Are Human Rights the New God?

Let’s be frank here. Academia, at least the most verbal parts of it, is really clear about how it feels when it comes to “God” (God with a capital “G,” you know, the theistic, PKG (all Powerful, Knowledgeable and Good), Biblical kind of God), especially when that God is being used to justify committing atrocities in order to advance a person, government or countries aims and status in the world- we don’t like him and we can’t stand it when his name is bandied about as an explanation for why this country went to war or that government decided to pass laws which separated children from their parents. Our unmistakable intellectual and emotional bias against God leaves the fraction of our population with professing beliefs in a higher deity of any sort sheepishly hanging their heads and remaining categorically quiet as we list off the crimes committed in the name of this God.

But there was a time when things were quite different- when God was the primary motivation for all action and thought, the explanation for war and justification for interventions. Everyone, from intellectual to court jester stood in awe of this God or kept their opinions to well to themselves- the idea of challenging God was preposterous. God was used to suit their purposes, not the other way around, and everyone was pretty content.
Reading the UDHR I am reminded, perhaps oddly, of another document that defined the discourse of its day and age- Inter Caetera.

Inter Caetera (a papal bull released in 1493) granted the Spanish possession of the New World, provided that they agreed to convert the locals to Catholicism. It defined future dialogue regarding Spanish takeover in the Americas in that regardless of whether a man took issue with the behaviour of the Spanish in the New World or supported it, he defended his opinion based on whether or not the Spanish were going to successfully convert the locals. When Las Casas recommended a change in Spanish policy it was because what they were doing was wrong in the eyes of God, and therefore were not inn agreement with the decrees of Inter Caetera. And when in response people argued that the actions taken in the New World were in the best interest of advancing the kingdom of God, they were asserting that they had been complying with the decrees of Inter Caetera. No one asked themselves if complying with God’s objectives and principles was important- God was important and that was the end of it. Regardless of what you thought or argued God stood for, he stood for something and it was important you stand there with him.

God is history, as far as many thinkers in the Twenty-first century are concerned. We’re all about Human Rights now. Human Rights justify going to war. Human rights justify the enlargement of the American nuclear weapons arsenal. Human Rights get violated and we drop bombs in response. Nobody sits around asking if Human Rights are good- of course they are! How could we ever argue against Human Rights? But we can use the UDHR to argue against military action in defence of Human Rights when that action jeopardizes the safety of civilians overseas. Both good and bad are done in the name of our inalienable rights as humans. Wars are waged and wars are prevented, and all the while people exploit the UDHR for their own personal gain. We all agree that Human Rights are good, but what happens when they go the way of God, becoming defunct, something that the academics of tomorrow will laugh at?

Generations from now, people may scoff. They may sit around and try to be fair to our primitive ways of thought. Maybe they’ll read about the war in Syria and say to themselves “it really couldn’t have been helped though, could it? They just didn’t know any better. They honestly believed that they were doing the right thing, rabbiting on about the importance of human rights and such.”

Please don’t misunderstand- I’m one hundred percent in favour of the UDHR and our inalienable rights. But any argument that can’t be debated is no argument at all. The UDHR kind of plays the God card in it’s own sense- it’s virtually impossible to disagree with, but vague enough that people can exploit it for their own aims. It’s all too easy to imagine the people looking back on us the same way we look back on the Spaniards taking over the Americas and saying to themselves “My God, I can’t believe they were such self-centred idiots.”