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The precious accident


I was watching a show called “Alien Planet” on the Discovery channel today, and some scientist (I presume an atheist) said, “We have to realize that life is the result of a series of random accidents. Life is precious, so we must do whatever we can to protect it.” He then went into a shpiel about how we have to protect the environment.

I’m left wondering, however, why? Why, if it is merely an accident, do we have to protect life? The word “precious” presupposes that there is some sentient being that feels that affection or to which the thing described is considered valuable. To whom or what are we duty bound to protect life if there is no God? Ourselves? Well, what if some of us don’t see the need? It makes no sense to me.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, April 12th, 2008 at 3:46 pm and is filed under Creation/evolution, Environmentalism. You can trackback from your own site. You can also follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

7 Responses to “The precious accident”

1
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Quite illogical isn’t it? Evolution just doesn’t answer the “why” question. I saw Ben stein this morning on The Today Show where he was interviewed about his new movie. Another evidence of all of the intellectual dishonesty out there.

2
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Oh, you Creationists! It’s so precious because that accident is a once-off deal! Imagine if we don’t take care of the environment! There’s no chance anything living can come by accident (again)!

:D

On a serious note, I hope Expelled makes it here. I’d love to see it.

3
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Hahaha.. So what that scientist believes actually is that he is an accident. =))

As for me, I believe God created me purposefully and lovingly. Amen.

4
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It seems natural to me that self-aware beings would be precious about their existence, particularly if they believe its an accident (i.e. not likely to happen again, just like it wasn’t likely to have happened in the first place).

5
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Mulled Vine,

I agree. Even if there was no purpose, you’d likely still cherish your own life. But why would we be “duty-bound” to protect life in general? If there is no God, life will one day end when the sun burns out however many thousands or millions of years that is in the future. At that point there will be no one around to even remember that we existed. It’s all pointless. So why are we duty-bound to make sure that it lasts a few more years when in the grand scheme of things that little bit of extra time we will supposedly add to the equation will be meaninglessly small?

6
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Its an interesting question. Why do people try to live longer - what’s the point? The “obligation” to preserve our environment is a community version of the lets try to live longer idea. It is essentially pointless but for people who have nothing else, every minute is worth trying to preserve I suppose.

7
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Well, I get the being afraid of death part. I just don’t get the “duty-bound” part. How can we be duty-bound if there’s nobody to be duty-bound to?

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