This is going to be a rambly post, so beware...
What are we worth, as humans? Do our lives intrinsically have worth? Or are we worthless at birth and have to work for our value? Does that mean that some people are less valuable than others? Obviously someone who can sing well is more valuable that someone who can't to a recording studio--but are they also more valuable relative to anyone else?
And in such tiny lifespans--120 years compared to the several billion years the universe has been around--how much value could we possibly accumulate? A theoretical galactic half-penny? Half of that? Half of that? Why bother? Even for the people who will be remembered thousands of years after they've died--will anyone remember them a million years later? Will we even be around a million years from now?
And why should anyone care to be remembered after they're dead? If they cease to exist, then there's no satisfaction to be had from living except what they experience in the brief moment they're alive.
Why care about anyone but yourself if this is the only life you get, and after that you vanish? Why become attached to anything--why live at all, except for our biological programming to do so? There's no reason for me to believe in myself or other people. We're on a planet that we're rapidly exhausting because people take the attitude that they can do what they want because they won't be around to reap the consequences. But why should we take any other attitude--it's true. And if there's no afterlife, then we really are free of any consequences--not only will we not be punished during life, but we won't be punished after we die, or even have the pleasure of watching the world go to pieces because of our actions. We'll just be nothing. So why care about anything? Sure, we instinctively develop attachments, but is there actually a reason to? Why live?
Are there people on this earth who are more valuable than others? Racists think that black men are worth less than white men. Sexists think that women are worth less than men. Religious followers of any religion think that people outside of their religion are worth less than those inside the religion.
Judging by things I've read on this site, it seems some of you also feel that some humans are worth less than others. What makes a child worth something different than an adult? What makes an old man worth something different than an accountant or a bus driver or a young woman or a murderer?
When in the grand scheme of things we're all just multicolored sparks in a fireworks show that lasts only a few seconds, can you honestly say that one spark is more important than another based on its "accomplishments" in it's tiny lifespan? Individually we're practically meaningless, and even in the millions we can only affect our own environment, and each and every one of those millions will be dead in roughly a hundred years, and probably forgotten in a hundred more.
We're growing to fast for this planet to sustain us, so sooner or later a lot of us are going to die out. But that's just a statistic, right? People who haven't been born yet aren't important. And it's necessary for the species as a whole to survive. But isn't each and every death a tragedy? Even in the millions...? Are Russian soldiers worth less than French soldiers? Are Americans worth less than Koreans? Are they worth more? Why? Even necessary deaths are terrible for the person dying. Most people don't want to die, and many that do only want to because living is so terrible that it's more terrifying than the unknown. Isn't death a bad thing? Why? As long as you're not the one dying, why care if everyone else dies?
What gives your life worth? What gives that nanosecond of time any meaning? When the difference in value between your life and the life of everyone else can be equated to the difference between .9-repeating and 1, what makes someone worth more than someone else? Is there a difference? Are we all worth the same thing, and is that value greater than zero?
I hear a lot of people say they've "lost faith in humanity." Do they also lose faith in themselves? Or is it more along the lines of, "I've lost faith in humanity except myself and the people I like"? Do they think they're not human, as well? I know that I hated myself, the world, and everyone on it for a very long time, but I found that when I finally was able to care about myself, I began to care about other people--all of the people. Faith in humanity was restored by having faith in myself, because if I was worth something, then so was everyone else, no matter what.
There are so many things I don't understand... Things that I don't get not for lack of answers, but because even though I know the answers, I can't wrap my head around them! The fact that homosexuals are treated badly--I don't understand it. Even when I was younger and felt that it was a 'sin,' I didn't understand why they were treated differently, and I understand it even less, now that I now there's nothing sinful about it. I don't understand racism or sexism. How can people think that the brief sparks around them are worth more or less than the amount of light they give off? They all look the same from a distance.
I know that any answers you give to any of these questions will be your opinions. You can't really state facts about something like human worth unless you're God--a thing that a lot of you don't believe in anyway--so don't argue with each other over your answers... I'm not trying to start a fight here, just getting that off my chest. I have my own thoughts on these matters, of course...but I want to hear the answers of all of you people from different backgrounds.
