Why do we Use the Phrase, "God Given Rights"



Countless times I've heard TV preachers and some politicians use the phrase "God given rights." Maybe I've used the phrase myself. It's really meaningless. 

First of all, of course, there is no God or god so far as anyone knows. But rights are there anyway. Our rights had to have come from somewhere else. 

What about the rights in other countries? The Hindu faith is older than Christianity. Did the rights of people in India come from a Hindu god? I wonder if Hindu people in India have a phrase like we do. There are about 4.5 million Hindus in the U.S. Did the rights those Hindu citizens in the U.S. come from the U.S. Christian God or from a Hindu god or from no god anywhere at any time?

Our rights, that is our government and the laws we live under, did not come from the Christian God, a Hindu god or any other god. Where, then, did they come from?

I'm not a historian nor an attorney but it seems to me our government, political system and rights came from a chaotic combination of random historical events and self-interest. Many of the first white pilgrims signed on to come here because they thought they could prosper. The myth is they all came because of religious persecution. Historians who have combed through correspondence and records have concluded the most important motive was economic self-interest. 

Over two hundred years later, there was a war of independence from England and the Constitution was ratified. Reading about the men who hammered out the Constitution and records of it came into being leads one to conclude God did not give us the rights it contains. Those rights were first written by men in politics and later voted on by people in the 1700's. The only time God came up in the Constitutional Convention in 1789 was when Benjamin Franklin suggested each day's deliberations be preceded by a prayer. This was voted down.

The Constitutional Convention itself apparently came about because George Washington and James Maidson exchanged letters and eventually visited in person about a problem that vexed them both. It was individual colonies charging toll fees the commodities the two of the shipped to buyers across colony lines. The Constitution, it could be said, grew from self-interest, not God given rights.  

    









  

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