I’m doing a presentation regarding medical ethics and what not but this piqued my interest. Now I know most of us are muslim and therefore by the law of God believe that all life is absolutely intrinsic and inviolable but, if we were to put religion aside for a moment, and put our secular, humanist caps on then why would you say life is sacred? Or not sacred for that matter.
Try not to bring religion into this because although many of us will conclude with ‘life is sacred because Allah swt has made it and therefore only He has the right to give or take it’, modern society is no longer comprised of just Muslims or just Christians therefore if we were to influence laws regarding medical ethics the religious argument would no longer be valid. Yes, I am aware that we cannot placate every religious, ethnic and cultural minority but how would you answer the questions using only logic and scientific facts so that people can relate t it whether they are religious or not.
I think I’ve made myself clear enough, I apologise for the waffle.
You may discuss 
Re: Is life sacred?
Peace KiteRunner
Good question. Well I personally think in order to answer this question from a logical and scientific point of view ironically the first point in case is that since there are a significant population of people in this world who are religious purely based on a statistical basis if we were to democractically gauge the answer to this question “is life sacred?” a majority or at least a significant amount of people will return with the answer “yes” … in fact even those people who do not profess to a religion will say “yes” to this question.
In which case, as far as medical ethics is concerned it is irrelevant to consider “why life is sacred” simply to accept that the majority of people believe that “life is sacred” should be enough to continue treating it that way.
And if we were to entertain the question as to “why is life considered sacred” - then we can also logically resort to the fuzzy logic of “since people are religious, their religious reasons for doing something or believing something is itself a valid reason and justifier” …
So now we arrive at the actual question … which really only answers the question for those people who happen to be irreligious or atheists and yet still regard life to be sacred … Firstly, I would like to say that these people present a minority, but since they exist they will need something to justify it to themselves.
Sacred - what does this mean?
Definition of SACRED1
a : dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity <a tree sacred to the gods> b : devoted exclusively to one service or use (as of a person or purpose) <a fund sacred to charity>
2
a : worthy of religious veneration : holy b : entitled to reverence and respect
3
: of or relating to religion : not secular or profane <sacred music>
Sacred - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary
As can be seen the definition of “sacred” is inherent to what is religious. If we ignore religion from the angle of Deity - then indeed we need to analyse religion for the things is deems as sacred and provide another view to each factor.
Sacred - is that what is linked to sanctity and that translates to that what is rooted in safety, welfare and belonging
Sacred - is that what is linked to purity and that translates to beauty and hygiene
Sacred - is that what is linked to legacy, yore and tradition and that translates to learning, wisdom, knowledge transfer/ history
Sacred - is that what is linked to the preservation of life and that translates to the same
All of these perks are established through the consideration of “life being sacred” - now if we consider that life should not be sacred then effectively we are also saying that safety and welfare should not be undertaken and if we are saying that then we are eliminating the need for medical care. So at least on this basis medicine relies on “life being sacred”; forget medical ethics the domain of medicine itself would cease to exist.
If life was not sacred, then not only would medical ethics be redundant, but also medicine itself would not be justified.
Re: Is life sacred?
Very insightful, I feel however, that the definitions don't do the word justice. Of course the phrase 'sanctity of life' originates from religion so it is an incredible task to try and remove it from it's root but I feel like the word is beginning to evolve as society is.
British society at least has stopped taking 'because God says so' as a reasonable answer so when deciding laws according to medical ethics we are forced to present an argument more rational that that, even though, there is a majority of religious people, as you rightly pointed out.
If we were to believe that life is sacred, then why isn't ALL life sacred? Why is weeding a garden or stepping on an ant equivalent to murder? Why is is that this sacredness bestowed upon life is no longer considered when someone is on death row, when someone kills out of self defence? They too are taking a sacred life, yet somehow all of these are excusable.
This can only mean that not all life is sacred, or that there are exceptions to this law. Who then decides these exceptions? If we are no longer letting the Bible or Quran dictate our beliefs then who is to say that the man who has been in a vegetative state for the past 20 years, unable to communicate or 'live' isn't an exception?
Also if we are to say that a plant's death is not comparable to ours because our level of intellect or conscience is superior to its then we are no longer defining life by the simple ability to grow, why then is a zygote considered as sacred life? Do we still consider the vegetative man as 'living'?
I've never brought myself to think in such a secular way before, I know I'm playing devil's advocate here but it's interesting to see what people come up with when we longer have religion to support us :)
Re: Is life sacred?
Ok now the question has a subtly different angle to it. My response was primarily to cater for medical ethics as far as human life was concerned - and I took "life is sacred" to mean the life of humans.
Some questions need to be asked:
Can we say whatever we do is sacred? Can we justify taking a life when it means our own survival? Can we use other animals to justify our stance on killing to eat? We may conclude that we are animals and since other animals eat flesh we should too. However there are animals who only have a veggie diet, but they are still taking the lives of those plants. We can say that the natural order is for higher order creatures feed on lower order animals and hence we can feed on all living things.
We can of course eat organic material such as eggs, seeds, fruit and nuts - things that are technically not alive but seed life ...
Sacredness can be viewed like this:
When we play "stuck in the mud" or "had" we run around and the person who is "on" strives to catch us and upon doing so the buck is passed. Sometimes we put in to the game a "homie" it is a sacred place - a place where the normal rules of the game do not apply - giving us respite. Much in a similar way - to say that life is sacred may mean that there are circumstances where "life must be protected, saved, and so on as above" which far extends beyond the normal or rational pattern of what would be deemed as fair and logical. There is no reason to have a "homie" except that it is "desired" ... and desire is not something that can or should be confined to rational argumentation.
We are partially rational and partially irrational beings - to eliminate the aspect of irrationality from us is the same as denying life to be sacred. When we say life is sacred - we are saying we accept life with its kinks - for those who deny religion - should therefore consider religion an irrational human response, but then have to be bound to accept that because they do already accept other things like unconditional love, anger due to near misses, etc ... as part of life - therefore the ability to believe in Deity is part and parcel of being human - its just that some people express that ability and others do not.
Re: Is life sacred?
Medical Ethics is sometimes less to do with the ease and comfort of the patient than it has to do with the ease and comfort of those who are attached to the patient.
Re: Is life sacred?
Your concern seems to be specific but the question is very general.
"Is life sacred"?
If life really were sacred then one animal (a life form) wouldn't be needing to kill another animal/plant (another life form) for his own survival.
Re: Is life sacred?
I'm doing a presentation regarding medical ethics and what not but this piqued my interest. Now I know most of us are muslim and therefore by the law of God believe that all life is absolutely intrinsic and inviolable but, if we were to put religion aside for a moment, and put our secular, humanist caps on then why would you say life is sacred? Or not sacred for that matter. Try not to bring religion into this because although many of us will conclude with 'life is sacred because Allah swt has made it and therefore only He has the right to give or take it', modern society is no longer comprised of just Muslims or just Christians therefore if we were to influence laws regarding medical ethics the religious argument would no longer be valid. Yes, I am aware that we cannot placate every religious, ethnic and cultural minority but how would you answer the questions using only logic and scientific facts so that people can relate t it whether they are religious or not. I think I've made myself clear enough, I apologise for the waffle. You may discuss :)
Life is sacred in human society, not because of religious need but for survival need.
Why and how?
Human needs to survive in community, and for that, few things (not religiously, but as survival need) became ethical, unethical and sacred.
For instance as need of survival, marriage became ethical, cannibalism became unethical (and taboo).
Similarly, murder of innocent became crime that creates enmity in community and if not stopped can shatter community and human society, thus life of innocent person became sacred (so to stop murder).
Anyhow, society till now is still struggling in making life of murderer sacred, as taking that life do not necessarily destroy but usually save society and sanctity of society.
Though some people argue that since a person can be wrongly implicated as murderer, and if that wrongly implicated murderer’s life is taken that we cannot give back, killing such person is unethical, so to save such person we should not kill any murderer as we do not know who is implicated wrongly ... thus saying that: If 100 murderers gets away to save one innocent, than it is worth.
Anyhow, since need of survival for human beings is related to community (or society) of humans, life that is sacred for humans are humans life, not life of other species.
Actually, in old days, only those lives of humans were sacred who use to belong to same community.
For instance: If ‘human A’ was living with ‘community X’ then for ‘human A’ only those human lives were sacred who was from ‘community X’ and human lives of other communities (community Y or community Z) were not sacred. Rather they were fair game for exploitation, torture, murder, loot, plundering and even slavery. This was true 100 years ago when ‘White Europeans’ were making ‘black people’ slave. It was true in Germany when Hitler was killing Jews and others, considering their lives not sacred. Same can be said of South Africa until recent past, where life of black was not sacred for whites. One can say the same about Kharjees in Pakistan and Taliban in Afghanistan who consider life of Shias and Sunnis (Berelvies) as not sacred.
Anyhow, in society of present days, generally world has become one community, especially civilised world, and thus life of humans in world society has become sacred for each other (as need of survival). Though that sanctity of human life goes down the drain when community (or society) struggle for survival (in war and when dealing with enemies ... perceived or real).
Re: Is life sacred?
Somewhat agreeing and disagreeing with Sa1eem ... Life is sacred because survival is sacred ... And since survival stems from sustenance and sustenance comes from things that had life, then follows that if survival is sacred that what enables survival is sacred ...hence life is interdependent and ultimately we need to manage that balance ensuring all life is kept in that balance for the sake of our survival.