Humanity, Mammalian Equality, and the Divine

Ideas and beliefs are our masters. As we think, so also do we live! Let’s do a thought experiment. Ingrid Newkirk, the head of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, believes that we should make no moral or value distinction among mammals: “A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They are all mammals.”

What are the implications of such a belief? Many! Our laws reflect our values. If there is no moral distinction among mammals, then our laws should reflect this belief. They should protect mammals against murder, not only by humans but by other amoral animal agents. Consequently, we should prosecute any mammal who kills a mouse of a rat, but we can’t stop there. We should also prosecute any mammal who steals from a mammal – think milk.

What would the implications of such “upgraded” laws be? Pigs, rats and cows would inevitably overrun our streets, farms and gardens. Some fundamentalist animal rights folk will answer, “So what! It’s about time that the tables are reversed.”

However, such a reversal would have even more serious costs. When our laws are revised to protect every mammal – and this would make our laws unenforceable – then none will be protected. Expect to see libel, theft, murder and sexual abuse skyrocket!

The problems don’t stop here. Even Newkirk’s position is man-centered, depending on human judgment. Why should our laws stop at protecting mammals? Does Newkirk promote the value of mammals because she too is a mammal, and, as a mammal, she confers greater value on mammals? From the perspective of animal rights, this seems very chauvinistic. Why not also extend value and protection to fish and birds? Would we deny mammalian worth to them simply because they are more dissimilar from us?

Some will interject that, “Birds and fish are less intelligent… or emotive… or conscious than mammals. Therefore they don’t have the value that mammals have!”

Apart from the questionable science upon which such arguments rest, this position(s) has even more fundamental problems. Why should the level of intelligent or emotion bestow a greater value on an animal? While science might be able to demonstrate that certain species can perform certain tasks more efficiently, it is unable to answer the question of value.

Instead, the question of value or worth requires an even more fundamental question: “Value or worth to whom?” Is there an ultimate source that determines value or is this entire concept just a human invention to bestow meaning on life?

If we created this idea, and value has no existence outside of what we determine value to be, then we have returned to man-centered center and dominated world. However, it is an arbitrary world, depending on who is in power and can enforce their worldview. It also means that anything goes, because there is no absolute standard of truth to determine the worth of anything. It means that if I think that people who look or act like me are the most evolved, and if I attach value to the highest level of evolution, then who can say that I am wrong!

Real value therefore depends on the existence of immutable and universal truth that transcends us and our competing opinions, and therefore also a Truth-giver that transcends us.

Some will interject, “We have natural laws, and they don’t require your Truth-giver. Why then can’t we have a natural law that bestows value?”

There are many problems with this hope. For one thing, there is no evidence that our natural, universal, immutable laws don’t require a Truth-giver. Perhaps even more problematic, a natural law that bestows value cannot be natural. Once again, value is the product of personhood and not science, which can only tell us what is. Value is the product of intelligence, consciousness and will, not of impersonal and mindless forces.

We can demonstrate this by showing the distinction between the law of gravity and the law that imparts value. The effects of the former can be bypassed or overcome; those of the values law cannot.  We can board an airplane that violates the natural effects of gravity without consequence. However, we cannot sex-traffic teenagers and pre-teens without violating the law of value. Hence, this law is a different kind of law – a Personal law. In contrast, gravity can attract, but it cannot value anything.

Because of the universality, immutable, and Personhood of value, it doesn’t matter whether we go to Alaska or the desert or even enter a time machine to go to a different age, the same immutable law of value will confront us and the girls we intend to traffic. Nor will any of our scientific innovations change it. Our conscience instructs us that our value as humans transcends any changes or innovations, and our conscience will punish us if we defy the law we find therein! In this sense, it seems to be more un-defiable and Personal than the law of gravity, which we can side-step without any consequence.

At this, some will respond, “I know what is right and wrong without your God.” However, it is impossible to know what is “right and wrong” unless there is a real and objective right and wrong, which transcends our bio-chemical reactions. However, you can say, “I have the very real feeling of right and wrong regardless!” True, but irrelevant! Feelings cannot equate with truth unless truth and value have an independent existence, apart from our feelings.

P.Z. Myers, Human Life, and Bodily Fluids

Where our thinking goes – especially our thinking about who we are as humans - so too will go society.

• Last week the Telegraph reported that the remains of over 15,000 aborted babies have been incinerated as clinical waste over the past two years in the UK, with some of them having been used in “waste-to-energy” plants that produce power for heat:

In response to this news, evolutionist P.Z. Myers wrote:

• I’m not in the least disturbed by the fact that patients were not consulted on how their dead fetus was disposed. When you go in for an operation, are you concerned about what is done with the bloody towels afterwards, or how your appendix or tonsils or excised cyst are treated? Did you think there was some special room deep in the bowels of the institution where they were reverently interred, attended by a weeping chaplain who said a few kind words over your precious bodily fluids? Nope. They’re sealed up in a bag, dealt with according to appropriate protocols for medical waste, and incinerated. Get over it.

Myers refuses to acknowledge that there is a profound distinction between human life and body tissue, and this confusion will inevitably lead to profound moral and legal changes. It already has.

If there is nothing sacred about the pre-born, then there is nothing sacred about the post-born. As a result, certain lives are now considered expendable – the elderly, the mentally or physically impaired, and other social undesirables, mere “bodily fluids.” After all, if the pre-born are mere “bodily fluids,” why should these others be anything more than that!

And do not think that this slow erosion of human dignity will stop at voluntary euthanasia. If the elderly are nothing more than a sack of bodily fluids, how long will this society justify designating valuable resources for their care? Not long!

We are entering into a fearful new world in which our value is socially – not divinely – constructed, resting upon the whim or good favor of the social moment to determine our value. This value might rest upon some consideration of our intelligence, productivity, sexual vitality or even our party affiliation.

However, value can no longer rest upon the notion that we are all created in the image of God and consequently possess certain unalienable rights. Instead, secular materialism will find that it cannot sustain such a notion of equality. Why not? Materialism cannot provide a basis for equality. From a physical point of view, we are not equal. Some are educated and productive; others are not. Some are healthy and strong; others are not. Some are regarded as a credit to society; others are seen as an unwanted cost. What then becomes of our notion of “equal rights” if there is no true equality? Why should they remain equal? Perhaps those deemed with greater value should have more rights?

We may superficially affirm equality or something akin to “unconditional positive regard” (UPR), but it will become no more than a manipulative and disingenuous tool without the necessary rational and divine underpinning. The psychologist might continue to treat her client with UPR, but as a product of her society, she will increasingly see UPR as an insincere attempt at psychological manipulation. Eventually, cynicism will eat away at its core.

If human life is no more than bodily tissue, then it is just a matter of time until our morals and laws reflect this belief. Our hospital incinerators are just the beginning.

What am I Worth and who Determines it?

Responding to the way our culture exalts its ideal images of the attractive and sexy, one female commentator responded:

• Every woman is beautiful!

Actually, I agree. It’s not so much because every woman is physically beautiful, but rather because each woman is endowed by her Creator with an inalienable inner female beauty that no amount of aging can diminish.

I therefore wondered how this commentator could justify her secular assertion. Did she have physical beauty in mind? If so, I don’t see how she could make such a case. Physical beauty fades! Did she have inner beauty/character in mind? If so, it is patently obvious that some women have a more winsome character than others.

However, the Bible teaches that what we are transcends human appraisal and our comparative assessments. However this worth is an invisible worth that perhaps only God sees. It is only on here that we are freed from the ruthless assessments of society and the clawing opinions of others.

Without this freedom, we remain enslaved, co-dependent, and undermined by the way others treat us and confer value upon us.

Self-Acceptance, Worth, Social Approval and Madness

Have you ever attended an I am Perfect rally? I hadn’t, so I went to see what “perfect” looked like. I was informed by a volunteer:

• This is about the way that society defines and values us according to our performance and appearance – whether we’re too heavy or old or just don’t measure up to the current social standards.

So far, I could endorse her rebellion against these superficial social standards. However, I wanted to take it one step further:

• I really agree with you, but if it isn’t society that judges a person’s value, where does it come from?

She struggled to come up with an answer. Finally, she responded:

• Well, we give ourselves our value. That’s what this rally is about. We tell ourselves that we are perfect just the way we are.

Most people in Western cultures would agree. This is something that has been drummed into us as persistently as “you need to do what will make you happy” or “you need to believe in yourself.” However, we are very limited and, rationally, have little basis to believe in ourselves.

I think that this skepticism should also pertain to “I am Perfect.” Are we really perfect? I therefore asked her:

• How about the serial rapist? Should he regard himself as perfect?

She understood her dilemma. Not everyone is justified in calling themselves “perfect!” Therefore I continued:

• Who then is justified in calling themselves perfect? If we are honest with ourselves, we are a self-centered and selfish people. I understand that we need to feel good about ourselves, but should we do so by blinding ourselves to who we really are?

I went on to explain that, as a Christian, I now had the courage to face the truth and admit that I am far from perfect, while, at the same time, I am assured that I am totally accepted and loved by my Savior. We need both truths – the bad news and the good news.

However, she stated that she too is a Christian. I therefore asked,

• How then can you encourage others to say, “I am perfect,” when we really aren’t?

Her answer came surprisingly easy:

• Christ works for me. I can’t expect everyone else to believe the way I do.

Sadly, for her Christ is no more than a self-help strategy. He is not the Truth. Rather, He – or the belief in Him - is something that merely works like a pill or an exercise routine. He is not a Person but her personal self-improvement technique.

I wanted to ask her that, if Jesus is really the Savior and the only way to the Father, doesn’t she have a responsibility to regard Him as such and to share Him with others? However, she saw where the conversation was going and excused herself. Lord, help us!

Death, Life, Afterlife, Atheism and the Meaning of Life

 

Often the best way to disagree with our opponents is to agree with them – to build bridges of communication by first sharing common perspectives. Philip Appleman, an atheist, wrote:

• Most of us need to be much tougher-minded than we are, more resolute in rejecting the bribes of the afterlife. Once definitely done with our adolescent longing for the Absolute, we would find this world valuable after all, and poignantly valuable precisely because it is not eternal. Doomed to extinction, our loves, our work, our friendships, our tastes are all painfully precious. We look about us…and discover that we are beautiful because we are mortal, priceless because we are so rare in the universe and so fleeting. Whatever we are, whatever we make of ourselves: that is all we will ever have –and that, in its profound simplicity, is the meaning of life. (Pique, Sept. 2012)

Of course, we can find much to disagree with in this statement. However, we can find areas of agreement, especially in the thoughts I’ve italicized.

This might sound strange to you, but death is a gift. It may be a painful reality, but we need it, at least for now. For one thing, an appreciation of the temporary nature of our lives provides an incentive to gain wisdom, as the Psalmist claims:

• Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)

If instead, our lives were indestructible, we would have little reason to gain wisdom. Who would need wisdom about health matters? However, our lives are very limited, and therefore, we can’t take them for granted.

I like to remind myself of this fact. I do this by walking in cemeteries and reading the inscriptions on the stones. They remind me that my own life is very temporary, and even more, that my relationships are merely a temporary gift. This fact urges me to cherish my dear wife for the short time she has been entrusted to me and to keep the brief irritations in their proper, insignificant context.

We’ve all seen the tears, relief and joy when a loved one is miraculously pulled alive out of the rubble of a killer-earthquake. Nothing is more precious than their reunion with the loved one! All hurts and resentments are forgiven and forgotten.

It is therefore no wonder that the Psalmist prays:

• Show me, O Lord, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath. Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro: He bustles about, but only in vain; he heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it. But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you. (Psalm 39:4-7)

Death and the prospect of death not only restore us to sanity – a proper appreciation of our lives and relationships - it also restores our primary relationship. If we are indestructible, there is little to hope for. Drought, disease and thirst can’t touch us. However, as the Psalmist is reminded that he is a mere “breath,” he is forced to look hopefully towards God. Only God is an adequate source of hope. Even if a man “heaps up wealth” during his short sojourn, it is utterly meaningless.

Once we build our bridge of communication through sharing areas of agreement, we can begin to use it to probe the disagreements. In contrast to our Biblical perspective, Appleman asserts:

• Whatever we are, whatever we make of ourselves: that is all we will ever have –and that, in its profound simplicity, is the meaning of life.

However, how can we can we find hope and consolation in such a “meaning” – “Whatever we are, whatever we make of ourselves?”  Instead of producing hope, it lays an extra burden on our backs to produce and accomplish - but for what? We can even argue that an accomplishment-based identity is socially counterproductive. Emphasis on our differing levels of accomplishment separates people into classes, breeding arrogance, isolation and stratification rather than community.

This of course brings additional problems. If we derive our ultimate value from our job or our children, what happens to us when they depart? Won’t this create an unhealthy dependency?

Appleman also insists that we are “priceless because we are so rare in the universe.” Although rareness can drive up the price of oil, what makes us a priceless commodity? Rarity can’t do it! The bubonic plague is rare, but this does not make it priceless.

Besides, if we are just another animal on the evolutionary gradient, we might be priceless to our children, but so is the cockroach to its children, at least until the children leave home and we become an elderly burden. What then makes us priceless in an unchanging, objective sense?

Our Declaration of Independence identified the source of our pricelessness:

• We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Our Founding Fathers understood that our value and rights couldn’t depend upon others, least of all government or society to bestow them. Our rights and value had to rest upon sturdier stuff – our unchanging and all-wise Creator. Only He could make our rights unalienable rights. If instead our rights and value were granted by government, they could just as easily be retracted by government.

Appleman needs to understand that our pricelessness can only be grounded in a priceless God. Lord, grant us the wisdom to be the light!

The Expendable Lives of the “Morally Irrelevant”

From where do we derive our value, significance and self-esteem? A recent article, although it fails to establish such a standard, is nevertheless dogmatic that, for some, there is no value:

• Parents should be allowed to have their newborn babies killed because they are “morally irrelevant” [MI] and ending their lives is no different to abortion, a group of medical ethicists linked to Oxford University has argued…The article, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, says newborn babies are not “actual persons” and do not have a “moral right to life.”

If babies are “morally irrelevant,” who then is relevant? Is it adults? Productive citizens? Likeable people? People who look and think as we do? Perhaps everyone is an expendable commodity, socially valued according to their temporary usefulness? And babies are just not that useful!

Who then decides if another individual is “morally irrelevant?” The ruling class? The party in power? The majority? Do we want to live in a society where our ultimate value is determined by others who might deem us “morally irrelevant?”

By virtue of what criteria can they say that babies are not “actual persons” and do not have a “moral right to life?” Is it age? Why not also the unemployed, the infirm, the aged or the mentally ill? Some, like the renowned ethicist Peter Singer, assign value according to intelligence. Perhaps then we should all be accorded value and influence according to an IQ test. If you score 180, then you should receive a greater vote than those who score lesser, and if you score under 100, then you are socially expendable.

If babies can be put to death, why not others? Why not me? For how long can I feel safe in such a society? I read that the elderly fear going to the hospital in Holland, no longer knowing if their doctor is their advocate or their executioner.

These are very real questions. If babies are subject to murder, where does it stop? If there is nothing holy about their lives, by what arrogance can I convince myself that I have adequate, socially-assigned value – enough to insure that I will be reckoned “morally relevant” by my morally relativistic society?

When value is equated with convenience and profit, then anyone is fair-game – the unpopular, the vulnerable, and the weak. I don’t think that we realize what a great portal to hell we’ve cracked open when we replaced the Biblical concept of “sanctity of life” (Genesis 1:26-27) with a pragmatic assessment of the value of life. This has unhinged us from the Christian values that had once made the West great.

We’ve replaced the dignity of each human life with a cold-blooded, materialistic determination of who is relevant and who isn’t – a virtual survival-of-the-fittest, of-the- popular, and of any life that doesn’t look like our own. We are on a slippery slope. For example, euthanasia and physician-assisted-suicide (PAS) used to only apply to the terminally ill. However, now membership to the “morally irrelevant” has been liberalized:

• The Royal Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) has released new guidelines for interpreting the 2002 Euthanasia Act that now includes “mental and psychosocial ailments” such as “loss of function, loneliness and loss of autonomy” as acceptable criteria for euthanasia. The guidelines also allow doctors to connect a patient’s lack of “social skills, financial resources and a social network” to “unbearable and lasting suffering,” opening the door to legal assisted death based on “psychosocial” factors, not terminal illness.

When pragmatism replaces principle – the transcendent measure of evaluation – only “choice” remains, whether it’s the individual’s choice or the State’s choice. When convenience and comfort are the measures, the value of all humanity is degraded and the lives of those at the margins are endangered. It is therefore not surprising that the margins are now being pumped full with those who lack “social skills, financial resources and a social network.”

The Oxford study deemed that “newborn babies” are “morally irrelevant.” But if newborns are MI, why not also two-years-olds? If two-year-olds, why not also four-year-olds or ten-year-olds? What principle will stop this steady slide?

If a society is measured by its care for the marginalized and defenseless, then we are going in the wrong direction. We were aghast at Hitler’s social experiment to build a new society by ridding itself of the undesirables. How is it that we no longer blink an eye?

(Touching testimonial: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/the_new_scar_on_my_soul.html)