"that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights"

I believe the "their Creator" is a driving force to tell the people who read this that "their creator" granted them these rights. Not the Government that the rights to life,liberty and the pursuit of happiness comes from not the power of the government but from the highest power. So they used "their" because their is used for when I am saying something belongs to you is of a personal matter. So this was met to be read by a Christian and instantly they thing of God the by a Muslim as being Allah or by a Atheist as coming from the very nature of life itself (As well Atheist most certainly did exist way back then). Now the "Creator" would who ever or what ever is the creator of you or/and the Universe. Then based on who ever you put in place of "Creator" would then be Nature's God. As if your Creator lets say I believe that the Cookie Monster is the Creator of the Universe and everything in it then the Cookie Monster would then be Nature's God. (I was eating Cookies) I personally am a Buddhist so the creator of the Universe is well the Universe itself so these highest laws come from the Universe and not the government. These rights are of that level of authority a higher level than any institution created by my fellow man. I believe that based on these words and the Action that was taken after we won our independence from the British Empire which was to form the Confederation of the United States you can see that these words where met to get people to realize that the Government didn't grant them the right to live with liberty and to pursue happiness that these where things that where basic rights granted from the highest stature in the Known Universe which at the time by a majority was Christian of some form or another. So a majority of people needed to realize that Government didn't grant them rights that rights like the three where granted by the Laws of Nature and through that obviously Nature's God. The big thing that continued in the Constitution was that in no part does it put limits on what the People can or can't do. The entire thing limits government and not the people because of the self evident truth that people are created with liberty. So this was to get people to join the fight and also to realize that they are the controllers of what the Government does and doesn't do not the other way around and by invoking peoples very beliefs in to it you get a very good momentum and you can get people who would sit on the side lines to join in the fight. The Entire Declaration of Independence goes over what the King and Britain either was doing or had done that violated these rights given by the highest being or thing in the Universe the very creator of the universe the British Empire ruled by the King was violating God.

I agree with what you said and would like to add something else. I really wish more people, and specifically judges, would look at this when considering all the petitions by Atheist groups to ban any and all references to religion and god in public places and government property. Clearly the founders had no problem with mentions of religion in government. If they were opposed to something as small as writing "in God we trust" on money, or "under God" in the pledge than certainly they wouldn't have referred to God in the Declaration of independence. I don't think they ever imagined people would seize on the 1st amendment to outlaw anything even slightly religious being at schools, on the side of the road, or anywhere else.

By saying that we are endowed with these rights by our Creator, the author clearly denounces the idea that the government is the giver of rights. We are born with these rights, they belong to the individual and cannot be taken away by the government because they did not come from the government. And because these rights belong to each individual, as an individual, it prevents the concept of rights being assigned to one class and not another. In the time this was written, monarchs sat upon the thrones of countries, there were upper classes of property owners and lower classes with little rights or privilege. We dissolved those bands that connected us to this class-structured society via a revolution and a Constitution. France used a guillotine. But in both cases, the premise was to provide that rights belong to the individual and not to a specific class of people. Today, we must recognize that we are headed in the opposite direction. Every time the word "rights" is preceded by a word that represents a group of people, we are ignoring the concept of rights being bestowed upon the individual, not a class of people, not a group. Groups have no rights, only individuals within the group have rights.

I think you are correct in your thoughts on these ideas put down on paper so long ago. I think slowly we have discarded the two main character traits that make these words applicable to us. Accountability and Responsibility. When adult people refuse to act in a responsibile and accountable way, someone-somewhere has to step in and take the responsibility and become the one accountable. THAT is the law of God and nature. When we turn over by default or by choice our responsibility for ourselves and our choices to another, that 'other' becomes accountable for us and has the right to demand we act in accordance with THEIR wishes. We have become a nation of 'victims' and demand from our government, like children, that someone else be responsible for us. No longer wanting to suffer the consequences of our behavior as any adult should be, we give up accountability and responsibility. Like a rebellious teen who makes a bad choice and his parents 'pay' his way out of it and do not let him learn from the consequences, our society does not let people learn from experience. Do we really deserve those rights? Only God knows the heart in each of us. Its time we all do a little soul searching and ask ourselves that question. IF God gave us those rights, can HE take them away because of our rebelliousness towards HIM?