Os direitos humanos como religião secular

Abstract

This thesis examines the relationship between religion, modernity and human rights. Traditionally, religion acted as a generating and unifying force in human societies. With modernity, however, a new conception of religion emerges. Human rights, a typically modern product, are presented as a manifestation of the way modernity has dealt with the religious issue. The thesis seeks to show, however, that the modern arrangement - especially in relation to the Christianity from which the modern era originated - is misleading and, over time, unsustainable: the modern attempt to repress religion is not successful, as it ends giving rise to substitute religions that, because they are false copies of a genuine religion, are unable to succeed, leading to a series of problems addressed in the text. These substitute religions are precisely secular religions. The thesis presents human rights as a secular religion that can develop in a democratic way, as a civil religion, or can acquire a totalitarian aspect, developing as a political religion. Both forms are problematic and are not normally found in a pure state. However, the thesis demonstrates how the secular character of human rights has a totalitarian tendency, in the sense of seeking to encompass all aspects of social life, which results in the problem of inflation of rights