Excerpt #61 from my book, Religion, An Obstacle to Human Progress
We humans are the products of billions of years of evolution.
As biologist and author (Environmental Ethics) Holmes Rolston noted, “In a landscape of contest and conflict, nature has proceeded with a recklessness that is indifferent to life. With indifference, nature casts forth her creatures to slaughter!”
ALL LIFE COMPETES TO LIVE.
Everything is condemned to live by attacking or competing with other life.
An odious scene of violence exists everywhere.
There is no altruistic consideration of others, no justice.
This is the context out of which life arose and the one in which it persists.
SURVIVAL IS A FEROCIOUS SPECTACLE.
“With primitive man it is above all fear that evokes religious notions – fear of hunger, wild beasts, sickness, death. Since at this stage of existence understanding of causal connections is usually poorly developed, the human mind creates illusory beings more or less analogous to itself on whose wills and actions these fearful happenings depend.
“Thus one tries to secure the favor of these beings by carrying out actions and offering sacrifices which, according to tradition handed down from generation to generation, propitiates them or makes them well disposed toward a mortal. This, though not created, is in an important degree stabilized by the formation of a special priestly caste which sets itself up as a mediator between the people and the beings they fear.” – Einstein
This planet is a hostile place.
Life is full of peril.
Those of us who ask for peace and justice ask for something no other life-form enjoys.
Every form of life struggles to survive and reproduce from one day to the next.
It’s not a pretty picture.
In Africa , every morning a gazelle awakens knowing that it must outrun the fastest lion if it wants to stay alive.
Every morning, a lion wakes up knowing it must run faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
EVERY MEAL IS A FUNERAL.