I’ve heard all my life, that it is god, not man that grants our unalienable rights. It’s in the Declaration of Independence, so it must be true, right? A single sentence in our founding document declares that god, not man, is responsible for the freedoms we enjoy as human beings. Where did these men get that idea? Many of them were students of the enlightenment that shaped the Declaration. Philosophers like John Locke were key influencers on how the founders viewed and understood the rights of man.

So, if our founders were correct and our rights come from god, why then do not all societies recognize that single fact and implement rights accordingly? Many countries have grounded the rights of their citizens in the enlightenment ideas of reason, but mostly to free themselves from empires and not to instill individual rights. So. we can look at countries like England, France, many other European countries and find laws protecting freedoms, but these are laws that can be changed at an electoral whim (change in majority parties) and not understood to be universal as they are written in our Constitution.

I know a lot of biblical scholars (and scholars in general) may agree that our rights are endowed by god, but again, which god? The Hindu religion is the oldest existing religion and Judaism is not too far behind (a thousand or so years) and even now, some are questioning the dating of the rise of Judaism. That’s a fight for another time. What all of this discussion results in is absolutely nothing.There may be a religious influence on human rights, but clearly those same rights are protected and administered by humans, not gods.