re: Do you believe in human dignity?

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I can recognize that my neighbor was created in God's divine image

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the Bible doesn't say that you, I, or our neighbors were created in God's image. It says that God created man, male and female, in His image, pre-fall.

Now, we are born with sin natures, sons of Adam, opposed to God. We are all undeserving of dignity, deserving only wrath and punishment for our sin.

We aren't to treat people with dignity because there is something inherently good or deserving in people. We're to treat them that way because God commanded it in His Word, not because anyone deserves it or not.

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4cubbies

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It sounds like you could have fun discovering the more intellectual (and interesting) side of Protestantism.

Unless Bonhoeffer, Niebuhr, Barth, Buechner, and Martin Luther King Jr. rejected the notion of human dignity.

Read George Marsden and learn a lot.

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So... EVERYONE has same "amount" of dignity?

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Dignity cannot be measured. Someone has it or they don’t.

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Charles Manson and Billy Graham have the same "amount" of dignity? That is your contention?

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Dignity isn’t a reward. Every human is born with it because we are all made in the image and likeness of God.

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faith +works gets you to heaven. Someone with faith would naturally do go good works.

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The differences in what Protestants and Roman Catholics believe regarding justification are razor thin.

Protestants cling to Paul while Catholics site James.
I’m not sure there’s any real difference if you can agree on what it means to trust or believe in Christ.

And as to the main point of why your question carries ultimate significance.

There is no human rights without an inherent belief in human dignity, and there’s no inherent belief in human dignity without the Christian Revolution. See Tom Holland’s writings and interviews.

This cannot be overstated.
It’s why almost everyone in the West acts like a Christian most of the time. Or even if they don’t, they want to be treated by Christian standards.

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There is no human rights without an inherent belief in human dignity, and there’s no inherent belief in human dignity without the Christian Revolution.

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This is exactly right.

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Given to everyone?

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hmmmm…..

I hope so!
I used to think I had all that figured out. I would have said “no”.

Now I’m comfortable saying “I don’t know!”

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From 58 years living amongst Christians and Jews and other "believers" and observing their treatment of one another and their actions.

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So one man's totally informal and accidental observations is enough to judge a religion of 2 billion plus? Not to mention two millenia of global believers?

Maybe you just live in the Bible Belt, which if I had to guess, is the easiest place to profess the title of "Christian" in the whole world, thus producing the easiest type of belief in the history of The Church, and therefore the highest percentage of hypocrisy. Ever.

I am sorry this is the way it is. Seriously, I lament it. But the reign of American Protestantism has passed on some extremely negative consequences in the form of distortions of the faith.

Here's a challenge. Get your Christianity from Jesus and give everyone else the benefit of the doubt. We're all people after all, thus inherently flawed.