Today on Kresta - February 19, 2010

Talking about the Things That Matter Most on Feb. 19

Live from the studios of Real Presence Radio in Fargo, ND

4:00 – Pivot Points: How Humanae Vitae Changed My Life
Dr. George Delgado is a board-certified family physician who now runs Culture of Life Family Services in CA. He offers quality Christ centered medical care including: Giving compassionate whole-person health care to meet the unique physical, psychological, socioeconomic and spiritual need of our patients; Natural Family Planning education; Caring for all those in need, not based on ability to pay; Spiritual direction to women and families in crisis pregnancies; and NaProTECHNOLOGY™ fertility treatment. We talk to him today about his testimony: How Humanae Vitae Changed My Life.

4:40 – America’s Prophet
The exodus story is America's story. Moses is our real founding father. The pilgrims quoted his story. Franklin and Jefferson proposed he appear on the U.S. seal. Washington and Lincoln were called his incarnations. The Statue of Liberty and Superman were molded in his image. Martin Luther King, Jr., invoked him the night before he died. Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama cited him as inspiration. For four hundred years, one figure inspired more Americans than any other. His name is Moses. Bruce Feiler travels through touchstones in American history and traces the biblical prophet's influence from the Mayflower through today. He visits the island where the pilgrims spent their first Sabbath, climbs the bell tower where the Liberty Bell was inscribed with a quote from Moses, retraces the Underground Railroad where "Go Down, Moses" was the national anthem of slaves, and dons the robe Charlton Heston wore in The Ten Commandments. We look at America's Prophet.

5:00 – A Rat Is a Pig Is a Dog Is a Boy: The Human Cost of the Animal Rights Movement
Over the past thirty years, as Wesley J. Smith details in his latest book, the concept of animal rights has been seeping into the very bone marrow of Western culture. One reason for this development is that the term “animal rights” is so often used very loosely, to mean simply being nicer to animals. But although animal rights groups do sometimes focus their activism on promoting animal welfare, the larger movement they represent is actually advancing a radical belief system. For some activists, the animal rights ideology amounts to a quasi religion, one whose central doctrine declares a moral equivalency between the value of animal lives and the value of human lives. Some believe their cause to be so righteous that it entitles them to cross the line from legitimate advocacy to vandalism and harassment, or even terrorism against medical researchers, the fur and food industries, and others they accuse of abusing animals. All people who love animals and recognize their intrinsic worth can agree that human beings owe animals respect, kindness, and humane care. But Smith argues eloquently that our obligation to humanity matters more, and that granting “rights” to animals would inevitably diminish human dignity. We discuss it.