Life / Religion / Philosophy / Science / Polictics

Tag: right

  • Do You Have A Right To Die?

    The world is officially losing its mind.  At least we are here in the United States of America (and probably most other Western cultures as well).

    California became the fifth State this week to pass a Right To Die law.  For some reason there are those that seem rather gleeful about this.  This law supposedly gives those that are terminally ill the choice to end their own lives through doctor supplied drugs.

    What it does, in reality, is cheapens life.  Forty-three years ago there were those here in the U.S.A. that decried the legalization of abortion predicting that it would lead to new forms of legalized, state sponsored deaths.  And here we have their predictions coming true.

    Rush Limbaugh made this very case in his1992 book The Way Things Ought To Be.  Rush writes:

    “But I am also pro-life because I am a human being who feels a sense of duty to civilization.  I think it is incumbent upon us all to be concerned about the values we transfer to succeeding generations.  When we take actions that cheapen life, we are contributing to the overall decline in society’s moral values.”

    (Limbaugh, Rush, “The Way Things Ought To Be“,  New York, Pocket Books, 1992, ISBN: 0-671-75145-X, pg. 50)

    Rush goes on to write:

     “It’s not just abortion that is eroding our respect for human life.  There’s also death at the other end of the spectrum.  Look at the right-to-die movement.  They’re not calling for a right to die, they’re mostly calling for a right to kill.”

    (Limbaugh, Rush, “The Way Things Ought To Be“, New York, Pocket Books, 1992, ISBN: 0-671-75145-X, pg. 59)

    At the time Rush wrote those words, Dr. Jack Kevorkian was practicing his physician assisted suicides in Michigan.  Rush addresses his work in the chapter of his book I have referenced.  Dr. Kevorkian actually was convicted in 1999 of Second Degree Homicide and served 8 years in prison for that conviction.

    It is amazing that just 16 short years ago, States were prosecuting and convicting those engaged in this type of behavior and yet today they are signing that very behavior into law.  How quickly a society can change.

    These laws presume to offer you a right (definition #19).  A right to die.  My first question would be: Why in the world would you want such a right?  I have never wanted a right to die.  I want a right to live.  And to live free with the pursuit of happiness.  To be all that God has made me to be.  It used to be that we made SciFi movies about people who were terminally ill and how they would freeze themselves or have their bodies put into some type of stasis so that years into the future when medicine had advanced they could be revived and cured.  Today we simply tell them they have the right to take some life ending drugs.

    But my second question is: Where in the world did this right come from?  I’ve talked about rights on this Blog in the past (see my posts on: Where Do YOUR Rights Come From? as well as: Chasing After Rights).  Rights come from somewhere.  That is they are granted by some entity.  The founding fathers of this country believed there were certain inalienable rights that were granted by God.  And among those were Life.  I don’t think that God, who has granted each and every human an inalienable right to life,  has suddenly granted everyone a right to die.  So where did this right come from, if not from God?

    And the only possible answer is it came from society.  It came from us.  And if society is in the business of granting rights, we have gone down a very slippery slope indeed.  Why do those in physical pain and suffering get to be granted a special right and those in emotional pain and suffering do not?  I’m going to cry foul here and tell you all about my anguish over the financial disparity between myself and Bill Gates.  I demand the right of financial equality.  It is germane to my sanity and good health.  But there is no such right.  Because God never granted it, and society could never achieve it even if it wanted to grant it.

    The people that “granted” this (so-called) right never had the authority to grant such a right to begin with.  They are playing god and are only feeding their own warped egotistical existence.

    My biggest problem with the (so-called) Right To Die is the same thing Rush Limbaugh identified 23 years ago.  It cheapens life.  And this is because I actually do have a Theology (something most of the world lacks).

    If you are a Creationist, then you have to believe that life was created.  Depending on your particular theology, you might even go so far as to say that life is a gift from God.

    My particular religion teaches that God intended for life to be abundant and joyful.  However because sin entered into the world it brought death and destruction.  Death as a consequence of sin, is the very antithesis of life.  The former is a gift, the latter is a curse.

    Because of my Theology, I actually cringe whenever I encounter any type of mercy killing or humane killing.  Even with animals or pets.  My problem is that even putting an animal out of its suffering (as if that animal doesn’t want to live) is a hardening of our hearts.  It is a practice that makes it easier for us to then see our way to extending the same practice to our fellow humans.

    This is not going to sit well with most of you (actually the vast majority of the world) – but the pain and suffering of death actually AMPLIFIES the great sacrifice that Jesus Christ made upon the Cross.  It is because I abhor death with such great disdain that I appreciate the Cross all the more.  It is because I understand the great sin curse of death that I come to understand Grace all the more.  It is in the pain and suffering that we learn just how much as been overcome.

    “Oh, the love that drew salvation’s plan!
    Oh, the grace that brought it down to man!
    Oh, the mighty gulf that God did span at Calvary!”

    Paul of Tarsus understood this when he wrote:

    “54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.  55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?  56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.” (1 Corinthians 15″54-56)

    Paul understood the sting of death.  And Paul understood the great price that had been paid.  He understood death was the consequence of sin and that Jesus Christ had defeated it once and for all and had walked out of the grave victorious in Life!

    So do you have a right to die?  I sincerely hope not.  I hope you have a hope to live!  And I trust that hope is found in the one who was victorious over the grave.  My Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

  • Chasing After Rights

    Our rights are important.  As is what we perceive as our rights.  Rights are where we derive so many of our other political and social concepts from.  Rights, as defined, are those set of items or actions that are afforded due to just claim, legal guarantee, moral principle, or legal principle and authorities.  And rights determine how we are to be treated, what actions we are allowed (and not allowed) to take, and what reactions are allowed.  They form a basis of how we interact with others and the rest of the world.

    When dealing with what is right and what is wrong, and by extension what rights we may or may not have as individual entities on this planet, I believe it only RIGHT that each and every atheist in the world begin by accepting the understanding that there are no rights, they have no rights, and that the mere concept of a right or wrong is a fallacy.

    Lets break this down.  If there is no “supreme being” (or beings as the case may be), although if we were to be clear here, the definition should be “creator“, so if there is no Creator then there can be no design.  By definition there is no design (or we might say Intelligent Design).  If you were to argue that the design lies within the physical and metaphysical laws of the universe, I suppose you could make a case that those laws constitute the design (or the description) of what we see physically around us.  But to then take that and stretch it into some piece of matter’s right is quite a leap of logic and faith.

    If I even begin by granting the atheist the line of reasoning that what we observe as design in the universe is the result of natural and physical laws playing out in some grand scheme over the vastness of time, there are still a lot of unanswered questions with regards to morality, justice, right, wrong, happiness, sadness, love, hate, or just the plain meaning of life.  In the atheistic world view, there is no Creator, and by extension no designer, and thus there are no rights.

    Very, very, very, few atheists are honest enough, principled enough, and reasoned enough, to admit and state that within their world view there is no meaning and no purpose.  What can it be?  You cannot have meaning or purpose without design.  They simply cannot exist without design.  A design exudes a purpose.  And a purpose comes about by design.  Thus, given the atheistic world view of no Creator, there is no designer, which leaves no design within the universe, which leaves the universe absolutely purposeless.  And since there is no purpose, what then becomes the basis for right and for wrong?  Why should there be any basis?  After all, it doesn’t really matter much at all, does it?  And since right and wrong are now regulated to mere concepts that have no meaning, what then becomes the foundation on which we build individual rights?

    And yet the atheist and the theist alike will claim individual rights of humankind in the world.  The atheist will claim some collective conscious that inherently bestows these rights upon individuals.  But that, in and of itself, is a fallacy.  When did we, as all of humankind, ever come together and agree upon and define those rights?  We did not.  To suggest that you or I have any ability to bestow rights upon another assigns a level of supremacy to one or another particular individual that then sets them apart from all the rest.  This in and of itself breaks the very premise of the model.  The only logical conclusion one may draw here is that those rights are granted and bestowed from outside of the system.  This in its very nature lends credence to a Creator.  A Supreme being who by design built a system that has certain inalienable rights woven into the very fabric of its existence.

    This is the conclusion the framers of the U.S. Constitution came to and it is the foundation upon which they sought to establish the system of Government.  Our rights, liberties, and happiness are not what is decided upon by society or humankind.  Rather our rights, liberties, and our very happiness is what is granted and bestowed upon us by the Creator himself.

    Given a theistic world view, conflicts are now resolved against the framework of the Creators design, not of our own.  I do not have the right to then define your pursuit of happiness based upon my own framework of what would satisfy my own happiness or desires, but rather I must weigh your actions against the framework of the Creator himself.

    This is why knowing and understanding the Creator is so important within our lives.  And it is why Theology becomes the foundational science upon which we must base all other pursuits upon.  Theology is the only pursuit in which we may find purpose and meaning to our very existence.  And it that understanding that then begins to build the framework for our interactions with our fellow human beings around us.

    When you seek to impose your morals upon the world you establish yourself as the source of right and wrong.  You set yourself apart and above the rest of humanity.

    The Christian does not set out to impose morality upon the world.  The Christian rather recognizes the design of the moral code designed into the system by the Creator.  It is not MY morality I espouse, but rather the morality designed by the Creator.

    You may draw different conclusions as to the source of the morality within the system.  You may even argue the interpretation and understanding of that morality.  Indeed, Christians have various interpretations of right and wrong amongst themselves (as do theists of all venues).

    What should not be at issue is the design of the rights.  And that design cries out of the existence of a Creator, a God, a Supreme being who has bestowed upon all of humankind (his creation) the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  And that is why my rights, your rights, and everyone’s rights are of the utmost importance.  Because they did not come from you or from me or from society or from an accident of the physical laws of the cosmos.  They came from God.  And you may exert your own force of will and power against them as you see fit (as happens all over the world each and every day), but you can never take them away or alter them or make them your own.  They are secured by God and he will administer them and regulate them as he sees fit.

    Knowing this, pursuing this, understanding this, in its deepest and most intimate depths is key to happiness and peace with those around us and on earth.