Vince, thank you for your kind and encouraging words.
If I may hark back and clarify, and this may open up another level of
debate, I don't know:
I think the paragraph of mine you particularly objected to was (words
to the effect) that I don't see why human beings can't be dismissed
out of hand. Because, I was arguing, we are not so special.
You objected to this because you said it embodies an attitude that is
a pre-cursor to Holocaust.
You are right. It does. Although, I hasten to add, that was not the
way I meant it.
What I meant is this, and it highlights a difficulty with atheism: I
believe in the sanctity of life, or perhaps if not sanctity (that has
religious connotations), the importance of life. I believe each life
matters because each life is unique. Each "I" is unique and is
terrified of non-existence. Therefore, we should not kill, and we
should not regard life as cheap, or as a means to an end.
But I have difficulty extending this feeling to only human life. I
regard animals' lives (their selves) as unique and important too.
If I had to choose between killing a man and killing a mouse, I would
kill the mouse. But I would do that because a man is self-conscious
(whereas a mouse might be, but if so, less so), and a man is
intelligent and complex and may be deeply loved by others (whereas,
again, a mouse might be similar, but very much less so). I would not
save the man, I don't think, because I believe in the sanctity of
human life as such. I wouldn't believe I was saving one of god's
children.
But if I had to choose between killing a very evil, stupid man and a
orang utan, which would I choose? Suppose the man was Saddam
Hussein, or a paedophile, or . . .you can fill in your own examples.
. . and the orang utan was graceful, innocent and let's suppose for
the sake of argument, was a mother to lots of little orang utans who
might die without her. What would I do then? Would I still kill
the animal, and save the evil man, just because of a sanctity of
human life argument?
If I did still save the man, I would do it with terrible regret, and
it would be because I'd be inclined to save my own species over
another (so, it would be species-ism), not because I'd regard the man
as more worthy of being saved because he is human.
It seems to me that, to support the idea of the sanctity of human (as
opposed to ALL) life, we need the idea of a god, as a creator who
made us in his own image, so that we have something to underwrite our
sense of being special.
I feel a terrible sadness when I see animals lying by the side of the
road, dead or dying, having been hit by a car, and no-one cares about
them. No human, and no other animal, cares about them. They are
utterly and profoundly alone in this universe, left without any
regard even in their worst moment - the ending of their I - no-one
stops to help them, no-one prays for them, no-one thinks to sit
beside them as they die. There is an aloneness in there that I find
almost heart-stopping.
The very great disparity between these deaths, and the enormous pomp
and circumstance that accompanies the death of a human being (at
least here in the West; in Africa, where they starve to death too
frequently, there is less of an ability to make a huge fuss each
time) leaves me with questions that I don't even know how to start to
answer.
It was this disparity, and these questions, I was alluding to when I
wrote that I don't see why we can't dismiss human beings out of hand,
because we're not so special. I should have expressed it with more
care.
So, I am an atheist, but it does leave me alone in the universe, with
an awful lot of questions, and a big gap in morality where god used
to explain things.
Sarah
