Belief in God Underpins True Respect for Human Life, By James Reed

What makes a human life worth respecting? It's a question we rarely pause to wrestle with, yet it shapes everything—our laws, our ethics, our very sense of right and wrong. For centuries, the answer hinged on a simple, profound idea: humans are more than flesh and bone because they bear the imprint of a divine Creator. Strip that away, and something unsettling emerges. Without God, humans become mere objects, eroding true respect for life and paving the way for psychopathic tendencies to flourish.

Picture a world where we're just cosmic flukes—accidental assemblies of chemicals, sparked into motion by blind chance. No soul, no higher purpose, just organic machines ticking along until we break down. If that's all we are, what sets us apart from a car, a computer, or a discarded tool? Machines can be upgraded, reprogrammed, or scrapped when they're inconvenient. If humans are objects, why not treat them the same? The logic isn't just cold—it's inescapable. Respect for life, in this view, becomes a sentimental holdover, not a grounded principle.

History whispers warnings about where this leads. The 20th century saw godless ideologies—think Stalin's purges or Mao's cultural revolution—treat humans like disposable cogs in a grand machine. Millions perished, not because their killers were uniquely evil, but because their worldview allowed it. If there's no divine spark, no eternal weight to a person, why hesitate to crush them for some "greater good"? Even in subtler ways, the drift from God breeds indifference. Eugenics didn't spring up by accident; it rode the coattails of a materialist evolution that saw humanity as clay to be reshaped—or culled—by human hands.

Contrast that with the belief that life is sacred, a gift from a purposeful Creator. It's not just a comforting story—it's a psychological anchor. When we see people as God's handiwork, infused with a soul, we hesitate to harm them. That hesitation isn't weakness; it's the root of civilisation. America's Founders leaned on this, insisting their rights flow from God, not governments or whims. It's why the Declaration of Independence still stirs something deep: it ties their worth to something beyond ourselves, something no human power can justly revoke.

Without that anchor, respect for life gets shaky. If we're just objects, what's wrong with tweaking the design—say, through genetic tinkering—or tossing out the defective? Psychopaths already see people this way: as tools to manipulate or obstacles to remove. Chillingly, an atheistic lens doesn't refute that—it justifies it. Jeffrey Dahmer, the cannibal killer, once traced his nihilism to believing "we came from slime," a view that left him free to write his own rules. If there's no God, no ultimate meaning, why not? In a godless reality, the psychopath's clarity might be the truest take.

Most atheists, of course, don't live this way. They cherish life, love their families, recoil at cruelty. But that's the point: they're borrowing from a moral framework they don't fully own. Their respect for life floats on cultural echoes of faith, not on their worldview's bedrock. Push that worldview to its logical end—strip away the borrowed sentiment—and the ground crumbles. A society that mainstreams godlessness risks losing the heart to feel life's worth, not just the head to reason it.

This isn't about preaching; it's about patterns. Human nature bends toward power and pragmatism. Give it a reason to see others as sacred, and it builds cathedrals and constitutions. Give it a reason to see them as objects, and it builds gulags—or worse. Faith in God isn't just a personal quirk; it's a collective guardrail. Lose it, and we don't just drift toward apathy—we flirt with a world where psychopathic tendencies aren't aberrations, but norms.

So, why respect life? If it's just habit or utility, that can shift with the wind. Tie it to God, and it's a rock—unyielding, eternal. Without that, we're left grasping at shadows, hoping our instincts hold. History says they won't—not for long.

Just look at the genocide in Syria for example.