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It seems to me that he's the one afflicted with anthropomorphism. Who says life has value? We do, of course. But who says the universe shares that assessment?

Who says life has value? Well, the notion of objective moral values have been discussed has been considered by some of the greatest minds in history. The Nurenberg trials were not predicated upon German law but upon the notion of universal human rights. Human rights are derived from the idea that man is made in the image of God. There were no codified statutes which ordered those trials. Without universal human rights there are no human rights. Without objective moral law there can be no right or wrong, only convention. There is no land where murder is virtue and kindness us vice, Everyone knows (by natural law) that there are things which we can't not know. In other words there is objective moral law, and thus a moral Lawgiver. It is impossible to not know it is objectively wrong to kill one's offspring...it is not in our nature. Murders know it is wrong to commit murder. So swinging back to Nuremberg we see those same principles springing from the heart of man, not from the legal code. The latest movements of euthanasia and infanticide as well as fratricide increase in pace in our country. Rather than ringing alarm bells "atheists" are the front line promoters. ":Personhood" has become the rhetorical tool to slide past humanity. Of course, this is nothing new under the sun. Recall the nazi call of lebensunwerten Leben", life unworthy of life.

So, we recreate morality to suit ourselves. But who is we? If morality is created, not discovered, we are left only with the stong man with guns to determine right from wrong. So, in our time, abandoning the Truth of objective moral law, vice has become virtue. That which was considered dirty-minded is now treated as sexual purity. It has become cruel to believe and advocate too firmly that the sick should not be encouraged to seek death; The moral law, today has become the very emblem of immorality. We affirm " being judgmental" and "being intolerant" has been judged and will not be tolerated..

So, without the Moral Law, there are no human rights, no justice or injustice, . But our self-consciousness is also in the fishbowl. IF "life arose through the succession of an enormous number of small steps, almost each of which, given the conditions at the time had a very high probability of happening," and IF self-consciousness is an emergent property of life once it has developed to a certain point, then can our internal processes really access anything outside the . But our self-consciousness is also in the fishbowl. IF "life arose through the succession of an enormous number of small steps, almost each of which, given the conditions at the time had a very high probability of happening," and IF self-consciousness is an emergent property of life once it has developed to a certain point, then can our internal processes really access anything outside the physical laws of the universe? laws of the universe? way to measure moral differences, no way to know right wrong. no grounds for political dissent, and no rational for punishing wrong-doing.

We do, of course. But who says the universe shares that assessment?

The universe makes no assessment. The universe is not mind. Only mind 'assesses' the universe, not the other way around.

But self-consciousness is also in the fishbowl. If LIFE arose......and if self-consciousness is an emergent of life once it has developed....

Perhaps self-consiousness is in the fishbowl (universe) but is not of<>of the universe. That is to say it is not made of time, matter energy or space. It is separate and is not temporally-spacially extended. Once you step from a material cause to an emergent, non spatial, non material property you have entered that which is metaphysical. Collin McGinn asked: "How does mere matter originate consciousness? How did evolutionconvet the water of biological tissue into the wine of consciousness? Consciousness seems like a radical novelty in the universe, not prefigured by the after-effects of the Big Bang; So how idd it contrive to spring into being from what preceded it?" The darwinist/naturalist/materialist/physicalist owes science and theology an explanation of causal necessitation of consousness, mental properties, and nuniversal abstract entity. If they will not, they need to abandon their worldview of darwinist materialism. Consciousness is ontologically basic for theism since it characterizes the fundamental being. If consiousness is emergent, then it is derivative and supervenient, and both its finitude. So the metaphysical materialist needs to explain itself, or abandon all hope that their view has nay basis in reality.

I have interjected too much into your conversation. Sorry about that. Just a few thoughts on the matters which you are discussing.