[T]he American Founding Fathers . . . imagined a reality governed by universal and immutable principles of justice, such as equality or hierarchy. Yet the only place where such universal principles exist is in the fertile imagination of [human beings], and in the myths they invent and tell one another. These principles have no objective validity.In other words, when a secular modern speaks of ideals like justice and human rights, he or she is simply reciting contemporary fairy-tales. The ideals of which these folks speak are socially fabricated illusions employed to oil the gears of society to make it function better.
Indeed, the claim to be "fighting against injustice" is a foolish absurdity unless one is operating out of a Christian (or theistic) worldview. Every time our secular social justice warriors speak of "justice" and "equality" they're actually parasitizing the Christianity many of them reject.
Harari continues,
It is easy for us to accept that the division of people into ‘superiors’ and ‘commoners’ is a figment of the imagination. Yet the idea that all humans are equal is also a myth. In what sense do all humans equal one another? Is there any objective reality, outside the human imagination, in which we are truly equal?Apart from Christianity there's no foundation for the principle of human equality and therefore no foundation for the idea of justice. Those who march down our cities' streets shouting "No Justice, No Peace" are yelling an empty, meaningless slogan, unless they're standing in a Christian worldview.
. . . According to the science of biology, people were not ‘created’. They have evolved. And they certainly did not evolve to be ‘equal.’ The idea of equality is inextricably intertwined with the idea of creation. The Americans got the idea of equality from Christianity, which argues that every person has a divinely created soul, and that all souls are equal before God.
Those who complain of the injustice of income inequality, discrimination and racism are doing nothing more than emoting. They're expressing their displeasure with things as they are, but there's no more intellectual heft to their complaint than if they simply said "Ugh! I really don't like that."
The question they should be asked is why are these things wrong? Why are they "unjust," and why is injustice wrong? Unless they stand on a Christian understanding of the world, or at least a theistic understanding, they can have no coherent answer. One can be a secularist or atheist or one can believe that injustice and inequality are objectively wrong, but one can't do both.
Harari clearly recognizes the problem for secularists such as himself:
However, if we do not believe in the Christian myths about God, creation and souls, what does it mean that all people are ‘equal’? Evolution is based on difference, not on equality.It's intriguing that people can accept all that and still think it's somehow more sophisticated, virtuous or rational to live their actual lives as though it's all false. When a secular (or atheistic) materialist's life day after day repudiates the secular materialism he claims to believe, the one thing he can't claim is that his secular materialism makes sense.
Every person carries a somewhat different genetic code, and is exposed from birth to different environmental influences. This leads to the development of different qualities that carry with them different chances of survival. ‘Created equal’ should therefore be translated into ‘evolved differently.’
Just as people were never created, neither, according to the science of biology, is there a ‘Creator’ who ‘endows’ them with anything. There is only a blind evolutionary process, devoid of any purpose, leading to the birth of individuals.
