bgs wrote:

"how we look after this piece of rock has a great deal to do with how we treat our neighbour."

No, how we treat our neighbour is how we treat our neighbour; the backdrop is entirely irrelevant. Now, it happens that our link to nature has wide-ranging implications, and of course that includes health and beauty and research and primary industry and so on. And the set of neighbours is also a variable - you might choose to include some non-human life-forms (and since we are related to all living things they are also to some extent "us").

But as for *intrinsic* value: to elevate what is essentially a "pretty rock" is to correspondingly devalue human life, and I find that prospect disturbing.

I won't even address the other points that pertain to your personal God - I honestly can't think of anything more selfish than invoking a *personal deity* in a discussion about global issues. Even if you were to mend all the schisms within the major world religions, not one of them would be even close to dominant.