Atheism and Moral Values

[Radar]

Originally Posted by Ruminator

Radar, I agree based upon my value system derived from the Bible, but from what do you get your value of what is a person's "rights'? There must be an absolute something that determines them.

Thats why I started this thread, I want to learn more of it.

It's part of natural law. It was well-known that things like murder, theft, rape, assault, etc. were wrong thousands of years before the bible was ever thought of.


In short, we are born with the right to do anything we want as long as our actions do not physically harm, endanger, or violate the person, property, or rights of another.

Our rights are unlimited other than by the rights of others. One might ask, "How do we determine what is or is not a right."

Nobody has the right to use force against another person other than in our own defense. Let's say I want to mow my lawn naked. You don't want to see it. You have no right to physically prevent me from doing it or even to make a law against it, but you do have a right not to associate with me, or to ask me to stop, or to picket in front of my house, or put up flyers throughout town telling everyone else to do the same. Eventually, I'd either have to drive to the next town for groceries and friends, or I'd have to move.


Your rights don't entitle you to use force to make others act in a way that makes you feel comfortable. Your comfort is trumped by the right of freedom of expression of others.


You have a right not to be physically harmed or endangered. So my right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins. A gay person's right to marry any consenting other they choose is more important than the desires of a billion people for them not to marry.

You have the right not to marry someone of the same gender or to think that such a union is illegitimate, but you do not have the right to create a law against it. Nor do a billion more of you. Our rights are never up for a vote and do not come from government. This means they can't be taken away by government.