I suppose some people have even said that it would be better for people to wipe themselves out. Of course, that diminishes the value of humans based on collective behavior, but it does sort of feel like we deserve it for the trouble we’ve caused 
That’s a fair point. We could throw our hands up and say “screw it” about many things, including saying irrational things like “My child is going to make bad choices anyway—No point in correcting them!”
Would colonization sort of be repeating the same mistakes? Putting ourselves in unfitting places and changing our environments dramatically for the sake of our preservation? Like, do we try to fit ourselves into the natural ordering God designed, or do we still try to preserve our descendants?
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I can agree with you, that does seem to matter a lot. Very compelling answer. Thank you!
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That’s enough to spark the horrid “dread,” isn’t it?
From a Christian perspective, this is also a very important point.
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That is a bit of a tricky question. On one hand, how much faith do we have on not only God (will the second coming truly happen?) but also ourselves (could we even last until photosynthesis stops?). On the other hand, isn’t preparedness a good thing? Personally, I don’t see any problem in at least setting up shop across our solar system, which I see basically the same as humans coming out of Africa to settle the other continents. However, trying to move beyond our little neighborhood (assuming we even develop that capability) may complicate things a bit.
It seems like some sort of consequence would not be unreasonable, though we of course like to hope it’s not as bad as it could be.
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It is always a choice to value all different kinds of things. It is a choice people make differently. Some may care about little more than football. Others care about one particular species of insect they have spent their life studying. I have no interest in dictating to other people that they must care about the same things I care about.
But as for why? Many see our lives enriched by the different species which inhabit our planet, and while biodiversity will eventually increase again in the future after an extinction event, many still feel that a loss of biodiversity will make life less rich and less beautiful for people for a long time to come. And there are practical considerations as well because we are constantly learning new things from the different species of life on the planet – things about chemistry and medicine as well as the workings of life and biology. With each species that dies we have that much less opportunity to learn from them.
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