More from my reading of Epstein’s “Good without God”, Foot and Thomson’s “Trolley problem” experiments have shown that humans regardless of religious persuasion have responded similarly to the problem. This shows that we can agree on certain things that we don’t want to see happen: we all want to reduce needless human suffering. And above all, this shows that religion does not necessarily provide its people with a superior moral compass.
Rights must exist in order to empower and protect humans. But rights do not come from God, because God does not speak to human beings in a single voice and rights should exist even if there is no God. Then where should rights come from?
Rights do not come from nature, because nature is value-neutral. Rights can however come from biological understandings of pain and suffering.
Rights should not come solely from logic, because there is little consensus about the a priori premises from which rights may be deduced.
Rights do not come from law alone.
Rights come from human experience: we can learn from past mistakes. Rights come from wrongs.
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