Propaganda Films and Hate Speech

[Rev. Rye]

I sometimes wonder how long belief in human dignity and inalienable rights will last apart from the religious culture that gave rise to those concepts.

It can be so tempting to just answer this question with Kirk Douglas' famous reply from Paths of Glory:





But I'm not really that big a fan of that mindset and I'm going to explain why, and, hopefully, in the process, I'll demonstrate how a belief in universal human dignity in rights can, in fact, be divorced from the religious culture that supposedly created it (so I have been told, I have not seen it).

I am on the autism spectrum. I know a lot about things, but the world can be a very mystifying place, and it was especially mystifying as a kid when everyone seemed to go along with things that made no sense to me. My life has been a quest to understand what the fuck is going on in the world, whether it's why people can be so monstrous to each other, why people don't like to see other people wearing hats indoors, or, (to use an example from the book I'm currently reading) why someone would think it a good idea to send a ship heavily stocked for years' travel in the unexplored regions of most inhospitable climates on Earth but devote as little space as possible for the possibility of having to go on land. So, I've come to the conclusion that, if I need to know about something, I'll look into it, and frequently, I'll drink deeper than a lot of other people into the Pierian Spring, and whenever I find the opportunity, I'll show my findings elsewhere. If you're familiar with my posts, you'll know I'm quite well-read and sometimes put a lot of details about things that some of us haven't even thought of. 


Why do I do this? It's not just to show off. It's because, on some level, I get the feeling that people might want or need to know about things, because I know what it's like to be left in the dark about something everyone seems to know about. And I don't need the words of some deity to tell me that helping educate people about things they don't already know about is a good thing. There's a reason literally every religion has some version of the Golden Rule: because if we're going to live together, we'll need some way to make sure we can stay reasonably safe. And the Golden Rule (or whatever local variation you can find) is a perfect summation of that principle: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and as the Rabbi Hillel added "The Rest is Commentary; Go and study it!"

Honestly, I would have expected that could easily come from a non-religious worldview, if only because a society where people generally follow the golden rule means people are a lot less likely to wrong you. And honestly, seeing your user name is giving a shout-out to Thomas Aquinas, I have to ask: where is the universal human rights and dignity in passages like this from Aquinas?

Nothing should be denied the blessed that belongs to the perfection of their beatitude. Now everything is known the more for being compared with its contrary, because when contraries are placed beside one another they become more conspicuous. Wherefore in order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned.

If universal human rights and dignity come from a Christian, it is in spite of their religious culture, not because of it.