and the vast majority of laws and 'rights' come from the AGREEMENT between and among members of a culture, society or nation To Live Under Those Laws.

I can't understand why so few people recognize the Consensus/Agreement aspects of all these things we keep calling 'rights'!

Y'know, if enough morons get together and AGREE on it, "the right to a government-paid smart phone" can become a "right" just like so many other stupid things. Consensus is all it takes, with or without any Help From God...

post hoc, ergo propter hoc?
I'm astounded...

re: " I cannot come up with a final answer to where did ever thing come from so there must be a God or whatever words you choose to recognize that we just don't have the ability to explain our being without him "

Are you at all aware at the nonsequitur nature of that statement?! To claim that, because we don't (yet) "know where we came from" that The Obvious Answer is "God Created It All"???

"There must be a God"?

Wow... and I thought Reason and Rationality would be ubiquitous around here.... such a disappointment.

From my site.. http://www.plusaf.com/pix/homepagepix/pr...

true enough

Not exactly what you said, "if you reject reason" implies that the lapse in reason falls on you if it comes to force. But I'm okay with your new woprding.

the concept of "rights" is one of the most abused
ideas floating around these days. . by its nature,
a scorpion is designed to sting. . we are designed
to be free, make choices, own stuff and produce.
if a government or a society can grant "rights," it can
make us slaves. . I believe that is their intent. -- j

Sure force will enter the equation when one side rejects reason.

So there is no situation where force/lethal is necessary? There are far too many who cannot reason for that to be truthful. The Jews reasoned that the Hitler thing would blow over and allowed themselves to be shepherded into ghettos and then annihilated....reason worked well. Hogwash.

No they do not come from God. They are the result of reason applied to the nature of man.

Force will only enter the equation, if you reject reason.

No they come from logic, they may be discovered by man, but they do not come from man..

Yes you have faith in your position, but no facts.

Not even close. For one there is evidence, even if you have not seen it. The other there is not only no evidence, we are not supposed to look for evidence.

As Marx once said: "the masses are asses".

The position(s) are a matter of faith and belief. I've never seen a proton but I believe it's there. Same with God. I cannot come up with a final answer to where did ever thing come from so there must be a God or whatever words you choose to recognize that we just don't have the ability to explain our being without him (or her if you really want to run off base).

It's a sad state of affairs when so many have to vote for the lesser of two evils. I agree with you but it's a shame. Just take a look at the selection(s) we are going to have for the next president.

Without your senses how would you even know you exist? All knowledge must come from the senses.

Well I'm sure Jefferson et al are turning in their graves now that you've improved on their work. Good grief man. Do you stay up nights playing one ups man ship?

People capable of agreeing to those things aren't the ones I'm talking about.

Wow...deja' vu. Almost exactly like the Cruz post.

but not all are capable of respecting or tolerating them, which is why endowed bytheir Creator was included.

Now that I disagree with. Aside from islam I think discourse and mutual tolerance works just fine.

Should have been "life, liberty, and property". Forget "happiness", whatever that means. I think rights come from the nature of the independent thinking beings we are. It just works better for everyone when we agree on these rights. They are spoken by men but they don't come from men. They come from observing and accepting a natural order of things. Anyway it seems kind of obvious to me

Neither religion nor atheism changes the fact that people will disagree about rights -- and that that disagreement must ultimately be resolved by force, because there are no premises that everyone will accept on which to base arguments about rights.

They do come from man, but every human is equally capable of creating them. So in effect Jefferson was right.