Reply #2: Hmmm... [View All]

Here’s the first. I believe an atheist materialist morality begins with the assumption that no human has “inherent value.”
He may think that way, but I don't. Life does have inherent value. What's more, it's easier to see the inherent value of all life when you're not being told by some book, some religious authority, etc, that certain people are more valuable than others. Life also becomes more precious when you realize that your life here is limited--that once you die that's it--rather than thinking you're only here for a while and then you go on to eternity in SuperHappyFunLand.


Here’s another gem for the haters: I believe that humans are nothing more than very intelligent animals.

We are. Sadly we often act worse than the animals we're supposedly more intelligent and evolved than.

The (in)famous Milgram Experiment is a great example. The people who “shocked” their “peers,” even when they were apparently in great pain and distress? They were not bad people....

They were people doing what they were told by an "authority figure", regardless of the consequences to another person. Sadly that's what too many people do in the name of religious beliefs, political agendas and other such things. It's so easy to dehumanize the "other" and do evil to him when you're acting for a noble cause.