One day in Spain a Spaniard might be able to sue a gorilla, or better yet, be sued by a gorilla. The Socialist Party in Spain will introduce a bill to the Congress of Deputies to give simians (chimpanzees, gorillas, and apes) the same moral and legal protections given to human beings. Why? Because our DNA is so similar! This is where evolutionary, reductionistic thinking leads: the obliteration of the doctrine of human exceptionalism (the idea that humans are qualitatively different from all other animals. These people reason that if humans are valuable, and simians are genetically comparable to humans, simians must be just as valuable as humans. They fail to realize that our value is not rooted in our DNA, but in the One who created us. We are valuable because we are created in the image of God. But what else should we expect from materialists? In a materialistic worldview DNA and functionality are the only contenders for value-defining properties. There can be no such thing as transcendent value beyond the material realm. Check out the news release for yourself.
April 27, 2006
Spain Seeks to Include Chimps as “Persons”
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Bioethics, Politics[3] Comments
Thinking to Believe 
April 27, 2006 at 1:22 pm
I thought you were kidding when I read your title. This is crazy stuff. When did “similar” ever have the same definition as “same”? I wonder if these people in the “Socialist Party” love their own {human} race as much as they love apes. I wonder how they think the apes are going to benefit from this. I wonder how they feel they can skip over the science realm and go straight to the legal realm. They are asking the legal realm to include apes in the category of persons, but did they ask the science realm to do this? It’s like they didn’t ask Dad first, because they know he would said no, so they ran to Mom.
Ugh. sigh.
I do believe God is pleased {and values} ALL of his creation. He made a lot of things, and saw that it was all good, but only blessed the living creatures and people.(Genesis 1 22,28). {I don’t see where he blessed the moon, the sun or the stars.}
I also read in Genesis 7:15 that the breath of life is in the animals too. ->(And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. Genesis 7:15)
With this said, I believe every piece of creation is important, especially parts of his creation that have the breath of life.
Perhaps everything that has the “breath of life” has some “level of sufficient mental faculties and emotional life.” I’m ok with that. However, the bottom line is that God made humans in his image, and after his likeness. He also gave them dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Because the world is so upside down, people are confused on the order of thing.
There are people that cling to a tree, while shooting a gun at their human brothers and sisters. CRAZY!!
There are people that are lobbying for legal rights for apes, but are overlooking the homeless in the streets of San Francisco.
CRAZY!
Am I glad that there are people that fight for preservation of animals, forests, and water sources? Of course! Do I think apes should have legal right? Of course not.
LikeLike
April 27, 2006 at 1:23 pm
Just a thought….Maybe this is an extreme stunt for publicity? To get the word out about their cause and their works…
If so, seems to be working.
LikeLike
May 1, 2006 at 12:43 pm
Linda, good posts. There is no question that gorillas and orangutans are similar. We look similar and we even act somewhat similar. I saw a special recently about a gorilla that was raised by humans. The gorilla understood its owners and even communicated with them via sign language. It was utterly amazing. Even my trips to the zoo support my belief in our amazing similarities. Watching orangutans is kind of scary. They behave so much like humans in some ways that I almost felt bad for watching them like they were “just animals.” Of course what separates us from apes is our differences. Even in the abilities that we share to some degree, we far surpass them. We have rational and moral abilities that they do not have. We have creative abilities that they could not even dream of. I’ve never seen a monkey build anything like the Eiffel Tower! So much more could be said but I’ll stop there.
Jason
LikeLike