A few weeks ago I wrote an article in which I contended that we are a generation of people who have lost our reasoning power.
Logic and sound judgment seems to have gone out the proverbial window. I heard today a gentleman telling of a friend whose car was stolen.
The thieves (four of them) wrecked the vehicle while attempting to elude the police. Sadly, these four injured thieves are suing the owner of the stolen vehicle and it looks like the insurance company is going to settle. Ludicrous. Where has common sense gone?
As I write this article the headline news for a few weeks has been the Michael Vick saga. Certainly it is too soon to tell what the outcome of this investigation might be, but if we are to believe the news, the future does not seem to be very promising for Mr. Vick.
The outcry over the alleged cruelty to animals that took place on that Virginia property is amazing. I, myself, am a dog person, so I understand the expressed concern of so many.
What I find amazing is that we can get so worked up about the cruel and inhumane treatment of canines but refuse to face the cruel and inhumane treatment of children at the hands of abortionists.
We weep over the pictures of beaten and abused dogs but demand the right to torture unborn children through accepted abortion procedures. If Mr. Vick is smart, he will find a legal team to argue his case from a right to choose perspective. It's his dogs; his rights.
Lest the reader be tempted to argue that there is a fundamental difference between an individual's right to treat an innocent animal in a cruel and inhumane way and a woman's right to choose what happens in her own body, think again. This is the stuff that betrays our inability to properly reason and belies our skewed priorities.
While one might try to argue that those who promote dog fights are criminally responsible because they are making the choices and forcing those choices upon mere animals that do not have the ability to decide their fate for themselves, one has to realize that those who decide to murder unborn children are making decisions for innocent babies who cannot decide their fate for themselves.
One may argue that the scenario presented above is different. That those who destroy animals in so called sports arenas are guilty because the animal being led to the slaughter is a separate entity while the unborn child is a part of the woman and the woman who decides to end her pregnancy is simply exercising her right over her own body.
But it is not her body that suffers the ultimate consequence.
At best an unwanted pregnancy is 9 months of inconvenience; an aborted baby is forever. The woman can recover. The aborted child is dead. How in the world did we ever get to the place where canines or baby seals are treated with more value than baby humans?
We like think of ourselves as wise and enlightened. We deplore the alleged cruelty of those who use animals for their own entertainment, but we also deplore people who decry the cruelty of those who slaughter babies for their own convenience.
Our logic is flawed, our reasoning ability non-existent.
The Bible speaks of the fact that because of our insistence in having things our own way "the wisdom of the wise will perish, and the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish" (Isaiah 29:14 NIV).
I think the evidence of that truth is all around us.
Dr. John Pearrell is pastor of Gateway Community Church. Write him in care of the church at 11677 Brown Bridge Road Covington, GA, 30016. Send e-mail to john.pearrell@gatewaycommunity.org
