Originally Posted by raytri

Whose God gets to decide what those rights are?



No, absent God it is *humans* that determine what human rights are. Through reason. A given government may or may not agree, and may have the power to suppress certain rights within its jurisdiction. But government is not the final arbiter of what constitutes a "human right."

Can humans disagree on what fundamental rights are? Of course. Indeed, that definition has changed throughout history. That's where the marketplace of ideas comes in. But it is humans, not governments, that make the arguments and win the philosophical battles. All a government can do is subscribe, or not.



Jefferson was human. And while he used "endowed by the Creator" to place the source of rights above the power of any government to *legitimately* infringe, the actual rights themselves were reasoned out by humans. "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are nowhere spelled out as rights in the Bible or any other holy book. They sprang from the pen of Jefferson, informed by spirited human debate over the centuries.