The continuing devaluation of each and every human being

Important post and perspective. In addition to the processes of techni/ofication and globalization the value of human beings has also been diminished by the gradual 'disenchantment' of human existence, a development brought about mainly by science, philosophical reason, rationalism and secularization:

  • Copernicus taught us that Earth is not the center of the celestial bodies; a theory making it at least conceivable that life on our planet and human beings are not the only or even primary focus of Creation.

  • With his book, On the Origin of Species, Darwin suggested that human beings are not that different from chimpanzees or other living organisms. We are not so special, and his Theory of Evolution has no need for a God.

  • With Nietzsche, nihilism and philosophical pessimism not only God and afterlife, but the inherent purpose and meaning of human existence got expelled.

  • Studies in psychology and advancements of modern brain science indicate that the human mind, self and consciousness is nothing but a product of physical and chemical processes. Causality determines what happens inside your organism, what constitutes 'you', how you behave and which thoughts and feelings pop up in your consciousness. To believe, from a scientific perspective, that human beings in their central nervous systems have a magical control power (called 'free will'), not found anywhere else in the known Universe, a power exclusively exempted from the laws of physics, is superstitious nonsense; an absurd but stubborn remnant of a religious paradigm. 'You' are nothing but a powerless passenger in a vehicle run and controlled by forces too complex to even begin to comprehend. Everything you are is a result of past circumstances, of occurrences in the world taking place long before you and life on Earth existed, of the genetic, the epigenetic and the environmental factors that caused your bodily ecosystem and the psychological illusion 'you', of pure luck.

In conclusion: According to science and a body of influential philosophical work human beings are not extraordinary, chosen creatures. We are not eternal souls living in perishable bodies, but strictly biological organisms driven by forces outside our conscious control. The conviction that free will is an illusion and just another lost piece of the magic that once gave human existence intrinsic meaning and purpose is not yet part of scientific consensus, common knowledge or accepted by society, but with the accelerating progress in neuroscience it will be soon.

/r/SanctionedSuicide Thread