Comment by jtheory

They're certainly not immutable, and do not exist outside of the context of a society. If you're alone, you have no rights whatsoever; they're something we "recognize" (or not) in other people.

The language we use is probably based on ideas that they supernaturally-granted or something like that... which is silliness, but I don't think we should change the habitual phrasings... people are more likely to treat each other humanely if they believe that rights are, you know rights, and the language encourages that.