Why do people believe in human rights?

Some times I'm reading, and what I'm reading is just brilliant. Just now I'm really enjoying Tim Keller's book "The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism". [I've referred to his book before on this blog - Christianity Can Save The World, April 27, 2008].
Well early this morning before heading out for a Church Management Team breakfast meeting I'm reading another chapter from it - and boom ...brilliant.
So I decided I wanted to stick it on my blog for others to appreciate his insight and wisdom. So enjoy reading this small section for his book ....Chapter 9 "The Knowledge of God":

Conservative writers and speakers are constantly complaining that the young people of our culture are relativistic and amoral. As a pastor in Manhattan I have been neck-deep in sophisticated twentysomethings for almost two decades, and I have not found this to be the case. The secular, young adults I have known have a very finely honed sense of right and wrong. There are many things happening in the world that evoke their moral outrage.
There is a problem with their moral outlook, however.

In many cases I have to put on my philosophy-professor hat in order to be a good pastor to people. A young couple once came to me for some spiritual direction. They "didn't believe in much of anything" they said. How could they begin to figure out if there even was a God?
I asked them to tell me about something they felt was really, really wrong. The woman immediately spoke out against practices that marginalized woman. I said I agreed with her fully since I was a Christian who believed God made all human being, but I was curious why she thought it was wrong.
She responded, 'Women are human beings and human being have rights. It is wrong to trample on someone's rights."
I asked her how she knew that.
Puzzled, she said, "Everyone knows it is wrong to violate the rights of someone."
I said, "Most people in the world don't 'know' that. They don't have a Western view of human rights. Imagine if someone said to you 'everyone knows that women are inferior.' You'd say, 'That's not an argument, it's an assertion.' And you'd be right.
So let's start again. If there is no God as you believe and everyone has just evolved from animals, why would it be wrong to trample on someone's rights?"
Her husband responded: "Yes, it is true we are just bigger-brained animals, but I'd say animals have rights too. You shouldn't trample on their rights, either."
I asked whether he held animals guilty for violating the rights of other animals if the stronger ones ate the weaker ones.
'No, I couldn't do that."
So he only held human beings guilty if they trampled on the weak.
"Yes."
Why this double standard, I asked. Why did the couple insist that human being had to be different from animals, so that they were not allowed to act as was natural to the rest of the animal world. Why did the couple keep insisting that humans had this great, unique individual dignity and worth? Why did they believe in human rights?
"I don't know," the woman said, 'I guess they are just there, that's all."

......this conversation reveals how our culture differs from all the others that have gone before. People still have strong moral convictions, but unlike people in other times and places, they don't have any visible basis for why they find some things to be evil and other things good. It's almost like their moral intuitions are free-floating in midair - far off the ground.

[Keller begins to end this chapter by writing] ......If you believe human rights are a reality, then it makes much more sense that God exists than that he does not. If you insist on a secular view of the world and yet you continue to pronounce some things right and some things wrong, then I hope you see the deep disharmony between the world your intellect has devised and the real world (and God) that your heart knows exists.
This leads us to a crucial question. If a premise ("there is no God") leads to a conclusion you know isn't true ...then why not change the premise?

I highly recommend the entire book .....Keller writes well, he breaks down difficult philosophy into understandable examples ...and he prods deep into our logic and reasoning to help us search out truth and God.
A great summer read. Enjoy.