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Originally Posted by Metro Gnome
I've seen this before and I must say this non-sequitur is absolutely baffling to me. Why would humans be considered intrinsically worthless if they weren't created by some all powerful creature?
I think perhaps the source is the spirit-body dichotomy that is posited in most deistic religions (the spirit, or intangible force that infuses and directs the being, is pure and naturally holy while the body is just the material vessel for the spirit and is the source of vices and "impure" impulses). I guess, therefore, if there is no "spirit" (no soul imbued by "God"), then there is only "body" - which is still considered the dirty half of the equation.
That's just my quick thoughts on the issue. It all strikes me as absurd though.
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No, it's not necessarily a literal belief in a deistic or theistic being that has created each person, but a notion that each person is valuable in themselves and deserving of compassion. I think that from a philosophical perspective it further stems from a social realization that the company of other fellow humans is good in themselves.
I think that Darwinists come close to this ideal. I do like Dawkins suggestion that each of us is lucky to be alive as we are just one out of trillions of possible genetic recombinations that could have lived. However, even that I think is a divergence from actual Darwinist theory and is an attempt to model the previous
imago Dei concept.
As I said before, it comes down to two different things. We need different perspectives to explain social questions which is certainly complicated. If we want to understand the processes of life and how we came to be here in a material sense, than evolutionary theory is excellent. One shouldn't try to be both.