Do people really have rights as a human being?

Funny, my immediate answer is no. Any rights we create is a social construct, that like any social construct, has no bearing unless we choose to adhere to it (with the notable exception of time).

"inalienable human rights" and/or "god-given rights" depend upon the society in which you live and are therefore, in my opinion, social constructs, just as Mr.D said...

in a social and legal sense, I think we all do have a right to at least exist; however, I see this as more of an evolutionary response to the basic need to ensure the continued survival of the species, as well as a way to coexist when there are so many of us in such a small area...

for example, you can't kill another person because it takes too long to replace them (35% miscarriage rate among females of our species, a long gestation period, 18+ years and a couple million dollars before they're viable and useful to the rest of the species, etc) in comparison to other species, such as a lion or a chimpanzee (kill a female chimp/lion's offspring, she will go into heat within a matter of weeks, leaving her available to bear the young of a new male...and females of many species can have more than one offspring in a year)...I'd go into some of the other "rights" we have, but then this would get too long...

long argument short, I think we should respect each other and leave everybody else alone as much as we can, but I don't think that just because we were born of the human species that we are somehow entitled to better treatment than the rest of the multitude of creatures that inhabit the planet

a little off topic...one thing I think is interesting is that the American belief that we have the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is only really stated in and supported by the Declaration of Independence, and not in the documents that actually lay out our rights...at any rate, it doesn't really matter since all of our rights are being slowly taken away anyway

I don't think the singular qualification of being a "human being" gives you access to a broad spectrum of rights. You have to be some sort of competent agent to merit them. For example, I'd say we all agree that a vegetable does not have the same set of rights as do those of us lucky enough to be sentient. I'd say there are different levels of competence that warrant different ranges of rights.

Also, as a sort of thought experiment in a class I took last year, we talked about a situation where an astronaut lands on some foreign planet and discovers a colony of defenseless mushroom. When he plucks one to bring back as a sample, the mushroom surprisingly is able to talk. It tells the explorer that it's very happy where it is and that taking it away from its family would cause it an inordinate amount of pain and suffering. Now, does the mushroom have the right to stay with it's family?

Laugh hard it's a long way to the bank.

Do we have rights...circumstantially maybe?

We have rights amongst ourselves but put a man in the wilderness without another human being and I don't think there will be rights.
It's tough to compare humans to other animals because I think we are different and warrant a bit of seperation. Not too much though.
But at least a little. We are pretty damn ingenious sometimes and are unique in comparison with every animal on earth. I believe every
animal is unique in this way, in their comparison to other species. I mean we can do a lot of cool shit but so can the honey bee.

Wow, this sounds like a fair amount of bull shit. But, I'll go on...so in reality though, the human in isolation isn't really a human at all very much,
he/she is something else entirely. I think that what makes us human is our interaction with others of the same species.
I think that so long as that is going to occur we'll have rights.

Blah.