(January 4, 2016 at 4:17 pm)MysticKnight Wrote:(January 4, 2016 at 3:35 pm)mh.brewer Wrote: Belief, but not spiritual.
Are we justified in believing in human value?
Sure we are.
I value my life, the life of my family and friends, and by reason of being a human being, biased toward my own species, I have the ability to extrapolate value on to others I do not personally know.
All it takes is a bit of empathy, our evolutionary past, and logic and reason.
There is zero reason to posit a deity in order to value human beings.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.