        A construction worker is working on a building from inside a crane. He is lifting up a 2 ton hardened steel I-beam to be worked on by 5 workers on a platform high off the ground. There is another guy on the ground, telling the construction worker in the crane which way to go and when to stop. The construction worker is doing his work diligently, when he starts to feel his controls acting up -- the I-beam is slipping out of the crane’s grasp! The construction worker has to make one of two choices: 1) let the I-beam fall and crush the worker on the ground, or 2) Attempt to move the I-beam in place, causing the potential deaths of the five workers who haven’t secured the platform, and fall to the ground. What would you choose in this situation? The absolute death of one person, or the potential deaths of five people, with a chance of all five surviving? This isn’t an easy question, as it shouldn’t be. Society assigning value to human life could be seen as unimaginable by anyone when thinking morally, but if we think in economic terms then perhaps there is a way to come up with a value. Change your way of thinking, and the unimaginable can become the imaginable. 
        Valuing a life from a peasant to a king, to even the medieval Pope -- what could we infer from this thinking? We can think of the king as a worth equal to 10,000 peasants, as that might be the number of people they command. We can then think of the medieval Pope as worth 10,000 kings as that might be the number of kings the Pope commands. [Please note: These numbers do not reflect historic statistical data] What then is a peasant worth? Is a peasant worth a ton of bread, a ton of water, and two jugs of wine? According to Tim Worstall Contributor at Forbes, that is somewhat close : “If you're trying to live off the produce of 10 acres then your maximum income is going to be the value of what can be produced off 10 acres”, the income which he considered to be $1,500 up to $3,000 for an amazing season, in modern day prices. This value we could place on a peasant farmer from back then, and find a king worth $150,000 or $300,000 a year. The pope, 10,000 times that, or back in medieval times, too valuable to put a price on. The pope as a ransom back then would’ve been worth far more than any land or mortal kingdom. Is it possible to value a life based upon piety?
        Piety in the medieval era was a highly valued trait, with the most pious in the Catholic world being the Pope. An article in Time Magazine from Feb. 26, 1965 titled “Roman Catholics: The Vatican’s Wealth” says that “Bankers' best guesses about the Vatican's wealth put it at $10 billion to $15 billion.” Certainly, we consider the net worth of a person to be their value in economic terms, but can we really say that the Pope is worth $10 billion in the eyes of the Catholic world? How many Catholics would pay for the ransom of the Pope? When asking these questions, one has to remember that the value of a good or service is a person’s willingness-to-pay. We can say that a person of great religious devotion would be willing to pay anything to ensure the Pope’s safety and return. Combine that with the global population that consider themselves Catholics, and then the institutions and countries that declare themselves Catholics. This is an odd way to value a life, how many people would be devoted to faith and be willing to pay anything for the Pope’s return -- a question that needs no answer, nor can there ever be one. It’d be a call to faith, with faith and devotion being a value with no calculable number. Wealth and faith are not inherent with one another, putting a price on a person could not be done based upon just their items or income alone. It’s a moment of faith to declare what a person is worth, this can be seen in the Bible where those who are of good faith and good moral standing are welcome into the Kingdom of Heaven, and where those who weren’t of good faith or good moral standing were condemned to the Gates of Hell. That is the moment most valued for the faithful, the ultimate judgment. The value of being worthy to ascend to Heaven is priceless, and anyone of good faith can ascend. Thusly, humanity is invaluable and to put a price on a human from a religious viewpoint is impossible, there is no value.
