I find these days that when I'm looking for an emotional confirmation that God exists--you know, that warm or overwhelming feeling--I usually turn to nature and just absorb its beautiful complexity and simpleness. But of course that's not a viable proof of God's existence because c'mon, that warm feeling in your bosom is what Mormons use as confirmation of their salvation, and I can get that warm feeling from seeing a kitten.
I like kittens.
So let's try this instead. Here we are, as humans, the top of the heap when it comes to intelligent animal life on this planet. (Now, I recognize that some people might want to debate this and talk about gorillas or dolphins or something. Those people are dumb.) We do stuff, lots of stuff, like build things and invent things and understand things. The list goes on. We almost have cool spaceships, for example. And other animals don't do nearly what we do. I mean, has a monkey ever invented a jet engine? No. And don't leave any comments about how funny it would be. Monkeys are overrated. Now, a shark in a race car? We're talking awesome.
Back to task. Humans. Lots of them. For a long time. And all of us, always, have had thoughts about our impending mortality. It's quite the defining moment of our lives. And some things are constant throughout the history of people: we kill each other, we love each other, we make things, we think things. And we have a very hard time accepting that we might be a cosmic accident or that our lives have no meaning. Although it takes many forms, we are really stuck on this idea of otherworld. Other than all the empires and killing and inventions and exploitation and cultural movements (the history-book history, if you will), we are really stuck on the idea that there is a High Power or whatever out there, even if in the end we choose as individuals not to believe in such things.
I guess the point I'm dancing around is that, for as advanced as we are as a people, why hasn't this simple affection for eternal matters been systematically bred out of us by evolution or intellectual/cultural development? For all our greatness, why do we still get stuck on the God issue? It doesn't matter that we don't agree on the interpretation of who/what this eternal nature of the universe is. Dogs don't have gods or religion. Giraffes either.
"So long, and thanks for all the fish."
PS: I believe in Jesus and the God of the Hebrews (and in the bible alone) because of all the ways to interpret this sense of the eternal, I think He makes the best case. And because of that warm feeling in my bosom when I look at the mountains or kittens.
5 comments:
mountains of kittens = awesome
my dog jack (when not crapping in my room) also = awesome.
I will reply with a deeper thought after I have processed a bit.
"simple affection for eternal matters"
Beautiful.
As for animal intelligence, claiming the highest intelligence by one's own standards is a bit tricky, hmmmm?
the answer is forty-two.
It could also be argued that since we're seemingly the only species that has standards for measuring intelligence, maybe that means we're smarter. Animals are stupid because we shoot them with guns and they haven't invented guns to shoot us back. In fact, animals haven't thought up any new good way to kill us back since we started chucking rocks at them.
The only notable exception being the squirrels on South Green. My sincerest apologies, squirrels.
As far as you're aware.
Anyway, haven't they decided that emotional intelligence is 800,000 times more valuable than whatever other kind of intelligence we're talking about? (See how intelligent I am?)
Plus, one could argue that the non-development of weapons IS an intelligent move. And, I'm done here.
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