I do not know runner or Boaz_david or any other of the posters who support religion but I know that anyone who thinks their own religion is the bee’s knees is a few sandwiches short of a picnic and are potentially a danger to all society.
As for believing that morals or ethics came into being through the Old Testament I find it hard to believe that modern people can be so ignorant of the real history of homo sapiens. Brilliant thinking scientific investigators in their various fields have established a really clear line of descent from Australopithecus afarensis through A.africanus to Homo habilis thence to H. ergaster to H. erectus to H. heidelbergensis to us, Homo sapiens.
That transition took 4-5 million years and along the way we developed ethical rules that allowed us to get along within our small hunting groups and where space allowed to avoid slaughtering those in other similar but competing separate groups. It was only in the last stage when our enlarged brain allowed later writing that our forefathers were able to write down the rules which they thought had proven advantageous to that date. Some of those rules were rather nutty such as the first few commandments of the early Israelites or the one which states “Thou shall no allow a sorceress to live.” (Women always got the rough end.)
We need far more sophisticated ethics today to cope with the problems of this age or humanity won’t last long enough to fulfil its full potential. Or maybe some of you would prefer that we wipe ourselves out by disease or famine, as some religions seem to prefer, rather that limit our growth to prevent such an outcome. And maybe we should reduce our waste of fossil energy (stored sunlight) so that future generations have a share of the world’s raw materials.
I deplore the approach to good works and ethics taken by the demagogues of the various religions.
We are better served by the writings of such as Peter Singer and his “How are we to Live” than by any religious writings.

B_D, I hope you’ll believe me when I say that I agree whole-heartedly with everything you said in your last post. Thank you for writing it.

While I believe we Christians have excellent reason to believe that bearing God’s image (along with the awful trouble He’s taken to maintain its shine) makes all human beings immeasurably valuable, and equally so, I also believe that persuading several of our OLO adversaries/colleagues of this reasoning isn’t going to happen any time soon, even if they agree with the conclusion.

So, I’m looking for a workable starting point. A proposition which we all regard as true, even though we believe it for radically different reasons.

We can, in subscribing to the proposition, put our very different reasons aside, in the interests of constructive discussion and action.

If you and I find the other posters' reasons for believing in human value unimpressive, why should that stop the process? Impressing us is not the issue, but believing something true and important (human value) is. They find our reasoning unimpressive, too, and will have to lump our reasons just as we lump theirs.

Like you (I imagine), I do not wish to add to Our Lord’s troubles by treating Him with disrespect, especially in public. However, I don’t see this proposal as putting Our Lord “aside” in any substantial sense – something that would be virtually impossible for us, I suspect. People in the discussion know very well with Whom we stand.

The question remains - for atheist evolutionsists, creationist Christians, other Christians, other people altogether - do we believe that humans are of enormous and equal value. I suspect that we do, and I'd like to hear us say so. We only need to be silent about our reasons for a moment.

What do you think?

Pax,

Hey good thief, I'll play.

I'm not sure where I would fit in any of your categories but you can slot me in where-ever you like.

I do believe human beings are special primarily because we are part of this little teeming ball of life we call Earth and at first glance it would appear to be a pretty cold universe out there.

At the same time I believe that two of the greatest examples of human vanity is the belief that God looks like us and secondly that he(?) created the billions of stars in our galaxy and the billions of galaxies in our visible universe, which is 13 odd billion light years across, just for us! Wow, vanity of vanities!

It then becomes a question for me about how special I think human life is compared to the rest of the species on the Earth. We obviously rate some quite highly because we countenance the shooting of poachers in African game reserves which I admit to being a little troubled by.

That being said if I were given a God like choice between the human race and the rest of the Earth's animal kingdom in its entirety I honestly think I would end up telling the family to order one of Mr Branson's spaceships.

So special?, yes indeed, but only up to a point.

Despite my better judgement, i'll play too.

goodthief: "The question remains - for atheist evolutionsists, creationist Christians, other Christians, other people altogether - do we believe that humans are of enormous and equal value. "

Yes.

Boazy: "Secularists, atheists.. do not have a foundation for morality, other than simply making it up. No God=No moral foundation "

What Boazy doesn't aeem to understand is that those of who don't share his God delusion, do so because we think that his God (or any of the others on offer) were "made up".

csteele, that was a lovely, human post.

Hello csteele, Thanks for playing. I won’t trouble to classify you, if you don’t mind. Similarly, I won’t take issue with your remarks about God.

By “humans are special”, I certainly don’t mean other creatures are of low value, just less value than humans. If it matters, I think everything in nature has high value and that we humans should generally choose to preserve rather than consume. (People like me often use the word "stewardship" rather than "ownership" to describe the human position in relation to the world.) If I were to say why I believe these things, we’d end up in an argument and I’m trying to suspend controversy just for a little while. The issue of the value of other species or life generally (whether for their own sake or because of their relationship with humans) may not be far down the track, but it’s not the starting point, so I propose to leave it for now. (Mind you, I'm not in charge here.)

Am I right to assume that you regard each human as equally valuable, so that each should be given equal respect?

Hello Foyle, Are you responding to my invitation above? You say, “or humanity won’t last long enough to fulfil its full potential”. Should I take it that you believe that it is desirable that humanity’s full potential be fulfilled because humans are of high value? If so, do you regard each human as equally valuable?

Hello CJ Morgan, Thanks for playing. So much for you “better judgement”. :)

bushbasher, Where you at, girl? You waiting for B_D to declare?

The rest of the gang: Where you at?

Pax,