«Just throwing this out there but could it be «human rights» is a kind of god?»
This is the crux of the issue. And this was our major fail, as Christian people. Charles Baudelaire once said: «The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.» But I would like to say: The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that living without religion is possible.»
What is a religion? A religion does not need a God or gods (Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism don’t have the concept of god). Confucianism does not have the concept of the spiritual.
A religion is a worldview that defines what is good and what is evil. (So it has a part of IS and a part of OUGHT: google «Is-ought problem»)
- Christianity: Jesus is the Son of God so the definition of good and evil is to be found in the Bible.
- Islam: Mohammed is the last prophet so the definition of good and evil is to be found in the Qur’an.
- Enlightenment religion: Spiritual things do not exist or do not matter so the good is increasing pleasure and decreasing pain (the evil is the opposite). Human rights are only methods to do that. The right, the left, liberalism, progressiveness, conservatism, neocons, libertarianism are only sects of this religion. They agree on the goal (increasing pleasure for most people) but they disagree on the methods to do that.
Every man has a religion because it has a definition of evil and wrong. Every country has an official religion, because the country has a law. The law has to allow some things and forbid other things. Obviously, this cannot be done randomly. The law has to allow things that considers GOOD and forbid things that considers EVIL. This means that the law must have a concept of morality. And this must be grounded in a concept of the world. And a worldview with morality is a religion.
Therefore, every country is a theocracy.
Muslim countries are Islamic theocracies. Islam is the public religion and the law and the public life is based on that. Other religions are tolerated in the private realm, as long as they don’t enter in public conflict with Islam.
Western countries are Enlightenment theocracies. The Enlightenment religion is the public religion and the law and the public life is based on that. Other religions are tolerated in the private realm, as long as they don’t enter in public conflict with the Enlightenment religion (freedom, equality, human rights).
More specifically, the sect of the Enlightenment religion currently in power is the political correctness. It is displacing the previous sect (which I call «socialdemocracy», which ruled from the end of World War II).
The 19th century was a century of religious wars. The Enlightenment religion fought the Christian religion and won. The 20th century was a century of wars between the sects of the Enlightenment religion. Fascism against socialdemocracy against communism. Socialdemocracy won and mutated in political correctness at the end of the century.
We are not opposing «the lack of religion». We are opposing other religion, which is intolerant. We were very silly as a Christian people. They told us: «The State should be neutral in matters of religion and you can practice Christianity in private with total freedom». And we believed that. We were morons (me included). The State cannot be neutral in matters of religion because it has a law. When Christianity stopped being the official religion, the Enlightenment started being the official religion. Eventually, the Enlightenment religion has penetrated society and made the practice of Christianity less and less common and more and more difficult. The Enlightenment religion went from the laws to the schools to the media to the population. This was unavoidable, as long as we have the Enlightenment religion as official religion of the West. We lost the war and the winning army is conquering the last stands of the Christian army in the West.