How do you respond to this?
It’s soo strange.
I’d start with, “Therefore, what?”
I might ask for the speaker to elaborate. But the short answer is, “no it wasn’t.”
If the statement stands on Biblical grounds, which I suspect due to the wording (Earth “was made”), then I would point out that the Bible has many references to property, both in the Old and New Testaments.
If the statement was made with something else as its basis, then I’d have to hear it first.
Earth was here for billions of years before mankind. In fact, before any life.
If it was made for mankind, none can stop any other from doing anything. Since doing so would mean the Earth would be for mankind minus one. Clearly, what can only be meant is that humans belong and can use the Earth. But within some rational boundary as to what can and cannot be done, to each other and to the Earth. Hence, ethics and the ideas like property rights which emerge from it.
On top of this, there is a truth to the idea that it is foolish for humans to see themselves as the center of all things. Why isn’t the Earth made for cockroaches or fungus or one of the countless other species?
Earth wasn’t created for humans. Humans just happened to be evolved on earth and all has same moral right to live here, I think.
What MaikU said.
Who is alleged to have made Earth? And what is “in common for all mankind” actually supposed to mean here?