How do Atheists Justify Human Rights?

Christians and atheists often disagree over politics and human rights. However, while Christians have a foundation for supporting their political positions, atheists unwittingly steal from God in order to argue for some of their political rights, whether it’s abortion, same-sex marriage, government healthcare or whatever.

How so?

By what objective standard are abortion, same-sex marriage, taxpayer-provided health care, and the like, moral rights? There isn’t such a standard in an atheistic universe. If there is no God, all moral questions are matter of human opinion. So atheists must steal the grounds for objective moral rights from God while arguing that God doesn’t exist.

Atheists are caught in a dilemma. If God doesn’t exist, then objective moral rights don’t exist, including all those that atheists support. If God does exist, then objective moral rights exist. But those rights clearly don’t include cutting up babies in the womb, same-sex marriage, and other invented absolutes contrary to every major religion and the “self-evident” natural law.

No matter what side of the political aisle you’re on—no matter how passionate you believe in certain causes or rights—without God they aren’t really rights at all. Human rights amount to no more than your subjective preferences. So atheists can believe in and fight for rights to abortion, same-sex marriage, and taxpayer-provided entitlements, but they can’t justify them as truly being rights. They are their own preferences, not rights.

Want the details including answers to objections? They are in the book and the new Stealing From God online course I’m hosting that beings January 15 (you can start the self-paced version any time after that too). The course includes ten hours of video, and several live video conferences where I’ll be answering questions. Since we limit the size of the live classes to ensure every student has an opportunity to ask questions, you’ll want to sign up soon if you want to be a part of this.