Archive for March, 2009
Peter Singer: An Unparalleled Impoverishment of Human Life
To say Peter Singer is an atheist is a gross understatement.
Often accused of sensationalism, this Australian philosopher advocates some strong, provocative lines of thought.
Yet, he’s dead serious.
What you must know is that Singer is simply and uncompromisingly working out the implications of living in a truly secular society.
How’s he doing that? He approaches ethical issues from a secular preference utilitarian perspective.
Eh? Let me explain.
A Sophisticated Argument for Suffering
Outside the academic arena, Singer is best known for his book Animal Liberation, published in 1975.
The serious objective of this lib movement book is to minimize suffering in all animals. How he defines animals is where Singer’s philosophy gets interesting.
Since severely retarded humans show diminished or lower mental capacity and are, in a sense, less self-aware than say a gorilla, Singer argues that animals should have rights based on suffering rather than intelligence.
Likewise, pigs and birds can be as intelligent as children. In other words, discrimination based on fur or feathers is no different from discrimination based on skin color.
Three Surprising Conclusions
Singer’s philosophy begins in a broad egalitarianism. It culminates in a narrow preferentialism. This leads him to some startling conclusions. According to his Princeton mate, Robert P. George, Singer:
1. Defends the moral right to kill newborns afflicted with retardation, hemophilia or even cleft palates.
2. Supports breeding large numbers of children to be killed in infancy in order to harvest organs for transplantation.
3. Sees nothing wrong with sex between multiple partners, animals and corpses.
Now, you must understand, these are morally permissible stances as long as no one–eh, I mean, animal–is suffering.
How to Rationalize the Murder of a Newborn
Thus, Singer says that since a newborn lacks rationality, autonomy and self-consciousness, killing it ISN’T equivalent to killing a person who wants to go on living.
How so? Well, since the fetus up to week 18 can’t suffer or feel satisfaction there is nothing to weigh against a mother’s preference to have an abortion.
Furthermore, since a newborn up to a certain age is less self-aware than some fish, if a mother faces a life of hardship based on her child, she has the right…the preference…to kill it to minimize her future suffering against the newborns suffering.
That is a secular utilitarian calculation based on preference.
What is fundamentally relevant for Singer is the capacity of humans and non-human animals to not suffer. Singer writes in Rethinking Life and Death:
Human babies are not born self-aware or capable of grasping their lives over time. They are not persons. Hence their lives would seem to be no more worthy of protection that the life of a fetus.
Favoring Free-Market Murder
Now, many admire Peter Singer as a person of intellectual honesty. Princeton colleague Robert P. George said he lives up to the implications of his principles:
He’s not an ogre or crank and his a fair-minded debater who doesn’t smear or distort his opponents positions. He tells the truth as he sees it. He alone possess the virtue of intellectual honesty.
Thus, he can’t be accused of being a Hitler or Stalin. That’s because he doesn’t want totalitarian genocide. Instead, Singer advocates preferential homicide.
Now, Singer says, we must remove Homo sapiens from this privileged position and restore the natural order. This translates into more rights for animals and less special treatment for human beings. There is a grim consistency in Singer’s call to extend rights to the apes while removing traditional protections for unwanted children, people with mental disabilities, and the noncontributing elderly.
As an atheist, Singer underscores the importance of reason, broadmindedness, consistency and compassion. That’s what he brings to the table. But all at the expense of feelings, human dignity and personal meaning.
In the end his philosophy is one-sided and distorted. It plays into the Culture of Death because it distrusts the province of the heart, fails to discern the true dignity of the human person, and elevates the killing of innocent human beings — young and old — to the level of a social therapeutic.
Yet, if Singer were a true atheist–which he is–then he’d argue that the idea of dignity or personal meaning are human inventions because it is Christendom which has exalted man above animals.
Singer is simply casting off all residue of Christianity. And he’s attempting to live by his secular creed.
My Reason for This Post
This post is the first in a series on understanding atheists. I start with Singer because he’s extreme. And often rebuffed by fellow atheists. And I’m curious how atheists respond to him. That’s why tomorrow I’ll publish a 10-question post with atheist Hemant Mehta–the bonus question being about Peter Singer.
Understand: I’m not rooting around for provocative statements. I simply want to know how atheists think. What they like. Think of it as a polite cocktail party where we all walk away with a better view of each other.
Now, while we wait for tomorrow’s post, why not share your thoughts about Peter Singer. I look forward to hearing from you. Brutal and all.
Drop-Dead Easy Guide on How to Journal
I write. A lot. And I love it.
That’s why I’m a writer and not a waiter. A writer and not a salesman. A writer and not a pastor.
I like people. But I like words more. [Pray for me. Seriously.]
And that’s why it’s natural for me to keep a journal.
I’m comfortable on paper. Put me in front of a stranger…and I want out. Quick.
Don’t get me wrong: Before Christ I hated people and sold my soul for words. After Christ I loved people and sold my gift to Jesus.
But here’s my point: That particular discovery occurred while journaling.
So, whether you love to write or not, keeping a journal is a beautiful tool to help you in your spiritual and emotional life. Here are 20 tips to help you get started.
1. Go cheap and big.
You’ll see why in a minute.
2. Write junk.
If you have an expensive journal, you’ll tend to self-edit while you write…which is a big no-no. Freewheel. Give yourself permission to write trash. And go at it like a maniac. That’s when discovery emerges.
3. Keep more than one journal.
But not too many. I’ve got a fatty journal that gets the bulk of my thoughts and ideas. I then have a small notebook I take when the fatty is too much. Then I use Google Docs for an online journal, which I keep open while I’m on my computer so I can easily toggle between work and journal.
4. Make lists.
Grocery list. Saturday task list. Blog post lists. My journal is a dumping ground. This way I have everything in one place.
5. Carry it with you everywhere.
Either the big one or the little one. Don’t rely on your memory. And if you use the little one, copy the notes into the big one.
6. Write your name and phone number in it.
Losing a journal is an agonizing experience. Make sure it can find it’s way home.
7. Explore your feelings.
Disturbed, frustrated or sad? Then document those feelings and ask yourself why you are feeling this way. The idea is to sharpen your sense and heighten self-awareness.
8. Meditate and pray.
I find it very helpful to write prayers into my journal because it makes me aware of what I’m saying. Again, self-awareness.
9. Tape things in it.
Whether it’s an article from Fast Company or your daughter’s still life of a parrot…attach it inside your journal. Remember: Your journal is a dumping ground.
10. Keep a master list.
I’m not a fan of GTD. Too complicated. I go for GSD. The premise is a masters list–everything I want to get done. And I drive my daily tasks from it.
11. Use tabs.
Break a thick journal into sections. Devote half your journal to a diary, a quarter to master list and a quarter to prayer list. Your choice. Post-It Notes make nice tabs.
12. Doodle.
Your journal is not sacred. Be creative in it. Get it dirty.
13. Use highlighters.
I’m writing blog post and short story ideas into my journal all the time. Then I go through and highlight the post ideas in purple and the short story ideas in yellow. This way I can find them easier.
14. Map out your day or week.
I like to write out a blog content schedule two weeks in advance. I do it in pencil in my journal. Pencil so I can erase. Erasing is good.
15. Ask your children to write in it.
I adore the pages of my journal where daughter and son got a hold of it and wrote or drew pictures.
16. Keep your Bible notes in it.
17. Document your dreams.
Not all of them. Just the vivid, startling ones of note.
18. Put your hate into it.
For instance, write an angry email. Print it out. Tape it into your journal. Delete the email. This will save you tons of grief while nurturing that path of self-discovery.
19. Capture all thoughts.
In the shower. Before bed. In the middle of night. Rule is: Journal close, thoughts down in it. Who knows if that’s a juicy answer to a perplexing problem.
20. Adapt.
If all else fails, just grab some blank paper, fold it in half and stick it in the book you are reading. You can later tape the paper into your journal.
I’ll end with a quote from Walter Scott: “What is a diary as a rule? A document useful to the person who keeps it. Dull to the contemporary who reads it and invaluable to the student, centuries afterwards, who treasures it.”
Rosicrucians: 13 Facts about This Obscure Christian Cult
File this under controversial. Conspiratorial. Bizarre. Trivial.
Wherever you file it, know this: This is serious stuff some people lock-in on.
In the last two weeks I’ve showcased the Adventists and Unitarians. Two relatively close cousins to orthodox Christianity.
This Sunday I thought I’d go out to the far branches of her family tree and snoop in on a sect that nurses secret knowledge.
So, without anymore pussyfooting, let me introduce you to the Rosicrucians.
1. Historically, Rosicrucians consider Christian Rosenkreuz–a man who learned esoteric wisdom from Sufi or Zoroastrian teachers during a pilgrimage to the Middle East during the early 15th Century–to be their founder.
2. Rosenkreuz nurtured 8 disciples who were doctors and sworn bachelors. They promised to heal the sick for free, maintain secret fellowship and find replacements when they died.
3. Rosenkreuz’s legend emerged in three manifestos published in early 17th Century, the first being the Fama Fraternitatis.
4. This legend inspired a college of invisibles who existed to advance inspired arts and sciences, including a spiritual and symbolic alchemy.
5. In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, some Christian groups styled themselves Rosicrucians, including Esoteric Christian Rosicrucians who professed Christ.
6. While in Germany in the fall of 1907, Max Heindel understood his mission to prepare mankind for a new phase in religion after a visit from a highly evolved entity identified as an Elder Brother of the Rosicrucian Order.
7. Around 1910 Heindel founded the Rosicrucian Fellowship on Mount Ecclesia in Oceanside, California, teaching the mysteries Jesus spoke about in Matthew 13:11 and Luke 8:10.
8. RFs teach that man is spirit and body, but the body is improving through a series of existences as the power of God are opened to his life.
9. Man is also unfolding latent spiritual powers through multiple rebirths.
10. Consequently, death is viewed as rebirth into a larger sphere. And life as a school that prepares the man for this birth.
11. Important to the RFs is the doctrine of the astral body, which evolves through multiple births.
12. Tucked into this philosophy is the idea of two Christs: One within and one without. The Savior Christ and the Cosmic Christ. The Cosmic helps the Savior emerge in our spirits.
13. Invisible Helpers–students of the Western Wisdom Teachings– continue Heindel’s work, namely preaching the gospel and healing the sick.
I had a lot of fun doing this because in a previous life I was a huge fan of Thomas Pynchon and his book The Crying of Lot 49. I’m serious. Tell me what you think. 
**Part of the Quick Facts on Christian Cults series.**
10 Biblical Illustrations of God’s Self-Sufficiency
**Part of The Nature of God: A Quick and Dirty Guide series.**
God lacks nothing. Craves nothing. He has everything he needs in himself.
In fact, to admit the existence of a need in God is to admit incompleteness in God.
Why God created anything is a mystery then.
We do know that the emphatic teaching of the Bible is that God exists for himself and man for the glory of God.
So, with that in mind, let’s explore 10 biblical illustrations of what it means when we say that God is self-sufficient. And then look at how we should respond.
1. God is life.
Self-sufficient, God requires nothing to give him life. He is the source of all life. Man, on the other hand, requires something else–something outside himself–to give him life.
2. God lives.
Contrasted against the dead, dumb idols he is the living God. The God of Abraham, Jacob and Isaiah. The God who speaks from fire. The God who doesn’t beg for anything. But commands everything.
3. God is lord.
The Hebrew word Lord used in Psalm 16:2 is adan…meaning master, ruler, owner, lord. Adan is thought to be the root of the noun adom, which is frequently used of men who own slaves. It’s were we get the word Adonia. It’s what believers mean when we prostrate ourselves before God in humble submission. We are slaves to the core.
4. God owns everything.
His possessions extend from the earth to the unknown regions of space. God sustains it like a man who sustains a small garden on the side of his house. He doesn’t need it to survive. He sustains it so he can enjoy it.
5. God provides everything.
God is our provider. What we have, we only have because God has opened up the way for us to get it. Our duty–especially in tithing–is to give back to the church. That is, God. The same is true for our lives.
6. God is jealous.
God is protective of his self-sufficiency. It’s what isolates him–and Him alone–from every other thing in the universe. Self-sufficiency is his air-tight silo. Except he can talk to us, comfort us, love us despite this barrier.
7. God is independent.
Man is dependent. God is necessary. Man is unnecessary. We get at the heart of God’s creation when we finally understand that God would still exist if all creation were dead. All animals. All birds. All plants. All men.
8. God gives life.
John uses the word “life” 36 times in his gospel–more than any other New Testament author. It refers not only to physical and temporal life that God gave to the world at creation, but especially to spiritual and eternal life imparted as a gift through belief in Him. Eternal life is at the beck-and-call of God.
9. God puts to death.
Self-sufficiency declares authority. Authority over birth, work, love and death. All things are slaves to him–the sea, the saint, the suicide. No once can escape Him or is out of His control. Including death.
10. God delivers.
The power of life is in God. As is the power of death. God cannot die, but he can kill. Furthermore, He is alive and without death and he is the one who can snatch people from the jaws of death. The Creator and the redeemer. That is the self-sufficient God we serve.
How Should You Respond to God’s Self-Sufficiency?
Get this: Gazing upon the face of God is a robust death sentence. Regardless, we are to pursue him. Any motion in His direction is upward for us. Away from him, a descent.
A. W. Tozer said about Christ, “The awful majesty of the Godhead was mercifully sheathed in the soft envelope of human nature to protect mankind.”
Self-sufficient God may be, but merciful, gracious and humble is he also, “who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being in the likeness of men. Being found in the appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even on a cross.”
How will you respond?
What Was the Most Dramatic Event in Your Life?
Okay, here’s what I need from you:
Describe an event that you would consider to be the defining moment in your life.
It could be a nasty break up. A botched fishing trip. A leaf fire gone awry.
What I’m looking for is a dramatic experience that towers like a mountain in the landscape of your memory.
I’ve got two defining moments in my life that stand large in my memory. One that concerns infidelity. I explain that here so I won’t go into it now.
The other involves a fatal rock climbing accident.
The Most Dramatic Event of My Life
In July of 1998 I travelled to the Grand Tetons with my girlfriend, my step-father and our climbing partner.
After about 9 days straight of easy to moderate climbing, we decided to climb the Symmetry Spire, a 400 foot rock face east of the Grand Teton.
Symmetry is a good, beginner’s climb, but getting their is a slog. The hike to the base of the climb alone took us 2.5 hours of trail and 1 hour skirting a couloir.
In fact, it was so rigorous, my girlfriend, exhausted from non-stop climbing, bailed before we got to the couloir.
One Thing You Have to Keep in Mind
The rule of thumb in the Tetons is “Finish your climbs by 2:30 P. M.” Afternoon thunder storms always roll in. And you certainly didn’t want to be stuck on the side of the wall when that happened.
However, that’s exactly what happened.
Midway through the climb, about 100 ft below the summit, it started to rain. Me, my step-father and our climbing partner debated finishing the climb but agreed rappelling would be the safest route. So, we did just that. I set the anchors and we started to descend.
I forget when–I think it was the second rappel–I slung the rope around a horn sticking out of the cliff face. I inspected the horn for cracks, didn’t see any, and descended.
I landed on a 10 ft by 10 ft ledge and removed myself from the rope. I yelled “Clear” and crouched with my back to the wall. That’s when the unthinkable happened.
My step father stood at 6 ft 4 inches and weighed 280 pounds. Big guy. Too big for the horn. The moment he weighted the rope, the horn snapped. And he fell, screaming.
He hit the lip of the ledge I was crouched on and dropped out of sight.
He fell 200 feet. And didn’t survive. Absolutely out of my mind, my climbing partner and I spent the next 11 hours methodically climbing to safety.
Something to Chew On
Whenever I look back at this event, I always feel like it occurred to another person. Like it didn’t happen to me. It’s like I’m fortunate to share someone else’s memories.
That ever happen to you?
This may sound strange, but I cherish this experience. Tragic, yes. But one of the reasons I cherish it is because during this trip my step-father–a man who grew up in Wyoming and always dreamed of climbing the Tetons–at one point leaned over and said that I was helping him live out his dreams.
The other reason I cherish this experience is because just months after this tragedy, I proposed to my girlfriend. And she said yes.
We’ve been married for 11 years. And today is our anniversary!
Your Turn
So, have at it. Describe that one unforgettable event that somehow defines your life. And then explain why it defines your life.
You can either do it in the comments section here or on your own blog. If you do it at your blog, just point back to this post.
I can’t wait to read your stories!
One Last Thing
I adore Abraham Piper’s 22 Words because he elegantly gets away with a lot. His blog inspired me to ask this question. I only wish I had the chops to answer it in half the words.
Also, read an incomplete analysis of the climbing accident in the journal Accidents in North American Mountaineering.
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