Does toleration have limits? Are weakness, impotence, and dependence signs of moral superiority? Are all cultures equal in value? Are Christian values superior to any others? Should we discriminate against our most productive citizens? Who are they? Is the exercise of power the real aim of humanitarians who use the state to promulgate their policies? If an older adult is suffering from poor health, should we "ration" his health care, increase his suffering, and perhaps let him die? Is all human life sacred, including unborn babies, disabled people and old people?
The above questions were just some I had while continuing to read Herbert Schlossberg's Idols for Destruction. Schlossberg writes that the two men who received the Nobel prize for discovering the DNA molecule, James Watson and Francis Crick, expressed "humanitarian" ideas about human life. Watson suggested that we change the legal definition of a "person" to be applicable only to infants older than three days. Crick called for a new ethical system, featuring abortion and infanticide, which would make it mandatory for all persons older than eighty years of age to be put to death!
Schlossberg points out that "the humanitarian ethic wishes to restrict the right to live and expand the right to die - and to kill." On the other hand, the Christian view is that "death is the enemy, the last enemy to be destroyed (1 Cor 15;56). In the Christian perspective the only comfort in death comes from the assurance of resurrection."
1 comment:
I believe wholeheartedly that Christianity is the best route to go and for many reasons but the social one is simply this: for the most part (they must be true principles), Christainity holds to the sacredness of life, the pursuit of one's potential and the individual responsibility to leave anything (conversation, work, home, etc.) a better place than you found it. And that forcing someone to do right is as wrong as forcing someone to do wrong. That really sums it up for me.
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