I think some of the claims are overstated given the evidence. That said, this is not being born with morality.
You are very vague in your rebuttal. Some of the evdience, what evidence? You can't just make a vague assertion and then offer no support. The evdience from this research is clear, its repeated and meets the requirements for scientific evdience. If you think not then offer some arguement.
We are social creatures and we have some social instincts, sure. But it's a far cry from this to saying that our morality is inborn.
Why, being social creatures requires being moral by the fact that just living together brings out dilemmas we have to deal with that involves making moral judegments about behaviour. tell me if we are made in Gods image and therefore have the spark of the divine in us how does this not mean part of that is Gods laws.
Of course you can. In fact, we must.
Yes we can refine and add cultural influeneces to our moral sense but that moral sense had to be there form the start if we are to even make sense of morality. That moral sense comes out as soon as we interact with other humans because its part and parcel of being human and moral beings. Otherwise theres no interest like most kids with say being taught math. There seems to be an enthusiam for these core morals even just after birth.
In fact research also shows that belief is also inbred as divine ideas like a moral lawgiver, a creator entity, life after death (a soul) ect. Studies show all cultures hold these core morals regardless of the relative cultural expressions which seems to indicate that these core morals are like laws, part of Gods nature, part of our nature as being made in Gods image. In fact its harder to teach non belief and morality and to indoctrinate belief and morality out of a person because we naturally relate to these things.
Why could it not be conditioned at that point? We know that infants are very highly attuned to the emotional states of their caregivers; why could they not be mirroring what they observe?
The studies already factored this out. Later studies with infants found their belief in divine concepts and moral sense are not simply anthropomorphized from adults. They are unique, sophisticated and independnt beliefs on a more transcendent level. The strength and quality of their belief is well beyond what a mother could possibly implant at those stages. A baby and infants moral spontanity shows its coming from somewhere deep within them and not something mimicked.
According to your logic a mother who was atheist would teach the baby to be atheist by constantly influencing them. But this is not the case babies have this inner moral sense and belief even with atheistic parents and regardless of culture or social constructions.
Oh dear Lord, no. You are taking a very modern concept and projecting it backward anachronistically in a way that Christ never meant.
Why is it that you keep making these absolute claims like "Oh dear Lord, no" or "absolutely not" and then I can easily refute this by just showing one counter view. Is the Truth determined by the strength of the protest or Gods Truth of our lived and embodied reality, our own history and reasoning for these Truths.
Amnesty International urges world leaders to adopt a “Golden Rule” on human rights.
A “Golden Rule” on human rights is essential for an effective Arms Trade Treaty
The Golden Rule is to be found in many of the world’s religions and is also reflected in secular society. The rule can for example be found in a political version in legal declarations e.g. the Humans Rights Declarationof1948. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:18798/FULLTEXT01.pdf
The origins of human rights can be traced back to the time-honoured wisdom of the Golden Rule, a constant moral code that states one has a right to just treatment, and a responsibility to ensure justice for others.
Golden Rule – Real Aid
Using the golden rule as our guide, we can define rights in this way: one must recognize another’s right to those things that any person would fight to defend or to acquire. I believe this definition is powerful and universal because it is based not on the presence of external moral strictures that one may or may not recognize, but on one’s regard for his own well-being and on fear of conflict with those as dangerous as himself.
Human rights and the golden rule // The Observer
Really? Like the Inquisition or the Crusades? Nothing inhuman about them? Treated everyone as equal?
The Church done horrible things this century but we still knew about the Truth of Human Rights. That is the paradox of human nature. We are createed in Gods image knowing these Truths around human worth and loving others but we are also fallen creatures with a capacity to do horrible things at the same time.
The fact that humans can be horrible to one another even in the name of religion doesn't negate Gods Truth and his Word through Christianities influence on peoples rights and morals.
Again, you are reading modern concepts back into ancient texts very anachronistically. The authors of Psalms and Isaiah lived in a society which upheld the death penalty, for example; they would not acknowledge a right to life as we understand it.
You mean modern perspective on the same Truth principles that have been around throughout our history. These Truths were recognised in the Old Testament time not just by the writers of the books but in secular cultures such as under Cyrus the great.
In 539 BC Cyrus the Great freed the slaves, declared that all people had the right to choose their own religion, and established racial equality.
These and other principles were recorded on a baked-clay cylinder known as the Cyrus Cylinder, whose provisions served as inspiration for the first four Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
https://www.coespu.org/articles/human-rights-evolution-brief-history
A forerunner, yes, in the sense that the power of the crown was somewhat limited and not absolute. But you can't point to the Magna Carta as evidence of some notion of "human rights" which has been self-evident throughout history.
But its the Truth principle that underpins the Magna Carta that is what has been around throughout history. That is that all are equal before the law and have certain Rights and Freedoms regardless of power and position.
Extending these Rights to the lower class was a radical and significant change in that it became common law as legal Rights to all people regardless of social status. These Rights extended into egalitarian principles and was part of the changing theological landscape which came to recognise the fundemental equality of all people.
This has also been well recognised by various historians and even the UN.
Documents asserting individual rights, such the Magna Carta (1215), the English Bill of Rights (1689), the French Declaration on the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789), and the US Constitution and Bill of Rights (1791) are the written precursors to many of today's human rights documents.
http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/edumat/hreduseries/hereandnow/Part-1/short-history.htm#:~:text=Documents%20asserting%20individual%20rights%2C%20such,of%20today's%20human%20rights%20documents.
Another cornerstone in Human Rights History is represented by the promulgation of the Magna Charta in 1215 which introduced a raw concept of “Rule of Law” and the basic idea of defined rights and liberties to all persons,
https://www.coespu.org/articles/human-rights-evolution-brief-history
It does matter, because it undermines your claim that "human rights" have been self-evident throughout history. Christians of even a few centuries ago would find these ideas quite foreign.
I just showed you even secular rulers knew these truth principles of equality and freedom even in the ancient world let alone Christians. When we say self-evident it means their intrinsic, their status is a logical and inherent part of being human of living together as we are moral beings. Just engaging with each other brings up moral dilemmas we must face and deal with.
Let me ask you why did the declaration of the US and other nations say that the natural Rights of all are self-evident and inalienable. What did they mean is they did not mean self-evident.
Not just about governments, no. But when we realise that it is, in large part, about limiting the power of governments, we realise that "love your neighbour as yourself" isn't an adequate understanding.
The principle of limiting governments and Kings was about equality, about every person having equal Rights to life. It put the commoner on equal footing to governments as far as individual Rights were concerned.
The Golden Rule encapulates Human Rights in that we want the same for everyone and therefore it naturally follows that we fight for peoples Rights just like we would fight for our own Rights even against governments and KIngs. These ideas encapsulate elgalitarianism. As I mentioned above even the UN recognises the truth of the Golden Rule and the Magna Carta as underpinning HRs.
I'm not saying we never have any apprehension of truth, I am challenging your claim that conscience is a perfect or infallible measure of what is ethical and moral.
I agree our conscience can be lacking, we can trick it, we can knowingly over ride it. But this does not negate that there are truths we can know in the world including moral truths, Gods perfect law which is written on our hearts, our conscience.
But it can also be mistaken, or misguided. Or poorly formed, as the moral theologians would say.
yes we acknowledge this. But somehow your then taking this to claim there are no moral truths we can know through our conscience. If that were the case we would be in chaos without any moral compass. Anyone can claim I didn't know it was wrong or I didn't feel or think it was wrong.
No, again, that's a very inaccurate reading of history.
You keep making these absolute claims and I keep knocking them down. Most Historians and even the UN acknowledges that the foundations for Human Rights has been around for millenia. I have already provided support for this.
Some human rights ideas are as old as civilization. From the earliest times, for example King Hammurabi of Babylon around 1750 BC, laws have been written (or cut in stone) that include principles of justice, fairness and protection.
A brief history of human rights - Amnesty International
"The philosophical foundation of the liberal concept of human rights can be found in natural law theories",[116][117] and much thinking on natural law is traced to the thought of the Dominican friar, Thomas Aquinas.[118] Aquinas continues to influence the works of leading political and legal philosophers.[118] Aquinas said natural law is a fundamental principle that is woven into the fabric of human nature. Secularists, such as Hugo Grotius, later expanded the idea of human rights and built on it.
Role of Christianity in civilization - Wikipedia.
Being made in God's image is an idea which arises out of a particular religious ideology.
yes its a very Christian idea and one that radically changed Western cultures views on human equality and worth. The idea is that we are made in Gods image and not human image. Thats the destinction which makes everyone have the spark of the divine in them regardless of gender, race or other identities. It takes it out of human hands and places human worth in Gods. It elevates all humans from the corruptable to the incorruptable.
It is an idea which is interpreted in different ways by people with different ideologies (for example, as I have pointed out to you, repeatedly I think, there are many Christians who deny that women are made in God's image). It is not transcendent of fallible human ideologies but gets very much bound up in them.
But those who believe women are not made in Gods image are blanatantly denying Gods Truth and even the Truth of secularists such as in the US and most nations Declaration.
Just because this Truth exists doesn't automatically mean that everyone will agree or won't deny it for personal reasons. Like you sai with ideologies where human made ideas replace Gods Truth. But like other ideologies the Truth always comes out in reality. When they try to live out their ideologies they encounter resistence, create conflict which exposes the lies.
We don't have anywhere else to put it.
Yes we do in Gods hands. If not Gods we are rational beings and reason these Truths which implies some objective basis beyond human hands. That our reasoning can be in line with Gods truth and reality is not by accident.
I don't think that "human rights" in the contemporary sense have been a kind of reified guiding principle throughout human history. I would want to unpack what you mean a bit more here to answer in more detail, but at first blush I am sceptical of the kind of claim being made here.
Well first you have to understand the principles and spirit behind Human Rights and I think you will find the same principle ideas throughout our history. Especially the injection of Christianity into Western culture. When you say "human rights" in the contemporary sense I think due to Postmodernism society has become more skeptical of 'truth' itself, of even the objective world.
So this thinking can skew things where ideological beliefs bias people towards a very narrow view of the world and we should be more wary of this then anything else I think. Especially when it threatens the long held truths the West has lived by.
