Thursday, 17 June 2010

EVOLUTION - FINALLY A PURPOSE?

Devoid of compassion in an ever-changing universe, Evolution has plunged ahead on a trial-and-error basis with immense cruelty and waste. It is the most guilty of all for war crimes, but is has produced a creature that is beginning to understand it and to fight back. We humans now know that galaxies are fuelled by massive Black Holes but that, ever since the Big Bang, the frightening eat-or-be eaten principle persists to the detriment of both the eaters and the eaten but, without which, we would not exist. We now know that big galaxies eat smaller galaxies, that Andromeda, is racing towards us at 700,000 mph and is only 2 million light years away, to engage our Milky Way in a dance of death - and rebirth as Hinduism predicts? You do the math and tell me how much time to I have for more blogs and newsletters (186,000 x 60 x 60 x 24, x 365 x 2,000,000 ÷ 700,000).

All living things, that we know of, have short, finite lives that are made possible only by the daily killing and eating of other living life forms. But, you may ask, what about the more peaceful plant kingdom? It has learned to convert inorganic material into organic without the need to eat other species. Alas, even here there is warfare. Plants fight for territory. Some secrete poisons to kill off rivals. Succession is a well-known phenomenon where, over time, one species succeeds another in the same plot of land. Change is the only thing that has any permanence. And yet, a warm glimmer of hope has been seeded. Some of us have introduced ethics, and have started a long, slow process of directing a more humane, if still brief, existence for all life forms.

Hopefully soon, we will be able to take a glass of water, a lump of coal, and a handful of soil and convert them into nourishing foods to retire our need to prey on other species. Then, we can turn our attention to taming the universe. A hopeless dream? . . . . . . . . Perhaps - if we fail to accept the challenge!

No comments:

Post a Comment