Human Rights 4

It seems as though the concept of natural rights have lost credibility due to its shift from the people’s hands to the government’s advantage.
During the world’s history, people have realized and identified what is necessary in order to lead a minimally good life. These essential elements have become moral truths, also known as natural justice. [Natural [justice] is that which has the same validity everywhere and does not depend upon acceptance. (Nicomachean Ethics, 189 Aristotle). Therefore, society upholds moral truths despite government rulings.
Many ideas of human rights commence at religious texts and continue through the great philosophers of our time. The Bible claims that the divine image created all human beings; therefore, all human beings are equal in God’s eyes. Thus, it is necessary to protect equality in all human beings. By the formation of Christianity in the early centuries, Christians spread these basic rights because they are the will of God. By the diffusion of these Christian ideas, the concept of natural law was introduced to the individual before even having established a governmental structure.
In recent centuries, numerous movements for political change have occurred with one of their reasons being human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), one of the most recent declarations of human rights, occurred after World War II. This doctrine was established to avoid the horrific acts of the Holocaust from reoccurring. This doctrine lists specific human rights, such as the right not to be tortured, the right to own property, and the right to asylum. These rights are fundamental and take part in various other doctrines, declarations and constitutions. From this point, one can see how human rights have slowly moved away from society’s moral code to political interests.
The beginning of the United States of America is another example of political change by means of human rights. Settlers established the United States of...