What is the true source of rights?

You did? Why did you leave out this passage?

If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies, he shall be punished. If however, the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. Exodus: 21:20.

If not cherry picking again ... willful ignorance?

 

You are equating a "right" with a moral right or wrong. You can have rights that are wrong and rights that are right. They are not equivalent.

Not necessarily. Logic and reason alone can lead us to a conclusion that we need certain "rights" for an effective society. If no one has a right to life, that leads to a pretty non-functioning society. While not everyone may agree we (should) have a basic right to life (meaning others don't have the "right" to arbitrarily take away yours) when you have a consensus belief in the right in a society, it often because a right granted and enforced by society.

 

The DoI doesn't say rights come from God, it says they come from the Creator. Almost all religions believe their god is the Creator. That makes the term "Creator" pretty much applicable to everyone.

You do *NOT* need to have a government or even other men around you in order to have your rights. That means they come from somewhere other than men or governments. If you are on an island by yourself you are still free to defend yourself from predators, you are free to move around to whereever you want, you are free to use whatever is on the island. That simply wouldn't be the case if you needed man or government to give you your rights.

 

Rights are those things an individual can exercise without putting a burden on anyone else. That pretty much keeps natural rights in the "moral" universe.

Any right that you think you have that is morally wrong is *not* a natural right. It is what is called "license". Such as the right Hitler had to gas Jews.

Your right to life exists independent of being part of a society or a government. Have you ever watched the TV show "Naked and Afraid"? The right to life those people have is not given to them by either man, society, or government, they have to *work* to exercise that individual right.

Anything conferred upon you by man, society, or government is an ENTITLEMENT which requires placing a burden on someone else in order to effect that entitlement.

 

Not every slave was wanting freedom.

Slaves didn't do the revolting. The north did.
Are many Muslim women free?
Are they fighting for freedom?

 

It does not say 'the'. Quit changing the words. It only shows you can't back you claim.

 

Sure, when it's preceded by a number.

And neither should it be. When the 1787 ConCon was held, the Articles of Confederation were still in effect, and they did not prescribe a means of amendment, much less amendment by less than unanimous consent of the states. The proper method of proposing amendments, other than by Congress, would be an Amendments Convention/Convention of States per A5.

 

What rights are being talked about?
Legal
Moral

 

Humans evolved to have empathy. Cooperation simply works. The foundation of everything good people do is the fact that being decent to each other has allowed our species to thrive.

 

I suppose the idea is you shouldn't take away what God (or providence) has provided to man.

 

And ironically, in the effort to "help" people and improve their life, all sorts of governments throughout history have done away with decency.
Prime examples are many communist regimes.

I think "negative rights" can only give way to "positive rights" so much before the first are violated.

 

I do, indeed, believe in natural rights.

It is a logical fallacy known as confirmation bias.

 

No, they are not.

And that includes you.

(Actually, I find it difficult to believe that you are closer to infallibility than the authors of that great document were.)

 

Most of your post is a screed against biblical "rights"; yet I never asserted that the Bible should be the arbiter of rights--nor do I believe that.

So most of your post is quite irrelevant.

As to natural rights, yes, I do believe in these. And they are really not that difficult to determine. Natural rights are the right to be free of any intrusion from government--and free from the bullying of other individuals.

 

Whereas I have no strong urge for a second Constitutional Convention, I would not strongly oppose one, either.

 

I've never claimed that I'm infallible but I have claimed that I'm entitled to an opinion.

 

Exodus 21: 26-27
26 ¶ And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye's sake.
27 And if he smite out his manservant's tooth, or his maidservant's tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake.

The Bible was not *for* mistreating slaves no matter how much you wish it to be so.

 

No, not all slaves rebel! That does not mean all slaves don't want to rebel!

 

"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"

"THEIR CREATOR". Again, almost everyone that has ever lived on the earth has believed in some creation myth which involves a Creator.

The sentence makes no reference to any specific Creator no matter how much you want to read it as being so!

 

Owning slaves is mistreatment, no matter how much you wish it weren't so.

 

Really? Evolution is responsible for human empathy?

Look at what you just stated: "Cooperation simply works". That is the exact OPPOSITE of the proposition that might makes right. That worldview has no place in it for "cooperation".

 

Cooperation happens in evolution all of the time. There is plenty of room for cooperation in the Darwinist world view. Evolution does not imply that "might makes right."

 

No one ever said anything different! The issue is whether the slaves have innate, natural rights. They *do*. Might makes right only suppresses rights, it doesn't remove them! Even the Bible recognizes this!

 

I didn't say there wasn't room for cooperation. I said exactly what you just said. Those that advocate might makes right don't have evolution as a proof!

 

Not all believe in the same creator. Some believe in no creator, but perhaps their parents.
Their is NOT The.
The means 1 specifically.

You changing the word from their to the is meaning 1 specifically.