on the origin of human rights

This is a great post on why morality has a solid foundation if God exists; and a shakier one if He doesn't.

... to be clear, I do not believe that atheists are demonstrably less moral than believers are. In my view, it takes a significant level of thoughtfulness and proactive moral agency to reject the idea of God in our culture (though that may be changing); most of the atheists I know have spent a lot more time thinking about these issues and taking ownership of a meaningful moral code than most Christians I know. Nevertheless, let me take a crack at showing why a belief in God is, in general, more supportive of a belief in human rights than atheism is.

I agree that both the atheist and theist must commit themselves to human rights by an act of faith: for the theist, it's a faith in a certain type of God, and for the atheist, faith in the intrinsic value (?) of human beings. But the atheist knows that his belief in human rights is an act of will -- he knows there is no reality that compels him to recognize human rights; it's more accurate to say that he's creating human rights because, in light of human experience and his observations of reality, they work. For the theist, though, his faith in human rights is simply recognizing the implications of his faith in God. And so I disagree with Brian's assertion that it's the existence of God, not the belief in God's existence, that matters for human rights. It is the belief that matters. Whether or not God actually exists, if I believe in the God that is at the center of the world's major religions -- that is, a God who wants to be in relationship with his creation, thereby signaling human beings' inestimable value in God's eyes -- then human rights are an unavoidable implication of that belief for anyone who wants to live in harmony with God's design.

As for Brian's question on the value of this whole line of inquiry, I obviously can't speak for Michael, but I would venture to say that the point is not to marginalize the many non-religious voices who have been and remain essential to the struggle for human rights, but to make clear that, in a public square where religion is often greeted as an archaic and divisive obstacle to human understanding, religion might still hold the best hope for instilling a deep commitment to human dignity and worth..

- Rob Vischer on Mirror of Justice

if there's no objective reality that compels our belief in human rights, then there are no human rights at all. further, if they are only human constructs than they can easily be changed and even lost entirely.