Friday, August 31, 2007
How is God relevant to the content of human rights?
I appreciate Fr. Araujo's contribution to the conversation on God and human rights, but his observation prompts a further question. If God is "the objective source on which to rely to resolve the conflict" over the content of human rights, how do we discern what that source says without relying on highly subjective factors (our interpretation of Scripture, our culture, etc.)? If you look at the heated battles among theists about human rights down through the centuries, it seems like the objectivity of God as a source of content is, at best, elusive. (I am not at all questioning the fact that belief in God can provide a rich impetus to embrace human rights in general.) It might help to use a specific example -- let's take women's rights. How does a belief in God provide a framework for women's rights that is more capable of authoritatively and accessibly settling disputes over content than the framework built by the atheist?
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2007/08/how-is-god-rele.html