What is the logic for not believing in God, but believing in inherent human rights?

[TheReckoning]

A lot of atheists say that they don’t believe in God because of lack of evidence. There are no convincing arguments, in their mind, that the universe, or human beings, have an intelligent creator.

This makes sense. But a lot of these same atheists believe in inherent human rights. For example, they will argue that abortion should be legal, because human beings have an inherent human right to control their own body.

But… where is the evidence for these inherent human rights? How can they prove that human beings have such rights?

No that I’m not talking about civil rights here, which are decided by a legal body. But inherent human rights, that are a fundamental part of being a human.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

That there is some axiomatic feature of humanity, or of the universe, or in our reason, or some practical utility etc. that grounds human rights.

I don't really get the question. We all disbelieve some things for lack of evidence. That doesn't necessarily entail we should be sceptics about everything. The person (they might be a theist) who disbelieves that intelligent aliens are living under the surface of Mars for lack of evidence, isn't required by consequence to disbelieve in inherent human rights.

[TheReckoning]

That there is some axiomatic feature of humanity, or of the universe, or in our reason, or some practical utility etc. that grounds human rights.

Where is the proof for any of these “axiomatic features”?

[Blue3]

That there is some axiomatic feature of humanity, or of the universe, or in our reason, or some practical utility etc. that grounds human rights.

Where is the proof for any of these “axiomatic features”?

There’s no proof that anybody outside yourself exists, there’s no proof that outside reality is real, there’s no proof that even your past wasn’t an illusion.

Some things you just take on faith.

For some, God is part of that faith. For others, God isn’t part of it, it’s just faith in your senses and memory, but they also take some things on faith. It doesn’t need to be rational to get the axioms - you build the rational framework out of the axioms.

[PSOL]

Self-interest of the collective species.

[AtorBoltox]

The Golden Rule

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Without God(s), morality is a cynical survival pact. If so, that is "fine", since that's all we've got, and I'd rather not get killed by roving warlords.

[Alcibiades]

Without God(s), morality is a cynical survival pact. If so, that is "fine", since that's all we've got, and I'd rather not get killed by roving warlords.

I don’t see what God would add to morality that would make it any less of a ’cynical survival pact’, if you already think that it is one without him. You’re now just making the pact with him, rather than your fellow human beings; act morally and you’ll go to heaven, not hell — seems like a fairly clear case of self-interest to me. At any rate, I think that secular morality is in fact far more than a mere survival pact.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Without God(s), morality is a cynical survival pact. If so, that is "fine", since that's all we've got, and I'd rather not get killed by roving warlords.

I don’t see what God would add to morality that would make it any less of a ’cynical survival pact’, if you already think that it is one without him. You’re now just making the pact with him, rather than your fellow human beings; act morally and you’ll go to heaven, not hell — seems like a fairly clear case of self-interest to me. At any rate, I think that secular morality is in fact far more than a mere survival pact.

Morality, to me, depends on the existence of some sort of inherent or essential quality, something that is sacred and immutable. The existence of this quality or qualities becomes harder to reason towards when we remove concepts like the soul or our intentional creation as beings of free will. When human beings are rendered as purely mechanical, bigger "moral" issues like valuing life, property, and truth merely reflect our common desire for self preservation, and more minute ones (genuflecting when entering church or spurning premarital sex in an age of birth control or not eating pork) are just ill-informed preferences.

[All Along The Watchtower]

“Logic” is a misleading word in this context.

[Alcibiades]

To answer the OP’s question, presumably because you think there are stronger arguments for the existence of human rights than for the existence of God. It’s not at all clear to me how the two questions are related, and why one cannot come up with an independent answer for both, but I presume the OP is implicitly drawing on the very common view, a variant of which Cath also expounded, that God is somehow required for morality to be ‘objective’. Again, this is a view I find very puzzling.

Rights-based moral theories are most strongly associated with what might variously be termed the contractarian or deontological tradition. The classic version of this is Kant’s, who argued for rights on the basis of the self-imposed requirements of rational agency to respect itself in every person, while Rawls produced the most influential modern statement: behind the veil of ignorance, we would all choose very strong rights protections. All of these theories centrally appeal to considerations of equality and universalisation — they might be summed up this way, that if choosing moral principles under fair, impartial conditions (conditions which morality inherently requires), rights would very importantly be among them.

This is just a sketch of one way one might motivate the existence of rights. It is obviously far from the only view, and its most prominent opponent has tended to be the utilitarian view that rights, if they can be justified at all, are justified by their promoting the general welfare. It is far from obvious to me that they can properly be called ‘rights’ at all on such a view, but now we are getting further from the original topic of this thread. The point is just that whether or not one can successfully argue for the existence of human rights has nothing to do with whether or not one can do the same for God.

[Alcibiades]

Morality, to me, depends on the existence of some sort of inherent or essential quality, something that is sacred and immutable. The existence of this quality or qualities becomes harder to reason towards when we remove concepts like the soul or our intentional creation as beings of free will.

Far from an uncontroversial view, but one that can certainly be held in a secular context; Kantians think that rational nature is such a quality. I don’t see how whether or not such a quality was created by a supreme being has any bearing on its grounding morality.

When human beings are rendered as purely mechanical,

Who said that nonbelievers have to be hard determinists? Indeed, religions like Christianity have notorious difficulties with trying to account for free will, especially with regard to how it relates to God’s supposed omniscience.

bigger "moral" issues like valuing life, property, and truth merely reflect our common desire for self preservation,

I scarcely believe I have to point this out, but secular thinkers have — to put it mildly — written plenty on why these are valuable things beyond merely such a desire.

and more minute ones (genuflecting when entering church or spurning premarital sex in an age of birth control or not eating pork) are just ill-informed preferences.

I am not sure why this is supposed to be a problem? The argument here would be that such moral prohibitions cannot be rationally justified, and indeed rely — ironically, considering your argument as to the cynical, pragmatic nature of atheistic morality — on mere social convention.

And of course, the question still remains how God is supposed to help us with any of this. The Euthyphro dilemma (is it good because God wills it, or does God will it because it is good?) is a deserved classic — a problem for those who believe in a simultaneously omnipotent and omnibenevolent God that, in my view, is yet to receive an adequate solution in the 2,400 years since it was first posed.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I used to share some of Cathcon's concerns (if not his conclusions), but at this point I'm increasingly convinced that it's far more important to meaningfully connect morality to our everyday experiences than to hold it up as some ineffable, irreducible and free-floating concept. At the end of the day, any definition of the Good that is far removed from the things actual people actually care about is not going to be recognized as "the Good" in colloquial usages. This is why the "God must have his reasons" type responses to the Problem of Evil fall so flat - whatever reason God must have to allow this degree of wickedness to run rampant in the world is not one that a rational human being could possibly recognize as good.

Conversely, though, we can also reject moral relativism on the same ground. Any versions of "good" and "evil" that would so fickly shift based on the identity of the speaker or prevailing social mores does not match the concepts of good and evil as we actually use them. It only makes sense to understand moral judgments as having one single, determinate truth-value, at least as far as a fully specified situation goes.

Thus, morality must be reducible in some form (and what would it be reducible to if not some collection of our individual evaluative attitudes? If everyone enjoyed being tortured, what basis would we have to call torture immoral?), but it must also be universal. Out of a myriad conflicting passions and interests, there must necessarily be one correct way to aggregate them. One which, under ideal circumstances to be specified, we would all be able to agree on. This is all it takes to believe in "absolute morality", I reckon.

[Alcibiades]

To expand a bit on Antonio’s post (with which I very much agree in spirit, though I am perhaps a bit more pessimistic about the possibility of reaching one correct answer to all moral questions — I agree though that any variations that did arise would certainly not be on account of social or cultural relativism), the fundamental problem with views such as Cathcon’s seems to me to be this: they posit a radical scepticism/nihilism about value, which they claim only the recognition of the existence of God can dissolve; but this scepticism/nihilism is so radical that it leaves it unclear why, if God does exist, that should matter at all.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

"I think all sentient beings deserve inherent rights. Without objective morality, there's no stopping me and the many people who agree with me from forcing everyone to respect inherent rights. Therefore, all sentient beings have inherent rights."

[RINO Tom]

It falls apart very quickly, IMO.  Objective morality cannot exist in materialism.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Not sure I trust very many people to be moral and act morally without a strong belief in something much greater than themselves, or without believing that there just might be severe consequences for immorality and unrepentant wrongdoing.

[Farmlands]

Not sure I trust very many people to be moral and act morally without a strong belief in something much greater than themselves, or without believing that there just might be severe consequences for immorality and unrepentant wrongdoing.

The Czech Republic would've completely collapsed by now if that were the case. As it is, it's a healthy democracy with a solid welfare system. A sense of altruism and responsibility can come from one's own self.

[PSOL]

It falls apart very quickly, IMO.  Objective morality cannot exist in materialism.

Objective morality is actually pretty beneficial to a person’s living standards.

Most holy texts do not contain objective morality.

[vitoNova]

"Human rights" is fundamentally based on the Golden Rule.   

"Treat Others As You Yourself Would Like To Be Treated".

A fundamental principle which I suspect was formulated 200,000 years ago when our homo ancestors became sentient and began to formulate languages and philosophies.

"Gawd", cults, religions--and all other human constructs--will come-and-go just like any other short-lived fad or fashion...

...but the Golden Rule shall always remain intact. 

[John Dule]

"Inherent human rights" don't exist. All that exists is self-interest. It is in my own interest to not be unjustly killed, harmed, imprisoned, silenced, tortured, conscripted, robbed, or disarmed, so it is therefore in my interest to construct a social system that prevents those things from happening to me. The best way to ensure that such things cannot happen to me is to ensure that they cannot happen to anyone. Thus everyone should have the same rights that I want for myself. God is completely unnecessary to complete this equation, as is any conception of objective universal morality.

I completely agree with Cath that this is a "cynical survival pact." I think our only difference is that I see this as something beautiful.

[patzer]

"Human rights" is fundamentally based on the Golden Rule.   

"Treat Others As You Yourself Would Like To Be Treated".

A fundamental principle which I suspect was formulated 200,000 years ago when our homo ancestors became sentient and began to formulate languages and philosophies.

"Gawd", cults, religions--and all other human constructs--will come-and-go just like any other short-lived fad or fashion...

...but the Golden Rule shall always remain intact. 

There are a huge number of examples of the golden rule being violated on a large scale though. For example, the level of control adults have over children would never be accepted if most adults were in the child's situation, but they are aware that that situation could never happen. Likewise, many people throughout history such as in Roman times have considered the killing of infants to be moral, and that is still the case today in the case of unborn infants, but the fact you will never be in the infant in question's position makes this irrelevant.

Even institutions such as slavery have been very widespread throughout history. And so on. So I'd hardly say it's a rule which the following of is inevitable.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Morality, to me, depends on the existence of some sort of inherent or essential quality, something that is sacred and immutable. The existence of this quality or qualities becomes harder to reason towards when we remove concepts like the soul or our intentional creation as beings of free will. When human beings are rendered as purely mechanical, bigger "moral" issues like valuing life, property, and truth merely reflect our common desire for self preservation, and more minute ones (genuflecting when entering church or spurning premarital sex in an age of birth control or not eating pork) are just ill-informed preferences.

It's not clear to me that without belief in God we have no "existence of some sort of inherent or essential quality, something that is sacred and immutable" - that seems to be conflating atheism with a strong form of naturalism. Russ Shafer-Landau and Michael Huemer are two atheist moral realists. Thomas Nagel is one anti-materialist/anti-naturalist atheist. Many atheist philosophers support compatibilism or even libertarian free will.  Lloyd Gerson defends a robust Platonist metaphysics independent of any theology. A mechanist materialist who disbelieved in free will and based his ethics in a common desire for self-preservation is one popular interpretation of the theist Spinoza!

It may be the case that atheism implies strong naturalism and also moral nihilism, but many intelligent and learned people disagree so one has to make an argument for that position and not simply assert it as self evident.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I am not sure why this is supposed to be a problem? The argument here would be that such moral prohibitions cannot be rationally justified, and indeed rely — ironically, considering your argument as to the cynical, pragmatic nature of atheistic morality — on mere social convention.

Many atheist philosophers support compatibilism or even libertarian free will.

I fear my statement is being misinterpreted as believing that an atheist would have to adopt a purely materialist worldview, or otherwise would be driven only by base animal desires. Far from it; humans, for better or worse display a wide range of irrational behaviors.

[Alcibiades]

It falls apart very quickly, IMO.  Objective morality cannot exist in materialism.

Again, I’m not sure why atheism and ‘materialism’ (a very imprecise term that philosophers tend to avoid with good reason) are being treated as synonymous here.

I fear my statement is being misinterpreted as believing that an atheist would have to adopt a purely materialist worldview, or otherwise would be driven only by base animal desires. Far from it; humans, for better or worse display a wide range of irrational behaviors.

I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to say here. Is it that atheists, if they’re being consistent, ought to adopt ‘materialism’, but many in fact don’t because they’re irrational? If so, the philosophers Statilius listed show that many atheist thinkers have in fact made cogent arguments against various elements of a purely naturalistic worldview. If you’re saying they’re all being irrational, you’re going to have to offer quite a bit of further support for that assertion.