Human Rights: Are They Best Grounded by Theism or Humanism?

I came across this post by A Thinking Nurse describing her humanistic approach to nursing.  TN is a nursing student interested in the human rights of persons with disabilities.  She grounds her advocacy of human rights on humanistic principles:

The humanistic justification for caring for human beings is that they are human beings – and being human is what ultimately matters.

Theistic nursing is serving God, a spiritual quest expressed through the medium of the people who present as patients. Humanistic nursing is showing solidarity in a human way with other human beings

First, a personal note to TN.  Bless you for choosing to work with disabled individuals.  We definitely need more intelligent nurses like yourself advocating for the rights of those who lack the functional skills as some of us.  Best of luck in your studies and your career. 

You believe that humanism is the most consistent way to ground human rights, and theism, especially the doctrine of Imago Dei, is an enemy to human rights.  In fact, you point to Imago Dei as a reason to justify discrimination:

Another danger is this question of the ‘ideal man’ – if we are made in the image of God, and we are all so different, some of us must be closer to the image of God than others. Traditionally religions have argued that men are closer to the image of God than women – one reason why they have resisted the idea of women priests. Presumably they also imagine that non-disabled men are closer to this image than men with disabilities, mentally stable men closer than people suffering from psychosis.

Does humanism provide better protection for the disabled than does theism?  A closer look gives us the answer.  Human rights under humanism are simply asserted as fact, needing no grounding or justification.  Skeptic publisher Michael Shermer states it this way in The Science of Good and Evil:

These rights and values [human rights] are grounded not in religion, or any other transcendental state or supernatural force, but in themselves.  They stand alone.  Humans deserve life, liberty, and happiness, not because God said so but because we are human. Period.  These rights and values exist because we say they exist, and that is good enough.  They are inalienable because we say they are, and that suffices.  (p156, emphasis mine)

This has often struck me as a bit postmodern for a modernist like Shermer (in that he asserts we create our own reality), but that will have to wait for another post. 

Shermer's views are interesting, in that he becomes inconsistent very quickly in their application.  As I have previously posted, 50 pages later he assigns value to human beings (in decimal places no less) based on their stage of development.  I guess human rights for these human beings no longer exist, because he says they do not.  This is the problem with grounding human rights in mid-air, as Shermer does.

It also is instructive to take a look at the views of two of the Laureates in the International Academy of Humanism, James Watson and Peter Singer. 

Watson is one of the co-discoverers of the double helix structure of DNA.  He also has offered some interesting "humanistic" viewpoints.  For instance, he believes that stupidity is a curable disease, and that we should abort children in order to make "better babies":

"Who would be against having better children?" he said. "If it goes wrong and creates a social problem, then maybe you ought to do something about it.

Do something = kill it in Watson's view.  However, Watson's views are not nearly as bad as humanist Laureate Peter Singer, who believes that disabled newborn infants should be killed on the spot by the attending physician.  He advocates curing the patients that you plan to treat in your career by killing them.  How do you feel about this "humanistic" perspective?  How do you feel about the International Academy of Humanisn recognizing Singer for his ability to "uphold humanist ethical values and principles"

You see, when we ground principles like human rights on a flimsy basis (or no basis at all), they are changed at our whim.  Although you assert that human beings are valuable simply because they are human beings, the leaders of the movement you believe supports human rights only do so when they want to.  Human beings that are disabled, inconvenient, or even just plain stupid are dehumanized by their views.

On the other hand, I ground the idea of human rights on the doctrine of Imago Dei, the Image of God.  I agree with theistic thinkers such as Martin Luther King and William Wilburforce who argued that human beings are not valuable based on their skin color or abilities; they are valuable based on the fact that they are made in the Image of God.  Each human being has this quality, and it is the reason why each human being has intrinsic value, regardless of their abilities. 

Unlike your portrayal, it is not the manifestations of God's image which gives us value.  Christian theists acknowledge that each one of us is fallen and do not come close to manifesting our Creator's Image like we should.  However, it is the one thing we have in common is the one who made us in his image.

When I treat a person with a severe facial anomaly, or you treat someone with another disability, I believe they have intrinsic value that they cannot lose.  Michael Shermer may argue that they are only .8 human.  James Watson may wish they were killed prior to their birth.  Peter Singer may believe they should have been killed as an infant.  A Christian theist recognizes their value regardless of their disability.  I sincerely hope you continue to treat patients as if they have intrinsic value, despite the fact that the logical consistency of your ideology does not support it.