If Tomatoes Could Talk, We Would All Be Carnivores

Based on the John Scopes “Monkey Trial” in 1925, the 1960 motion picture, Inherit the Wind, features two great lawyers arguing the case for and against a science teacher accused of the crime of teaching evolution in Tennessee.
The title springs from the Bible: He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind. Proverbs 11:29.
During the actual trial, Clarence Darrow defended John Scopes against prosecutor William Jennings Bryan.
Scopes was convicted and the crime of teaching evolution was not overturned, as many people today believe.
Forty years later, the U.S. Supreme Court (Epperson v. Arkansas) ruled that evolution could be taught in public schools because it is a science, but creationism could not, because it is religion.
Inherit the Wind is a great, highly entertaining film that has been praised by evolutionists who claim its message is how dangerous can be they who are driven fanatically by their religion.
But again, semantics come into play. Science, for some, has become a religion, and that religion persecutes those who would be its unbelievers as zealously, if not as overtly, as the Inquisition persecuted its heretics.
Animal rights is a branch of that religion of science just as surely as Catholicism is a branch of Christianity.
One branch identifies its members as activists; the other as the faithful. Change the language and you change the perception.
Scientific activists are quick to site that more than 90 percent of the human DNA is identical to that of an ape. They miss the point.
What separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom, they’ll tell us, is our upright posture, an opposable thumb and, most importantly, our power of speech.
If the rest of the animal kingdom possessed a larynx, things would be different, they proclaim.
But I believe there is an additional, more telling attribute that defines us as humans – our humanity.
Whenever a violent, perverted criminal is metaphorically defined as “an animal,” it is usually because his amoral behavior is more identifiable with that of a hyena than that of a man.
An animal acts and reacts on instinct; a man makes conscious decisions.
Mother bear may protect her cub from a predator, but that’s her instinct.
It is the female wildebeest’s instinct to run away with the herd and leave her baby to be devoured alive by a stalking lion.
A human mother must make a conscious decision to save her child or her own life at such times – will she be bear or wildebeest?
Fight or flight is a natural action, depending on the species. Except for Homo sapiens – a human being makes a conscious decision on its action, and each individual varies in that respect.
It is that humanity – that power of reason – that sets us apart, not that small ratio of DNA.
And ultimately, that power of reason defines our spirituality or lack thereof.
Without it, we are little more than baboons with vocal chords.
Contact Vanore at (609) 886-8600 Ext 23 or: jim.v@cmcherald.com