> common law, but one of the issues this has caused is that natural or “God-given” law is at odds with the separation of church and State Not true at all. The

> common law, but one of the issues this has caused is that natural or “God-given” law is at odds with the separation of church and State Not true at all. The "modern" understanding of separation is what is at odds with the original intent at the time. Enforcement or support of a specific religion is what separation of Church and state is about not enforcement of agnosticism. Congress had sunday mass every week for many decades at the begining of the country. They still have chaplains, as does the military, they just don't enforce a specific religion. > I can’t really agree that such a thing actually exists in any meaningful sense, but I can say I vastly prefer my tradition over others. If you note my conclusion, human right is something enforced by the military not courts. To begin with, the law can recognize a human right but it can't define it, it (same as natural right to me) is beyond the jursidiction of the law. Unlike legal rights, declaring something a human right by law is merely recognizing a higher law, which means historical violations can retroactively be punished. Human rights can also be used as cause to fight a war (typically civil wars unless the aggressir claims their nationals are affected, like with putin and crimea). Human rights not only exist but have existed as long as humans have, when human law fails to recognize them and allows their violation the both the law and the violators are criminal enterprizes. > rhetoric is rhetoric and law is law It isn't rhetoric, it is reasoning and intent behind law as defined by the lawmakers. The law defines rules not reasoning and justification behind rules. Material like this can be used in court to argue a case. For your last paragraph, ultimately all criminal law exists because of the threat of imprisonment, but what I meant was not just that but also the fact that natural law is above legal law and that dispute is settled by violence usually. The most common human violator afterall is the state.