Our Evolutionary Moment:
To see the forest for the sake of the trees, in this venture called life, surely taxes human thought to the maximum. We all live in a 'little gleam of Time between two eternities', all existing as a miniscule part of a God created evolutionary process that evolves via natural selection and an endless process of compensation. Humans---most humans---like to think otherwise, that we are God's chosen species by a God that looks like us, thinks like us, and is heavily involved in each of our personal lives. Most modern notions of God are little advanced from the notions of cavemen---only the peculiarities of the rituals and faith based beliefs vary. We exist in a minute time period in this God created process, rendering it almost impossible to fully appreciate the whole process, or put our own participation of it, in perspective.
Part of my penchant for wandering around, mostly by myself, in these terminational years, is the opportunity to observe and cogitate the whole meaning of life. In some respects there are no answers, there never have been any answers, there isn't going to be any answers---life, in one sarcastic sense, is a bitch and then you die. Still, the challenge is to see and appreciate bits and pieces, however dimly, of this amazing evolutionary process. Those who fail to appreciate diversity and see only good in those who are reflections of themselves, both in thought and appearance, have no appreciation of God's evolutionary process. They are the extremists, the fundamentalists, the terrorists, the blind patriots, the unfettered capitalists, the family valuists, the political purists---all those who see right as some sort of absolute, regardless of circumstances---mental or physical. How can things be so absolute when all of us start with unique genetics and unique environments---we all truly are a part of all that we have met in life. It isn't "there but for the grace of God goes I", or worse even---"there but for my own deserving accomplishments in the eyes of God goes I"----it is really the created process of evolution, driven my the laws of evolution, which has determined our own destiny. What are we to thank God for----our choice of parents, our place of birth, our choice of schools, the economic status of our parents, our inherited religion, etc? Please, let's be serious, neither I nor others remotely earned any such good or bad luck in any of this. It is more like winning the lottery. You don't deserve it, you didn't earn it, you got lucky. Thank God for luck in His evolutionary process.
I can never resolve how to accept widespread injustices and catastrophes----not among humans, not among other animals. I feel about as bad when a pet dies as when a friend or family member dies, I feel as bad for the 2 million Jews who died as I do for the 2 million Vietnamese killed, or for the 100 million people predicted to die from starvation in the next few years. How does one separate personal good fortunes from the far more widespread misfortunes which plague most humans across the globe? I sense we live in the beginning of very tumultuous evolutionary times, when the shit is about to hit the fan, and another of the periodic evolutionary upheavals about to take place. The human species is out of control with our inability to control our own reproduction. Responsible reproduction isn't even part of political debates. How can one even talk about environmental protection when so much of the world suffers from human overpopulation? Recently the biggest world environmental organization stated that one out of every four mammals in existence now is on the verge of extinction. I feel sorry for every species about to become extinct. For me, there is a lot of sadness to see all around, and every tomorrow adds to the list. Evolution has always been a process of compensation. Any species which overpopulates itself becomes extinct or at least suffers dire consequences. 'As times go' is an oxymoron view----Time doesn't go, we Go'. We are not the terminal point in the evolutionary process. The human species may not even be a permanent fixture to our planet. We continue to know more and more about the past evolutionary pathway but we essentially have no predictive ability to foresee future evolutionary paths.
I don't think I have ever doubted the existence of God. Still, after all these years I have no clear concept of God. Just as we know, if some anonymous person sends us a gift, that the gift giver exists----we know that God exists. But we can know nothing about the anonymous gift giver or the nature of God. Unless God is some kind of sadistic and uncaring Being, He is not involved much in our daily lives. Young girls and old women don't get raped, or people starve to death, or people die slow painful deaths from horrible diseases or conditions if there is a GOOD God involved in human daily lives. That does not mean there is not a GOOD God who created the VERY GOOD evolutionary process, a process controlled by the laws of evolution. Good, like so much else, is a relative term. Maybe good can't exist in the absence of bad. A process that begins with single living cells and billions of years later we have the complexity of life existent today, is a GOOD process. If we can't see this GOOD then it is because we cannot see the forest for the sake of the trees, are too hung up on the myopic concentration on ourselves.
I used to pray. I don't anymore. What can I pray for regarding myself that supersedes the more pressing needs of so many others? And isn't it a bit presumptuous to think God will only intercede to do GOOD things if I ask (pray for) him to do it? I just can't feel comfortable reducing God to some kind of partisan goof ball who waits on his favorite flock to beg him for favors or to do something good for someone. I used to pray for just about everything and everybody---like I was running the show, directing God what to do when and how. Every Christmas Eve when the Pope, like clock work, prays for world peace, I really wish he and all others who pretend to have special connections with God, would just stifle themselves. Has there ever been a time in history when world peace magically came about after such demands couched as prayer? I think the two million Jews murdered by the German Nazis probably prayed a lot---an awful lot---and two million died. I think the 2 million Vietnamese killed by American troops probably prayed a lot too, but they died anyway---for what legitimate reason I don't know, although at the time I thought they deserved it. So much for my religious goodness. I will never understand how the Germans could kill 2 million Jews and I don't know how we Americans could kill 2 million Vietnamese. I don't know what the Jews ever did to deserve such a fate and I don't know what the Vietnamese ever did to deserve such a fate. Of course the Germans at the time thought they knew, and at the time myself and most Americans thought we knew why the Vietnamese had to die. So much for trusting our own feelings sometimes about others.
If God does not normally interfere with His own evolutionary laws, those natural laws which govern the whole process of evolution, does He ever interfere? If that question is knowable, it so far escapes me. I kind of assume, if God does, He doesn't do it based on human demands or begging. I think we all tend to assume that God's favorite species in this billion years process of evolution is the human species, and particularly those humans who inherited the same religion as ourselves. The Creationists, those holier than thou operatives with braces on their brains, believe God created them in His own image. They, and they alone, know what God wants, have this personal contact with God, and their ticket to heaven always seems to involve some sort of religious crusade against heathens. It is always best to stay under their radar. There is no fury so intense as religious fury. When God is on your side, God help the others. And all of us, naturally, know whose side God is on. Or do we? It seems every army or side always has a large contingent of clergy of some sort blessing all the killing on the killing fields, each side by the other. With time, I have learned to find all of this senseless partisan religious, ethnic, and cultural dementia beyond the pale. Sometimes I wonder if any of us are really sane? Daffy duckyness seems, at this point in human evolution, to be endemic. Well, not you and I of course. Although sometimes I do wonder about you.
All of us need faith based beliefs to sustain us. It is not too smart to believe in nothing. Ethics exists as part of human nature. Except for psychopaths, just about everyone knows basic right from wrong. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is not exactly rocket science in the field of ethics. I can't say I am aware of any religion which is not based on that simple logical intelligible ethical concept. To what extent any of us manage to do this pretty much defines our ethical status. All else is bullshit. All else is defensive manipulation to justify not doing unto others what you would have them do unto you. Whenever someone is waving some kind of Bible around, run for cover. Of course I am not sure where you can run, we all know, given the right circumstances and encouragement, that neighbors can kill neighbors, friends can kill friends, and strangers can be killed by strangers in all sorts of contrived killing fields. Now that overpopulation and limited natural resources are upon us, killing fields across the world will be the evolutionary compensation. It is predicted that in the next few years 100 million people will starve to death. The current economic chaos is not likely unrelated to the larger picture of evolutionary compensations. Mother Nature, another euphemism for evolution, always bats last. I don't think I will pray since I don't believe the evolutionary process is built around me or anyone else---certainly not anyone else (smile). I would like to walk hand in hand with God, it sounds like a great idea. But more likely I just need to be satisfied to be a part of the evolutionary process for a short period of time, and to have been lucky enough on the evolutionary spinning wheel of fortune, to have have gotten some good cards. Each hand dealt at birth to everyone is different. Humans have the ability to play a bit with the cards dealt, many species don't to such a degree, and so we deal with the cards dealt, and that is about it---that's all she wrote.
Does God ever interfere with the natural laws of evolution? Like others I have faith based beliefs. Unlike the religious rightists I understand the difference between belief and fact. And I don't think my beliefs should be the law of the land. Nor do I believe I have any direct contact with God. The best I think I can do is feel content to be a part of the evolutionary process, to accept good personal fortune for what it is, good fortune---not a directed gift from God---and try to do unto others as I would have them do unto me. Of course the corollary is that I also struggle to accept bad fortune, use what ever cards dealt to me to offset the bad fortune, but also prepare for the inevitable---in the long run we are all dead. The latter will be easier of course if I can control my own dying process. We aren't there yet, but the battle to have that right inches ever closer.
One of my current faith based beliefs is that God may, on occasion, interfere with the laws of evolution. And when He does, it has nothing to do with prayers, or anyone earning His interference. God may well have created some sort of 'free market' evolutionary process, but I believe He may, as needed, make some market corrections. As a student of Lincoln it always seemed to me something greater than Lincoln aided his mental processes from the time of the Lincoln-Douglass debates onward. There is nothing prior to that in anything Lincoln wrote or did which would have predicted his depth of wisdom from that debate period forward. Maybe God used Lincoln to solve the slavery issue. One of my friends refers to me as Professor Doomsday. Fair enough. But from this vantage point I wonder, and mostly hope, that maybe Barack Obama might be the next tool used by God to make a 'market correction' in the evolutionary process. Both Obama and Lincoln seem to have a wisdom which belies their past. Both seem, on face value, to be the most unlikely to lead any great movement, based on their looks or environmental or economic past. Both seem to have an impeccable sense of logic and fairness, both seem to belong to no particular group or religion. Both are genetic mutts, societal misfits, and gifted with an innate kindness that deflects the unkind missiles thrust their way. Lincoln, of course, was not the 'original ape' and Obams is hardly a 'terrorist', religious 'kook' etc. Of course having said all this, I can't prove any of it, but the hope and faith that maybe it might be true, sustains my sanity during these best and worst of times.
So now is, for all us travelers in this 'little gleam of Time between two eternities', our evolutionary moment. We are all here, all in this together, all with front seats, with no personal control over human destiny. That, clearly, is a good thing or we would simply overpopulate and kill each other as a compensatory solution. Of course maybe that is the way it is to go down, a free market evolutionary fall. Individually I guess it doesn't make much difference----the evolutionary process is clearly not about individual members of any species. There is no real evidence that God likes humans any better than other species, much like I don't really like other people any more than I liked my pets. Other species count in the evolutionary process, they really do---all the plants, the insects, mammals, etc. The contribution of such diverse species to the evolutionary process is not measured by one vs the other. Contrary to religious fundamentalists, life doesn't begin at conception---life is a continuum----sperm and eggs are alive---there is no beginning---and in the same vein there is no end----life goes on, the same molecules that make up our own unique 'being' will stick around, continue to combine with other molecules, or alter their form this way or that way, but the basic building blocks of life seem eternal. Let us never forget---Time doesn't go; Time stays. WE GO.
While I still have the chance: Bye. (Smile)
