[kriops]

This is a simple fallacy.

Either you accept the definition of God-given rights, which is certainly not consistent with your opening statement.

Or you don’t, at which point any following argument regarding its proper usage is moot.

You seem to have gone with the latter, which makes your comment irrelevant. And that is regardless of its truthfulness. To be clear I disagree with it, but getting into that would contribute to derailing the conversation.

[Retric]

It’s not a rejection of the existence of God-given rights.

It’s a rejection of the idea that people’s list of them would be consistent through time. In 1,000 years people may come up with a list of God-given rights, but it won’t be the same list you use.

As such trying to come up with a list of God-given rights from a human perspective is inherently a flawed undertaking. God is beyond human comprehension.

[kriops]

Rights are not something you enumerate, i.e., they are not a “list.” The underlying idea of God-given rights is, simply put, that your freedom ends where mine begins and vice versa.

The idea, moreover, is the generalization of ethics to an environment with multiple actors, such as Earth. And it is, of course, inconsistent with many ethical systems: A competing idea in equally simple terms is “might makes right.”

And the idea, furthermore, does not change over time. So if you substitute it into my previous comment, you will see that the argument within holds.

Finally, and as a side note, I strongly agree that the state of possible actions, and as the “list” of possible infringements changes with, e.g., technology. An 1800s philosopher would, for example, never have considered the applicability of any theory of rights to the operation of a nuclear power plant.

[Retric]

> ends where mine begins and vice versa

That tipping point isn’t fixed.

> furthermore, does not change over time

Except it does “them’s fighting words” only died out very recently, but it provides a starkly different boundary between my rights and your rights.

Ritualized lethal combat was a thing for very long time, and took an incredibly long time to go away. Trial by combat and dueling grows out of a fundamentally different ethical framework not just a lack of technology. It seems antithetical to Christianity today, but that wasn’t always the case.