PART FOUR
[First half published December 31, 2024, and second half published January 2, 2025, by The Daily Progress, the daily newspaper of Charlottesville, Virginia]
[Published January 3, 2025, by The News Virginian, the daily newspaper of Waynesboro, Virginia]
Chapter Two: Observations of the Natural World Confirm the Existence of God
ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS © 2024 Marlene A. Condon
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| The American Black Bear would much rather go after your birdseed than you. Contrary to popular belief, humans have no natural predators. |
Although the Bible informs us that the proof of God’s
existence is right before our eyes, many people—believers as well as
non-believers—seem to be doubtful of this message. Believers often tend to regard
as true that the existence of God is a matter of faith only. Non-believers
simply do not consider whether proof exists because they have already reached a
conclusion about the matter.
Other people claim that no one can prove or disprove the
existence of God. They say there is no physical evidence we can use to verify His
existence based upon our own observations or experience. They consider
intellectual curiosity unwarranted because they deem the question unanswerable.
Then there are folks who feel that whether God exists makes
no difference, so no one need bother asking the question in the first place. They
feel whatever the answer turns out to be, it will not alter one’s life.
But if people were given undeniable proof that God does in
fact exist, I am convinced that there would be a paradigm shift in people’s
attitudes towards each other, the wildlife that shares this planet, and the
physical environment that supports us.
How does having knowledge of nature make clear the existence
of God? As explained in the Introduction, empirical evidence (based upon or
verifiable by observation of the natural world) reveals a basic truth: All the organisms we study clearly exist
to provide services that keep the environment functioning for the benefit (i.e.,
perpetuation) of nearby life forms.
However, there is one, and only one, organism that does not adhere to this truism: man. Mankind contributes absolutely nothing to the natural world. We exist simply to lead our lives; we do not pitch in one bit to help the environment sustain other life on Earth.
Man
exists as a unique life form; he is not a part of nature. Science
cannot explain such an evolutionary anomaly. American astronomer Carl Sagan popularized
the statement that, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”, and
you now possess that extraordinary evidence.
People have long believed that English naturalist Charles
Darwin’s idea of biological evolution by natural selection (as opposed to
“artificial” selection, which refers to selective breeding controlled by humans)
disproved the existence of God. Darwin believed that natural selection was
a plausible explanation for how a wide variety of life forms could have
developed over time from one common ancestor, which seems to contradict the
Bible. Darwin, himself, came to doubt the existence of God “now that the law of
natural selection has been discovered.” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Charles_Darwin]
And yet, Darwin’s theory supports the existence of God. He
would have realized this truth if he had looked at the natural world from a
broader perspective, rather than only looking at the survival capabilities of
unique organisms within it.
Natural selection revolves around populations adapting, or
becoming more well suited, to their environments as these surroundings change
over time. Because Darwin focused only upon how the individual organism can
better relate to its environment and itself survive, rather than going further
and considering how the environment performs better due to the success
of the individual’s adaptation, he missed the crucial point that the lives of organisms
help maintain a properly functioning environment—which leads us directly to man’s
aberrant place within it.
There can be only one explanation for such a deviation from
the pathway of all other life forms. God must exist and He must have created
mankind as a special entity—one that is not required to work for the benefit of
all. Instead, man depends upon every other creature to work for his benefit as
well as its own.
If man had simply evolved alongside other organisms, as scientists posit, why would his life role so completely depart from the established standard of every other organism upon the Earth? Evolution simply cannot explain such an incongruity.
However, the Bible tells us that God
gave man everything he needed in Eden so man could focus on worshipping Him. Man
was, most assuredly, exceptional. There was no expectation that man would
participate in activities that keep the environment working correctly—and he
doesn’t.
This glaring peculiarity begs the question of how it could
have ever been overlooked. However, it only becomes obvious to those who completely
grasp how the natural world—in its entirety—works, and very few people truly look
at this big picture. If they do, they consider it only in terms of their own
existence, rather than in conjunction with other life forms.
Of course, folks can always argue that irregularities happen,
and that perhaps man’s odd status is simply due to a singularity in man’s
evolution. But another peculiarity cinches the argument for the existence of God
as the creator of man: All the large predatory animals that could easily rip
people apart, if they wanted to do so, instead live in fear of mankind. It’s a
fact that man has no natural predators, providing us with, perhaps, the most
accurate meaning of God’s statement that man would have “dominion” over the
Earth.
You may doubt that man has no natural predators. Nowadays,
people are so removed from the natural world that they possess mistaken ideas
about it. They tend to fear predators (even as small an animal as a fox),
erroneously believing that animals which feed upon other animals would feed
upon humans as well. However, historical sources confirm this isn’t so.
Lions, tigers, wolves, cougars, and bears, for example, have
never readily preyed upon human beings, even though they could so effortlessly
kill them for food. Throughout history, when given a choice, these predators
preferred to move quickly and quietly away from people when their paths crossed.
Kevin Hanson, author of Cougar:
The American Lion, tells us that American Indians respected the big cat’s
hunting prowess, which apparently resulted in a way for them to get food
without expending any effort themselves. After a cougar eats some of its meal,
it caches the rest, and Native Americans took advantage of this trait to obtain
meat more easily.
European immigrants, on the other hand, felt only fear and
hatred for the animal—an attitude that is still very much prevalent in today’s
descendants. That mindset is not surprising, considering that by the 1500s and
1600s, many of the people in Europe were already living in cities far removed
from life in the natural world. Their lack of familiarity with predators
undoubtedly resulted in fear of them, even though humans and such predators as
wolves had already coexisted just fine for millennia.
However, the white settlers in America did not kill off
cougars because the big cats went after them, but rather because these
meat-eating animals sometimes went after their cattle. Likewise,
in Africa, human/lion conflicts that had not formerly been a big issue are now
threatening African lions with extinction.
Again, the problem is more about predation of livestock
rather than of people, and its increase has much to do with modern herding
methods. In the past, people conscientiously watched over their livestock, as
mentioned in the Bible in Luke 2:8: “And in that region there were shepherds
out in the field, keeping watch over their flock [of sheep] by night.” [The Holy Bible, Revised Standard
Version, The World Publishing Company, 1962.] Their simple presence served as a
certain deterrent to livestock predators fearful of man.
Because the human population has grown so much—leaving limited
space for lions and their prey—a starving lion may occasionally attack a human,
adding to the desire to eliminate these animals altogether. But going after
humans because of starvation is an act of sheer desperation. All animals need
to eat and will take whatever they can get to quell hunger pangs, even if that
happens to be a vulnerable human in the vicinity.
Starving people behave similarly. Although abhorrent to our
sensibilities, some of the migrants in the snowbound Donner party (winter of
1846-47) were so desperate for food that they resorted to cannibalism. More
recently, 16 survivors of a 1972 plane crash in the Andes also relied on
cannibalism to survive the ordeal. Intense hunger is a stern and unapologetic driver
of behavior.
[https://www.today.com/popculture/andes-uruguay-plane-crash-1972-survivors-now-rcna133498]
In America, native peoples may have domesticated the wolf (the wild ancestor of our dogs) because this species hung around their settlements looking for handouts. Another suggestion is that a reciprocal relationship existed in which both species provided food for each other or shared food. Either way, this canine allowed itself to become subservient to humans instead of asserting the power embodied in its size and fangs.
[https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.2993/etbi-35-02-262-285.1]
If you are still skeptical and doubt that man has no natural
predators, you need only to watch a circus act in which trainers demand
unnatural behaviors from lions and tigers, such as making them jump through a
hoop of fire. (Although circuses with animal acts no longer exist in the United
States, videos are available for viewing on www.youtube.com) It is puzzling to see such big,
muscular animals so intimidated by a man who couldn’t possibly defend himself
against such brawny creatures, should they attack. Only the existence of God
could possibly explain this seemingly nonsensical situation.
Of course, these captive big cats have, on occasion, killed
their handlers, but not in a predator/prey relationship, but rather, in
self-defense. The lifetime of stress they were made to endure (by being caged,
frightened, and forced into abnormal behaviors) is antithetical to their
biology (how they would be living their lives in the wild). As with humans,
animals have their limits.
Sometimes you hear about bears or cougars attacking people,
but it’s usually the result of an adult inserting himself into a situation of
his own making by allowing his dog to run loose. Coming upon a bear or cougar
minding its own business, the dog will harass it by barking in too-close
proximity, which forces the predator to defend itself from perceived harm. When
the dog owner tries to save his dog, he gets injured by the bear or cougar, too.
Similarly, when people leave their small pets, babies, or
toddlers unattended in bear/cougar country, they invite predators to take what
appears to be an easy meal. These animals fear adult humans, but not their
children or small pets that adults are expected to know should never be left
unguarded in such circumstances.
Unfortunately, these incidents get misrepresented to the
public, giving the predatory animals a bad rap they do not deserve, which results
in people misunderstanding, fearing, and despising such animals. But when you look
at the natural world with an open mind and see it as it truly is, rather
than based upon personal feelings or opinions influenced by erroneous
assumptions, you can clearly recognize the evidence of God’s existence, whether
or not you are already a believer.
In the case of these large predators, evolution cannot
explain their apprehension when encountering humans. In nature, larger size
equates to greater strength and thus the ability to dictate in which direction
a confrontation proceeds. Yet this intense fear of mankind took place long before
people were empowered by guns and other such weaponry to fight off any kind of large-predator
attack.
Human beings, unlike other organisms, possess no built-in
defenses to protect themselves. Even our basic senses are poorly developed for
thriving in the natural world; we don’t see or smell or hear as well as other creatures
do to avoid dangerous confrontations—if such a situation presented itself. Thus,
from a scientific standpoint, humans are so ill-suited to survive in the
natural world that it’s nonsensical to posit they evolved in the same manner as
other life forms and are in no way different from them.
This is not to say that mankind did not evolve through time.
The fossil record makes clear that while Homo sapiens may be the only
humans alive today, other hominins (species regarded as human, directly
ancestral to humans, or very closely related to humans) preceded us by millions
of years.
[https://www.britannica.com/science/human-evolution/Increasing-brain-size]
But to be human is to be far different from the other
creatures. To survive, humans needed a larger brain that enabled them to think
and eventually to communicate with others, so they could figure out such things
as how to stay warm in cold climates and how to make tools that would help them
catch prey and engage in agriculture.
It’s far more rational to recognize how this situation speaks
to the existence of God, who created a world in which man had no need to
defend himself. The natural behavior of all the large predators on Earth has
always been to avoid, rather than to confront, man—if possible. Only the
existence of God can explain man’s degree of non-physical dominion over all the
other kinds of creatures on Earth.
In fact, the Bible confirms this statement. Genesis 9:2
states: “The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the
earth, and upon every bird of the air, upon everything that creeps on the
ground and all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered.” [The Holy Bible, Revised Standard
Version, The World Publishing Company, 1962.] Remarkably, but not surprisingly,
everything I’ve learned on my own about the natural world is confirmed within
the Bible.
A question often asked and answered is whether man is a
part of nature or whether he is apart from it. Scientists argue via
biological principles that man is a part of nature, while some politically
minded folks say we are a part of nature only to justify our impacts upon the
Earth, no matter how big or small.
In a paper published in 2017, John A. Vucetich, a professor
of population ecology at the School of Forest Resources and Environmental
Sciences at Michigan Technological University, concluded that common biological
ancestry makes the animals and plants comprising nature our “siblings”, and
thus we are “fundamentally one and the same.” He wrote that, “Ever since
Darwin, common ancestry among living creatures is part of the bedrock of modern
scientific thought.”
Other people argue that man is a part of nature only to
excuse his damage to the Earth. After all, if man is a part of nature, then
anything he does is “natural” and therefore must be acceptable as natural
processes.
Rachel Carson declared that, “Man is a part of nature, and
his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.” Of course, she
meant that desecration of the Earth would result in the destruction of mankind
because, just as with other organisms, people depend upon the natural world.
[https://www.azquotes.com/author/17642-Rachel_Carson#google_vignette]
Yet, man’s “war against nature” furnishes yet more evidence that he is, in truth, apart from it, rather than a part of it. No other organism works out of agreement with the world around it.
You can see
this for yourself by taking an honest look at your neighborhood. How much of
your local area looks natural? Probably not much, because people view
“overgrown” (i.e., what should be seen as “natural”) areas as unkempt and
unbefitting a civilized society. Therefore, they constantly mow or herbicide
plants alongside roadways and in parks—even national ones—to do away with the
natural look that is so supportive of wildlife.
At entrances to homes, “wild” areas are replaced with plants
more to the owners’ liking that makes everything neat and orderly, resulting in
a sanitized (read “does not support wildlife”) appearance.
By not living in harmony with nature, man is obviously a
different “beast”—one that is biologically disjunct from all others. Therefore,
he can’t possibly be part and parcel of the natural world.
You now have in your possession the incontrovertible evidence
that God exists. Will it change your attitude towards our natural world and the
way you live your life? Only you can decide.
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| Man’s refusal to live among large predators allows hoofed mammals, such as these White-tailed Deer, to overpopulate, causing problems not only for people’s gardens, but also for their environment. |
TOMORROW, PART FIVE:
Chapter Three: Other Religions Agree with the Nature Revelation
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