Are We Men Or Animals?

Sesame Street and psychiatric journals tell us that the definition of family has been changed to include almost anything.  The traditional view says that God created a world where humans will be happiest and feel most fulfilled when one mother and one father unite in marriage and raise their children together.  Our modern culture tells us that the traditional family is at best one option, and at worst an antiquated, repressive phenomenon. …

If there is one complex machine for which the manufacturer’s instruction manual is certainly needed, it is the wondrous machine we call marriage.

The marriage model designed by the world’s greatest matchmaker is based on fundamental differences between animals and humans.  At best, a male animal views its female as a commodity.  In some species she is nothing more than an asset to help him respond to one of nature’s more insistent calls.  To the chimpanzee, for instance, females are to be fought over and then impregnated.  Frighteningly, the same behavior is already starting to appear among young American males who have been deprived of a religious heritage.  But then, why should that surprise us?  Without God, we are animals; it follows that we will begin to resemble them.  Perhaps the question is not “Did apes become humans?” as much as it ought to be “Are humans becoming apes?”  As marriage becomes less relevant to those Americans on the Left end of the rope, our resemblance to the wild kingdom becomes more evident.  Without marriage, weaker humans become more dependent on government.  In the animal world, weaker animals depend on the zoo keeper to maintain their health and security.  Without marriage, men can tend to become predators and rogues.  This again is reminiscent of the jungle, barnyard, or zoo.  Marriage is almost more important for the preservation of society than it is to the individual male.

Of course a human male can find physical satisfaction without marriage.  In all ages, this has been possible for a fee or by using force; in our own enlightened times it’s willingly offered for free by foolish women to almost any man.  For an animal, this is sufficient.  It can find physical release and propagate its gene pool.  Yet mankind, which can achieve these goals without marrying, still seeks to marry.  Men guided by a biblical blueprint are unique in desiring and appreciating women for spiritual reasons.  Wives not only provide companionship, love, and sex, but they also help men transcend their lower natures to become true men as God designed them to be.

The lesson of Genesis is that men have only two choices.  They can aspire to be real men, or they can emulate animals.  Which they choose will be revealed best by how they treat women and their children.  If they dedicate their lives to one woman, supporting her, nurturing her and growing into a giver through her, they are men, not animals.  If each of their children is regarded as precious jewels to be gradually exposed to a wondrous world, they are men, not animals.  Men who use women merely for selfish gratification live by the secular, animalistic worldview.  Without the loving, loyal commitment of marriage as God designed it, such men may have spawn but never children.

Which of these two paths any society follows depends on whether the Bible is considered a blueprint or a relic.  If you doubt this assertion, just visit locations in America that stand as tribute to each of those incompatible views.  Visit communities where people follow God’s ways seriously and yo will find, for the most part, stable homes, loving parents, and children on their way to becoming model citizens.  Compare these beacons of home life with parts of some American cities regarded as crowning achievements of government-sponsored secular fundamentalism [Detroit, Chicago, et al] —and notice the profound difference.  Which path, really, is best for present-and-future America?

Rabbi Daniel Lapin, "America's Real War," pg.177-179