ABSTRACT
Historically, the cradle for human rights discourse has been the biblical worldview. America's Declaration of Independence emphasizes that God is the foundation for human dignity and worth: "All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights". A common cultural myth is that belief in God and the practice of sound science are inherently conflicting enterprises. As for Aristotle, he believed that some humans were slaves by nature: "A slave is an animated tool, and a tool an inanimate slave, whence there is nothing in common" between the master and the slave. Greece's elitist version of democracy was very different from modern democracy. The metaphysical roots of the biblical faith have issued forth in the fruits of modern science, human rights, bioethics, political democracy and other democratizing gains.
