Flesh is not Flesh

                I was discussing the recent death of a patient with one of our doctors at work and to conclude she stated, “Flesh is flesh.  It really doesn’t matter if it’s road kill or a patient here in the end there is no difference.  Flesh is flesh.”  To which I responded, “Except its not.”  The doctor simply was expressing her atheistic worldview and it disturbed me for some time, this even though I would have stated something similar for the same purpose five short years ago.  Conversions change us deeply and that is why I am writing on this topic.

                  Flesh is not flesh.  There is a difference between human beings and animals.  The doctor is a vegetarian but her argument would justify cannibalism.  Why?  Because as much as she wants to elevate animals what she is actually doing and all she can do is dehumanize human beings. 

                Feminists stated they wanted to be like men, but they chose the worst men to want to be like.  Animal activists can only want humans to acknowledge they are animals but that news won’t cause animals to stop eating each other; animals can only be what they are- animals.  Feminists and animal rights activists believe in lazy virtue, they may call it natural virtue but there is nothing natural about virtue.

One cannot be freed of constraints sufficiently to simply create a virtuous individual.  Virtue is the product of sufficiently constraining oneself.  Human beings are the only creatures capable of such an unnatural feat and most of them are not even game for the effort.

People instead desire justification for their own misguided actions.  Bullies have no virtue and that is why they are bullies; but their victims are not conferred virtue by their victimhood.  Many victims themselves become bullies because they feel they have earned the privilege via their own awful experience.  My own experience could be cached in this niche, although my preferred method of revenge has been words bile not sweetness was the fuel.

We justify ourselves, we know too well our justifications.  We lose our empathy in those justifications and we dehumanize our victims.  Just as we make sexual objects we make straw men of every form and so animals seem an innocent receptacle for affection and they become greater than humans for many.  The truth is however they are not; nor are they less than living creatures, they are what they are- animals.

The answer is not projecting a perfect human nature upon animals but acknowledging our own tendencies toward selfish justification and regaining our empathy for other human beings.  For we and they are similar except in the fact that we excuse ourselves and demonize others.  The answer is mercy.

Mercy is the fuel of virtue.  One cannot turn the other cheek unless one realizes that the first strike is never justified and so the answer is not weakness but strength in highlighting that difference, to turn the other cheek.  We must do what is good and elevate the world rather than doing what is justifiable in our own misguided hearts and bringing the world down to a justifiable hell.    

Flesh is not flesh.  There is flesh which has the potential to be more than that and that is our human potential.  It would be unfair to chastise a cat for killing a mouse but it is always tragic when a dog kills a child.  The answer should be obvious but only to a human being.

Born this way?

                I was watching Charlie Rose and he had a panel of guests on to talk about the brain.  This subject  is fascinating to me as I have given lots of thought to neurology and personality development over the years, especially when I worked on a Neurobehavioral unit.   Kerry Ressler, Joseph Ledoux, Antonio Damasio, David Anderson, and Eric Kandel were the panelists on Charlie Rose: The Brain Series, which originally aired on May 26, 2010.  They made mention of something which caught my attention, people who had a genetic predisposition towards addictive behavior were only “about 10%” more likely to develop that addictive behavior.  Genetics is only a small piece in the larger puzzle of personality; it is never the whole story on its own.  Therefore, my friend, for anyone to claim they were simply “born this way” is not at all useful as an explanation of any lifestyle.

  Environmental factors mold predisposition and both strengthen and reinforce the behaviors in question.  One can see an example of changing environmental factors illustrated by the difference between providing ashtrays on every table and having “Lucky Strike” ads in “Life” magazine and putting intentionally grotesque warning labels on 25% of the front of a pack of smokes and making smokers stand 100 yards from any shelter.  If I were born to smoke then no amount of deterring factors could cause me to stop smoking.

                One could say that race is a closer example of what one means in determining lifestyle.  This assertion, however, is obviously racist.  I would say that race is a very, very poor way to predict behavior.  In fact skin pigmentation itself can vary widely within families.  Race, color, and creed are very often so superficial that one cannot know any one of them without first asking, regardless of careful behavioral study, for example Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda or Jews and Arians in Germany.

                I have been drawing inspiration for my examples from the song “Born this Way” by Lady Gaga.  She asserts one just has to be oneself regardless of Religious views of morality.  Some of us have expressed their truth by murdering and eating people however and I’m sure she is not justifying that.  She is however justifying that.  She claims God made her perfect and further reading shows that nothing she does will put that perfection in danger, “I’m beautiful in my way God makes no mistakes.”

                The trouble is that my expression of freedom impacts others and their expression of freedom.  She asserts, “Different lover is no sin.”  This is an easy statement to make, but risk associated with this behavior tends to make individuals nervous and sad, not to mention the stat 1 in 5 people has an STD and about 20% of pregnancies end in abortion, unless you live in New York City were the rate is 41%.  Studies show that depression rates rise as the number of sexual partners rise and there is also a correlation between depression, binge drinking, drug abuse, and sexual promiscuity, which is not a stroke inducing shock.  If a person were to use all of their dopamine through artificial hyper-stimulation the result is a dopamine deprived brain.  Stability creates mental health and instability destroys that health.  We may wish humans experienced life differently, but our fairy-godmothers have not been returning calls of late.

What one finds is that when one lives a life with Christian virtue in mind, instead of ignoring other people’s reality so one can attempt to live one’s own, there is more freedom, more stability, and more mental health.  The closer our life reflects Christ’s the more we truly have the where-with-all of self expression. 

If we are addicted to drugs our life becomes rather predictable.  If we are addicted to sex the same thing occurs; we lose our ability to be truly individual and we become that creepy, shallow shell of a human being. The kind that leers at young women and makes them quicken their step.  God did not make us for addiction and addicts are not perfect, unless they are perfectly bound.    

Lady Gaga states that she loves her life, she loves her record, and love needs faith.  Why would love need faith?  The “love” described simply requires a warm and willing body at least for this moment anyway.

“Love” doesn’t it always come down to love?  Yeah pretty much.  If you haven’t heard, I’m sure you have heard, love is an action, no not that action.  If you wonder if you are a loving person try to insert your name in place of love in the following passage:

                1 Corinthians 13:4-8

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

 ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, ⁵ does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, ⁶ does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; ^{7 [a]}bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
 ⁸ Love never fails.
            That’s a tall order but you can handle it and when we come through the trials of fighting the promise of easy happiness we will arrive at true happiness.