Published: September 05, 2008 07:55 pm         

Every life should be treated as a precious gift

Think of the person whom you believe has made the most important contribution to your life, whether it is one of your parents, a sibling, an in-law or perhaps a friend or a teacher. Consider for a moment what it was that person did and how it affected your life. After you have done that, consider what your life might have been without that person.

Perhaps no one person has made that much difference in your life. It might be that many have helped you become what you are today. We all have our friends, and we all have our heroes. There are friends we can’t imagine life without, and I guess everyone’s life is important to someone. All life has worth and meaning. No one is born to be discarded. It may seem so sometimes, but God uses us all, even if it’s just to make a horrible example of us. Hopefully you are not one of those.

It seems to me that the worth of life has been lost to many of us here in the United States. I personally think it began with government-supported abortions. I am not saying there is never a reason for an abortion, but I do firmly believe that when you can kill an unwanted baby for no good reason without having to answer for it, life has lost its importance. None of us should have the power to indiscriminately take a life. When we can do that, the meaning of life has been diminished.

The city of Gary in the north of our fair state was at one time the murder capital of the United States. I think it bounces around between Los Angeles, D.C., and perhaps it’s Indy by now, I don’t know. What I do know is that there are senseless drive-by shootings. Innocent people are killed for no other reason than they happen to be the one present for an initiation into a gang. No particular reason, just a random selection. Why have we come to this?

Whole families are wiped out down to the smallest innocent child who can’t possibly have any idea of why the gun is being pointed at their person and the trigger pulled. I suppose a lot of it is caused by cocaine sales gone bad, or crack or whatever. Those who deal in dope are unfeeling and merciless. We need much stronger penalties against them. Perhaps for those guilty, an immediate hanging in the town square would serve as a lesson. Certainly those who deal in misery and murder have forfeited any value their life had. They have become the horrible example.

There are those who say the answer is to ban all guns. It was tried in England, and it was tried in Australia. Gun crime increased dramatically in both countries, because the simple fact is that only the law-abiding give up their guns. They are then at the mercy of the criminals who keep theirs, and there will always be the black market supplying guns to any and all. Still, there are many misguided groups trying to promote it in our country.

I have opinions on life. You may or may not agree with them. That doesn’t really matter to me. When it comes to how we got here in the first place, I guess I have to come down on the side of creationism. The idea that a one-celled amoeba or some such thing managed to ooze up out of the primeval mud and turn into us seems utterly ridiculous to me.

Descended from the apes? Well, we still have apes. Why were those poor examples left un-evolved to swing through the trees and eat jungle fruit and plants? Doesn’t seem fair does it? Look at the many races. The people of Africa, the people of Asia and the people of Europe. The blonde people, the black haired people, the brown haired and the red. If we evolved, why did we all evolve differently? To me, there are a lot of holes in Darwin’s theory.

The truth is that his theory of evolution gives no value to life. To Darwin, life was an accident, if you want to believe his theory. I just happen to think that life as considered in sight of God and His creation has value. My parents who loved me and nurtured me were above the animals of the jungle who do the same for their offspring. I didn’t pick Janie out of a tree either. I saw her face in the crowd of skaters as it was intended, and we knew.

Life is no accident. It has purpose, and if we waste our lives, I figure we will have to answer for it. The only theory that gives value to life in my view is to believe that we really were created in the image of God and should therefore value not only our own lives but also the lives of others. I feel if we can’t get back to living our lives under the auspices of the Ten Commandments in the United States, and taking the trouble to acknowledge God at least occasionally, we are in a lot of trouble.

Joe Bowyer is a columnist for the Pharos-Tribune. He can be reached through the newspaper at ptnews@pharostribune.com