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The Value of Life

Whitey's Photo Whitey 29 Apr 2007

Okay fine, religiously speaking: The baby is neutral, the other is not. Isn't the person who is not neutral more subject to heavier judgement because he has more to be judged upon?
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Anon45566's Photo Anon45566 29 Apr 2007

How does he ever have anything to be judged upon if he is a baby. XD

That doesn't make much sense now does it? :)
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Whitey's Photo Whitey 30 Apr 2007

The person who isn't judged, the baby is too insignificant to be judged.

The person who commits an act is judged, and thus more significant and importnat.

No?
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Anon45566's Photo Anon45566 30 Apr 2007

They had the chance to learn, feel, and understand. The baby has not.

Thusly, they can pretty much DECIDE if they are going to heaven or hell by doing good deeds or doing bad deeds.
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Whitey's Photo Whitey 30 Apr 2007

And by doing any deeds at all, are they not making themselves more and more significant in life?
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Anon45566's Photo Anon45566 30 Apr 2007

No, because every bad deed retracts from how many good deeds they have. It is VERY balanced, fair, and, just.
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Whitey's Photo Whitey 30 Apr 2007

So Mother Theresa was as important in life than dead baby A?
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Anon45566's Photo Anon45566 30 Apr 2007

Explain who Mother Teresa is please. I do not know.
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Whitey's Photo Whitey 30 Apr 2007

You ignorant fool! How do you not know Mother Theresa?! :)

Google her up and you'll see what I mean.
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Anon45566's Photo Anon45566 30 Apr 2007

That was extraordinarily rude...
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Whitey's Photo Whitey 30 Apr 2007

The " :) " was supposed to infer joking...
Edited by Leatherneck, 30 April 2007 - 01:00.
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Anon45566's Photo Anon45566 30 Apr 2007

Oh I see.

I apologize then for believing you were rude. :)
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Dr. Strangelove's Photo Dr. Strangelove 30 Apr 2007

I really don't think mother Terhreasa was really a "good" person at all. :)

Life really doesn't have much value at all. If the person standing next to me died, I would care, hower, only because I have human emotion.

Golan's "usefullness" isn't really a good scale, becuase, usefull in doing what? :???:

I don't run around killing people, but that's only because I have emotions that have evolved ove millions of years, and that cops would nab me and the people around me wouldn't like me. If it weren't for that I might as well.
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Mathias's Photo Mathias 30 Apr 2007

View PostAllStarZ, on 29 Apr 2007, 23:48, said:

Life is life, all lie is the same. Its the person, but not the life that matters. All men are equal in death, and each death is worth no more than the other.

In life one person may be more important. In death it doesn't matter.

Not quite sure what you mean. Death only erases a life. Death itself has no worth.
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Razven's Photo Razven 30 Apr 2007

I would have to disagree with that. What if the death of one man could mean that humanrace on a whole could go on?

Shameless rip from Swordfish:
What if through the act of killing an innocent child mean that you rid of the world of all diseases? Would you do it? Yes? No? Then howabout 10? 100? 1000? A million?

Does ridding the world of all diseases through the act of killing innocent children make you a savior of mankind? Or a mass murderer?

How does one value life? By the actions he/she will take/takes? How does one judge it? What if you were judging your parents? Your children? Your brothers? Does the fact that a man who you do not know worth less than a man you have briefly known in your life?

And these questions remain unasnwered.
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Ektufall's Photo Ektufall 30 Apr 2007

The value of one is equal to others life . Only humans are so pleased with their acomplishments so they are saying you are less worthy than we are . But end for all of us is equal ..

View PostMathias, on 30 Apr 2007, 09:50, said:

Not quite sure what you mean. Death only erases a life. Death itself has no worth.


Death has no worth in in the short run ,but in a long one it's value cann't be taken it's gate to another living form..
Edited by Ektufall, 30 April 2007 - 09:17.
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Futschki's Photo Futschki 30 Apr 2007

back to the first question ... life as a life not as a person does not differ from one to other ... but only the person differ that means ... a person can be usefull and can be useless ... but life is the existance of that person which does not differ
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Golan's Photo Golan 30 Apr 2007

View PostAllStarZ, on 29 Apr 2007, 23:14, said:

However that does not make his life particularly more important, its the person.
Well, you can´t really see "life" as something independant from the person it belongs to. It´s not something you can suck out of a organism, put in a plastic bag and store it in your fridge. There´s something close to this, red in color and I carried around about 750ml of it today, but I assure you this isn´t life.
From my definition, life is the sum of a person´s deeds and decisions. Those can be valued easily, thus life can be valued aswell.

View PostHinata Prime, on 29 Apr 2007, 23:18, said:

The only time that matters is when you stand before God and are being looked at ONLY for your sins and good deeds.
This life, as I said, is a test to determine our destiny. (What we make of it is our choice and our descision.)
Well if god is able to value a life, then life can be valued per se.

View PostAllStarZ, on 29 Apr 2007, 23:22, said:

View PostLeatherneck, on 29 Apr 2007, 19:17, said:

Well... define life.
Existence.
Existence is far from life. Many things exist but don´t live, aswell do people. The cemetary ´round here is full of them.

View PostHinata Prime, on 29 Apr 2007, 23:33, said:

No. Neither are more significant. As I said, it is based on their actions alone. If they are a baby, though, when are are before God they will have neither good deeds nor sins, and will be admitted into heaven without question.
There´s still original sin...

View PostThe Outsider, on 30 Apr 2007, 06:28, said:

Life really doesn't have much value at all. If the person standing next to me died, I would care, hower, only because I have human emotion.
Aren´t human emotions enough?

View PostThe Outsider, on 30 Apr 2007, 06:28, said:

Golan's "usefullness" isn't really a good scale, becuase, usefull in doing what? :???:
Usefull for you. But yeah, it really is an unfavorable term.
It´s basically this "if you there were two persons and you could save only one from certain death, who´d you choose?"-question. People ARE able to answer this, thus valueing the life of others.
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Anon45566's Photo Anon45566 30 Apr 2007

As you just said in my quote, life can be valued.

I agree with you 100%! I wasn't trying not to. :D
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CodeCat's Photo CodeCat 30 Apr 2007

In the end, the value of life depends on the person assessing its value. Those with religious tendencies often value it higher than those with a more atheistic or scientific philosophy. As a science-oriented atheist myself, I see life as a self-replicating system of chemical compounds, so it's hard for me to see any inherent additional value in it just for that criterium alone.
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Anon45566's Photo Anon45566 30 Apr 2007

I am also scientifically adapted. XD

(Heh. Snorf. That sounded quite retarded... :D)

Anyways, what I am trying to say is that religion is the study of science and God's gifts and power.

:D
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Whitey's Photo Whitey 01 May 2007

If the value of life didn't vary, nobody would be able to affect anybody around them. As this is impossible, values of life must vary.

Life itself isn't the most valuable thing. Reproduction, scientifically, would be. I think. Possibly.
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Overdose's Photo Overdose 01 May 2007

All forms of life is precious. Doesn't matter if it's human, animal or plant. Even microorganisms, something we can't even see are vital to the functioning of the planet as a whole.

However as for humans, depending on how you've lived your life can indeed make yours more or less precious than the others around you. However I would not calculate this in forms of deeds or productiveness.

The life of a poor man who struggles to make enough money everyday to feed his family is just as precious of a honest politician or any sort of leader.

Not all humans can achieve greatness and it's not entirely something created at birth or raw talent, it's about fate and it is beyond us to judge people by their deeds because I'm sure we all would love that humanity was composed of billions of Einsteins.

However certain humans do wrong (too wrong in fact) different from an animal who can't tell appart good or evil because they lack rationality, ethos and morality. It is human nature to think of themselves, but there's a limit of when that involves harming other people. Yes, I do strongly believe these kind of people have a much smaller value with their lives.

Still that does not make their lives entirely not precious, people can always change for the better though that sadly doesn't always happen. So yes, be ready to forgive just in case and you may surprise yourself.

Animal life is precious but not as precious as human life. Humans relied on animals over the ages to become what we are today. Either as food and as a way to make our lives easier by helping us with laboring.

Now, even if food we need to acknowledge it's importance by not wasting a small 'sacrifice' so we can be healthier. Animals to this day are still used for labor in parts around the world and it can be a necessity to those societies. That does not mean we should mistreat animals however, if it's going to have a life of servitude at least attempt to make it a happier one.

Animals that don't follow in either categories are still responsible for keeping both existing and for improving our planet as whole. This falls for both household animals (pets) and wild animals who humans don't get much contact with. When it comes to wild animals, humans tend to underestimate their importance.

When nature is involved, there's order even in chaos. However, it's still a castle of cards. If a card is removed and the castle doesn't crumble you can be considerer it luck. That's why we should not mess with the enviroment, because it is required for our existance.

Which finally brings us to plants. Who are even lower than animals because of their sheer numbers and have almost no consciousness. However just as animals, we require on them to live. Humanity built their place in this world with wood, we've treated our sick with herbs and we breathe the air that the plants allow us to breathe.

In the end it's all a very twisted plan created by nature but it works, however part of the reason we've been granted intellect and a consciousness was to allow us to tell apart right from wrong and help nature just a little bit rather than getting in her way.
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LCPL Carrow's Photo LCPL Carrow 01 May 2007

View PostCodeCat, on 30 Apr 2007, 16:38, said:

In the end, the value of life depends on the person assessing its value. Those with religious tendencies often value it higher than those with a more atheistic or scientific philosophy. As a science-oriented atheist myself, I see life as a self-replicating system of chemical compounds, so it's hard for me to see any inherent additional value in it just for that criterium alone.

I don't get it. Why are you so opposed to killing then if there's nothing more than chemical compounds?


Contrary to TPAM, I believe that life is quite overvalued. When you can't go on living your life because you're afraid you might hurt a poor little microorganism, I think you have serious issues and that you desperately reevaluate your priorities. Don't get me wrong, I'm no proponent of animal cruelty or slash-and-burn deforestation, but I'm no animal- or treehugger, either. Allowing yourself to be completely incapacitated by the fact that you might hurt someone or something is sheer idiocy.

On a larger scale, I think it's just as ridiculous to hurt the rest of society for the sake of the poor little microorganisms. I remember when gas was 90 cents a gallon. Now it's fucking $3.18 here. Fuck no. Fuck the animals and the trees, lets drill ANWAR. Given a choice between ruining the Alaskan environment and me being unable to afford gas, I'm gonna chose to ruin the friggin Alaskan environment, and most of the rest of us would, too.
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AllStarZ's Photo AllStarZ 01 May 2007

View PostMathias, on 30 Apr 2007, 02:50, said:

View PostAllStarZ, on 29 Apr 2007, 23:48, said:

Life is life, all lie is the same. Its the person, but not the life that matters. All men are equal in death, and each death is worth no more than the other.

In life one person may be more important. In death it doesn't matter.

Not quite sure what you mean. Death only erases a life. Death itself has no worth.

Because death has no worth, everything is equal.
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