Due to my Philisophical stand point it is very easy for me to justify doing anything to anyone.
For instance I could go into the next room and end the life of one of my flatmates (I will not because I am fond of them) I could justify this by saying either
1.that I cannot be sure of my flatmates level of sentience, i.e. He is not alive (by *my definition* see later)in the first place, or
2. that I cant prove his existance so why worry about the "death of something which can't be proven to exist? Let me explain this last one, Reality is very difficult to define, In terms of senses reality is touch and smell but these are just representations of reality your mind creates after receiveing signals from your hands and nose.( The film "the matrix" explores this idea quite well)
So you see there is no guarantee that you are actualy are where you believe to be, so why worry about what you do there?

[*My definition of alive is the point at which a entitiy can think "what?" or "why?". by this definition animals : chickens and the like are not alive (which is quite reasuring as I am omnivorous.)]

If you want my respect as a fellow human being, (and therefore have the right not to be murderd, robbed and/or tortured.) then you would have to meet the following spiritual and philisophical requirements:

1. Spent at least an entire year thinking about what life is, what purpose you think your life should have and what you need to acheive that goal.
[I did this 5 years ago, I hypothosised that life is ultimately pointless, in terms of deity given purpose, and that the only thing I can do is make a relatively big difference to the world to be rememberd for a while after my death. Positive or negative? I'm not sure yet.]

2. Value fellow human beings lives above that of animals, I don't care how fluffy they are, or innanimate objects i.e. money , even if the person in question is black, gay, a fellon or has views aposing your own.

3.Understand that it is highly unlikely a God figure created anything in fact, that creation is a human concept and cannot be applied to the world as it was not built by us or any rules which we could conceive of.

4. Value above all others givers of knowledge and students of the sciences.

5. realise that it is human nature to point out differences between each other and to fear that which is different, this is the basis of racism, classism, sexism and religious friction.
For far too long people have hated each other for illogical reasons, Unified the human race could acheive so much more but instead we squabble over the pettiest most riddiculous differences.

6.Have a respect for art but do not put artists on a pedastal everyone can and should create art, Art should be viewed as a valuable and highly respected past-time but not a full time job.

If you can acheive all these things then you are a human being worthy of life and I will not take it from you.