(December 7, 2012 at 4:43 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Slow down there. You think I didn't explain how sentience determines a right? Rocks don't have rights because they lack the sentience required to manufacture them. Only one of us is standing here with his dick out and nowhere to put it buddy.

Just let the grownups talk.

Grownups have a habit of pawning off just-so stories on each other? I was unaware. Pick any right you like and there will be a crushing amount of explanation behind it. Meanwhile "creationconfersit" is as far as you can go. That's not an explanation of rights, or any specific right, it's just a bare statement of faith.

(December 7, 2012 at 4:59 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Grownups have a habit of pawning off just-so stories on each other? I was unaware. Pick any right you like and there will be a crushing amount of explanation behind it.

OK, right to buy insecticide and kill a colony of ants who are causing me no harm merely for going over a boundary they can't even understand.

Having trouble finding this right, what body recognizes it?

(December 7, 2012 at 5:21 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Having trouble finding this right, what body recognizes it?

What is this body you speak of? The definitions for rights given so far do not require recognition by a body.

Oh, you mean you were unclear as to what a right is in the first place? Gee, who'd have thunk it. Here, let wiki handle what you couldn't be bothered to handle before offering your sage wisdom about the rights of a god.

"Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory.[1] Rights are of essential importance in such disciplines as law and ethics, especially theories of justice and deontology."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights

You're still flirting with your appeal to hypocrisy, which is patently incapable of making a case for your gods rights..btw.

(December 7, 2012 at 5:30 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Oh, you mean you were unclear as to what a right is in the first place?

No, I've already offered a definition and my own take on it, as you know.

Quote:Gee, who'd have thunk it.

No one but you I would guess, as I've already offered a dictionary definition and my own take on it.

Quote:"Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory.[1] Rights are of essential importance in such disciplines as law and ethics, especially theories of justice and deontology."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights

Cool, ownership of things one creates is found in legal systems and social conventions. Case closed!

But not human things, strangely. So yeah, case is closed. Unless you'd like to reopen the case for ownership of human property. Again, I have to mention that your god didn't create me, btw.

(December 7, 2012 at 5:45 pm)Rhythm Wrote: But not human things, strangely.

As we can't create humans. God can, so the general principal on creation can be applied to him, unless you're invoking some sort of special pleading.

And you still haven't told us about this magical body which must recognize rights, or why ants don't seem to have rights.

(December 7, 2012 at 5:56 pm)John V Wrote: As we can't create humans. God can, so the general principal on creation can be applied to him, unless you're invoking some sort of special pleading.

Says you. Trouble with that, is that you actually have to establish that claim, and then you'd have to find a way to establish that people can be property again. Nothing special about this plea. The right to own a human being is not a recognized right. Not by the country I live in, nor by myself personally. Do you recognize this right?
(find me, by the way, a single reference to whether or not humans are capable of creating other humans as a justification for why we don;t have this right?...fucking garbage John...)

Quote:And you still haven't told us about this magical body which must recognize rights, or why ants don't seem to have rights.

As with all things here in the real world, no magic is required. Here, in the US, our rights are determined (in part) by a document conveniently called "The Bill of Rights". They are modified, added to, and sustained by our government, subject to reasoned arguments and precedent. Ants don't seem to have any rights because they haven't created any. I imagine the moment that an ant stands up and asks us about it's rights we'd have a hell of a problem on our hands, similar to the situation with AI. Course, we don't usually let these things linger (and we seem to be interested in stumping for the rights of those that cannot stump for those rights themselves)...so even in our system -some- animals have rights.

---

Let me relate a little story about rights and ownership of human property to you. It has a bit to do with the 1850 Fugitive Slave act, a moment in time when people (but not people, really, "negros") could be considered property. One Jesse Jones was seized under the Fugitive Act, claimed to be the property of a man named Wyatt. Wyatt claimed that Mr. Jones had escaped from labor two years prior to his being seized. Unfortunately for Wyatt, Mr. Jones had not escaped from any labor, he was a free man and had in fact been living in Pittsburgh for some 20 years.......... Wyatt was arrested for perjury, defaulted on his bail...and was summarily imprisoned. In this case, even though the right to own a human being was recognized (and similarly the right to self determination was not) Wyatts inability to demonstrate the veracity of his claim (combined with his insistence of it-under oath no less) landed him in the slammer. I'd call that a job well done.

The point of this little tale, is to explain to you that even if we recognized human beings as property - which we don't- we still demand that a valid claim of ownership be made. So your little appeal to slave-driving god is going to fall on deaf ears on every count with me.