It’s a Lion

By: American Decency Staff

The uproar over the killing of a lion named Cecil in Zimbabwe by an American dentist, Dr. Walter Palmer, is further proof that secular society inevitably produces moral confusion.

 

In saying that, I do not in any way defend the killing of a protected animal. First, I do not hunt for sport (among other reasons, my religion, Judaism, opposes it). Second, if the lion suffered for a prolonged period, that would add to my condemnation. Third, if Dr. Palmer knowingly killed a protected animal, he should be prosecuted.

Having said that, most of the reactions to what he did are more frightening than what Palmer did.

Since I began writing and lecturing, I have been warning about the breakdown of the distinction between humans and animals (or, as the secular nearly always put it, “other animals”). For decades I have asked high-school students: “If your dog or cat (or hamster or other beloved pet) and a stranger were drowning, which would you try to save first?”

In virtually every instance, the response is the same: One-third vote to save their dog, one-third to save the human being, and one-third don’t know what they would do (or should do — but there are few shoulds in the lives of many secular Americans). In other words, two-thirds of American young people (and by now presumably adults as well) wouldn’t vote to save a human being they didn’t know before the animal that they love.

Love has come to trump moral standards. With the breakdown of objective moral standards, personal feelings have become the source of right and wrong.

Read More

---