Indispensability of Religions for Human Rights Ideology:

This article argues that religions are essential for human rights and human rights discourse without religious foundation is unable to protect human sacredness, criticizing Louis Henkin’s assertion that religions are not only incompatible with human rights, but also hostile to human rights. First, I argue that ideally, religions are fully compatible with human rights ideology and both religions and human rights ideology can be abused by humans and infringe human rights of individuals. Second, criticizing Henkin’s argument that religions which use the language of obligations and third-party beneficiaries are unrelated to human rights discourse which deals with right-talk, I argue that human rights talk cannot sustain itself without mentioning obli- gations and third-party beneficiaries. Third, human rights ideology can ensure human dignity when it is based on religious foundations. Fourth, unlike Henkin s claim that the religiously based human rights ideology is incompatible with the secular human rights ideology, the human rights ideology based on religions is fully compatible with secular human rights ideology. Simply put, religions are compatible with and indispensable for human rights ideology.