"All Men Are Created Equal"

Fourth of July always gets me thinking about the Declaration of Independence and its affirmation of the principle that "all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." You can see that if you look at my earlier posts this morning relating to the equality of babies in the womb. I particularly found the discussion between the young man and the college professor interesting. She said she knew it was wrong to kill blacks and Jews but she didn't know why. It's a metaphysical question, she claimed, that has no answer.

Huh?

I have no problem answering the question -- because they are members of the human family. You don't kill your own. Slaughtering beef or cutting the head off a chicken is in a different category of act because animals are not human. Now some ethicists like Peter Singer would say that's "specieism." Singer believes pigs have more rights than babies waiting to be born. It seems to me that there must be an element of self-hatred in such a view since we all began as little ones in the womb. What does it say about your view of your own self-worth if you can shrug and say, "Of course my mom had a right to kill me before I was born!" Wow!

If you have no value in the womb when do you have value? Do you have any value at all at any time? And if so when does this value suddenly happen? Is it dropped on you like dew at some magical point? Mother Teresa had it right when she said that if we can justify abortion, what is to stop from you killing me or me killing you. Any inhumanity toward another person becomes justifiable doesn't it?

These are philosophical questions that get to the heart of who we are and they begin to expose the diametrically opposed world views of the secular humanist and the Christian humanist. The secularist says we have no value except that given us by other people. The Christian humanist says we have value because we are created by God and loved and belong to Him. "I knew you before you were formed in the womb." The difference is whether we came to be as an accident of nature or because we are loved by a gracious God to whom we are the "apple" of His eye. Either we belong to Him and have rights as a result or we belong to ourselves and are not answerable to anyone. Either God makes laws by which we are all called to govern ourselves, or man is a law unto himself and "might makes right." The strong prey on the weak. The majority exercises its tyranny on the minority.

Which society do we resemble at present: the law of God or the law of the jungle?