RE: Dominion

Well, it has been a while since I posted anything in here, hasn’t it? Sorry about that. I’ve been busy with the holidays. You know how it is. I hope to have some posts about Christmas to throw at you soon, but in the meantime, I want to give you something to hold you over. So how about this: A comment on one of my old entries, and my reply! The thrills never end. Let’s get to it!

Original Post

Robert Walker said...

You are correct, in a way. We do indeed have dominion over all the earth. And, we may at times want to control all of it. But what should separate us from "beastly protocol" is a central value system. Hence, the rest of the bible. I'm sure if man "ruled" his "dominion" as God stated within Genesis, we would be fine. But we have strayed from that "value system" via independant "higher thinking" most of which end in "isms" (Socialism, Atheism, Denialism, etc).. Once we started "managing" the earth, as God intended, out of our own "wisdom" instead of by HIS value system, things did indeed begin to "go to hell in a handbasket." So I do indeed agree with yo my friend..

December 1, 2009 6:52 AM

My reply:

@Robert Walker: Thanks for your comment. A few questions for you, if I may?

"But what should separate us from "beastly protocol" is a central value system. Hence, the rest of the bible."

Right off the bat, I want to know: Why the Bible over, say, the Koran? I know you'll probably tell me it's because the Bible is true and other books aren't, but I have no reason to agree with you unless you provide some evidence.

"I'm sure if man "ruled" his "dominion" as God stated within Genesis, we would be fine. But we have strayed from that "value system"..."

Excessive quotation marks aside, can you be a bit more specific about what God tells us in Genesis with regard to taking care of the Earth? As far as I am aware, the story goes that God made this awesome garden, threw Man in it, and told him to rule the animals. But the animals weren't wild, and Man didn't need to farm to keep himself alive, so ruling it was pretty easy. After the Fruit event (which I like to call the Biggest Cosmic Setup Ever), God kicked Man out without so much as a "how-to" pamphlet. I don't recall any rules in Genesis about how to handle floods, tornadoes, droughts, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, blizzards... or how to deal with animals that wanted to eat Man, rather than the other way around... or how to balance the desires of a species that was told to "be fruitful and multiply" with the desires of, oh, every other species on the planet, so that one doesn't snuff out the other. I guess what I'm asking is this: can you be a bit more specific about the "value system" you mentioned?

"Once we started "managing" the earth, as God intended, out of our own "wisdom" instead of by HIS value system, things did indeed begin to "go to hell in a handbasket.""

Again, what exactly do you have in mind when you say "HIS value system"? And moreover, unless you're an advocate for living in trees and eating nothing but berries (which I somehow doubt you are), I don't see how any value system could avoid stepping on the toes of other species. According to Genesis, God put Man here to be the ruler of everything, and "fill the earth and subdue it." How are we supposed to do that without bumping off species that would diminish our survival?

I think you missed my point in the last paragraph of my post. It reads: "Whatever the reason, too many people fail to see the difference between earning our place at the top of the food chain and deserving said position. We fought our way to the top. We were not put here."

We're just like every other species because we evolved just like every other species. Humans were lucky enough to be the first species to develop an intellect capable of the kind of thought we've come to take for granted. Along with that intellect came a weird feeling of entitlement: we feel like we were gifted our place at the top of the food chain, rather than realizing the truth; that is, the fact that our species struggled for millions of years to get to this point. If just a few things had gone awry, humanity as we know it wouldn't exist. Perhaps something else would instead? A reptilian race, or a canine or bovine one... who knows? The point here is this: there is simply no way to reconcile what the Bible says God wants us to do (multiply, dominion, subdue, all that) and how we actually feel about doing just that (I hope I'm not the only one who feels bad for wiping out other species). If, however, we face up to our evolutionary back-story, we’ll realize that this is just the way we are, and there isn’t anything wrong with it unless we deem it so. Species come and go. That’s life. It is, to put in simply and in one word, natural. And the sooner we get that through our heads, I think, the sooner we’ll be able to adopt a more reasonable, thoughtful, rational attitude about being the most powerful creatures on the planet.

Thanksgiving

Another Thanksgiving come and gone. I spent the day feasting with family and friends. The air was filled with delicious smells, laughter, and the warmth of hearts sharing their love. It was a really nice day, and I couldn’t have asked for better. I want to pause here a moment and talk about this holiday’s buzzword: gratitude.

Back when I was a believer, I made a habit of thanking God before every meal. I had a standard prayer that I’d rattle off under my breath, something along the lines of, “Dear Lord, thank you for bringing me here to enjoy this meal. Please bless my family and friends, especially those in most need of your help.” I felt that this covered the bases pretty well; get some thankfulness in there, and also pitch in a word for those close to me. It was nice. It felt like a good thing to be in the habit of doing.

But what did being grateful to God really mean to me? The feeling was rooted in my understanding of God’s role in my life, which I didn’t exactly hammer down with any great clarity at the time. It went something like this: God created me. He also created this food, and the reason He did that was so I’d have something to eat. He has been guiding me through my life, encouraging me to make certain choices, and those choices have led me here. And I’m happy here. So I should thank God for His assistance in reaching this place.

Thanking God was, for me, a lot like thanking one’s parents for dinner. They “made” you, they put the food in front of you, and they guided you through life thus far. It’s an easy comparison to make, really.

And all of this is probably pretty obvious or generic; I imagine this is how most believers understand their relationship with God.

I wonder now, looking back, why I didn’t ask more questions about this. Actually, no, I don’t wonder. I know why. I was taught not to ask questions. But if I had asked questions, I would’ve quickly found some problems.

First of all, there are the big questions that the situation calls for: how exactly does God “guide” me anywhere? How does he encourage me to make certain choices, while still allowing my will to be free (and more importantly, the wills of the people in my life who are asking me to make the choices in question)? If God has my life all mapped out in his head, do my “choices” even really matter? Could I have ended up anywhere other than where I was just then, sitting at the table with the plate in front of me?

If we put all that stuff aside and just run with it, a second worry comes up: why thank God? Not just for the food, but for anything? Let me explain with an analogy: say I release you into some kind of gigantic maze, like the ones scientists use on rodents, and observe you from above, to see how you navigate it. I’ve spent lots of time making sure this maze is deviously complicated; there are dead-ends and roadblocks everywhere. Now, I’ve also set little pieces of “cheese” along the way for you (whatever reward “cheese” is depends on the person, I suppose). And as you stagger through this test, wondering where you’re supposed to go and why the hell you’ve ended up in such horrendous situation anyway, you come upon these pieces of cheese. Would you be grateful to me, the test maker (by the way, I’ve also left a bundle of old notes about me, the scientist, written by previous maze-runners. I haven’t actually shown myself to you or anything crazy like that)? Would you express your thankfulness to me for the bountiful rewards I’ve seen fit to give you?

I wouldn’t. You can’t buy my love, God. You can’t just give me stuff and expect me to do whatever you ask. I thought that was what free will was all about? Being able to choose whether or not to love God? The problem here is this: if God is going to put all these material rewards in front of me and then wiggle his eyebrows knowingly and go, “Eh? Eh?”, then you can count me right out of that nonsense. Even the promise of an immaterial reward is just that, a promise. Until I see the pay dirt, I don’t have much of a reason to be swayed by such a reward.

I’ll try to sum this up: I don’t see much reason to thank God for his “gifts”, because they come with a hidden agenda. There is, to borrow the old adage, no such thing as a free lunch. If I cram in a mouthful of the delicious apple pie in front of me, I’m in essence saying, “Ok God, I’ll bite. I’ll accept your gifts, and with them the knowledge that you put them there so that I might believe in you.”

Don’t you see? God has a monopoly on the situation! Where else am I going to go? If I want to turn down his gifts and strike out on my own, I don’t have any other options.

The reason I exist is because God made me; therefore, I begin the game indebted to him. Again I go back to the maze analogy (apt, I think, because a lot of people view this life as a “test”): sure, while trapped in the maze, I might be enjoying these rewards the scientist left for me, but I’m stuck in the maze because of the scientist! I didn’t have any option but to be here! So to be grateful to him for trapping me in a labyrinth and then throwing down treats is a bit… silly. Maybe if I’d been given the option of not being in the maze, then I could see saying “thanks”. But I didn’t get to make that choice. So these “gifts” are permanently tainted by the fact that they’re only put there to placate me and coerce me to follow God’s will.

A kidnapper might be nice and give you candy, but he's still a kidnapper.

All right, enough about this. Thank goodness none of it is true: God didn’t give me my meals because there isn’t a God. Phew.

Thanksgiving is, now, an even better holiday for me. Why? Because instead of thanking some invisible man with a beard for the mountains of grub, I can give my gratitude to those who truly deserve it: my family and friends. I can thank them for being a part this brief, fleeting experience we call living. I can be happy that my brain has produced an epiphenomenon called “me”, and thus I’m able to think about how much I enjoy turkey and stuffing. I can just be glad to be alive now, at this very exciting juncture in human history, instead of a thousand years ago or five hundred years ago or any of the other really nasty time periods prior to the present.

Most of all, I can give thanks for the goodness in the hearts of my fellow human beings. That’s what I was most grateful for this Thanksgiving: the beauty and compassion of everyone around me.

Hope you had a wonderful Turkey Day. I certainly did.