kwalker2> what does it mean to revere something or someone. it is
kwalker2> derived from the sacred/profane distinction. i'm just
kwalker2> intervening to explain that kendall's work is in religious
kwalker2> studies, so he's probably using a term that has a distinct
kwalker2> meaning.
Yeah, my master's and doctoral work was in religious studies, but, fwiw, I don't do that stuff professionally anymore and I'm not a religious person. (Things I'd normally not mention since no one here cares, but since Kelley mentioned it.)
I was using Singer's sense of the term; though, actually, he disputes the idea that "all life is equally precious", which people often mean when they use the "life is sacred" slogan.
The whole history-of-religions-Mircea-Eliada sacred/profane thing is not really what Singer criticizes, as I understand it.
Actually, I'll just quote a chunk of Singer himself. From his Practical Ethics, an essay called "What's Wrong with Killing?":
People often say that life is sacred. They almost never mean what
they say. They do not mean, as their words seem to imply, that life
itself is sacred. If they did, killing a pig or pulling up a
cabbage would be as abhorrent to them as the murder of a human
being. When people say that life is sacred, it is human life they
have in mind. But why should human life have special value?
In discussing the doctrine of the sanctity of human life I shall
not take the term 'sanctity' in a specifically religious sense. The
doctrine may well have a religious origin...but it is now part of a
broadly secular ethic, and it is as a part of this secular ethic
that it is most influential today...We may take the doctrine of the
sanctity of human life to be no more than a way of saying that
human life has some special value, a value quite distinct from the
value of the lives of other living things.
Best, Kendall Clark