AGT            July 23 2007

Sentience in the higher animals and the question of sacredness of human life

This essay is what I believe; it is based on my observations and a trace of logic.  I do not claim to be an atheist as I cannot prove that there is no god.  But to date He has not revealed Himself to me.  But if He is there, as the church wants us to believe, why should He conceal himself?  The bishops and cardinals keep talking of God's Will. They say that they know what it is, but to my belief, that is pure arrogance; like the seven-year-old who boasts that "my father knows the headmaster".  I recently heard on 'Any Questions' the statement (by a man) that the whole purpose of the church is to keep women in their place.  I don't believe that, as much of the Church Law seems to have been designed to protect women and children against the excesses of the roaming male.

The subject of Intelligent Design seems to spouted by the most unintelligent members of our society.  It is certain that within the human psyche, there is a desire to believe in (or invent) a supreme being.  Again, I am not of that school, IF there is a god, and it is a very big 'if', he certainly is nothing like the churches say he is.  If there is a god, the most likely nature of this entity is that we are an infinitesimally small part of His creation.  Just look at the universe he is running.   Light travels at three hundred million metres a second, and we can see for about a hundred million light years before we run into problems with the speed of light.  And all the way from here to the farthest point we can see, there are galaxies upon galaxies.  "And we are special in all this creation!".  Who are they trying to kid?  It's arrogance piled on arrogance!

Now, if you are driven by this innermost force, and must believe that a supernatural force runs the universe, there is a much more logical way of explaining what is, and has, gone on.  This power that we call God was the driving force at THE BEGINNING. (Whenever that was).  God was the instigator of The Laws of Nature, and those Laws are what our scientists are now trying to understand. Using this argument, there is no dispute between science and religion.  To try and argue that He is our protector, is absurd.  Protector against what?  And there is repeated and continual evidence that He has little concern about the well-being of our species

It is well documented that scientists are still trying to fit empathy into the Darwinian model.  Why do we feel a hurt when someone else is injured?  But there is no doubt that most people have a caring feeling for other humans.  We often have that caring feeling for other animals who are in distress.  I'm not going to try and explain it either; I'll just accept it as a fact.  Then to go on from there, I believe that there is only one sin, and that is the sin of causing (or allowing) mental anguish of another sentient creature; be it man or beast.  A broken leg may hurt, but the hurt is in the mind.  Electrical signals may travel from the leg to the brain, but the anguish is in the brain's function.  We call this function: 'the mind'.  All the higher animals have it, and they all suffer anguish in a similar manner.  Certainly all mammals do.

This leads me to the sanctity of human life.  I do not believe that human life is sacred.  Human suffering IS sacred.  And so is the suffering of other sentient animals.  I do not fear death, I do fear some of the routes that may lead to death, such as fire and drowning.  I die every night in the belief that I will become alive again tomorrow morning.  If that belief is wrong on one occasion without me knowing it as I fall asleep, I will not have suffered.  It is possible that someone else may suffer as a result of my death.  So if I was killed in my sleep, the sin would not be against me, but against this other person or persons.

Now I come to abortion.  A certain cardinal is currently preaching that abortion is an unholy sin.  I don't agree.  The degree of sentience in an unborn child is minimal.  If for some reason all the parties to the abortion are content that the child-to-be is exterminated, there is no sin.

I now come on to the biggest problem that this planet has, since records began in about five thousand BC.  The natural world, as it has evolved up until this present day, is capable of repairing the damage that human-kind inflicts upon it.  And every human does things to the planet that injures its systems  However, the repair process has its limits.  And I believe that we have passed that limit, or are very close to it.  There are just too many people on this planet!  It has been said on a number of occasions that religion is an evil.  Currently the Catholic world and the Muslim world appear to be trying to outbreed each other, and 'to hell with the consequences'.

China is looked on by the West as a huge challenge.  That is probably true, but China is the only country in the world that is actively trying to limit its population.   Recently on TV there was a report of a forced abortion on a woman who wanted a second child.  The story was portrayed as a real sob-story, but if this woman was allowed to break that rule, everyone else in that country would expect to be permitted to break it as well.  We are facing a total disaster if we continue at the present rate.  In fact we cannot be certain that disaster is not already on its way.

So, is human life scared?  I don't think so.  And neither do a lot of people.  I was in favour of going into Iraq using the evidence that was provided at the time.  We now know that that evidence was wrong.  But I'm not going to castigate any person for what may well have been a true error; and we make errors!  But if human life is sacred, why was the heavy-handed approach used to unseat Saddam?  It killed a lot of innocent people.  The government are not that stupid that they didn't expect civilian casualties.  So the 'co-lateral damage' was acceptable!  Ergo, those people were not sacred!

I now carry my argument a little wider in saying that a lot of people are dispensable, for the most humane of reasons.  Everybody who wishes to commit suicide, i believe, should be allowed to do so.  Give then the facilities to do it painlessly and in private.  It may be argued that wishing to end one's life demonstrates a mental defectiveness -- I won't dispute that argument, but with the planet being so overcrowded, they would be doing the rest of humanity a favour.

People who know that they have an incurable disease and want to speed up the inevitable, should not only be allowed to do it, but should be assisted in that task. I know the arguments against permitting suicide, but other countries have good systems in place to stop the activity being abused.  And we could easily copy countries like Switzerland.  No, it the old-old story, parliament is running scared of the "do-good" brigade who are a vocal set of people who typify the Law of Unintended Consequences.  Many, although not all, are religious nutters who believe that "I know best"