Do things really need a justification to exist?

I currently have a tiny ant hill outside my house. They are thankfully of the kind that don’t attack the house or cause any kind of damage. They are chill and I don’t mind them. Maybe they do some small good to the ecosystem but if that specific anthill disappeared no one would really notice. It wasn’t there last year and everything in my life was the same. Does that ant hill need a justification to exist? No. And I mean that no matter if it was a good ant or a bad ant. Those ants are just there. Let’s say they were the kind of ant that does eat up the house. Then I would want to exterminate them. But that has nothing to do with their justification for existing. I would then remove them because they destroy my house, not because they haven’t earned the right to exist.

I don’t believe we have to earn a right to exist. We just exist. Existence is very neutral. A rock on Mars also exists and that’s nothing extraordinary. If that rock suddenly breaks no one is gonna care. However some things have value because of other traits than simply existing. If we suddenly learned that there was a human on Mars that no one knows or previously cared about, but we now know about him and he is in danger. Then he would be very valuable and I would even say invaluable and we should try to save him! It’s the human part that adds value.

So first off no one has to earn the right to exist. People just happen to exist and that’s a neutral thing. But I also happen to believe human life is invaluable. I think that’s even in the UN declaration of human rights somewhere. Now how useful you are does not mean you are more valuable. Human life is already invaluably high. Same with if you are a detriment to others. I don’t believe in the death penalty. If your value was how useful you were then we would kill everyone who was a net drag on society but I think very few people believe that. Even a serial killer I wouldn’t kill. However I would lock him up for the sake of others.

So you don’t have to show that you are worthy of existing. I don’t believe in that. I also don’t believe you have to prove that you are valuable. As I believe all human life is invaluable. You could however have to show that you are a net benefit to society. But that’s a whole other point and I really don’t believe everyone has to have a net benefit. Some can contribute a lot, some can’t contribute at all. And that’s ok. Contributing a lot to society is admirable and should be heavily encouraged. But it shouldn’t be necessary to be valued as a human being. The Nazis used to think that your value was tied strongly to your societal contribution and exterminated disabled people. I think that’s an unfathomable crime no matter how much of a drag those people were on society. If you exist AND you are a homo sapiens. You are invaluable no matter what.

Sorry for rambling. I’ll get to bed now.

The original point is that billionaires, as I interpret it, is that billionaires are worse than animals. Or at least that if we look at billionaires as if they were animals we would still diagnose them as ill. My point is that that’s not true. Animals can be just as psychotic. Most have absolutely no morals and a subset of them regularly do things that are way worse than what the billionaires are doing, hence my examples.

However animals are not humans. Billionaires are humans. If we say billionaires are like animals that’s already a really bad grade. We humans are supposed to be much better than that. I’m not defending billionaires at all. I’m saying one should compare them to something else. There are much better and more effective ways to criticize them than this.

They don’t do that because they physically can’t. If they could they would. If you have two starving bears and throw them one carcass. Only one will eat because they will fight and scream away the weaker one.

Hey I’m no big supporter of billionaires but “that behavior in any other species we would classify it as some kind of divergent behavior” is extremely wrong. Altruism is extremely rare outside humans. Most animals would absolutely love to get every single piece of food in the forest all to themselves. They steal food from each other constantly. Whole species are based on the very concept of stealing as their main or sole life strategy. There are fish out there whose main food is the juveniles of the exact same fish species. Literal baby-eating as their main strategy.

We humans are supposed to be better than animals. Comparing someone to an animal is comparing them to something bad.

It absolutely states that being gay is a grave sin and even calls for death for them in the old testament. However the message of Jesus in the new testament is one of radical forgiveness and non-judgement. Jesus is not afraid of those who commit sexual sins as seen by one of his companions being a prostitute. Jesus says to love everyone, forgive everyone and only hate the sin itself, but not the sinner. Judging a person is also considered a grave sin, something many modern christians have forgotten.

Therefore there is absolutely a theological basis for allowing homosexuals to attend church, following Jesus example of himself hanging out with prostitutes, another kind of sexual sinner. And since Jesus tells you to love everyone and judge no one there is no reason to hate or shun a gay person. This also applies to other sins. If you rob a bank you can still go to church as well, with the same argument.

However if you talk to a priest or pastor of a liberal LGBTQ affirming church and ask them if gays are allowed in the church they will shout a resounding yes. But if you press them on the question of if homosexual intercourse is a sin or not they will probably get uncomfortable and may give another answer. It’s a very hard biblical reality to deny.

However since you could in theory be gay and have a same sex partner and just simply not have sex with them you could give gay couples the benefit of the doubt. This is the basis for allowing gay marriage. However gay marriage stands on much more shakier grounds than simply allowing LGBTQs in the church, since marriage in the bible is explicitly stated as being between a man and a woman. Some prists/pastors however take a different route to justifying it and that involves reasoning that since God created all humans and some humans are gay, those people most have been created gay by god himself, and everything that God creates is good, therefore gays are good. This argument requires some reasoning outside the Bible but is used by many. Conservatives can attack such a stance saying it directly goes against direct bible quotes while also claiming one is not born gay but you turn gay by your own decision or others influence. Gayness would in this view be a free will sin rather than a god creates attribute.

I’m writing this comment as a non Christian who supports LGBTQ btw. Just trying to explain what I know about the discussion.

I don’t know the reasoning of that fox news analyst. But it is true that the declining birth rates are to a large extent due to less teens and early 20s women having kids. The amount of late 30s and 40s women having kids has actually increased in the same period. Kinda ironic how the young single moms conservative media have been shaming and demonizing for decades were actually the ones keeping the birth rate up. And now that they are far fewer suddenly that’s a problem as well.