How is this: The soul is an intangible thing in the same sort of way you would describe God. Most of the time those that believe in a soul also believe in a god. Many of those that believe in god also believe that he was the one that gave the human rights in the medium of a soul.

I'm using innate as in this definition: innate: "inherent in the essential character of something"

I don't know what your getting at by bringing up that ideas are intangible. Are you trying to say that I can't say that human rights don't exist merely because they are intangible? No I am not saying that. I am saying that if you do not believe that souls exist then you as well my agree that innate human rights do not as well exist.

If evolution created these rights then they are not innate. They were created by evolution. If it was created then its not innate.

Groovy. But none of that leads to the conclusion that innate human rights actually do necessitate a soul.


I'm saying that intangible ideas can emerge from configurations of physical bodies (e.g. cells, moons...) that individually do not contain those ideas nor would, in other configurations, allow them to emerge. What I'm getting at is that ideas of human rights could, in principle, be innate, emerging purely from physicality. I'm not saying they do, but the fact that they could discredits the notion that they could not.

• If we have a soul, might that also be made of molecules; in which case the soul and the house would be similar too?
  

• If we don't have a soul, how does that make our minds (read: consciousness within our brains) worthless?
  

• If we don't have a soul, then the body has no worth, and therefore no rights?
  

It seems this whole idea says that: Without a soul, one is worthless. Do I understand this correctly? If so, I'm curious what it is about having a soul that would make a person worthwhile.

Thanks

Thats if you use the term create inferring a benefactor.

Innate 'rights' do not emerge they already are.

So what you are saying emerges is the 'idea' of those rights.
...
I am not saying that the idea of human rights can not be thought up. I am saying that actual innate 'human rights' can not exist, but sure the idea of them can. You are saying that the since the idea of something can be thought up that we are able to know that the idea could exist.

All ideas are innate since they have the potentiality of being thought up.

If you don't believe there is a human soul then no one in the world has innate human rights. If you disagree with me then you are doing it on your own accord with no valid reasons.

But this definition is part of the problem imo. I believe I am innately human, yet I know that my humanity is an emergent property. If you insist that for anything to be innate it has to be found in its entirety in the fundamental units of existence, then fine, but that makes your whole argument a truism. Since you allow only fundamental physical bodies to have innate attributes, aggregates cannot have any innate properties except for the sum of their fundamental parts. Wow, your point is proven!

Yes. But now you in principle agree that the idea of human rights could be innate, I'll go further and say those rights have no other existence than that idea of them. Rights ARE ideas, thus innate ideas of human rights = ideas of innate human rights = innate human rights.

That I cannot agree with. Ideas can and do require external conditions, such as the moon.

Yea, I don't know that any of the original conclusions follow at all. If I follow the logic there, I have to ask...

• If we have a soul, might that also be made of molecules; in which case the soul and the house would be similar too?
  

• If we don't have a soul, how does that make our minds (read: consciousness within our brains) worthless?
  

• If we don't have a soul, then the body has no worth, and therefore no rights?
  

It seems this whole idea says that: Without a soul, one is worthless. Do I understand this correctly? If so, I'm curious what it is about having a soul that would make a person worthwhile.

Thanks

I think where I disagree with you most is with the idea that it's somehow necessary for a moral to be absolute in order for it to be a useful guide for us all.

I don't believe in a soul, and I have been doing medical work in the developing world for years. Part of my conception of innate human rights has to do with my grandparents' experiences as Holocaust survivors, and I now apply that notion to people in need.

There is no need for a real soul for this to be justified. A soul can be metaphorical and it still works. Suffering is real, and in fact the capacity to suffer is one thing that unites all sentient things.

I think where I disagree with you most is with the idea that it's somehow necessary for a moral to be absolute in order for it to be a useful guide for us all.

Rights are built upon the rules of human understanding and not upon the rules of nature.

Innate human rights are founded in categorical human rules of understanding, particularly and prominently the need for justification and non-contradiction.

Does something I feel and call a soul justify what i consider innate human rights?

I need to ask if innate human rights means that they never have to be spoken written or identified? Is this accurate?

You may say "humans are conscious etc...." Ok and your point? What is consciousness? An illusion put together by some randomly organized molecules.

If you are going to prove to me that humans do have innate human rights while maintaining that they are soul lacking first show me where the difference between a house and a human is.

If your moral ideas are based off of what makes a civil society then rape is still only situationally wrong even in your own opinion.

I think you are not referring to innate human rights. You are referring to human rights as invented by man.

How is consciousness an illusion again...?

Well to not make the argument too trivial a house is an inanimate object. How is a house and a person the same again? They are quite different in my mind but maybe thats just me

Rape is ok situationally? Could you provide an example of when rape is ever ok?

I think we all have a problem with your understanding of innate or even our understanding because we never seem to agree on what it actually means.I assumed it was the natural laws of nature like the right to have children , be able to progress, to breath, live....if im not right can you give a definition you are speaking of.