Excerpt #94 from my book, Religion, An Obstacle to Human Progress
Life is about survival and reproduction.
Every living thing that flies, swims, crawls, walks, runs, or is stationery is fixed on two goals: Making it to tomorrow and creating more life.
From that basic equation, all behavior, however expressed, follows.
LIFE IS SERIOUS BUSINESS.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference. – Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden
WE EAT OTHER ANIMAL’S BABIES.
There is individuality but not independence existence.
To think differently is to delude ourselves.
We depend on each other and our ecological systems for existence and survival.
We are each a part of a system of relationships that embraces family, friends, neighbors, business associates, organizations, communities, nations, and family of nations.
No one and nothing exists independently.
Comedian Will Rogers once quipped, “We sew wild oats six days a week. On the seventh, we pray to our religion for crop failure.”
The problem is that our prayers have not been answered.
Our ‘wildoats’ have taken root.
We have grown many problems and have created a destructive and unsustainable momentum.
The evidence is everywhere apparent.
We are aware of it.
Our survival instincts know we are in trouble.
Because of our population (and adding in excess of 200,000 more people every day), and that we are a young species largely ignorant of the physical reality and behavioral demands of the reality in which we exist (and which enables us to exist), we have created an interrelated web of life-threatening environmental problems.
EXPLOITATION INVITES RETRIBUTION.
“…our home – this planet – is in dire straits, and getting worse. Whether we look at the oceans, the forests, the soil, our bodies, our water, or our air, one conclusion is readily apparent: this planet
is being destroyed, and our life support systems – along with the habitat and the life support systems of other living creatures – are being destroyed in the process.
“There’s no shortage of people who have been paying attention, documenting our demise, and even proposing new ways for people, cities, and the nation to generate renewable energy, practice
sustainable agriculture, design livable neighborhoods, protect quality of life.
“So, after close to fifty years of environmental activism, after thousands of groups and hundreds of thousands of people have mobilized, after people have given many millions of dollars to the major environmental groups in D.C., after millions of environmental permits have been issued and appealed by people and groups, after many environmental laws have been passed, after lawsuits galore have been filed, after solutions galore have been proposed, and after a slew of environmental regulatory agencies have been created, you would think that problems would have been solved and restoration begun.
“You’d be wrong.
“On one hand, there has been a major change in public consciousness about environmental issues over the past four decades. Due to that change and back-breaking work, community activists have stopped an incinerator here, or a landfill there, after pledging chunks of our lives – and resources we didn’t have – to stopping specific projects.
“But when you examine almost every measurable criteria by which we evaluate the health of the planet and our communities, things have gotten worse.” – Thomas Alan Linzey, Esq. from his address “Sins of the Fathers: How Corporations Use the Constitution and Environmental Law to Plunder Communities and Nature”