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Authors: Guy P. Harrison
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a small
boat up the Momon River in the Amazon rain forest, where a symphony of creatures serenaded me. Soaring silently in a hot-air balloon
only a couple of hundred feet above Kenya's Masai Mara, I watched
giraffes stir beneath me as the morning sun rose. Inside a tiny submersible, I enjoyed observing unforgettable deep-water wonders.
Memorable as they may be, however, such encounters with beauty
could never cause me to ignore or deny nature's ugly side.
It is a fact that the daily routine of life on Earth is a continual
bloodbath of fear, suffering, and death. No Hollywood horror film
could ever begin to approach the grisly reality of a single minute's
activity in the animal kingdom. Every moment of every day, it is business as usual for animals to be eaten alive or even to have their internal
organs devoured from within by parasites. For example, some bugs
suffer that terrible fate when they are paralyzed by a particularly
creepy species of wasp. This wasp injects an egg into the victim's
body, converting it into an incubation chamber for their offspring. As
the larva develops, it slowly eats its living host from the inside out.
The larva is careful to save the most vital organs for last so the host
stays fresh and alive for as long as possible. I have seen a video of this
process. It's not pretty.
In Africa I saw two lion cubs gnawing on a zebra the older lions
of the pride had taken down. Their victim was still alive, even as they
worked to tear open its abdomen to devour the warm guts. It was difficult to watch an animal experience such misery. I will never forget
the blood-soaked faces and ghoulish excitement in the lion cubs' eyes.
But we cannot blame the parasitic wasp or the lion cub for such horrifying behavior. They are merely doing what nature demands of them. Or, as believers might say, they are merely doing what the god who
created them wanted them to do. The latter explanation is a bit more
difficult to understand, in my opinion.
Failure and pain is the norm for life on this planet, predation and
extinction the rule. Of all the species that have ever lived, scientists
estimate that more than 98 percent have gone extinct. If the daily routines of the animal kingdom in this "beautiful world" are the work of
a god, then I am confident almost any one of us could do far better if
we possessed magical powers. It could not be that hard to come up
with a system that is more humane-more beautiful-than the continual slaughter and constant failure that goes on day and night here on
the "Blue Marble." To begin with, we could base life on photosynthesis and chemosynthesis in order to avoid this predator-prey madness that stains our world with so much blood. Had a human with a
minimal sense of decency created this world, we might not have all
these mosquitoes that spread misery and death in developing nations
by delivering viruses into the bloodstream of millions of peopleincluding children. Then again, one could just leave lethal viruses out
of the creation recipe and not have to worry about mosquitoes, or that
terrible influenza germ that killed millions of people in the twentieth
century. Most species of bacteria do good work but there are a few we
might be better off without. In a world created with compassion in
mind, the populations of various species could be controlled by tinkering with fertility rates rather than disease and predation. Who
knows what this world would look like if you or I had created it? I am
confident, however, that it would be a lot more beautiful than the one
we have now, the one believers say their god is responsible for.
CHAPTER 8 BIBLIOGRAPHY AND
RECOMMENDED READING
"Causes of Poverty: Poverty Facts and Stats." Global Issues, 2007.
http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Facts.asp.
Leach, Susan Llewelyn. "Slavery Is Not Dead, Just Less Recognizable."
Christian Science Monitor, September 1, 2004.
"Military: World Wide Military Expenditures."
boat up the Momon River in the Amazon rain forest, where a symphony of creatures serenaded me. Soaring silently in a hot-air balloon
only a couple of hundred feet above Kenya's Masai Mara, I watched
giraffes stir beneath me as the morning sun rose. Inside a tiny submersible, I enjoyed observing unforgettable deep-water wonders.
Memorable as they may be, however, such encounters with beauty
could never cause me to ignore or deny nature's ugly side.
It is a fact that the daily routine of life on Earth is a continual
bloodbath of fear, suffering, and death. No Hollywood horror film
could ever begin to approach the grisly reality of a single minute's
activity in the animal kingdom. Every moment of every day, it is business as usual for animals to be eaten alive or even to have their internal
organs devoured from within by parasites. For example, some bugs
suffer that terrible fate when they are paralyzed by a particularly
creepy species of wasp. This wasp injects an egg into the victim's
body, converting it into an incubation chamber for their offspring. As
the larva develops, it slowly eats its living host from the inside out.
The larva is careful to save the most vital organs for last so the host
stays fresh and alive for as long as possible. I have seen a video of this
process. It's not pretty.
In Africa I saw two lion cubs gnawing on a zebra the older lions
of the pride had taken down. Their victim was still alive, even as they
worked to tear open its abdomen to devour the warm guts. It was difficult to watch an animal experience such misery. I will never forget
the blood-soaked faces and ghoulish excitement in the lion cubs' eyes.
But we cannot blame the parasitic wasp or the lion cub for such horrifying behavior. They are merely doing what nature demands of them. Or, as believers might say, they are merely doing what the god who
created them wanted them to do. The latter explanation is a bit more
difficult to understand, in my opinion.
Failure and pain is the norm for life on this planet, predation and
extinction the rule. Of all the species that have ever lived, scientists
estimate that more than 98 percent have gone extinct. If the daily routines of the animal kingdom in this "beautiful world" are the work of
a god, then I am confident almost any one of us could do far better if
we possessed magical powers. It could not be that hard to come up
with a system that is more humane-more beautiful-than the continual slaughter and constant failure that goes on day and night here on
the "Blue Marble." To begin with, we could base life on photosynthesis and chemosynthesis in order to avoid this predator-prey madness that stains our world with so much blood. Had a human with a
minimal sense of decency created this world, we might not have all
these mosquitoes that spread misery and death in developing nations
by delivering viruses into the bloodstream of millions of peopleincluding children. Then again, one could just leave lethal viruses out
of the creation recipe and not have to worry about mosquitoes, or that
terrible influenza germ that killed millions of people in the twentieth
century. Most species of bacteria do good work but there are a few we
might be better off without. In a world created with compassion in
mind, the populations of various species could be controlled by tinkering with fertility rates rather than disease and predation. Who
knows what this world would look like if you or I had created it? I am
confident, however, that it would be a lot more beautiful than the one
we have now, the one believers say their god is responsible for.
CHAPTER 8 BIBLIOGRAPHY AND
RECOMMENDED READING
"Causes of Poverty: Poverty Facts and Stats." Global Issues, 2007.
http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Facts.asp.
Leach, Susan Llewelyn. "Slavery Is Not Dead, Just Less Recognizable."
Christian Science Monitor, September 1, 2004.
"Military: World Wide Military Expenditures."
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