Tuesday, April 4, 2017

On the "Inherent Value" of Human Life

To say that human life is valuable is the same as claiming that the form (body) we inhabit is more valuable than the one who inhabits that form. It takes away from the value of the inhabitant and diminishes the importance of faith and understanding (a.k.a. "love") in lieu of fear and ignorance ("hate").

Life itself is the only thing of value in this world or in the entire universe. "Human life" is not special at all. In fact, aside from the beauty that exists within human life, as it exists within all forms of life, nothing can be said about human life forms other than the fact that, as species, we exhibit all of the characteristics of a destructive organism, which we ourselves commonly refer to as a "disease".

Like cancer cells, we consume resources far beyond our needs. We ignore internal and external "signals" that would normally keep us in balance with our environment. We grow and reproduce with little to no concern for the "body" (world) we belong to, taking resources from it as our "right", and forming tumors that we call "cities" all over the planet. When time-lapse photos from space of urban growth are analyzed, they exhibit the exact same patterns found in only one other known life form: cancer! (This is very obvious even if you just visually compare urban growth pictures to pictures of cancer tumors.)

But, we refuse to see the obvious truth, because we only see ourselves in the human form, and thus see "value" only in that form.

We think being "alive" means being "human". And we completely fail to see beyond the bubble world of our humanness. This is too bad. Because, if we don't "wake up" from this delusion, if somehow the bubble doesn't burst before it's too late, then there will be another mass extinction, and all "inherently valuable human life" will be lost forever. And life itself will move on without us!

[J.D. March 22, 2017]