Killing People Like Pulling Weeds

There are some people who would suggest that atheism is illogical, because without God, no values and morals are possible and thus anything can be permitted. Not so, says Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. He is the Chauncey Stillman Professor of Practical Ethics at Duke University. The professor asserts “Morality is a human creation. We don’t need God to have morality.”

 Sinnott-Armstrong insists that our moral behavior should be utterly independent of religion. He argues against the idea that atheists are immoral people and that society will sink into chaos if it becomes too secular. He strongly denies that absolute moral standards require the existence of God. We can, on our own, he asserts, decide what is right and wrong.

 Well, I’ll be like Fox News. I’ll report and let you decide. In a recent article in the Journal of Medical Ethics, the professor and Franklin G. Miller of the National Institute of Health wrote that “Killing by itself is not morally wrong, although it is still morally wrong to cause total disability.” Wait, wouldn’t killing cause total disability? Oh, sorry; I’ll report, you decide.

 The aim of the article is to justify organ donations immediately after cardiac death. This is when a patient is neurologically damaged and cannot function without a respirator. Within minutes of removing the respirator the organs are harvested. However, the authors tell us honestly that the person is not really dead at this point, because it is possible that the patient’s heart could start beating again.

 (An aside to my reading audience: I just heard in my head the scene from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” when plague victims are being hauled off for burial. One guy is still alive and says in his cockney accent “I’m not dead, yet.” But they still bop him on the head and throw him on the wagon with the other bodies. Now, back to the blog.)

 Transplant surgeons are eager to increase the number of organs for donation. Therefore donation after cardiac death could make a big impact. Still a number of surgeons are suspicious of this procedure because of the nagging thought that these people are not yet really dead. Never fear. The professor and his colleague have an answer, “abandoning the norm against killing.” In other words killing a totally disabled person does them no harm.

 Here is the professor’s logic: life is not “sacred…if killing were wrong just because it is causing death or the loss of life, then the same principle would apply with the same strength to pulling weeds out of a garden. If it is not immoral to weed a garden, then life as such cannot be sacred, and killing as such cannot be morally wrong.”  Ah…the wisdom of higher education! We don’t need God to understand morality. It’s simple—killing people is like pulling weeds. Got it? As I said, I’ll report and you decide.

 But here is what the Bible says. Human beings are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26, 27). Grass is not made in the image of God (here is where the Word of God can help us in our moral choices). Grass is to be used. People are not.