Life is Precious

[Givemeareason]

O dear.  Let's see if we can't straighten out this mess!   

1) We shouldn't really presume we ever had a soul.  A 'soul' is only a construct of spiritual/religious nonsense.  Since there is no evidence that a soul exists, we can reject the notion.

2) The souls never existed.   Souls are just constructs of spiritual/religious nonsense.

3) Souls are not being created.  Souls are just constructs of spiritual/religious nonsense.

Anyone who believes in this 'soul' crap is spiritual and a believer in the paranormal and woo-woo.

I suppose its possible to be spiritual and still not believe in gods.

We are discussing things at hypothetical levels.  You don't need to contradict the hypothetical premises.

[SkyChief]

We are discussing things at hypothetical levels.  You don't need to contradict the hypothetical premises.

This whole concept of "Life is Precious" that is the only basis of the Pro-life position that I can see is so irrational and contradictory to me.  As far as I can see this concept is based entirely on the premise that a SOUL actually exists.

How did you come to this conclusion?     

I can tell you with 100% certainty that for someone to believe that 'Life is Precious'  (as I do) one does not need to accept that spiritual beings (souls) were grappling with the notions of heaven and hell 20 billion years ago.  Or even existed at all, for that matter.  For someone to be 'Pro-Life' doesnt require spirituality. Both my wife & I believe that life is precious.  We are atheist.

You're trying to connect dots which are just too far apart.

[Givemeareason]

How did you come to this conclusion?     

I can tell you with 100% certainty that for someone to believe that 'Life is Precious'  (as I do) one does not need to accept that spiritual beings (souls) were grappling with the notions of heaven and hell 20 billion years ago.  Or even existed at all, for that matter.  For someone to be 'Pro-Life' doesnt require spirituality. Both my wife & I believe that life is precious.  We are atheist.

You're trying to connect dots which are just too far apart.

I would be happy to explain, but can you explain why you think it is precious so we can compare the two?

[Givemeareason]

How did you come to this conclusion?     

I can tell you with 100% certainty that for someone to believe that 'Life is Precious'  (as I do) one does not need to accept that spiritual beings (souls) were grappling with the notions of heaven and hell 20 billion years ago.  Or even existed at all, for that matter.  For someone to be 'Pro-Life' doesnt require spirituality. Both my wife & I believe that life is precious.  We are atheist.

You're trying to connect dots which are just too far apart.

I would love to be convinced by you.  The only reason I say life is not precious is because I see the seeming insignificance of so many lives.  Yet I do think our species may be significant and maybe even precious.  Please explain. 

[TomFoolery]

I think rather than arguing that life is or isn't precious because of or in spite of the presence of a soul, it bears commenting that life has worth. With life comes responsibilities, regardless of your ideology, or even your species.

Even stripped to its most basic components, life is a commodity. I think for that reason alone, life is precious, even if it's just by relation to the lives of others.

[Givemeareason]

I think rather than arguing that life is or isn't precious because of or in spite of the presence of a soul, it bears commenting that life has worth. With life comes responsibilities, regardless of your ideology, or even your species.

Even stripped to its most basic components, life is a commodity. I think for that reason alone, life is precious, even if it's just by relation to the lives of others.

I don't care to argue it either as I am just asking to be convinced.  The idea that life is not precious is not a very pleasant observation on my part.  I base that on the observation that most people don't contribute much from being here and don't get much out of living.  I am not passing judgement on them but rather attempting to understand what I am observing..

[trdsf]

I feel the need to reference Carl Sagan here:

Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.

Taking the matter statistically, we're beyond precious.  Change one 'bit' of your DNA, and you're not you.  You might not even be viable, if the right bit is flipped.

And at the same time, we're insignificant -- of the billions upon billions of ways to arrange a DNA molecule, there are certainly ways that make a smarter, stronger, more efficient entity than we.

There's a danger in 'we are precious'.  We are... but we're also only a waystation on evolution's road.  We're not the endpoint, and while we're precious as a life form, as any life form (though we give ourselves special privileges since as far as we know we're the only life form capable of full self-awareness), we're not necessary as far as the universe is concerned.  We're not even necessary as far as the Earth is concerned.  We don't need to be here, the planet has done just fine for four and a half billion years (less a few hundred thousand) without h. sapiens gumming up the works.

I would say that we are precious, but that we are not special.

[Atheon]

I consider my life precious, so I consider life precious.

I don't consider gestating blobs of cells to be life.

I also don't consider a life of abject suffering with no hope of recovery to be precious: if someone is suffering terribly with no hope of recovery and wishes to die, I support them in that wish.

[SGOS]

There's a danger in 'we are precious'.  We are... but we're also only a waystation on evolution's road.

And possibly not a way station, but a dead end.  I recently read a book on the evolution of man that traces our heritage back through the various hominids as best we can.  I was surprised that what I thought of as a constantly evolving chain from Lucy through the well known fossil finds, many of those well known hominids are not our ancestors at all, but dead ends on limbs that branched from our own path, and some of which existed far longer than Homo Sapiens' brief history on Earth.  And there are probably hominid species  that weren't around long enough to leave a fossil behind, which could turn out to be our own fate, which is actually likely because most species go extinct before they have a chance to evolve further.

I should have known all that, because it seems rather obvious, but I guess I never thought about some of it.

[TomFoolery]

I base that on the observation that most people don't contribute much from being here and don't get much out of living.  I am not passing judgement on them but rather attempting to understand what I am observing..

Were you asking if life was precious of if human life was precious? The life of a gazelle is precious to a cheetah in that the cheetah needs to consume it for its own life to continue. The life of a parent is precious to a child that depends on it for sustainment.

That's why I said all life is precious, valuable, and sacred in its own way. Besides, all people contribute, even if it's only to serve as a bad example. :)

In terms of the abortion argument, as to whether a fetus is precious, I'd have to say that it is, on a biological level. Producing offspring is a factor that contributes toward sustaining life for future generations. Make no mistake, I'm pro-choice and though I can appreciate the potential life of a fetus, embryo or blastocyst, that does't mean I don't think the life and rights of said unborn should supersede that of the mother. It's mother was once a fetus too, after all.

[Sal1981]

Well, I think life is precious for one reason against others; which is the opportunity to make a difference in the world.

[Mike Cl]

And possibly not a way station, but a dead end.  I recently read a book on the evolution of man that traces our heritage back through the various hominids as best we can.  I was surprised that what I thought of as a constantly evolving chain from Lucy through the well known fossil finds, many of those well known hominids are not our ancestors at all, but dead ends on limbs that branched from our own path, and some of which existed far longer than Homo Sapiens' brief history on Earth.  And there are probably hominid species  that weren't around long enough to leave a fossil behind, which could turn out to be our own fate, which is actually likely because most species go extinct before they have a chance to evolve further.

I should have known all that, because it seems rather obvious, but I guess I never thought about some of it.

Yeah, a dead end.  I hadn't thought of it that way.  But that is entirely too correct.  I don't think evolution of our species cares much about what we think of it or of ourselves.  We will simply keep evolving as natural selection carries us along.  But we tend to think that we are the be-all, end-all and not really in the middle of an ongoing process.  I do wish I could pop back up for a few minutes about 100,000 yrs. from now just to see what has changed. :)

[Givemeareason]

Were you asking if life was precious of if human life was precious? The life of a gazelle is precious to a cheetah in that the cheetah needs to consume it for its own life to continue. The life of a parent is precious to a child that depends on it for sustainment.

That's why I said all life is precious, valuable, and sacred in its own way. Besides, all people contribute, even if it's only to serve as a bad example. :)

In terms of the abortion argument, as to whether a fetus is precious, I'd have to say that it is, on a biological level. Producing offspring is a factor that contributes toward sustaining life for future generations. Make no mistake, I'm pro-choice and though I can appreciate the potential life of a fetus, embryo or blastocyst, that does't mean I don't think the life and rights of said unborn should supersede that of the mother. It's mother was once a fetus too, after all.

I was saying no individual life appears to be precious.  Even great thinkers are of no individual importance.  If some complex theory comes into existence and it provides great understanding it says nothing about its creator.  The fact that it can be understood indicates it could just as easily been created by the person's understanding it.  Thus our species appears important but not us individually.

[SGOS]

Yeah, a dead end.  I hadn't thought of it that way.  But that is entirely too correct.  I don't think evolution of our species cares much about what we think of it or of ourselves.  We will simply keep evolving as natural selection carries us along.  But we tend to think that we are the be-all, end-all and not really in the middle of an ongoing process.  I do wish I could pop back up for a few minutes about 100,000 yrs. from now just to see what has changed. :)

You would probably reopen a whole new debate about Sasquatch.

[trdsf]

And possibly not a way station, but a dead end.  I recently read a book on the evolution of man that traces our heritage back through the various hominids as best we can.  I was surprised that what I thought of as a constantly evolving chain from Lucy through the well known fossil finds, many of those well known hominids are not our ancestors at all, but dead ends on limbs that branched from our own path, and some of which existed far longer than Homo Sapiens' brief history on Earth.  And there are probably hominid species  that weren't around long enough to leave a fossil behind, which could turn out to be our own fate, which is actually likely because most species go extinct before they have a chance to evolve further.

I should have known all that, because it seems rather obvious, but I guess I never thought about some of it.

Another several good points you make here.  Ironically, our intelligence may be precisely that which makes us an evolutionary dead end -- we are the first species to develop (on this planet) which is capable of driving itself extinct through deliberate action or inaction, rather than through the blind forces of natural selection.  So in the long term (for us; short term evolutionarily), intelligence may be a self-limiting development.

This is another good argument for a vigorous SETI program -- finding another civilization would suggest that technological infancy is survivable... unless the signal suddenly and inexplicably stopped.  And it does provide one explanation as to why we haven't spotted any yet.  The real explanation, of course, is that we have only seriously been looking for about 20 years, we don't know what we're looking for, and we don't know where to look for it, so the idea that we should have found something already is statistically highly implausible.  SETI is a project for centuries, not a single professional lifetime.