A few intrepid atheists admit outright that they have to borrow the ideal of human rights from Christianity. Richard Rorty was a committed Darwinist; and in the Darwinian struggle for existence, the strong prevail while the weak are left behind. So evolution cannot be the source of universal human rights. Instead, Rorty says, the concept came from “religious claims that human beings are made in the image of God.” 7 He cheerfully admits that he reaches over and borrows the concept of universal rights from Christianity. He even calls himself a “free-loading” atheist: “This Jewish and Christian
...more
