Does human life have INHERENT value?

[Jenny A]

Do you, as atheists, believe that human life has inherent value? (this means human life has value, in and of itself, unconditionally)

Definition of inherent (as per webster):

a permanent and inseparable element, quality, or attribute

If so, how did you come to this conclusion, and why do you believe this?

(PS - No agenda here, just honestly curious about what you think and why you think it. If you do not want to hear my opinions, don't ask. I promise not to talk about them otherwise.)

The problem with your question is that value or worth is generally defined in relative terms and those terms have to do with importance that people assign to a person, object, or idea.  Nothing has value in the abstract.  Value is a term we apply to things we find of importance.  So in answering the question I can't tell you if there is some permanent cosmic value to life, because unlike people, the cosmos doesn't assign values.  Only people and perhaps some more mental advance animals do.  And we assign value as valuable to people.  If say lions assign value, I'm sure they assign it as valuable to themselves or possibly to lions.  They wouldn't find human life anymore inherently valuable than we find lion life.

As a human I will say that people of any moral fiber find inherent value in human life.  But that doesn't mean that when there are no more people, anyone will find human life to have been of any value.