have life by God's grace, not human right.

He is the Potter, we are the clay.

 

No, I am not. I am talking about the right to life and liberty as an inalienable right of a man.

If the right can be taken away it is not inalienable.

The main reason for my disagreement, however, is that the idea man has an inalienable right to life is unbiblical.

Scripture presents man as having life by God's grace rather than a human right.

 

I used the Websters dictionary.

Either way, your definition does not work.

Saying the Founding Fathers wanted to communicate that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain "NON-TRANSFERABLE" rights simply does not make sense.

How would you transfer the right to life? To whom was this right to life being transferred.

If all men have it, for what purpose is a man's right to life transferred.

I encourage you to read the DOI Substituting your definition. It makes the DOI meaningless.

It means that those rights cannot be taken away, BTW. I'm actually not sure why it is even a point of discussion as it has never been a debatable issue.

 

Exactly!!!!!

Why do you focus on non-transferable when nobody (except you) believe that the meaning of unalienable in the DOI?

 

It doesn't employ theological references at all.

The DOI is a declaration of why one people would separate from another. Theology deals with man and God.

In a government people do not have the right to take away human rights. BUT human rights are within the context of governed people.

The theological point is that murder is a sin against God because man is created in God's image.

Man does not have a right to life. Man lives by God's grace. God, not man, is sovereing here. Man has no right to murder because this is a sin against God.

 

We may be.

But in the DOI saying men have the "non-transferable" right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness among other "non-transferable" rights just does not make sence.

That is why nobody has ever read the DOI or the Constitution as you ate suggesting.

The point is these are to be unalienable rights (rights that cannot be alienated from the person).

 

I am arguing that unalienable rights means rights that cannot be alienated from the person.

It does not mean one person's rights transferred to another person as the DOI declares that ALL men already have these rights.

It means the government cannot (or should not, as the argument is England did) take away human rights. The government exists to protect and defend the rights of its citizens.

 

It is a reference to God. But all men being endowed by God with unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is a political statement (NOT a theological one).

That statement is not only not in Scripture, but it actually runs contrary to what Scripture teaches (slaves being content in their situation, the life of murderers bring the penalty of murder, not pursuing our own desires, etc.).

If it is a theological statement then it is incorrect.

But it isn't. The DOI itself claims to be a political declaration, explaining why a people will dissolve political bonds with another people.

 

I don't think transference has anything to do with the topic. That is simply not what unalienable means in the DOI.

The DOI was a declaration of our nation's independence- dissolving the political bonds between our nation and England. The explanation that governments are instituted among man, deriving their power from the men governed. In this context men have those rights (the government does not have the authority to take them away except in extreme circumstances because it is from the governed, and for the governed, that the government has power.