רבי אומר..מה מיתה האמורה בידי שמים מיתה שאין בה רושם אף מיתה האמורה בידי אדם מיתה שאין בה רושם
Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi says..Just as the death at the hand of Heaven that is stated in the Torah is a death that leaves no external mark, so too, the death at the hands of a person that is stated in the Torah is a death that leaves no external mark, i.e., strangulation.
Guide for the Perplexed (I:1)
The term tzelem [image]. . . is applied to the natural form, I mean to the notion in virtue of which a thing is constituted as a substance and becomes what it is. It is the true reality of the thing. . . In man that notion is that form which human apprehension derives. It is on account of this intellectual apprehension that it is said of man: In the Image of God created He him. . . not their shape and configuration.
(י) רַבִּי טַרְפוֹן וְרַבִּי עֲקִיבָא אוֹמְרִים, אִלּוּ הָיִינוּ בַסַּנְהֶדְרִין לֹא נֶהֱרַג אָדָם מֵעוֹלָם.
(10) Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva said: "If we were on the Sanhedrin , nobody would have ever been executed."
Soloveitchik, Lonely Man of Faith
There is no doubt that the term “image of God” in the first account refers to man’s inner charismatic endowment as a creative being. Man’s likeness to God expresses itself in man’s striving and ability to become a creator. Adam the first, who was fashioned in the image of God, was blessed with great drive for creative activity and immeasurable resources for the realization of this goal, the most outstanding of which is the intelligence, the human mind, capable of confronting the outside world and inquiring into its complex workings...dignity is unobtainable as long as man has not reclaimed himself from coexistence with nature and has not risen from a non-reflective, degradingly helpless instinctive life to an
intelligent, planned, and majestic one..
Soloveitchik, On Repentence
God wills man to be a creator – his first job is to create himself as a complete being...Man, through repentance, creates himself, his own I.
Brandes, Judaism & Human Rights
What is the relationship between Judaism and modern discourse on human rights? The short answer to this question is that the humanistic and liberal values that underlie modern human rights discourse are not foreign to Judaism. Quite the contrary: they exist within it and emanate from it, in the Bible, halakhic literature, and modern religious philosophy.
The creation of human beings in the image of God serves as the starting point from which primary values are derived. These include human life, human dignity, property, equality and freedom, and the family...
The terms “values” or “principles” should be preferred to “rights,” because the Torah outlook includes precepts and obligations. The right to life and dignity comes with a concurrent obligation to defend and respect the lives and dignity of others...
Jefferson, Declaration of Independence
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Harari, Adapted from Homo Deus
https://www.ft.com/content/50bb4830-6a4c-11e6-ae5b-a7cc5dd5a28c
In politics, we believe that authority depends on the free choices of ordinary voters. In market economics, we maintain that the customer is always right. Humanist art thinks that beauty is in the eye of the beholder; humanist education teaches us to think for ourselves; and humanist ethics advise us that if it feels good, we should go ahead and do it.
Yet humanism is now facing an existential challenge and the idea of “free will” is under threat. Scientific insights into the way our brains and bodies work suggest that our feelings are not some uniquely human spiritual quality. Rather, they are biochemical mechanisms that all mammals and birds use in order to make decisions by quickly calculating probabilities of survival and reproduction...
However, as the Church and the KGB give way to Google and Facebook, humanism loses its practical advantages. For we are now at the confluence of two scientific tidal waves. On the one hand, biologists are deciphering the mysteries of the human body and, in particular, of the brain and of human feelings. At the same time, computer scientists are giving us unprecedented data-processing power. When you put the two together, you get external systems that can monitor and understand my feelings much better than I can. Once Big Data systems know me better than I know myself, authority will shift from humans to algorithms. Big Data could then empower Big Brother.
Sacks, The Trace of God
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-trace-of-god-noach-covenant-conversation-5778/
What differentiates the world after the Flood from the world before is that the terms of the human condition have changed. God no longer expects people to be good because it is in their nature to be so. To the contrary, God now knows that “every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood” (Gen. 8: 21) — and this despite the fact that we were created in God’s image...That is why, with one simple move, God transformed the terms of the equation. After the Flood, He taught Noah and through him all humanity, that we should think, not of ourselves, but of the human other as in the image of God. That is the only way to save ourselves from violence and self-destruction.