If There Is No God...

A selection from If There Is No God...

Is Your Dog’s Life Worth More than a Stranger’s?

Dennis Prager: How many of you own a dog? I am asking this because the question I am about to ask applies only to those of you who own a dog, which, I assume, is the great majority of you. As I’ve often noted, in American Jewish life, dogs are more common than mezuzahs [the parchment with Torah verses inside a case Jews affix to their doorposts].

To those of you who raised your hand, here is a very simple question with three possible answers.

You are walking along a body of water—a river, lake, or ocean—with your dog, when suddenly you notice your dog has fallen into the water and appears to be drowning. About a hundred feet away, you notice a stranger, a person you don’t know, is also drowning. Assuming your dog can’t swim, and also assuming that you would like to save both your dog and the stranger, the question is, who would you try to save first?

There are three possible answers: 1) your dog; 2) the stranger and, I’ll even allow you to vote for 3) you don’t know.

Raise your hand if you would save your dog.

Raise your hand if you would save the stranger.

Raise your hand if your answer is, “I don’t know.”

As happens every time I ask this question, one-third voted for the dog, one-third for the stranger, and one-third was not sure. I would have been shocked if the vote had been lopsided in any direction because it has never happened from Vancouver to Miami. You’re right in the middle, so I would have been startled if your vote had differed, and depending on the answer, I might have moved here!

Those of you who voted for the dog, please raise your hand again because I want to ask a couple of questions.

Okay, the girl in the back, tell me why you would save your dog first.

Audience Member: I’m very, very close to my dog; I’ve had it for, like, 11 years, and he does some wonderful tricks.

(Laughter)

Dennis Prager: So, you’re very close to your dog and your dog does wonderful tricks. Who else voted for their dog?

Yes, why would you save the dog?

Audience Member: You don’t know what the stranger has done.

Dennis Prager: You don’t know what the stranger has done. For those of you who voted for your dog, is it fair to say that a much greater feeling—perhaps even love—for your dog determined your decision?

Many: No.

Dennis Prager: No? If that is not the reason, raise your hand and tell me what other reason you had in mind.

Audience Member: What if the guy is a total nerd?

Dennis Prager: What if the guy is a total nerd? Let’s assume the stranger is not a total nerd. He’s just a regular guy. He was not Mother Theresa, and not a total nerd, just a normal human being. Would you change your vote?

Audience Member: Yes.

Dennis Prager: You would. So, you would save a non-nerd stranger before your dog? You’re definite?

(Laughter)

Dennis Prager: To those of you who voted to save the stranger: How many of you are prepared to get up and say those who voted to save their dog are wrong? Raise your hands. As is always the case, very few of you.

You would?

Audience Member: I would.

Dennis Prager: Stand up. Go ahead and say it.

Audience Member: Because the dog isn’t as important as a person. A person can do a lot more than a dog can.

Dennis Prager: All right. Human life is much more valuable than animal life.

Audience Member: And you can get another dog.

Dennis Prager: Where did you learn the idea that human life is worth more?

Audience Member: Hebrew school.

Dennis Prager: Thanks. Is there anybody else who is prepared to say the ones who voted for the dog are wrong?

You would say they’re wrong?

Audience Member: Yeah.

Dennis Prager: Stand up and look at them and say, "You’re wrong.”

Audience Member: You're right, Dennis. I mean, it's easier to replace a dog than a human being.

Dennis Prager: I'd like to take a re-vote on this. For those of you who own a dog, how many of you would save your dog first?

Okay, the vote count went down somewhat. How many don’t know?

That count also went down somewhat.

How many of you would save the stranger?

And that count went up somewhat. I wish to make a few points and will use them as a jumping-off point for everything we will discuss this weekend.

Those of you who said that you would save your dog first were animated by feelings. Your feelings are understandable, and as I own two dogs, I fully relate to you. You love your dog more than the stranger, and I do too. If either of my dogs, Babe or Lady, were drowning and a stranger was drowning, and you were to ask me, “Who do I love more?” there’s no question that I love my dogs more than the stranger.

However, the whole point of values is to hold that something is more important than your feelings. This may be as important as anything I could say all weekend, and it’s the reason I worry about what’s happening to America. Having values means you say to yourself, “I feel X, but I must do Y”— my feelings are not as important as what is right.

There is no ambivalence in the Bible about this. Human beings are created in God’s image; therefore, human life is sacred and animal life is not. While we cannot abuse animals, because they can feel pain and because we also do damage to our character in the process, the Bible holds that we are infinitely valuable, and animals are not.

By the way, there is a certain irony here that should prove to those of you who voted for your dog that your choice was only based on feelings. Most of you who would save your dog before a stranger would be happy to have a hot dog afterward. You would be happy to eat an animal that was killed just so you could eat it. That demonstrates your choice is based on feelings, that it’s not a worked-out ethical position about the worth of people or the worth of animals.

My friends, my worry in life is that people are animated more by feelings than by values, and this was a good example. Let me go back to the results in Cleveland. Nearly all those kids said they would shoplift if they could get away with it. But even the handful who would not shoplift were not prepared to say the others were wrong. Why? Because, they said, everything is a matter of opinion. I can’t tell them they’re wrong for shoplifting. That’s their value system.

Here is where I want to challenge you and, if I get through to you on this point, I will go back to L.A. a happy man. The great moral tragedy of our time is that feelings have replaced values. And they shouldn’t. Feelings are beautiful. Feelings are wonderful. It’s good to cry, it’s good to laugh, it’s good to love, it’s good to care, it’s good to have compassion. Feelings are what make us human. But values must always come first.

Knowing there is a listing of values, a hierarchy of right and wrong, is crucial. The whole point is to acknowledge there is something higher than my feelings. Hitler felt that Jews should be destroyed. Whites in South Africa felt that apartheid was right, that blacks shouldn’t be allowed to use white bathrooms or white restaurants or go to white businesses or live in white neighborhoods.

Feelings cannot determine what is right. We need something higher than feelings to tell us what is right. People who commit adultery have feelings for the person they commit adultery with. If they didn’t have feelings for the person, they wouldn’t have committed the act. That's why one of the Ten Commandments is “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” because, despite your feelings, some things are right and some things are wrong.

In fact, the reason for all laws is that people cannot rely on their feelings to do what is right. As I already noted, imagine if highways had signs that read: “Speed Limit: Whatever Speed You Feel Like Driving.” Would that work?

That’s a tough battle in life and that is my biggest argument for Bible-based laws and values. They tell me how to act because relying on my feelings doesn’t work.

In fact, the Bible repeatedly warns people not to rely on their hearts. If you want to know why so many people reject Bible-based religions, there it is: Most people want to be governed by their feelings and not have anyone—be it God or a Book—tell them otherwise. The battle in America and the rest of the Western world today is between the Bible (or Judeo-Christian values, as they’re the same thing) and the heart.

Audience Member: I have a question about the dog and the person. What if the person was, like, Hitler or Jeffrey Dahmer [an American serial killer who murdered, performed sexual acts upon, and dismembered seventeen males between 1978 and 1991]? Would you save them, or would you save your dog?