Wednesday, March 21, 2012

My Favorite Scene

I try to educate my three growing boys, not only on what the Bible says, but what the world is stating in opposition to the Bible.  One day they're going to run into a true believer in Darwinian Evolution, or Social Justice, or Keynesian Economics, or some other evil, who will present them with a piece of knowledge that, by my own ignorance or mere oversight, I did not teach them.  When a person learns, from some new source, something they didn't formerly know, the human mental bias is to think that the new source of information is more reliable or informed than their previous sources of information (teachers, professors, parents, pastors).  As much as possible, I want my children to already know what the world is teaching, and be able to anticipate their deceptive tactics because I, as their father, have already pulled back the curtain on the history, side-effects, costs, and anti-God claims of those worldviews. 

For Christians that might doubt the wisdom of this opinion, the only defense I would offer is that it is in imitation of the Pauline Epistles, where Paul warned his beloved in the faith of the many evils that were lurking about them, seeking to derail the churches before they had even reached their prime.  For example, I Corinthians 15 finds Paul taking the position, "Suppose the Sadducees are right and there is no resurrection, then what?"

There are many opportunities to take this same approach in our day with the equally un-Biblical worldviews in our day.

For example, communism would be fine if, you didn't have to steal from one to give to another, and if it hadn't been proven over time to cause the people to assume a status of "equally-poor", and if it didn't uniformly result in absolute tyranny in all cases, and if it didn't elevate the role of the state to that of God, and if it didn't prove itself to be the natural enemy of religion, and if it hadn't been the driving force behind the violent or starvation deaths of 100 million people in the last 100 years!  ...and Sean Penn is one.

Little things like that help put things in perspective.  And all of these are true things the pro-Communist would never tell my sons about the Communist cause.

So I do want my children to learn about Communism, but I want them to know the REAL Communism, not the one subtly promoted nightly on CNN and MSNBC, where collectivism, self-sacrifice, being green, and grandiose government are always applauded, somehow, and individual initiative, the profit motive, industrialism, and smaller government always get the step child treatment.

Pursuant to my goal, I often take my children down to a museum near our house and watch the latest science films on the oceans, planets, space travel, the cosmos, animals, dinosaurs, and other topics.  The films are often on huge screens (IMAX), in 3D, with dozens-channel audio, and with ever-increasing graphical quality.  If the dinosaurs did live 100 million years ago, and you could capture it on film, then that's what it would look like!  If the picture is convincing, then for children, it hardly matters if the storyline isn't.

Perhaps the most grating of these films are the more modern, ecologically-minded ones, which try to hero the cause of the natural world, not as an environment for man to live within, as God ordained, but rather as an end unto itself, over which man ought to exercise no dominion.  Rather, man's alpha position within this world, brought on by the luck of his extraordinary cranial size, is precisely the reason given for why man ought to understand what damage he is doing to the creatures and delicate systems around him, causing him to curb his appetites, reproductive rights, and life-long pursuits, from house and vehicle size, down to how much water it should take to flush a toilet.

But my favorite scene in these films comes, predictably, at the end, when the film moves from the common predators such as coyotes, and great white sharks, to the "most deadly predator on earth"....you guessed it, MAN!

Now, as Paul does with the Sadducees, let us suppose for a moment the eco-scientists are right. 
  • If, as they say, their goal is to merely preserve nature for nature; encourage the circle of life, and marvel at the creativity of evolution
  • If, as they say, man is merely the most evolved animal; 
...then a few things must follow.
First, evolution cannot be trusted produce a superior creature, if as they say, all experience is to the contrary.

Second, if the goal is really to preserve nature, for nature's sake, and not for man's exploitation, then it would seem that all offenses against the creatures, their environment and their habitat must be engaged, not only those committed by man.  This is true because man is not separate from the creatures, but is merely the most evolved of them, right?  Therefore, predatory tendencies in all creatures, and the tendency to get while the getting is good, and not only within the bounds of what is required for survival, ought to be offensive to the environmentalist, no matter the species guilty of the great transgression.

But environmentalists tend to defend all other predators of the land, sea and air, as though their waste is not only unoffensive, but admirable.  When a bear kills an elk, the carcass feeds mice, coyotes, wolves and scavenging birds, we are reminded.  Their scraps and droppings feed insects and new plant life...and the circle of life goes on!  Yet, when man eats a hotdog at a national park, he can be cited with a crime for feeding the animals with the scraps.  No circle of life, here!  The reason of protecting future tourists from begging bears seems, to me, rational enough; but then what is the rational for barring the feeding of birds and chipmunks?  Somehow the modification of their behavior from merely scrounging for nuts, to dependent upon the more evolved, and ever-present predator, homo-sapien, is less offensive to them than the coyotes depending upon the bear.

Again, if mankind is, as they say, merely the most evolved of the creatures, then why are his actions not counted as natural, his behavior attributed to instinct?  The evolutionist environmentalists actually share with the Biblical Creationist the core belief that man is somehow exceptional to all else that is happening in the world.  They place upon that man, moral laws to which he alone is bound, and no other, even if those laws are said by the evolutionist to originate from another source.  And, as men, they give to themselves, just as God originally deeded to Adam and his seed, the oversight of all creatures great and small, just don't call it dominion.

So if preserving nature is the goal, then the movement of a few pounds of dirt from here to there ought to be a problem whether done by the treads of an ATV or the hooves of a bison.  If man is merely the most evolved of the creatures, then his behaviors ought also to be classified as "instinct", and his wasteful tendencies seen as contributing to the "circle of life"!  Even his predation on other species ought to be classified as the "survival of the fittest", and his status of "apex predator" admired like that of the Great White Shark!  His wide habitat ought to be applauded as "ensuring the survival of the species".

That the various leftist groups don't think or talk this way shows that they sacrifice one of their primary tenants every time they levy their eco-policies against us as fellow humans, just innocently circle-of-lifin'...the most evolved, ...us apex predators...just following our instincts...in our wide habitat.