(September 14, 2015 at 11:43 am)Catholic_Lady Wrote:(September 14, 2015 at 8:56 am)Whateverist the White Wrote: This is a religious point of view I will never understand. If there is something you know or suspect is not true, why would you strive to believe the opposite?
I can understand someone who feels strongly about the sanctity of life and is against killing of any kind. But why jump from there to the position that every life is equal, which we all pretty much feel is absurd on the face of it. Do you think your God values Hitler and yourself equally?
There is some tension in holding to the sanctity of all life while at the same time recognizing that some people have done really despicable things, but there is integrity in accepting both truths.
What I meant by that is that it's easy for us to value some lives more than others... for example, we care more about the people we love than we do all other people. But that does not necessarily mean that the life of someone we don't love is worth less than that of those we do.
The idea that some lives are worth less than others has led to some horrific things throughout history. And that's why I said we should strive to value all life equally. Even the people we don't love, and even the people we hate.
Agreed 100%. This kind of goes hand in hand with the discussion in the "evil" thread, where we are discussing inherent or intrinsic worth of humanity. CL is right in saying that we personally place different value on persons around us then those we may never have met, or those we read about doing horrible things, but that same person may have a completely different value to someone else. Because this "value" is contradictory, it stands to reason that either that person (and all persons) have intrinsic worth (despite subjective opinion), or no worth.
We are not made happy by what we acquire but by what we appreciate.
