Singer is a an easy target for anyone with remote conservative or religious leanings. He is a purely godless materialist philosopher of "ethics", so his "morality" has things like:
- "humanity" is pure intellect, so your "value" is how smart you are.
- All "life" has the same value ... any other view is "speciesist".
From these basic premises, he concludes that abortion or infanticide are both fine up until the child reaches some level of appropriate intellectual capability for Peter to call "human". Sex with animals is fine as long as it is "consensual", but eating meat is morally wrong. Downs children, elders who have lost cognitive function to some level, or any traumatic brain injury that drops the individual below Pete's standards also warrants extermination. Keeping them alive is "immoral". And so it goes.
As a human with a sinful nature, my first reaction to Peter is not particularly Christian:
I imagine Peter in the wrong bar, a couple large gentlemen hearing him out in his pronouncements, informing him that they are brothers and their other brother is a Downs person. They deck him, drag him outside and tell him that they are giving him a wonderful chance to test his theories. First they will give him a beating he has a chance to recover from, then they will ask him some easy questions -- who is the current title holder in the WWE, who won the last Indy 500, which bourbon is better, Jack, Makers or Jim (and why), and who sings "Bad to the Bone'.
If he wakes up, and gets the answers all right (as any sentient human "should" using their "standards"), then he just got a cheap lesson in getting along with folks. If not, well then he is in for a long night, but his worries will be over by the time the sun rises. Naturally, he MUST agree with them that they are being "moral", because it is "all about intelligence" -- and he is obviously significantly less smart than he had estimated as judged by those with the power he is currently subject to!
My second reaction however is that Peter is clearly Spiritually Disabled -- in the extreme. His condition is more severe than many in our world, but not unusual. It comes from "losing your sense of small". Loki may think "he is a god" ... he may be immortal even, we really all are after all. Spending eternity in a small cell with the Hulk would likely make him question if immortality was really quite as wonderful as he first thought.
As an aside, I believe that our belief in eternal punishment is a requirement for us being (imperfectly) created in God's image, to believe in God's justice. If we don't see justice as being ultimately certain, we will feel ourselves forced to judge in the here and now.
However, I believe that God cares enough for the Spiritually Disabled (which is ALL of us) that he was willing to sacrifice his Son to give us hope of recovery from our much more serious than Downs disability. Through the gift of Grace, we are to love the fellow Spiritually Disabled and repent of our natural reaction to treat them in a manner similar to the way they would treat us given the chance. Being able to recognize that we are all Spiritually Disabled, immortal, and DESPERATELY in need of Jesus is really all that is important to "get" in this life!
Why have transcendent values rather than human selected ones? Well, because Pete, the bar guys might be the ones deciding who lives and dies rather than you if you leave it up to mere human generated "values" -- the only one that actually counts without God being "Might Is Right"!
'via Blog this'
If he wakes up, and gets the answers all right (as any sentient human "should" using their "standards"), then he just got a cheap lesson in getting along with folks. If not, well then he is in for a long night, but his worries will be over by the time the sun rises. Naturally, he MUST agree with them that they are being "moral", because it is "all about intelligence" -- and he is obviously significantly less smart than he had estimated as judged by those with the power he is currently subject to!
My second reaction however is that Peter is clearly Spiritually Disabled -- in the extreme. His condition is more severe than many in our world, but not unusual. It comes from "losing your sense of small". Loki may think "he is a god" ... he may be immortal even, we really all are after all. Spending eternity in a small cell with the Hulk would likely make him question if immortality was really quite as wonderful as he first thought.
As an aside, I believe that our belief in eternal punishment is a requirement for us being (imperfectly) created in God's image, to believe in God's justice. If we don't see justice as being ultimately certain, we will feel ourselves forced to judge in the here and now.
However, I believe that God cares enough for the Spiritually Disabled (which is ALL of us) that he was willing to sacrifice his Son to give us hope of recovery from our much more serious than Downs disability. Through the gift of Grace, we are to love the fellow Spiritually Disabled and repent of our natural reaction to treat them in a manner similar to the way they would treat us given the chance. Being able to recognize that we are all Spiritually Disabled, immortal, and DESPERATELY in need of Jesus is really all that is important to "get" in this life!
Why have transcendent values rather than human selected ones? Well, because Pete, the bar guys might be the ones deciding who lives and dies rather than you if you leave it up to mere human generated "values" -- the only one that actually counts without God being "Might Is Right"!
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