RELIGIOUS AND SECULAR FOUNDATIONS AND PERSPECTIVES OF HUMAN RIGHTS

The article concerns the problem of relationship between religion and human rights. It is aimed at considering the religious and secular foundations and perspectives of human rights, clarifying the reasons for differences and contradictions between them, as well as revealing the possibility of their interconnection. To implement the research tasks, the authors use the methods of analysis and synthesis, the comparative method, which facilitates the comparison of religious and secular positions regarding the content of human rights, their basis, and their role in human life and society. Attention is focused, first of all, on the following aspects of the relationship and interdependence of religion, human rights and secularism: religion sees in human rights an important means for protecting human dignity and for ensuring freedom of religion and strengthening its influence in society; human rights need religion as an important source of spiritual and moral values and a factor in the mobilization of believers; religion needs secularism to balance relations between religious and non-religious communities within the existing sociocultural space; human rights need secularism to ensure and protect the rights of both believers and non-believers, for social stability and peace. The opinion defended in the article is that between religion, human rights and secularism there should be interdependence, a constructive relationship, and not confrontation and mutual exclusion; lastly, religion, democracy, and human rights must support and complement each other.