Lions, Babies and Death; Oh My

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Genesis 1:26-31 ESV)

From the beginning of time, we have been charged with caring for the earth, its plants and creatures and filling it with descendants that can carry on that mandate. Our goal is to be God’s representation on earth and govern well the gift we have been given. We are to treat with respect, this planet and it’s inhabitants in our care. To do that we are called to raise families, have children that will take up that mantle and carry forth the mission.

Much has been made in the last few days about a man who hunted a lion in Africa. I have no problems with hunting if the end result is someone is going to eat the meat that animal provided with it’s death, but I would argue that killing for sport goes against our second mandate from God, to have dominion over the earth and care for it as God would. So it is tragic when an animal dies but for no other reason than to prove a man with a firearm can kill a defenseless animal.

One does not have to look hard to see that before the command to take care of the earth and it’s myriad of creatures and plants, there is something else, something paramount to allowing the completion of the second: humans are to be fruitful and multiply (that’s Biblical poetic language for have sex and babies).

Longer than the story of the lion, there has been something else lurking in the news shadows, videos of Planned Parenthood doctors discussing the sale of aborted baby parts. The very idea seems like something out of a Nazi-infused nightmare. It should come as no surprise. To make palatable the wholesale murder of innocent human life we have conveniently devalued it by calling it a fetus and “questioning” whether it is really human or proto-human or just some kind of parasite that may become a human. The argument has been leveled that science has not determined when life truly begins, therefore it is acceptable to take the life of a fetus within a certain time frame. But is this how we define life or humanhood?

There is no scientific reason for defining life by existential means such as an organisms ability to survive. Speaking scientifically, biological history is riddled with organisms that weren’t able to survive. It did not define whether they were alive in the first place, only whether they’d continue living. As for a scientific argument we might look at verifiable evidence rather than a philosophical conjecture that is not falsifiable. A fetus contains DNA. A full grown adult also contains DNA. The DNA code that determines exactly what species, deficiencies, or anomalies an organism will be and have never changes. So, speaking scientifically, there is no demonstrable difference between an organism as a fetus and the same organism full grown other than replication of the genetic code stimulating the growth and development of the organism. So I’m afraid your definition of life is not a scientific one, but a philosophical one that rests squarely on existentialism. Neither verifiable nor falsifiable. – Steven Nelms

The road here is full of danger. If the argument of humanity is based on anything other than the DNA of science, it becomes too easy to begin rationalizing, as Peter Singer has, the death of a child up to two years old or euthanasia. The slope here is more that slippery, it is a black hole and moral abyss the likes that have been seen before. It is no different than the treatment of anyone the Nazis found lacking, they changed their name, devalued them and made it acceptable to treat them as nothing more than animals or worse. And let’s be honest here, this same attitude that use to be applied to African-American slaves so as to morally legitimize their treatment as mere cattle or in many cases worse.

Can we not see that our lack of historical understanding has lead us to the greatest crime perpetrated by humanity on itself? How often we become our own worst enemy.

Is it not our duty then as human beings then to err on the side of life? If the DNA is the same and science has proved that, does not science cry out that it is always a human, from conception, nothing more, nothing less? On top of that science is medical science that is allowing babies as young as 20 weeks to survive outside the womb and fetal surgeons to repair defects in babies in as young as 18 weeks. The contradiction is astounding, Why would it matter if this is not a human? Science is proving the point for us, from conception it is a human and therefore deserves out respect and care.

We should be outraged when life is lost because of deliberate death, all deliberate death of innocent beings. The lion was as helpless as the baby, each one is at the mercy of someone else to protect it. What is unimaginable is that the violent reaction from the world has not been for the death, dismemberment and sale of human babies, but instead a lion. I mourn the death of one of God’s creatures because of “sport” but my heart bleeds for the 125,000 abortions per day around the world. And unfortunately you will see no pictures on celebrities Instagrams of babies or aborted babies, but you will see a lion. The most helpless among us and we do nothing to protect them, what does that say about us?

Our call, from the very beginning of time has been to have children and raise them up in the way they should go so that when it is their turn they can care for the incredible planet God has given us. We’re failing at both.