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Terri Schiavo has been murdered. I won't take the time to try to convince you of that fact if you have not already come to the same conclusion. If your only source for news is the major media networks, I can honestly understand why you might disagree. For some sides to the story that you may not have heard, visit Terri's Fight and WorldNetDaily. The main point that I wish to discuss is why something like this could happen in America. Legally. After all of the "due process" and "rule of law" has taken its lengthy course, wrong has been the result. How could our legal system, which is supposed to be the best in the world, produce such an incorrect decision? (Even if you do agree with the decision of the courts in this case--I do not--you can probably think of your own examples of major court cases that you felt ended on the wrong side.) To many people, apparently including Jeb and George Bush, the "rule of law" has become the highest master. Whatever the law says is what they feel they must do, even when it goes against their personal beliefs. It sounds like an act of integrity on their part. But it is actually just the Nuremberg defense in different words: "We were only following orders." Remember, everything Hitler did in Germany was "legal". They had a very orderly and systematic legal system. Very deadly too. Well, you say, if "rule of law" is not the final authority, what is? That is the question that American politicians refuse to answer. Without direct revelation from God, there is no other possible source for a binding, non-optional moral code. Ethicists and philosophers (such as Kant) have written treatises attempting to prove that it’s possible to find a universal moral code solely by the use of reason. It does seem plausible at first, until you really sit down and think about it. Most people, even atheists, agree that it is bad to hurt other people. But without God there is no authority to make that rule a rule. Why is it wrong to hurt others? Also, there is no way to specifically define “hurt” and “others”. Is it hurting someone to abort a baby? How about euthanasia for the old or disabled? If it is wrong to kill humans, is it also wrong to kill monkeys? Cows? Mice? Flies? Trees? Is it hurting someone if a poor man steals $10 from a millionaire? Is it hurting someone to destroy an embryo to use the stem cells for medical research? Fortunately for all of us, God has given us a moral code in the Bible. You might be wondering, “If men by themselves cannot discover or establish absolute moral laws, why do so many politicians refuse to acknowledge the existence or authority of God’s laws?” Because politicians, like most of us, would rather do what we want than what God wants. In order to justify our behavior, we rationalize it in our minds, seeking to paint the moral bull’s-eye around our own arrow. Most people can’t succeed in totally silencing their conscience, though, so they don’t draw the bull’s-eye with their own behavior right in the middle. That would be too obviously a manipulation of the target. Instead they draw it so that they land just inside the “good enough to go to heaven” line. When we refuse to recognize any higher source of law than a human government -- regardless of whether it is a democracy or a dictatorship -- we have unwittingly opened the door wide to becoming another Third Reich or Khmer Rouge. -- Daniel Bartsch |
If you had died in the attack of September 11, where would you have gone?The content of this web site is provided for informational purposes only. If you discover that any pieces posted to this site are inaccurate or copyrighted, please contact us immediately. Last modified: 10/05/05Site created by Daniel Bartsch |
