“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
If there is a God, and if He is the source of our rights and our liberty, then the government we have empowered does not have the authority to withdraw or “suspend” our rights. But if we have no eternal Master, any rights and liberty we enjoy are ours solely at the sufferance of our government and our freedom may be withdrawn by it at any time it chooses.
The debate about the existence of God is not just a moral/philosophical rhetorical exercise. The question of the existence of God is fundamental to our survival as individuals, societies and even as a species. The history of Mankind provides ample proof that without the check on our behavior that belief in God provides, the horrors that we may inflict upon our fellow men is limited only by the destructive resources at our disposal, and these are now virtually unlimited.
If a man’s freedom and his life are not given to him by God, then who is to say that it is wrong to enslave or kill him?