How Do Liberty and Equality Arise?

There is no end to the ridiculous claims made by Christian apologists.  We've heard the argument before that Christianity is responsible for the rise of science, despite the fact that when science was starting to emerge from the shadows of religious orthodoxy in the late middle ages, the church did everything in its power to suppress it.  Now Victor Reppert and some of the cultists at his blog are making the claim that the concepts of freedom and equality for mankind are also products of Christianity.

You may not have to believe in God to support equality, but you most certainly would have never even heard of the concept without the generations of religious, and specifically Christian, thinkers who gave it to us. The very idea of equality before the law springs from the realization that we are all equal before God. This is historical fact. - planks length

"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are evolved equal, that they are endowed by evolution with certain inalienable rights, that among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Now does anyone besides me think that this is a howler? - Reppert

So perhaps it would be worthwhile to consider history.  The passage cited by Victor is a spoof of a line from the Declaration of Independence, penned by Thomas Jefferson, who rejected the most fundamental doctrines of Christianity, and thought that most of the Christian bible was a "dunghill", with some diamonds scattered about.  Jefferson was a deist and a secularist.  In fact it was the secularist movement of the 18th century where we began to hear the calls for liberty and equality.  This was a radical departure from the European establishment of religious monarchies.  The motto of the French secularists was "Liberté, égalité, fraternité".  And who stood in opposition to them?  The church and the monarchy.

For many centuries, European monarchies had an alliance with the church to share wealth and power.  And this came at the expense of the common man, who was exploited and kept in virtual bondage.  Freedom was for the privileged few, and equality was unheard of.  In fact, they would have scoffed at the idea, if not bringing serious harm to anyone who proposed it.  People had a station in life, and were expected to remain there and submit to the absolute authority of their lords, both aristocratic and religious (and it's no coincidence that the same word applies, but the religious "Lord" was a proxy for the authorities in the church - to obey the Lord was to follow the dictates of church authorities).  Even as feudalism declined, the monarchies continued to keep their grip on power, with the blessing of the church.  This was the established way of life for Christendom, and it was fiercely defended by the authorities in power.  And it was the secularist movement that eventually brought us relief from the domination of church and monarchy.  Whoever thinks that the ideas of human liberty and equality sprang from Christianity is delusional.

But what about Victor's observation, that it is absurd to think that they arose from evolution?  I agree that his statement, as worded, does sound absurd.  But that's because of the fundamental flaw in Victor's thinking.  He seems to think that freedom and equality are gifts that are granted by God, as if without these gifts being handed to us, the condition of mankind would be bondage and inequality.  So by his way of thinking, bondage and inequality are the default state of people.  But what reason do we have to think that's the case?  That was the situation imposed on the people of Europe by their kings and their church.  If you were fortunate enough to be born outside their jurisdiction, you might not have had bondage an inequality imposed on you.  What then would be your condition?  These things are not the default state of mankind, but they are imposed by society and government, and by other people.

So freedom and equality, it turns out, are not gifts from God.  They are what we have by default, as long as they are not taken away by others.  And God has nothing to do with it, just as evolution didn't create freedom and equality.  Jefferson's statement that we are "endowed by the Creator" with these qualities, can be taken to mean simply that this is the natural state of affairs for mankind, until we are deprived of freedom and equality by government or by our fellow mankind.  That was the situation on the religious monarchies of Europe, and that's what be were trying to break free from in establishing our secular government.