Right now I presume  you’re only reading this article because you assumed it was some racist rant against the “black lives matter’ movement. You were half right. This is not a racist rant, however, it is a rant about the movement. The real question that we should be asking is: Does any life matter? And who determines what lives matter: Me, you, the powers that be…who? The truth is for anything to “really matter” there must be some intrinsic value that it possesses. Who then ascribes that value; the people around us, our friends, our family, our employer. You see for us to really answer this question we must first answer other more relevant questions. How do we determine what lives matter and what lives don’t? The simple answer would be to consider the atheistic, secular progressive and humanistic approach, which would basically establish a defined set of criteria to determine who matters and who don’t. EXAMPLE:

Criteria #1) Any life that has yet to produce anything for the advancement and common good of the people-DOES NOT MATTER.

Criteria #2) Any life that cannot produce anything for the advancement or collective good of the people-DOES NOT MATTER.

Criteria #3) Any life that has ceased to produce anything for the advancement or common good of the people-DOES NOT MATTER.

Based on the above criteria we can determine that these lives were either of no value at all or have ceased to be of value simply because they are no longer productive. Of course the line of questioning only gets more difficult now, as we (out of our own desire for self-preservation) will immediately begin fashioning every argument imaginable in order to defend ourselves and prove that our lives really matter. However when you take the me out of we and leave the decision up to the people around you, well, lets just say you may be shocked at how little your life really matters.

Now if we examine this question from a different perspective by stating that all life is precious, and should therefore be treated with sanctity, we end up with a flawless system where indeed we can say that every life matters. Why? Because now we have established value based on something other than human calculations. Value is determined not by us but by others. If we possess something that others want, and are willing to pay for then that thing now has value. God having been the one who granted life and desires to have our lives was willing to pay for it. He did so on the Cross, and because of that we can say that yes…all lives do matter for they are of infinite value. In fact this is the only way that any life can truly matter. Outside of this no life matters…not even black lives.