PSYCHOLOGY BUSKING a la wordswords: EARTH: A DIVINIAN SHANGRI-LA OR A DARWINIAN SLAUGHTERHOUSE?!

THE GARDEN OF EDEN

I shall begin with ALBERT EINSTEIN, a scholar of the Hebrew Christian bible, who believed the literal translations of bible stories to be no more than primitive legends and childish superstitions. For myself, I must admit, some of the more famous ones are certainly entertaining! And there are lots of examples.

There are stories of talking animals, the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and Balaam’s talking donkey. There’s the story of Noah's ark and, of course, the Flood that prompted the Ark.

There is the story of God creating heaven and earth in just six days, then having to rest on the seventh. There is the immaculate conception, the virgin birth of Jesus, and then the story of the crucifixion of Jesus, then his rising from the dead three days later. Jesus also raises from the dead, his good friend, Lazarus. There are the mariner’s stories of Jonah being swallowed by a whale and living in its belly for three days, the story of Moses parting the Red Sea, and the story of Peter the Apostle and Jesus walking on water. And still relating to water, there is the story of Jesus turning water into wine. There is a tall Tower of Babel story of how different languages came to be. And then there is a story of Lot's wife, turning into a pillar of salt.

Yes. Believing in the narrative of creation and the Garden of Eden comes with many conditions.

And then along comes CHARLES DARWIN, who as a young man studied to be an Anglican cleric, but as a senior at 50 years of age writes THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.

Darwin’s THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, (1859), is the foundation of evolutionary biology. In it, evolution is defined as descent with modification, promoting the idea that species change over time, and share a common ancestor. Of course, this scientific idea was severely rejected by several religious denominations and rejected only because it contradicted the concept of a divine creator, as presented in the bible stories.

As presented in the bible, Adam and Eve and every other creature lived in idyllic splendor in the grass and sea until that talking serpent came along. But according to Darwin, even in the beginning (pun intended), all creatures great and small were just part of a hellish (another pun intended) food chain.

In Darwin’s forests the grasses are devoured by the rabbits who are in turn devoured by the foxes. In Darwin’s seas, the plankton is eaten by the krill which are eaten by the smaller fishes who are in turn devoured by the sharks. In Darwin’s jungles, the tree fruit are eaten by the monkeys who are then eaten by the jaguar.

Yes. Darwin's animal food chains are cruel and gruesome, certainly favoring the top-of-the-chain apex predators as the jaguars, the lions, the wolves, the eagles, the sharks, the crocodiles, the orcas, the grizzly bears, and, of course, the humans!

Humans hunt, yes, but not as the other apex predators. Humans hunt, too, for pleasure. In the beginning (pun intended again), humans gathered and hunted for food. Nowadays, humans hunt for fun and for trophies. Humans call this type hunting, “sport.”

(Notez bien. In my current view, killing animals for sport, taking another creature’s life when not necessary, is just selfish and ego boosting.)

But I am not without guilt. In my pre-teen years my buddies and I would march across farmers’ fields enroute to what we called, Burk’s Pasture, where, in the summertime, we’d snare and trap gophers all day long. As teenagers, my buddies and I shot gophers with .177 caliber pellet guns, and as we aged, with .22 caliber rifles. As an emerging adult, every fall I would sling my double-barrel 20 gauge shot gun and hunt ducks and partridges and pheasants with my grandfather. (Those days I was a duck hunter and whenever I packed my .30-30 Winchester, a deer hunter.)

Factoid: I agree that the idea of Hunting and Conservation can be a philosophy, as it was for my grandfather. He was born in 1901 and hunted practically every day of his life. To my recollection (and I was raised by my grandfather and grandmother) he never once purchased meat from a retailer. Our deep freeze was filled with wild game that he, himself, had hunted.

Sadly, my lust for the hunt continued into my young adulthood. Even as a first-year high school English teacher, most weekends during my summer holidays, I’d drive back to my hometown, pick up my childhood friend who had now owned the local hotel, load a couple rifles along with a couple six-packs of beer, and drive to Burk’s Pasture to spend many a lazy afternoon shooting the breeze and shooting gophers!

Now I never hunt. And yes, I am a hypocrite. Though I loathe the act of hunting, I love the taste of wild game. Go figure.

Close to closing, I wish to offer you (readers) a few candies to crunch on. I’ve borrowed this “candies” metaphor from Emily Carr and her scraps-of-nothing manuscript entitled “Hundreds and Thousands.”

There is no better study than that of the human condition. Being human is a remarkable capacity. The human species has produced Beethoven and Shakespeare, Hitler and Hussein, Donald Duck and Donald Trump. No other creature hope and dream and anticipate (from my master’s thesis, ONE HUNDRED DAYS AT THE HOUSE OF CONCORD, 1994).

Are we closest to angels? Or to apes? Are our species beginnings specious?

If God were so all powerful and benevolent, why on earth and in Heaven’s name would he create such a slaughterhouse? Wouldn’t we best be living in a continuous Garden of Eden where no creature ever dies? A Garden of Eden that when overcrowded, we, inhabitants, could simply move on to another planet or universe or even multiverse?

And our purpose of life?! It’s obvious that we, no matter our culture, love to propagate (pun intended)! Methinks the empirical evidence is clear. There is only one purpose, and that one is for each our own! Thinking otherwise suggests that we are being manipulated by something more powerful than ourselves. “NATURE” would objectively fit that notion, whereas “GOD” would subjectively fit that notion. Hmmm.

ARE WE THE PEOPLE of a DIVINIAN SHANGRI-LA or a DARWINIAN SLAUGHTERHOUSE?!

And not meaning to vilify anyone, but if there really is a GOD, and GOD created man in his own image, then knowing what I know of the mercurial nature of man/mankind/humankind, there will be HELL to endure forever and ever! YIKES and AMEN!

Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week: