Once again, I’m waaaay behind in posting deserving Comments of the Day, so this will be the first of several posted today. Long-time commenter Dwayne N. Zechman tackled the question of why the belief in Natural Law does not require belief in God, and did a superb job.
Here is his Comment of the Day on the post, “Stop Making Me Defend Eric Swalwell!”:
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“The problem is how do you convey the idea that natural rights simply exist without suggesting a creator?”
The same way you convey the idea that GRAVITY simply exists without suggesting a creator. Or take your pick of any basic, unmoving truth that exists as a part of the existence of the Universe: Newton’s laws of motion, Conservation of Mass, Conservation of Energy, tidal forces, the way water almost uniquely expands when it freezes instead of contracts, the list goes on and on.
What all of these things have in common with mankind’s natural rights is that they undoubtedly exist, and that their existence is NOT the result of any human being anywhere making a decision that they should exist.
One can dive deeper into the actual reason and possibly conclude that there is a “Creator” of some sort or not, but it doesn’t change the basic tenet that such things do exist, have always existed, and will always exist–and no human decision, be it individual or collective, can change that.
This is the essence of Natural Law. It is absolutely 0% man-made.
Whether or not there is some “Creator” isn’t the important point. The important point is that Mankind is absolutely NOT that “Creator” and never can be.
This is also, by the way, why it’s important to see that (most of) the Bill of Rights is simply an enumeration of certain natural rights that all people everywhere already have. It is NOT the reason nor the source of such rights. Nowhere does it say “The People shall have the right to ….” but rather “Congress shall pass no law abridging the right to ….” instead–and that’s a very important distinction. The authors weren’t deciding that people are henceforth going to have that right. They were acknowledging that the right simply already exists in Natural Law and explicitly forbidding the government from infringing on it.
If the First Amendment were repealed tomorrow, you would still have the freedom of speech, it just wouldn’t be explicitly listed in the Constitution anymore. It would be like the Right to Privacy is today. We know it exists, we acknowledge it, and we don’t pretend that it exists because government says so.
Ethics Alarms 
Given that I wrote the lead off quote below, I still wonder what happens when someone asks what created nature.
“The problem is how do you convey the idea that natural rights simply exist without suggesting a creator?”
What created nature if energy can be neither created nor destroyed. Many of the laws of nature can be explained as to how they work. Science is very good at answering such questions, but it is not helpful when it comes to how things come to be.
Whether it is gravity, or the existence of Quarks it took science many years to develop the ideas and measurement tools to determine the existence of these things and how they work. Yet to date, no scientist has adequately explained what existed before the birth of the universe some 6 billion years ago nor how quarks, and matter in general came into being in the first place. Time itself cannot exist without a starting point.
My entire original point was that using a force/or entity external to man we prevent man’s ability to exert absolute control over others by giving all persons the same advantages of speaking out and mobilizing forces of political resistance. If free speech is eliminated tomorrow through legislation, then no natural law will protect you. If the right of self-defense is eliminated by man, then natural law will not protect you. Tell the British that natural law protects their rights to speak without fear from punishment.
So, explain to me what natural law prevents man from doing away with the inalienable rights that the Constitution states are afforded to me and why does the Declaration of Independence specifically establish that these rights come from a creator?
What created nature if energy can be neither created nor destroyed.
Qui creavit creare?
None, natural rights operate on a might makes right basis. If you wade all the way down to the next sentence you might discover that Jefferson had something to say about just governments and consent of the governed.
You misspelled assert.