When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are humans that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
Psalm 8
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Last Sunday I posed the question: “Are we alone?” Is the human animal the only intelligent form of life in the universe?
(We could, of course, debate whether we are “intelligent.” But let’s set that aside.)
The post prompted many comments. Everyone agreed that thinking we’re the only intelligent life form in the universe is naive given the expanse and age of the universe (14.5 billion years and still expanding). In fact, innumerable intelligent beings may have already come and gone.
Still, we keep looking into space and emitting radio waves.
Hello. Anybody out there?
But as one reader put it, other life forms may be nothing like us—carbon based, or physical, or even on our wavelength. So it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack without a clue as to what a needle is.
Astrophysicist Avi Loeb, author of Extraterrestrial Life, cherishes our planetary home and our species. But he fears we’ve been too short-sighted given our likely extinction. If a pandemic or a nuclear or climate apocalypse doesn’t kill us all, the sun’s eventual demise will.
But, alas, all species are programmed to survive!
So Loeb and others are conspiring to disperse synthetic human cells (like dandelion seeds) throughout the universe hoping that one or more will alight on another habitable planet and propagate our species long into the future. “Panspermia” in reverse!
(I’m leery. I see reasons to keep us quarantined.)
Loeb was raised in the Jewish tradition. He learned about Eve’s defiant reach for knowledge. (Not even God would stop her!) Loeb also learned the creation story that proclaims human “dominion” over the earth.
But dominion is not domination. Dominion is a responsibility. (A lot of Christians sure misread that one!)
As one reader put it: Alone or not, Earth is our gig.
I don’t believe God “gave” humans dominion. I believe humans discovered their “divine-like power” to create and destroy, a power no other animal has.
Some take that power as a license to exploit and destroy. Others take it as a responsibility to creatively care for the earth and all that dwell therein.
It’s a choice.
We might even say, it’s an IQ test.
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See Paula’s photo “Lenten Rose” on the home page. Posted March 21
Marshall McLuhan’s words are succinct and instructive: “There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew.” Let us work together with intelligence and integrity to preserve our only home, our only gig.
Ancient indigenous cultures have shown us, and do still, how to live in harmony with the Mother upon whose thriving life we depend, Mother Earth. Kill her, we kill ourselves. If understanding that and following suit requires an I.Q. test, we have failed before we pick up the pencil! I don’t think Darwin would see the humor — the irony, maybe!
Ever since human kind stood up from the primordial muck, looked upward into endless space, scratched a wooly head and muttered, “Wha!?”, we as humans have collectively speculated, even hoped that we weren’t alone in this spinning, expanding mass. However, when it comes to seeding ourselves further into the universe, I’ll defer to Buckminster Fuller, who essentially told us that we are already space people, aliens if you will, traveling our little corner of the universe in Spaceship Earth. How useless to continue to look beyond until we solve our problems here in our own little capsule. As my mother used to say, “You can’t run away from yourself, because all you do then is take your problems with you.”
A sacred responsibility, sacred duty, sacred privilege to care for that which nurtures us, gives us life, and provides for our every need! Throughout time, cultures recognised our intimate connection to this earth-and acted accordingly to show gratitude, awe and respect. We have always had wise guidance, and fools too….and more than ever – it’s crystal clear that we are, truly, all in this together.
I didn’t originate this but wish I had. “This pandemic was God’s way of telling us all to go to our rooms and think about what we are doing.” I add to that God—-or whatever we perceive a higher power to be—-and what we are doing not only to our home but to each other.
I never thought I’d be quoting Billy Graham, (even though he was technically Presbyterian), but I give him credit for this one: “The growing possibility of our destroying ourselves and the world with our own neglect and excess is tragic.” I hope everyone watched the back-to-back Richard Attenborough programs on PBS last night.