Animal ethics are not a good model for human behavior. Natural Law is.
My wife and I enjoy our mornings sitting on our back porch sipping down Columbian coffee and watching various birds, which have migrated to our green leafy backyard of bird feeders. Over the years we have observed some strange behavior from two particular species.
Underneath our covered patio, Martins have built their nest. For days with hundreds of sorties, they accumulate twigs, grass and a host of other nick knacks for their new home. We enjoy watching their meticulous construction. Soon after the completion of their new home, a type of sparrow swooped down and took possession of it, pushing the martins along their way. Those little thieves. Eventually, by the persistence of the martins, after several attempts in new locations, they found a resting place to start a family without losing it to the hostile sparrows. Can morality or immorality be justified by the habits of creatures in wildlife?
Suppose a thief justified his actions to steal by observing the thievery of the sparrows snatching nests from Martins. To justify one’s moral actions by the behavior of wildlife, to say the least, is ridiculous. Male alligators eat ninety percent of their young, does that justify cannibalism? Maybe some of you remember Jeffery Dahmer? Jeffery was known as the Milwaukee Cannibal. He used to routinely take tomatoes to the elderly in the neighborhood once a week while at night dismembering his deceased victims to eat. He was such a nice boy, now wasn’t he?
The picture attached to this article is a male Australian Quoll, a species who is so violent in his mating that he often kills the female. Such behavior reminds me of my visits to a prison counseling inmates. One inmate got his jollies from violently beating women to the point of death. This practice is known as death by fornication. Maybe, he watched the PBS special of the mating violence of the Australian Quoll to justify his immoral behavior. Let’s assume he claims his innocence, by falsely thinking the U.S. Constitution gives him the right to be free to be whatever he wants to be. Sad. And, he uses the instincts of animals as a basis for law to justify his behavior as acceptable. Umm. Our founding Fathers risked their lives for sexual freedom? Silly. Rather it was for this reason: The Declaration of Independence proclaims as a self-evident truth the First Principle that “all men are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Thomas Jefferson explained the essence of the Founding Fathers’ understanding regarding the First Principle of unalienable rights when he wrote that “a free people claims their rights as derived from the laws of nature [moral absolutes], and not as a gift from their chief magistrate.” A basic maxim of American government is the recognition that some rights are derived from Nature [moral rights] and may not be taken or violated by the government. Picking backup at the prison, another inmate was a flasher to little children, concerning which, I compassionately tried to convince him that his behavior was unacceptable to no avail. He got his jollies from it. Umm. I wonder if this behavior is in the animal kingdom?
The demotic age, which we live in, has conditioned certain peoples to read sexuality into anything of importance. The puerile argument of today to think that our founding Fathers risked their lives, reputation and property for sexual freedom against the British monarch is laughable. The Bible excerpt from Romans 1:18 tells it straight forward “…they suppress the truth in unrighteous…” How? People offer absurdities and falsehoods in order to justify their sinful behavior.
There is a Savior; His name is Jesus Christ who came to identify with humanity in order to make atonement for us so that we can have a meaningful relationship with Him – the essence of life. “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:8
Dr. Ronald D. Rhea, D. Min.
