Valentine's Day ...exploring our feelings, and reaching out with our hearts. Okay, we had a great day too ...and just because other people didn't, doesn't mean I'm going to be miserable and sad just because someone in the world is going through difficult times.

That being said, I was not about to steal the joy ...but do you know what happened yesterday, in another part of the world?

Belgium legalized euthanasia in 2002 for those in "constant and unbearable physical or mental suffering that cannot be alleviated." Minors were included in the original proposals but were left out of the final legislation for political reasons.

The new bill would extend the "right to die" to those under the age of 18 only under certain strict conditions, including that the child is judged able to understand what euthanasia means. Consent of parents or guardians must also be given.

The lower house of the Belgian Parliament adopted a bill that extends the right to euthanasia for minors, the Parliament said yesterday on its official Twitter account. The law passed 86 to 44 with 12 abstentions.

That followed a vote by the country's Senate in December supporting the measure. The next step would see the bill go to the king, Philippe, to be signed into law.

Now many people would say it is only right to allow those who are suffering to be able to alleviate the pain.  But, laws are left to interpretation.  If you read what was said in the 2002 legislation, it states "unbearable physical or mental suffering that cannot be alleviated". The term 'mental suffering' could mean almost anything.  I do not believe this is a step in the right direction. 

The indignation was clearly there, "To what purpose is this waste?"  

"For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor."

In Matthew 26:11, Jesus said ..."The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me."

Ray Comfort does well in explaining how we often don't look at this present life as if things are going wrong ...unless we clearly see that they are. 

And we don't look much past our own noses to read what clearly is stated about others.  We mostly busy ourselves with keeping our minds active on things that will actively keep our minds inactive.

Ray Comfort wrote a book, entitled, Hell's Best Kept Secret ---and I challenge anyone to read just the first fourteen pages ---that's not even a chapter, but if you read those first few pages, you will likely read the entire book.

On page ten, a subheading reads, Who Needs a Parachute?  And as you read the next four pages, you should realize why so many people in this world are eager to hear the gospel message.

Most people that I know would rather get a massage than a message.  A true message is often challenging. A massage strokes the ego, makes you feel good, and shuts out the grind of the day ---while a message may do the exact opposite.

Those who are suffering ...most often don't want a massage, as they likely have been rubbed the wrong way. 

At times they may question why they are suffering, but most of the time they know why and look to your sincere effort to help.

Carl Sagan said, "One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.

Dinesh D'Souza made a film entitled, 2016.  His efforts were to gain insight and understanding into why people think as they do ...to which he felt relevant to a particular case that currently is affecting all our lives.

I also wanted to gain some insight into the person whom I've quoted above, Carl Sagan. Though I do not believe a person's past wholly defines them, nor should it, I do believe the past can aid in giving us insight. And Carl Sagan was giving his insight as he looked at lessons of history.  So, I looked up the history of Carl's life also ...not in an attempt to define him, but to better understand, and perhaps see where some of his ideas may have come from.

Carl Sagan's thoughts have been admired and have had an impact upon our lives.  Personally, I am not of the belief that if a person disagrees with one thing about a person, that the remainder of anything however remotely associated with that person ...should be disregarded as valueless.  Therefore, I am in agreement with Carl's statement that we often get to the point where we become no longer interested in finding out the truth because it becomes too painful to admit that we've been taken. Or perhaps our mind just works in the way where we boldly defend what we've already committed to believe ...partly due in fact that it's always more fun to pursue forward in adventure than to have to backtrack and recant.

Carl's family seemed to attempt to instill and preserve Carl's optimistic and adventurous spirit.  His sister reportedly said that their mom tried to protect Carl from the fact that relatives were caught up in the Holocaust. The family encouraged his positive sense of wonder ...as any good parents should.

I wanted to read of Carl Sagan's view on life, as it may give insight into the discussion I began ...on the changing nature of the value of it.  I saw how Carl headed up the SETI, an organization aiming its sights on Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.  Reading an excerpt on that subject, I saw that Carl felt we should not attempt to travel to Mars ...as it did not seem right to him that we interfere with life there.

Upon reading this, I then became interested in how he viewed life in a much closer environment ...that of the womb.

I read an article written by himself and his wife, Ann Druyan, entitled,

“Abortion: Is it Possible to be both “Pro-life” and “Pro-Choice”?”

Carl and Ann seemed to be stating many facts, and it seemed they were definitely for 'life' ...yet they seemed to be championing all life, inclusive of how we butcher other species for our own consumption.  Then adding to the discussion as to how exactly to define the conception of life ...of course, it mentioned the "billions upon billions of years".

I realized at this point, another sad fact that many people use to help define their middle-of-the-road stance. It is a principle that I disagree with and don't live by, but here it is: "Since we are inconsistent (by whatever standard), we should fairly level the playing field and accept some aspect of compromise in relation to the inconsistency."

It could also be said that this is not far from the view that since someone else got away with it, why can't we?

Carl and Ann admitted it was a slippery slope, and that nobody wants to take a stance against freedom or life ...and it appeared neither did they.  But, the question becomes "Whose freedom, and whose life is it that we are placing the most value upon?"  It would appear the answer would be ...our own.

"By placing harmless electrodes on a subject's head, scientists can measure the electrical activity produced by the network of neurons inside the skull. Different kinds of mental activity show different kinds of brain waves. But brain waves with regular patterns typical of adult human brains do not appear in the fetus until about the 30th week of pregnancy--near the beginning of the third trimester. Fetuses younger than this--however alive and active they may be--lack the necessary brain architecture. They cannot yet think."

"Acquiescing in the killing of any living creature, especially one that might later become a baby, is troublesome and painful. But we've rejected the extremes of "always" and "never," and this puts us--like it or not--on the slippery slope. If we are forced to choose a developmental criterion, then this is where we draw the line: with the beginning of characteristically human thinking ..."

"Again, we offer for consideration the earliest onset of human thinking as that criterion."

This was the end of a very long consideration for one point ...when is a child considered human?  And it seems that many others reason this same way, so I feel it's relevant to present the thoughts as they appeared to me ...and appeared very wrong.  As I said, the article did not discuss so much our intrinsic values of freedom and life ...to the contrary, it seemed to view it too much from a scientific system of values.  I don't see how values are scientific ...and if the science has proven anything, it has proven that there is a life in that womb.

And science finds its better place when it helps us understand He who created life ...and He who created order in the universe for our benefit.  Sadly, Carl Sagan's scientific methods involving both 'wonder' and 'skepticism' ...exercised his personal option of finding wonder with the created universe, and being skeptical about the Creator of it.

And if we use human thinking as the criterion for the value of life, no wonder there are those in the medical field who are so politically swayed ...that they too could use human thinking as the criterion.

If this were the case, how much easier is it to view those who are handicapped, or mentally retarded ...as not having the characteristic 'human thinking' of typical adult brains.  Must we also define 'typical' and 'adult'??

There are religions that we would call bad religion ...and nations in the past who've eliminated those whom they thought were not 'typical' of them.  They actually eliminated those who were critical of them.  And it begins with indoctrinating people to think anyone who is critical of, or disagrees ...are a threat, and even akin to the enemy.

We would then, never admit, as Carl said, "The bamboozle has captured us."