Wednesday, June 13, 2012

God’s Population and Environmental Policy: Genesis 1: 28

One part of the Bible that people like and take seriously is that God commands people to have sex – with the opposite sex of course, even if only for the purpose of producing more people who will grow up and eventually have sex, etc. Humans tend to be very good at this, regardless of race, IQ, occupation, status, income, overall health or even disabilities. Unfortunately, the consequences have been less than a utopian paradise or heavenly.

Most would agree that humans have had less than a perfect record when it comes to observing and keeping the Ten Commandments. But there is one other commandment that predates the Big Ten that humans have taken to heart and have had no trouble at all obeying. But instead of leading to positive results, this commandment has led humanity into turning our home, Planet Earth, into a cesspool of filth and suffering even death on a massive scale, not just for us but also for the innocents that had no say in the matter as well. The root cause is God’s population and environmental policies.

Though God’s population and environmental policy isn’t confined to just this one Biblical chapter and verse, that specific chapter and verse, Genesis 1: 28, is probably the most destructive statement in all of recorded history. Genesis 1: 28 is God’s population and environmental policy for mankind. It basically amounts to breed, like, well like rabbits! Further, there’s a subclause that suggests we speak loudly and carry a big stick and let Mother Nature know in no uncertain terms who is King of the Mountain. 

God's policy on population growth is flawed. God's not a Greenie or an environmentalist! We all know the passage from Genesis 1: 28 (King James Version) - It goes something like this: "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

In fact, it doesn’t seem to matter if you’re starving, are poverty stricken, have little if any access to basic amenities, the need to obey Genesis 1: 28 is so strong that little else matters. We’ve all seen horrendous images of the greatest of the great unwashed living in filth and poverty with children not much more than living skeletons, and dying like flies. Fast forward a generation and it is déjà vu all over again, only it’s now twice the number of the greatest of the great unwashed. Despite living in the most appalling of conditions, you can count on the universal – sex. And of course the poorer you are the more you will take dominion over resources in order to survive. A poverty-stricken man would gladly kill the last surviving member of an entire animal species if it brings in enough money to get him and his family through another single day.     

It’s normally Mother Nature’s way to keep population growth under checks and balances, except, thanks to God, humans prove the disastrous exception to the rule. When human populations suffer to the extent that death on a massive scale starts to transpire, other humans provide assistance to get them over the hump. Thus, the next time disaster strikes and people start dying off, you have a situation where they are even more in need of assistance since those who would have died the previous time lived instead to breed more - the next generation, now under the gun. Human compassion, or morality or ethics – presumably also a gift from God – always lauded, ultimately can lead to even greater need for compassion. It’s a vicious cycle.

Of course when it comes to non-human species, humans are not quite so compassionate, moral or ethical. It’s that “subdue” and “dominion” bit. Humans don’t wait for Mother Nature to take charge, rather assume responsibility themselves, as a logical extrapolation of Genesis 1: 28.  Here in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), the ACT government authorises yearly the culling (i.e. – shoot to kill) of multi-thousands of kangaroos because these animals allegedly have a detrimental effect on the native environment of the ACT (i.e. – they get in the way of humans). Never mind the fact that the animal is a native (not an invasive species) to the area and their presence predates human settlement by millions of years. Also, never mind that humans outnumber kangaroos by thousands to one. Even locally, humans vastly outnumber the kangaroo. Guess which of the two species has the higher impact on the natural environment. The example of the kangaroo can be retold in other contexts thousands of times over – the American buffalo for example. That's quite apart from humans killing animals for 'sport'; not for food or clothing, but just for a hell of it; because it makes the brave hunters feel big – king of the mountain in fact. Genesis 1: 28 strikes again, and again and again.  

Now Genesis 1: 28 is ultimately a Biblical impossibility because it is unsustainable, as should already be bleeding obvious to blind Freddy, and should have been obvious to God Himself. But God is selfish. God wants worshipers and the more the better. God may well want more and more and more humans to bow and scrape to Him, but at what ultimate cost to the Earth He allegedly created; all those plants and animals He allegedly created; and His ultimate alleged creation, humanity?

Apart from mice and rats (which have a low ecological footprint), there's probably no wild mammalian species still in existence that outnumbers us anymore. There's something seriously wrong when there's threatened and endangered species, some  that now only total 500 to maybe (if lucky) 5000 individuals left, when humans are seven billion strong and ever accelerating in numbers, especially in Africa. What hope is there for God's animal creations? We've living in an era of mass extinction right now, and we're the cause. What lifestyle for humans when there's no more fit air to breathe; no fit water to drink; all natural resources depleted; disease and hunger rampant.

God may enjoy all those billions of humans here and now with billions more to come worshiping and praying to Him, but those "fish of the sea" are a fraction of what once was; ditto the "fowl of the air" and ditto, ditto "every living thing" - well, maybe not cockroaches, not yet at least (until they become a human food source of last resort and you'd eat them if it were down to a choice of that or starvation - besides they're rich in protein). The Book of Revelation maybe impossible nonsense, though the ‘End of Days’ (for humans) might not be, thanks to Genesis 1:28. It would be rather ironic if God just barely spared mankind via Noah’s Ark, only to have mankind go kaput because of that other extract from Genesis.

Of all of God’s crimes against humanity, which have been numerous (like the Genesis Flood), this apparently innocent statement contained in Genesis 1: 28 in the long term will be the one with the most implications, and ultimately the worst one of all, and God made it, and an all-knowing God should have known better. Of course that’s if you place any credibility in Biblical quotations. But that’s another topic.

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