Re: Religious Rights ARE Individual Rights

Religious Rights ARE Individual Rights

Not exactly. A religion is an organized body, not an individual, so it is different. (Despite what the Supreme Court says, I don't recognize corporations as individuals either.) Individuals may have a right to worship as they choose, providing they don't trample on the recognized rights of others. The same principle applies to religions but more so, because their power is a consolidated power.

There are only two distinctions worth considering; whether a right is positive or negative, and non-falsifiability.

The very distinction of 'positive rights' and 'negative rights,' while certainly a real distinction, is still loaded with value judgments, and all value judgments are products of human invention. I would therefore say that rights are ideally subject to two considerations: 1) overall value to humanity and 2) circumstances. These too are value judgments, but the idea is to recognize them for what they are and appeal for mass support based on the logic and reasonableness of the idea. If we, as a species, cannot ultimately come to a general consensus on the best ideas, then we deserve to perish. There's nothing inherently valuable about humanity, because there are no inherent values.

All rights which can be exercised by being left alone and which make no claims on others should be allowed.

There's no such thing. Resources are naturally limited, and every human being that exists takes up space and resources, as well as having an inherent stake in the Marketplace of Ideas. The more ideas out there, the more yours are going to be crowded out, unless you can convince others to see your point-of-view. Therefore, even freedom of speech is not without its negative side.

However, if one INSISTS on having a State and giving representatives with a monopoly on the initiation of force the authority to compel behaviour, then the results of that behaviour ought to be the sort which could be empirically evaluated, so that laws might be modified or repealed without regard to beliefs which cannot be tested.

I agree with that.

Needless to say, a lot of legislation which seems secular is actually faith-based upon evaluation.

I agree with that too. However, it must again be said that there is no inherent value to anything. Even the best of rights can be (and frequently are) used to oppress others. I can use my freedom of speech, for example, to insist that blacks are inhuman and deserve to be treated as such, or I can use it to build people up and insist that we all deserve essentially equal treatment. Is it ironic that you say the above whilst simultaneously insisting that rights are inherently valuable without empirical or analytical proof? That is a faith-based assertion if I ever heard one.

However, all this is moot if we cease to treat some positive rights as trumping individual rights.

Please clarify.