Caldron Pool recently shared a short clip from Tucker Carlson during his speaking tour in Australia, in which he explained that Christianity is the only reason the world recognizes “human rights.”
The video has attracted more than 100,000 views on social media, and with it, the standard predictable criticisms.
Most seemed to agree with Tucker’s position, however, several claimed that the concept of “human rights” did not exclusively arise among Christians, but also emerged among, what they described as, “decent people” who believed in “fairness and justice.”
Others shared news stories in the replies of professed Christians being charged with heinous sex crimes, murder, injustices, and other forms of human rights abuses.
While we agree that professed Christians are still capable of acting unjustly and violating “human rights,” the question arises, particularly for the non-Christian: According to what standard? Where do we get “justice” and “decency” from in a godless universe? From where, exactly, does a transcendent standard that others are accused of violating originate?
Nobody ever really says in these sorts of debates. Concepts such as justice and human rights are all just presupposed. This is the baselessness and absurdity to which people are reduced by rejecting Christianity. If there is no God in the universe, then what are human beings except the unintentional chemical by-product of time and chance acting on matter?
What one chemical, or a collection of chemicals, does to other chemicals is morally irrelevant. Spilt milk cannot splatter “unjustly” or “unfairly.” So, what then are our actions except the result of atoms moving about in our brains in obedience to the fixed laws of chemistry?
Not only does the idea of godlessness do away with purpose and morality, it entirely obliterates the possibility of knowledge! In a godless universe, you don’t believe anything because it is true or good, but because that “thought” sensation is the present effect of a long line of previous, unavoidable causes triggered by the miraculous appearance of reality. In a godless universe, there is no transcendent measure of “true” and “false,” “right” and “wrong” to appeal to. It’s all chemistry, dictated by chemistry, producing the illusion of free thought.
Concepts of “justice” merely emerged within the brain of the individual. Where these conceptions conflict, individual to individual, there is no higher measure to validate whether one conception is more or less “just” than another. Justice is non-existent.
At this point, you might as well be talking about the “immorality” and “injustice” of preferring strawberry milkshakes over chocolate. That is all this debate ultimately amounts to if there is no higher written moral code that exists outside of our own sensations.
C.S. Lewis dealt with the problem of justice in his masterpiece, ‘Mere Christianity,’ when he argued that justice cannot exist if there is no objective, transcendent standard by which to judge actions and behaviours.
He explained:
“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and just. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?
“If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such a violent reaction against it?…
“Of course, I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too—for the argument depends on saying the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies.
“Thus, in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist—in other words, that my whole reality was senseless—I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality—namely, my idea of justice—was full of sense.
“If the whole universe had no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never have known it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.”
A godless universe is incompatible with any meaningful concept of “right” and “wrong.” It is for this reason that the idea of “human rights” emerged, and could only emerge, within a Christian context that presupposed the Bible to be true.
Man was only seen as having inherent value and inalienable rights because of the Biblical truth that all men are created in the image of God, and therefore, are owed a level of respect and dignity, regardless of their social status, beliefs, and ethnicity. No other system can coherently afford mankind that recognition.
This is why atheism is the religion of Satanic Globalism in its infancy. But it is only a means to an end. Its purpose is to undermine the authority of Christ until it can usurp the authority of Christ. Once that end is achieved, atheism begins to fade, and the concept of “God-given human rights” quickly dissolves into “state-granted privileges.”
When the atheist appeals to concepts of “justice,” especially when arguing against Christianity, he’s acting as a moral parasite. His argument is based on borrowed ethics that are incompatible with his own worldview. As such, the atheist must presuppose Christianity is true in order to accuse anyone of acting “unjustly,” and that, all while denying the necessary basis for any meaningful notion of justice to exist.
As Cornelius Van Til put it, he’s no better than the little child who is able to slap his father on the face only because he is held up by his father’s knee.
