Human beings are over 90% water. Add up the value of the remaining elements found in the human body and you reach a value of around $10 for a human of average size and weight, most of which is recyclable. The real question here is how do we set a value on a human life? Do we measure someone’s worth by what they have achieved during the course of their time on earth, or by how much money they have acquired? Or is “quality of life” something we measure by a totally different standard? Perhaps by our legacy - what we leave behind after we die, whether that be material assets on which the state calculates death duty,or the less material number of children a person gave birth to, and their influence in the world. The standard we use to make our assessment depends very much on our own world view. If we believe everything in the universe has come about by blind chance, then we’d probably admit that once we die our corpse will have very little real value. Bertrand Russell, a well-known philosopher of the 20th century once said: “When I die, I shall rot.” We would probably value him by the legacy of his written works left to posterity, and in doing so attempt to rank him among the world’s important contributors to civilization. Jesus, who never wrote a book himself, had a different take on the value of a human life. This is what he said: “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8: 36,37) If we hold to the world view that this life is not all there is, his words should give us pause for thought. Jesus regarded a single life worth more than all the riches of the world put together.