The difference between a human and a rock

Your post seems to be setting up a false dichotomy: naturalism vs. something else; given your posting history that would most likely be some form of religious belief in deities and/or the supernatural.But the evidence to date does not seem to support that dichotomy as there is as of yet no empirical evidence for deities and/or the supernatural.Rather, the most likely scenario, based on scientific evidence, is that humans evolved from now-extinct species going back millions of years to an ancestor common to all the great apes.Further, the notion of deities and/or the supernatural most likely grew from early tribal superstition and fear of the unknown. Explanations for the unknown gave some comfort, as then remedies could be attempted and early peoples at least had the illusion of being able to control their otherwise unknown and frightening surroundings.From that early start came organized religion. And, as Heinlein noted:

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The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by H. sapiens is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of his creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and becomes petulant if he does not receive this flattery. Yet this ridiculous notion, without one real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to found one of the oldest, largest and least productive industries in history.

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Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love, 1973

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If we discount religion as being supernatural in origin and accept it as an example of an evolved human defense mechanism against the unknown, then the dichotomy disappears and any question of values vis-a-vis various life forms becomes a problem for human sciences to answer free of any imagined and human-created supernatural explanations.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

There's lots of time, unless you are a young earth creationist.And its not a problem for many of them either! They have to solve the same problems that scientists do but in a much shorter time frame. That leads to some very creative solutions.For example, "Woodmorappe" writes:

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As pointed out by other creationists [e.g., Lubenow], Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, and Homo neanderthalensis can best be understood as racial variants of modern man—all descended from Adam and Eve, and most likely arising after the separation of people groups after Babel. Source

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What this means is that the change from modern man, i.e., Adam and Eve, to these four species of fossil man took place since the Babel incident, which is usually placed after the global flood and in the range of 4,000 to 5,300 years ago. But there's a problem! This change from modern man to Homo ergaster would require a rate of evolution on the order of several hundred times as rapid as scientists posit for the change from Homo ergaster to modern man! Most creationists deny evolution occurs on this scale at all, but to deal with the shortened time they have not only proposed such a change themselves, but they see it several hundreds of times faster and in reverse!So no, your comment about time doesn't mean much now, does it? Creationists have taken that argument away from you.And none of this leads to the conclusion you have been trying to reach throughout this whole thread. There is still no empirical evidence that any deities or supernatural entities exist.I pointed that out way upthread, but you have not seen fit to address my post in any meaningful way.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

As have others, I ask that you point out the empirical evidence you have for your contentions. You must be joking! I (i.e., science) has no empirical evidence? I have seen a substantial amount of evidence supporting the theory of evolution; I studied evolution, fossil man and related subjects in graduate school for six years. Then you have biology and genetics and all of those subjects which provide as much or more evidence than do the fossils.Perhaps the problem is you are unwilling to see the evidence?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.