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I have no idea if this thread is in the right place, but oh well.
Anybody who has stuck around for more than 30 seconds of a discussion of Constitutional rights has had the term "unalienable rights" (or inalienable, if the speaker is confused) thrown at them. These words are nowhere to be found in the Constitution, of course, but the Declaration of Independence -- a document which is an integral piece of our history and which reflects the mindset of many of the framers, but which has no legal standing under the Constitution.
Nevertheless, it got me thinking: If we assume that those words had been included in the Constitution, then they would have legal standing -- but what would they mean? Well, "Creator" suggests that these rights come from a divine source of some kind. Many of the religions known to the framers came complete with holy books that we are told were divinely inspired. I haven't read most of them, but I'm familiar enough with the Bible to say with confidence that god never sat down with his children and laid out a list of our human rights. People keep telling me this is a Christian nation, after all, so I figured it was a good place to start.
Could someone, anyone, point to a canonized or otherwise divinely inspired religious text that would've factored into the thinking of the framers which lays out these rights for us?
Anybody who has stuck around for more than 30 seconds of a discussion of Constitutional rights has had the term "unalienable rights" (or inalienable, if the speaker is confused) thrown at them. These words are nowhere to be found in the Constitution, of course, but the Declaration of Independence -- a document which is an integral piece of our history and which reflects the mindset of many of the framers, but which has no legal standing under the Constitution.
Nevertheless, it got me thinking: If we assume that those words had been included in the Constitution, then they would have legal standing -- but what would they mean? Well, "Creator" suggests that these rights come from a divine source of some kind. Many of the religions known to the framers came complete with holy books that we are told were divinely inspired. I haven't read most of them, but I'm familiar enough with the Bible to say with confidence that god never sat down with his children and laid out a list of our human rights. People keep telling me this is a Christian nation, after all, so I figured it was a good place to start.
Could someone, anyone, point to a canonized or otherwise divinely inspired religious text that would've factored into the thinking of the framers which lays out these rights for us?