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If life is not sacred, none of us have the right to live.
Intrinsically wrong. We have "the right" by the simple virtue of being here. It's also not a "right" as defined by how the law might define it, but rather it's kind of like the Law of Right-of-Way, or of the Right-of-Passage, both applicable if your ship has bigger guns than the other opposing guy's ship has.
But let's not fabricate rights, then call them "within our possession", or having been granted to us by a particular carved wooden iconic Gawd figurine.
Mostly, we've arrived at a functioning, working (barely, in most cases) set of doctrines that allow us to survive as individual social construct groups, without killing each other off en-masse.
Also before you deny it, do note that we have tried to do exactly that in our social evolutionary processes over the centuries and millennia. It didn't work to well, so in general we don't do it any more on such a mass scale. We ARE different than we were 50, 200, 500 or 10,000 years ago! Smarter, more physically and intellectually evolved, and more socially experienced.
We can now officially dispense withall the mumbo-jumbo mysticism as the basis for our cultural survival. This goes for groveling at the feet of those wooden icons. Someone! Burn them all down, and be quick about it before they do any more damage!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Theophane
Life itself is more wonderful than you could possibly comprehend.
Why do you day that? How do you know what I, as a classically trained and multi-biology degreed professional, think and perceive about "life". I'd bet my perception and deep understanding of it, and all it's various complexities, would run your version into the shadows.
I not only have my own wonderful spirituality (its just not a Gawd-based and awe-struck and inept, denialistic scientifically illiterate version..), but I also have a purty-danged-good understanding of the nuts'n'boltz of how it actually works from a biochemical, genetic and Evolutionary perspective. And you?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Theophane
The sacredness of life is a value many societies share. That's why the murder of another person is usually a crime. Can you imagine a society that didn't care about murder?
I agree. In fact, all societies share some aspect of sacredness of life, but not because it's some God-granted gift. It's just common sense! An thus we certainly don't need a finger-waggling theist on every street corner or school room, telling us what to do and what not to do! That's the hubris part of arrogant organized religion and it's know-it-all attitude showing it's truly ugly humano-centric head.
Yes, we have learned that murder, esp. mass murder, does not work for a hopefully peaceful and productive society. But, equally true, that social construct does not require words written in ancient text, with contradictions, in a supposedly inerrant but truly odd book.
Nope. Common sense, my good fellow man. Common sense. That's all we need. Else, all the Southern Pacific Islander populations, or our Native Americans, or the Aussie Aboriginals, or whomever the first Nations are in each case, would not have survived two decades!
Life isn't sacred at all. If we really believed that we wouldn't be sanctioning the wars being fought at the moment where American soldiers are being killed for no reason whatsoever, along with countless civilians. If we truly believed in the concept we wouldn't have abortion clinics, we wouldn't allow kids to be abused and murdered in their homes that Social Services is well aware are a danger.
We pay lip service to the notion but the reality is we don't actually care if some rapist is electrocuted on death row despite the possibility he's innocent. We don't really care about kids dying of starvation in Africa, we still stuff our faces on McDonalds and KFC.
Deep down we are all the same, we mouth the words but the actions never follow.
Life isn't sacred at all. If we really believed that we wouldn't be sanctioning the wars being fought at the moment where American soldiers are being killed for no reason whatsoever, along with countless civilians. If we truly believed in the concept we wouldn't have abortion clinics, we wouldn't allow kids to be abused and murdered in their homes that Social Services is well aware are a danger.
We pay lip service to the notion but the reality is we don't actually care if some rapist is electrocuted on death row despite the possibility he's innocent. We don't really care about kids dying of starvation in Africa, we still stuff our faces on McDonalds and KFC.
Deep down we are all the same, we mouth the words but the actions never follow.
I hope you don't tell any soldiers you meet that their comrades have died "for no reason whatsoever".
I had to erase what I think they would have done to you, before posting this - because of forum rules....
It must be awesome (sarcasm) to risk one's life for people that don't even appreciate it, because they don't understand that everything has a reason (whether good or bad) - even if it's not readily apparant to the average 'joe' on the street who doesn't like war because his newspaper told him not to, or the dirty people holding protest signs on the corner.
I hope you don't tell any soldiers you meet that their comrades have died "for no reason whatsoever".
I had to erase what I think they would have done to you, before posting this - because of forum rules....
It must be awesome (sarcasm) to risk one's life for people that don't even appreciate it, because they don't understand that everything has a reason (whether good or bad) - even if it's not readily apparant to the average 'joe' on the street who doesn't like war because his newspaper told him not to, or the dirty people holding protest signs on the corner.
They did die for no reason. What good reason is there to go to another country, one that has not openly declared war on you, and start a fight?
I am not American, your patriotism has no influence on me. I see all wars as wasted. War is for when you are being attacked, it is self defense. These wars being fought now are not about self defense at all. But now we are off topic, because my post was not anti-war, it was about paying lip service to the sanctity of life.
If life is sacred, then ALL life should be sacred. However - except for some Buddhists - most of us only mean human life. Other life has as much right to exist as humans, and without other life in its abundance and diversity, human life is impoverished. And without respect for other forms of life, and by not treating it ethically, we cheapen our own lives. That's not to say we can't use or consume other life for our benefit, but to do so cavalierly and without appreciation for the role it plays shows innate disrespect for all life.
Life is held 'sacred' because, regardless of what various beliefs are about an afterlife.....there ain't one and this is the only one you get and even most believers really know it.
Anything rare....and one of anything is rare....is always more valuable and precious.
Else, why would murder be a bad thing? If there was this wonderful greatly sought after life after death, killing someone should be viewed as having done them a favor.
I hope you don't tell any soldiers you meet that their comrades have died "for no reason whatsoever".
I had to erase what I think they would have done to you, before posting this - because of forum rules....
It must be awesome (sarcasm) to risk one's life for people that don't even appreciate it, because they don't understand that everything has a reason (whether good or bad) - even if it's not readily apparant to the average 'joe' on the street who doesn't like war because his newspaper told him not to, or the dirty people holding protest signs on the corner.
Or, the people that were in war and realized how horrible and preventable it could have been. Less blind patriotism, more logic.
Life is sacred, all life is sacred and let me give you the perspective of a Native Americans view of this. Now I cannot speak for all Native Americans, however the majority believe the same as this. We have a belief that all living things have a spirit and that that spirit is sacred. Our spirituality is natured based, our culture has always had a close bond with the Earth. Unlike some cultures we do not believe that we were given domain over the Earth, we are the caretakers and we believe that the Creator created us to watch over Mother Earth and all of her inhabitants. Mother Earth is our grandmother and the provider of all that we need, we respect and honor that in everything that we do. We take only what we need in order to survive and feed our children and we honor those that give up their life so that we can survive. This is the way of the Native American and it has been this way for many thousands of years and we continue to this day. So to us, the Native American, All Life Is Sacred.
I don't know if scared is the right word for this feeling that living things are a higher level of existence than say a rock. Could it be because of life's randomness? Or that life is not that necessary on a planet for it to endure, that we feel it has a special significance.
Not to argue it shouldn't be, but why do we see life as more "special" as opposed to say, rocks or gamma rays or fusing hydrogen atoms?
From a non-living perspective, it seems there are lots of forces/reactions/natural phenenon in the universe that are far more important and have a far greater effect on the whole. To a hypothetical sentient energy alien, life would be simply a chemical reaction gone a bit wild, hardly different than a metamorphic rock or crystals that have "grown" because of a favorable environment.
Well, I would like those crystals to respect me as much as I respected them if I was a crystal... so golden rule and what not.
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