Humans are not actually animals, they're less than that - they're cells

[Mini Me]

Oops! I think I wandered into the wrong room!

There is some dark force going on here!

[Devil'sAdvocate]

According to liberals, humans are no more than different sized clumps of cells.

Yes, that argument is conveniently used, yet if executing 1,000 gays saved 10,000 people from dying of AIDS, most of them would contradict themselves and oppose that even if it lead to the "greatest good for the greatest number".

[Chris]

We could argue everything is just particles, matter and energy. That's useful at the basic physics level. But to talk about human beings in such reductionist terms is useless.

[Devil'sAdvocate]

We could argue everything is just particles, matter and energy. That's useful at the basic physics level. But to talk about human beings in such reductionist terms is useless.

Most would likely agree, but even then "useless" is a value judgement. It might be more useful to a serial murderer to view humans as equivalent to insects or material particles in order to rationalize their actions rather than view them as "equals".

[Chris]

Most would likely agree, but even then "useless" is a value judgement. It might be more useful to a serial murderer to view humans as equivalent to insects or material particles in order to rationalize their actions rather than view them as "equals".

Indeed, humans value and make value judgments all the time. You just made one.

[Devil'sAdvocate]

Indeed, humans value and make value judgments all the time. You just made one.

Right, therefore materialism and arguing that things such as "property rights" are objectively true is contradictory, since from a purely materialist POV "rights" (other than might) are purely relative.

So for values or the source of values to have objective truth, it would have to be based in something logical or something beyond the purely "emperical".

[Peter1469]

Non sequitur.

That would depend on what you mean by faith, whether you're talking about "bind faith" or adherance to some ideology, or faith grounded in logic.

Regardless, the idea that humans, apes, or any other form of life as "individual entities" as opposed to just collections of cells or atoms is subjective is purely emotion-or faith based; an atheist choosing to do so is not really different than a religion doing so, the atheist has just dropped the "God" part while maintaining the same type of belief.

If you have not faith, then your arguments are correct. I don't take anti-theists seriously.

[Devil'sAdvocate]

If you have not faith, then your arguments are correct. I don't take anti-theists seriously.

That's the point, I find it ironic that some atheists while insisting on equating humans with apes, seem to think that "apes" should be considered "more special" than other forms of life, such as insects, when there's no more reason to make the distinction between "apes" and other life forms, than there is between apes and humans.

Because even then, they're still just arbitrarily declaring some types of life "more special" than others with emotion as the basis rather than pure "science".

[Peter1469]

That's the point, I find it ironic that some atheists while insisting on equating humans with apes, seem to think that "apes" should be considered "more special" than other forms of life, such as insects, when there's no more reason to make the distinction between "apes" and other life forms, than there is between apes and humans.

Because even then, they're still just arbitrarily declaring some types of life "more special" than others with emotion as the basis rather than pure "science".

Many people believe that animals have souls like humans do. Even insects, although it is more of a collective.