HUMAN EQUALITY, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND WHERE WE ARE HEADING

We are often blind to the many implications of our choices. I had no idea that sitting for many hours at a computer with my knees tucked under me would damage them.

The same principle also pertains to the ideas and worldviews we adopt. The late German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, had argued that once the “civilized” world rejects the Christian God, it also inevitably reject Christian values, like equality, human exceptionalism, human rights, and an entire array of other values that go along with them. In Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche wrote:

·       They are rid of the Christian God and now believe all the more firmly that they must cling to the Christian morality… When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one’s feet.

However, we fail to see this. Recently, an atheistic philosopher acknowledged to me our indebtedness to Christianity for its teachings on human equality. However, she confidently stated that the secular West can successfully borrow this concept without its theistic foundation. However, according to Nietzsche, this was the very transaction that logic could never sustain:

·       Another Christian concept, no less crazy: the concept of equality of souls before God. This concept furnishes the prototype of all theories of equal rights.” (Will to Power)

Human equality is a “crazy” idea when viewed from an atheistic materialistic point of view. Why? When we look at our fellow humans, we only see differences, not equality. We see differences in sex, education, health, behavior, intelligence, strength. Some are good and some bad; some are friends, others are enemies. Consequently, Dinesh D’Souza had written:

·       When Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” he claimed that this was a self-evident truth. But it is not evident at all. Indeed, most cultures throughout history, and even today, reject the proposition. (What’s so Great about Christianity, 70)

D’Souza cited Aristotle as a prime example of the thinking of the classical world:

·       Aristotle, too, had a job for low men: slavery. Aristotle argued that with low men in servitude, superior men would have leisure to think and participate in governance of the community. Aristotle cherished the ‘great-souled man’ who was proud, honorable, aristocratic, rich.

The greatest thinkers of the ancient world assigned worth to their fellow human beings according to their culturally established norms and not according to human equality:

·       In ancient Rome and Greece, human life had very little value. The Spartans left weak children to die on the hillside. Infanticide was common, as it is even today in many parts of the world. Fathers who wanted sons had few qualms about drowning their newborn daughters. Human beings were routinely bludgeoned to death or mauled by wild animals in the Roman gladiatorial arena. The greatest of the classical thinkers from Seneca to Cicero, saw nothing wrong with these practices.” (D’Souza, 71)

Infanticide had also been an accepted practice, according to historian Alvin Schmidt:

·       In neither Greek nor Roman literature can one find any feeling of guilt related to abandoning children…Even Seneca [60 AD], whose moral philosophy was on a higher plain than that of his culture, said, “We drown children who at birth are weakly and abnormal.” (Under the Influence: How Christianity Transformed Civilization)

It had all been about the quality of a life and not the sanctity of life. Any government can pass laws granting equality, equal protection under the law, and human rights, but without the understanding that these concepts and rights come from God, they will quickly erode, lacking an adequate belief structure to sustain them.  Consequently, Thomas Jefferson had written:

·       And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? (Notes on the State of Virginia)

Without the confident belief that human equality is “a gift of God,” the influence of materialistic belief wins minds to think exclusively pragmatically (in terms of immediate results). Inevitably, those individuals deemed as more worthy will receive better treatment, even under the law. We might talk glibly of the value of having human rights. However, without human equality, there is no logical foundation for human rights. If we are not equal in the most essential sense (before God), there is no basis for equal rights. Instead, such “rights” will be granted at the pleasure of the ruling class according to what benefits them.

As a result, our Congress has become a privileged caste. They have a tax-payer slush fund to secretly pay off victims of their sexual abuses. They have voted for themselves privileges above those of ordinary citizens. They can do insider trading, have been exempted themselves from other laws to which ordinary citizens must adhere. Even after only one term in office, they have entitled themselves to generous lifelong benefits.

In contrast to this, Jesus had taught:

·       “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28)

However, as the Christian influence has dimmed, so too will society. The secular world is only beginning to see the dimming of the light. They are still clinging to Christian principles to demonstrate that they can be good without God. However, this will gradually change. Historian Rodney Stark has observed that even the most advanced ancient societies had lapsed into cruelty and unashamed self-gratification. Schmidt wrote:

·       Juvenal apparently was not exaggerating when he said that a chaste wife was almost non-existent. Seneca, the Roman moralist, called unchastity the “greatest evil of our time.”

Interestingly, in the West, we no longer regard these as sins but as rights, while our children pick up the tab. Stark also commented:

·       Classical philosophy regarded mercy and pity as pathological emotions—defects of character to be avoided by all rational men. Since mercy involves providing unearned help or relief, it was contrary to justice.

As yet, we still don’t see such a lack of compassion, but I think that it is on the way. The German Jewish poet, Heinrich Heine, noted in 1832:

·       It is to the great merit of Christianity that it has somewhat attenuated the brutal German lust for battle. But it could not destroy it entirely. And should that taming talisman break – the Cross - then will come roaring back the wild madness of the ancient warriors.

This is exactly what we witnessed in the “idealism” of National Socialist Germany under the guise of creating a better world. Human equality was rejected and, along with it, so too were human rights.

Temporarily, humanity was horrified, but we continue to reject the roots which have sustained us. Meanwhile, some continue to point to the light. The late philosopher and atheist, Jurgen Habermas, pointed to the light, although it doesn’t seem that he ever embraced it:

·       Christianity and nothing else is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source.