Beliefs and values matter. They have far-reaching
implications. For example, some increasingly vocal voices are claiming that all life has equal value. British rock star Morrissey recently stated:
- I see no difference between eating animals and pedophilia…They are both rape and murder. If I am introduced to anyone who eats beings, I walk away.
I wonder whether he’d walk away from someone who just
exterminated termites or disease carrying rats living in his house. Where would
Morrissey draw the line? Would he swat a malarial mosquito? Would he eat yogurt
– and this contains bacteria – or would he take an anti-biotic? Would he refuse
an anti-biotic to a dying child?
Such obvious absurdities lead many animal rights activists
to restrict their activism to the more intelligent animals, like chimps.
However, if we try to establish the value of living things according to their
intelligence, this will lead to other irresolvable problems. Here are a few
that come to mind:
What set of values could then protect society against this
insipient materialism. I know of only one – the fact that all we humans are
created in the image of God and therefore carry inestimable value, a value that
God requires us to respect! This is the only rational basis for equality.
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