Dennis Prager Show - The Value of Life: Humans vs. Animals Aired: 2021-03-03 Duration: 08:13 === Humans Are Animals (08:13) === [00:00:00] Kevin Sartwell is a self-professed anarchist, according to the New York Times, as well as in the philosophy department of this college. [00:00:11] Now, his article is titled, Humans Are Animals, Let's Get Over It. [00:00:17] Subheading. [00:00:19] It's astonishing how relentlessly Western philosophy has strained to prove we are not squirrels. [00:00:30] Okay, that's the thesis. [00:00:34] Western philosophy has strained to prove we are not squirrels. [00:00:44] In his view, we are squirrels. [00:00:46] We just may have a more developed brain, but we are squirrels. [00:00:53] For the record, I'd like to repeat something that is a central tenet. [00:00:58] Of my outlook on life, why I am an advocate of the Bible as the greatest repository of wisdom ever written. [00:01:08] It is rooted in distinctions. [00:01:11] I make this point in my commentary on the Bible called The Rational Bible. [00:01:18] By the way, Volume 3, two volumes have come out. [00:01:22] It's the first five volumes of the Bible. [00:01:26] I didn't do it in order. [00:01:28] I did book 2 first, book 1 second, book 5 third. [00:01:33] Book 5 is Deuteronomy. [00:01:35] It is coming out later this year. [00:01:38] You can pre-order it on Amazon. [00:01:42] The Rational Bible. [00:01:45] Because if we don't understand the Bible, we have lost the West. [00:01:49] So here's a perfect example of an idea that the West is based on. [00:01:53] Distinctions. [00:01:56] Distinctions are a way of explaining the biblical outlook. [00:02:02] Man and God are distinct. [00:02:04] Male and female are distinct. [00:02:07] Good and evil are distinct. [00:02:09] Life and death are distinct. [00:02:12] Holy and profane are distinct. [00:02:17] And human and animal are distinct. [00:02:23] Human and animal. [00:02:26] Only the human being is created in God's image. [00:02:29] Now you can say that's all faith. [00:02:32] That's fine. [00:02:32] I don't care. [00:02:35] People act like that dismisses the argument. [00:02:42] I don't deny that being created in God's image is a statement of faith. [00:02:49] Fine. [00:02:51] But without that statement of faith, we are animals. [00:02:56] Why do you think for all of my life I have asked young people, would you save your dog or a stranger first if both were drowning? [00:03:04] To show that feelings have trumped values with regard to the worth of the human being. [00:03:12] PETA, the people of the ethical treatment of animals, I think the most widely funded of the animal rights organizations, has frequently argued that you cannot kill a pig. [00:03:27] To remove a heart valve and save a human's life. [00:03:33] I had Ingrid Newkirk on my show many, many, many years ago, the founder of, or I think the founder, but certainly the head of PETA. And I asked her, do you believe that we are worth, that we are the equivalent of chickens? [00:03:50] And she said yes. [00:03:53] By the way, fascinatingly, I thought to ask her the question, so what is Pete's stance on abortion? [00:04:02] If a chicken is a human, is worth a human life, what is an unborn human? [00:04:11] And they said, we have no position on abortion. [00:04:15] Which is because if they were consistent with their values, of course they'd be opposed to abortion. [00:04:22] You can kill a human fetus in the eighth month, but you can't kill a chicken? [00:04:27] Do you know how absurd that is? [00:04:31] You probably do know how absurd that is. [00:04:33] It's another point. [00:04:34] I shall not belabor. [00:04:38] The distinction between man and animal, or human and animal, if you're offended by the use of the word man, and if you are, you're very bored in life. [00:04:49] Boredom is a major. [00:04:51] Reason for these passions. [00:04:55] If you get upset over that, you have a pretty darn good life. [00:05:04] That you can get upset over the word man instead of human. [00:05:13] Man and animal, human and animal are distinct. [00:05:17] But if you are not Bible-based, If you're not in a Judeo-Christian faith, there's no reason to believe that. [00:05:29] That's why the Times published this article by this professor. [00:05:34] The separation of people, he writes, from and the superiority of people to members of other species is a good candidate for the originating idea of Western thought. [00:05:54] I didn't say this. [00:05:55] I mean, I have. [00:05:57] I've said it a hundred times. [00:05:58] But I didn't write this. [00:06:00] This is an atheist professor saying we are animals writing it. [00:06:05] He recognizes how central to the West the idea that humans and animals are distinct is. [00:06:17] Most people today do not. [00:06:21] They are taught... [00:06:22] By people who believe people are just another animal. [00:06:29] Maybe a bigger brain. [00:06:32] Maybe the unique ability to speak. [00:06:36] Though they'll probably show you some porpoise films that claim otherwise. [00:06:44] But essentially the only creature that speaks. [00:06:50] And that's it. [00:06:51] They will show biological differences, but not differences in worth. [00:06:57] So he's right. [00:06:59] It is a good candidate for the originating idea of Western thought. [00:07:05] And then he adds, and a good candidate for the worst. [00:07:09] Wow. [00:07:10] The worst idea in Western thought is that we're not animals? [00:07:17] One difficult thing. [00:07:19] To face about our animality is that it entails our deaths. [00:07:26] Being an animal is associated throughout philosophy with dying purposelessly and so with living meaninglessly. [00:07:40] That's correct. [00:07:42] So we're just an animal and we die like an animal. [00:07:48] And we think that we have purpose, whereas animals don't delude themselves. [00:07:55] And that's the way it is. [00:07:58] This is what your kids are learning by implication, if not explicitly, when they go to an American secular school, which is nearly all of our schools. [00:08:09] 1-8 Prager 776. I'm Dennis Prager.