Tuesday, March 20, 2007

To Kill a (Mocking) Bear

A mother polar bear abandoned its cub and the zoo stepped in to take care of it. Now there are calls by an animal rights activist, Frank Albrecht, to kill the bear. They think it is "unnatural" for the cub to be raised by humans. In nature, they say, it would have died.

It can be helpful to try to figure out a person's world view to understand things that seem incomprehensible (e.g. how can an animal rights activist be calling for killing an animal?). The answer as best as I can figure it out, is that he believes that "nature" is "god". Therefore, whatever nature does is good. Inversely, whatever man does to change the natural order is bad.

This is exactly the opposite conclusion that flows from a Christian world view. Christianity recognizes the fallen nature of the world and calls us to action to change it in positive ways, such as showing compassion to an abandoned polar bear cub.

The animal rights activist would seem to be more of a "nature's rights" activist. He seems to believe that helping the polar bear is actively working against the perfect will of nature. It's a perfectly logical extension of animal rights blather which seeks to set straight the perceived bad influence of man. But usually man's interference is blamed with the death of an animal. In this case, the crime is rescuing an animal from certain death.

If that's a crime, I sure am glad I don't serve his god.

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