I've started this blog some time ago but every time I tried to start/continue, I feel nothing seems to make sense. Defining human rights can be complex, complicated and confusing. What makes it difficult to define human rights is that many people groups and countries have their own definition of human rights. It has led to discrimination, wars within a county and wars against different countries.
But what are human rights? And who's right?
Let's take a brief look at the Enlightenment (Western thoughts). Much of Western culture is define by individualism which this idea came out from early settlements in Europe, Greek philosophy and later into European philosophy during the Age of Enlightenment (1600's and 1700's). It is the belief that through science and reasoning, we come to understand the world around us. Some people during the Enlightenment want to reform religion using the reasoning with faith, which led to deism, where religion is discovered by human reason rather than by divine events and revelations. Much of this intellectual and philosophical thinking lead to the ideas of personal liberty and human rights. In traditional history, I've learned that much of the earlier settlers from Europe to the Americas want to seek religious and political freedom and some of these folks brought their ideas of deism. The Enlightenment years gave birth to modern democracy and also spurred on at least two famous revolutions in world history: The American Revolution and the French Revolution. Both are same in many regards, focusing on the idea that people have human rights and the rights to rule themselves. They do not want to be ruled by kings that do not give them the voice to express their rights and opinions. Democracy gave power to the people and nations that practice some form of democracy protect the people's freedom to think freely for themselves. The word "individualism" was not in use until maybe the early part of the 1800's after the French Revolution and often coined to people living in these nations, especially Americans. There are some good things about individualism but there are also some downsides as well, such as being uncooperative if there should be a collective agreement about something. Or people going overboard with their freedom and ignoring laws that are established.
Let's also take a look at Asian/Eastern thoughts. I am not as familiar with this topic, to be honest, but being Asian myself, I kind of have some idea. I think the best way to put it, in my words, is that Asians like to follow a leader and work as a collective, rather than freely think for themselves. They do have some idea of human rights, but they are more concern about honoring their leaders and family, doing what they think it's best for the collective rather than doing what they think is best for themselves. In government, this is usually seen in the form of communism, where the state or government has a belief that economic and social stability should meet the basic needs and rights of the people. But hidden in this philosophy is how this is met to what extent? If a person or a small minority of people do not agree with the government in handling, let's say, labor laws, the government may punish them for opposing the government. Or like when a group of people want to form a religion, but the government may see the religion as a threat, that government may try to use force to stop them or punish them if they continue to practice their religion. People in the Asian culture do not always challenge their authorities, as they believe their authorities should have more experience in a particular job or topic. There is some good in collective mindset too, but as I mentioned in the last few sentences, there are some negatives as well.
There are some interesting studies on the sociology of people groups that lead up to individualism vs collectivism. Here is an article that I think summarize this topic well: Rice and Wheat theory
But let's face it. Some government that says they are a democracy are not truly a democracy (the United States is often called a republic in practice), and some communist countries are not truly communist (China has open their doors to world trade in the last 30 years and their economy has taken off. You also see a lot of individuals being just individuals but within the reason and culture of China.). With each of these major types of government and culture, to what extent should a government protect themselves? The U.S. wants to protect the rights of the individual BUT in history, we see that for a long time, they do not want this to apply to minorities. Same as China, they want to protect the rights of their people BUT there are some folks they feel are a threat to their government because of religions or freethinking ideas.
And then there's the Bible. The Bible never mentions "human rights" because this term didn't come about until much much later in history. I started digging into the Bible for an answer and in summary from Genesis 1: 26-27: God gave us life and God made us equal. God not only created us but He created us in His own image. And for this reason, people have worth. God values us, thus we have value. Our lives matter to God, so we all matter. And we should value the lives of others because they too are made in the image of God.
The murder of George Floyd is what set me off on my deconstruction and trying to understand human rights vs what God say about this. I was disgusted by how people were treating each other in their thoughts and opinions which makes me wonder what does it really mean to be human. And the opinions that even Christians have about the matter makes me think what does it really mean to be a Christian. If most churches are just preaching against racism, are they actually doing anything about it? I even ask myself, am I doing aomwthing about it even though I myself am a minority in the U.S.? If people understood Scripture that people are made in His image, and we were valued by God, would we really treat each other with love and the utmost respect?
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