Why do you think the human species deserves to exsist on this planet?

Question

Ratboy - Dinosaurs eventually went extinct, natural selection took care of them, would we not follow that same fate?

THE Additional Details UP ABOVE IS IN RESPONSE TO THE 1st ANSWER BY RATBOY. IT ISN'T PART OF THE QUESTION.
PERHAPS THIS WILL CLEAR UP THE CONFUSION:
(My Question is in regards to whether we humans are worthy of this planet or life itself based on our behavior towards the planet, other species, each other, etc?)

Answer 1

"The meek shall inherit the earth", I can't argue with that quote. I don't think the human race really is that worthy, but a few of us keep trying. I suspect we'll all find out if we deservered to be here or not, when we die.

Answer 2

We are here either by an accident of nature or by devine grace, depending on your viewpoint. . Whether or not we deserve to be here is subjective. If there is a God, I believe he blessed us with the gift of life and the gift of sharing this beautiful planet with all the beautiful life forms upon it. I believe he expects us to be good stewards of this gift and love and nurture and care for all these gifts. But we aren't doing a very good job of it. Our impact, as a species is resulting in the decimation of many life forms on the earth, flora and fauna. If we are here due to an accident of nature or pure evolutionary chance, then nature will take care of us as a species, but maybe not until we have taken out a lot of other life forms due to our bad stewardship and greed and neglect.

Answer 3

Short answer: We don't

Long Answer: We have no guarantee of our right to exist, that's why we should work hard at maintaining a livable environment without doing irreversible damages to it. That should be the long term plan I hope everyone is on the same page. Or else we are just lying to ourselves with our dogmatic believes -- be it science or anything-else.

Answer 4

...IF we were not made by someone else who is wiser and has a loftier moral position than our own, IF we ultimately came from mere dead matter and energy, then there can be no talk of rights. As the Marquis deSade said, "Whatever is, is right." (Reminds me of another guy who wasn't quitre sure of the definition of 'is'.)

If there is nobody to whom we are morally responsible we have no moral responsibility. Simple as that. We cannot be self-referential and provide our own moral authority. That's just begging the question, or deceiving ourselves.

Deserve...? Who is there to tell us that we do or do not deserve it? If there is someone who made us, to whom we are morally responsible, then there someone to decide whether we deserve it or not. We expect our pets and immature offspring to behave in a certain manner, although we may accept the responsibility for it ourselves if they do not. We decide what they deserve and what they do not deserve.

But if there is nobody there that has made us and that has the right to tell us what to do and what not to do, then there IS no such thing as right and wrong. deSade saw this, and was honest with himself about it. Perhaps that is one of the things that drove him insane at the end-- he couldn't go on convincing himself that there was no difference between right and wrong when other people hurt him.

Suppose that Stephen Hawking said, "I hate living in this tired old body, trapped in a wheelchair. I'm not going to wait for the supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy to suck everything down into the cosmic craphole. I'm going to publish the secret physical phenomenon which I just recently deduced, knowing that some madman or dictator will use it to destroy the planet and all life on it. This way, I don't have to wait for someone to find a cure for this, and I don't have to sit around frozen for centuries in case someone decides to bring me back. This way, I don't have to work up the guts to kill myself, and won't be afraid because I won't know when it is coming. It really doesn't matter that it will kill everybody else, too, because they're just matter and energy like me. Even if they feel they'd like to go on living now, there will come a point when they feel otherwise. It really doesn't matter if I take the issue out of their hands. There's nothing in physics, or evolution, or cosmology that says I'm wrong to do this. I might as well do it."

It's easy to hypothesize that we might or might not have the right to exist. But what about when someone decides to act upon it...? Hawking could do what Einstein did-- publish his equations about a new force in nature, one which has the potential to destroy all life on Earth. We have a better idea now how such information would be used, than when Einstein wrote his letter to President Roosevelt.

You say it would be suicidally stupid...? Yes, but would that be wrong...? Would it be morally wrong? The very word 'deserves' or 'right' implies moral concepts which physics, chemistry, biology, cosmology, can never touch.

Is there any real value or meaning to life...? If we say there is, we are saying that someone outside of life, larger than life, gave us that meaning and that value. If we say there is no meaning or value to life, well, some do say that. But they don't have the courage to live (or, rather, to die); to put an end to their meaningless existence as soon as things get inconvenient-- as their beliefs tell them is 'all right'.

Answer 5

If you think man should exist because of Natural selection or as it's called Evolution, then Man's time is limited. If you think in Creation terms then God is not going to let mankind parish. You choose. One way is death for cretin and the other way is life for cretin. I like life.

Answer 6

Natural selection. If humans didn't deserve to be here, the species would have died out by now.

Answer 7

Deserve has got nothing to do with it.....

more like we are lucky to get to live on this planet...

and look how well we take care of it....

Answer 8

What's the alternative?

The word "deserve" throws me off.

Answer 9

Human beings use reason and rationality to contemplate their higher nature.

Answer 10

good question!!! We deserve to live here because it's our home, and we couldn't live anywhere else... and because the Earth is our mother and we are part of her. We belong here.