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I'm not sure I follow you. The value of dignity for a Christian is the same as it is for a non-Christian. Not including obvious person-to-person differences which occur regardless of religious beliefs. You claim you used to be a Christian. How was your self-respect different then than it is now? If you have more self-respect now, are you sure it's not just because you grew as a person, and not because you're "non-Christian" now?

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I put a much higher value on dignity now than I did as a Christian. I also place little value on humility, except in certain circumstances. A Christian is supposed to deny oneself. I no longer see the value in doing this, and often I view this sort of thing as false modesty.

Further, I disagree with your statement that dignity necessarily holds the same value for Christians and non-Christians. It depends of course what the non-Christian is. In my case, I am an atheist. For me there is no "right" way to live, so I have to create values for myself. Dignity is a characteristic which I happen to value. Also, since I feel this way about all humans, I think humans have a hell of a lot of dignity since no God tells them what to do.

For Christians, however, there is a God who commands. By virtue of his commanding nature, humans are thus relegated to be obeyers. Therefore, they lack any dignity other than that which this God decides to give them. Because he gives them dignity, and they don't have it on their own accord, it is a less significant dignity than that of the atheist's.