Secular Humanism and Humanity: What are they?

[Ignorant]

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Unusual or not, I am just curious about how you see things.

Particularly the part about "[You] don't particularly value human life more than animal life." I am curious about a great many things if this is truly what you believe.

Disclaimer: the following question is not a "set up". There is no "priest in the bushes" waiting to pop up with a "gotcha!". I just want to know how your above thought applies to several important areas:

On what basis then, is there a "moral" distinction between owning animals for the sake of work (e.g. dogs, horses, oxen, cattle, etc.) and owning humans for the sake of work? This is not to say that I think such a distinction is impossible on your view, I just want to know how you derive that distinction. If a human is not inherently more valuable/dignified/whatever than the other animals, what is different about the injustice of slavery and the legitimate ownership of animals?

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I don't draw a distinction. If it's not something the animal enjoys doing, or they are simply yours to do as you wish, it's slavery.

Thanks for being patient with my questions!

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(I think that it might be a little insensitive of the memories of slaves and slavery to make a ground leveling comparison between that institution and livestock production, lol....but it is pretty close. Livestock have it better than slaves ever did, btw.)

Well I absolutely agree with that. Robvalue DID assure us that his thoughts were odd.

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I should think the biggest difference between subjugating human beings to the humiliation of slavery and using animals as a means to an end lies in

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1) the greater quality of the experience, essentially the conceptual grasp, that every person has of such ideals as freedom, justice, and personal dignity, which animals probably lack to any degree that is really comparable to a human being (the more intelligent animals may rightly object though, if they could),

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and 2) God gave us dominion over animals... Just kidding... 2) Are animals that are treated as property, but cared for and fed, actually worse off then they would be in the wild? (In terms of mass farming, where animals are bred for the purpose of slaughter, I think their lives should be made as easy and comfortable as possible... at the end of the day, perhaps call it specieism,

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I don't think we have the same moral responsibilities towards animals as we do towards people, but we do have some).

As for 1), what exactly is "freedom" in the context of reduction of everything, including ourselves, to the material evolutionary process? In the Free Will thread it seems that you reject the idea of the "self". What then is it about the human animal that is capable of realizing any sort of "freedom"?

As for the last sentence, I agree, and I assume it is due in whole or in part to your reasons expressed in 1).