Turn off your lights so you can see

Do you ever wonder what a person from 200 years ago would think if you just plonked them down in the middle of one of our cities?

Sometimes as I’m driving along I’m struck by the absurdity of the world I live in – a world that would surely be incomprehensible to people only three or four generations before me.

The concrete jungles that fall like a perfectly normal backdrop for our existence have, in reality, only existed in the last 100 years.

As we march forward, proudly carrying the greatest of human progress, I wonder if we have failed to stop and look for what we can no longer see. We’ve replaced so much of what is natural for what is artificial and many of us have lost God in the process.

It does not astound me that atheism’s unprecedented growth has coincided with the industrial revolution. Humanity cannot find God in his creation because they are blinded by the glory of their own creation. As I drive through the city my vision is dominated by cars and roads and buildings and power lines and paths and lights and planes and clothes and shoes and fences and windows… and suddenly man is the creator.

If only we would turn off our fluorescent bulbs for a second, we might be able to see beyond ourselves; to see that before we had covered the earth with our creations, far superior creations existed, and they must have come from somewhere.

Calling Someone an ‘Ape’ is only Racist if Evolution isn’t true.

Australian Football has recently played host to a racism saga that has attracted huge media attention. One of our Indigenous players was called an ‘ape’ by a young female spectator. She was escorted out of the stadium, and he sat out for the rest of the game. The saga was further complicated some time later when the president of the opposing team made an outrageously stupid comment alluding to it on national radio.

I had only mild interest in this issue until I read this article which makes some incredibly valid points about the offensiveness of the original comment. There is no question that calling someone an ‘ape’ is rude. It shouldn’t have been said. But is it really racist?

Calling a white person an ape isn’t considered racist, but things suddenly change when the person is coloured. Why is that?

According to evolutionary theory, humans came from apes, and it has historically been portrayed that the ‘black man’ is closer in the chain to the ape than the ‘white man.’

Evolutionarily speaking then, calling someone an ape means rudely suggesting that they are less ‘evolved’ than their white counterparts. This crosses a social taboo, but if it’s racist then so is evolution. According to evolutionary roots we are not all equal, but somehow pointing that out in public is an atrocity.

Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate our origins, and realize that claiming evolutionary theory as fact, may have much wider ramifications than what we’re willing to accept.

 

If you read this post, please read my follow-up post: Apologies, my last Post hadn’t quite evolved enough.

Fields and Ocean

I’ve always loved open, secluded fields that overlook the ocean. It’s the convergence of earth and sea, the perfect place to experience both the wildness and beauty of nature. Unfortunately, when you live in the city, they’re quite hard to access, especially if you want to avoid jumping the fence of an unsuspecting farmer (though let’s be honest, a little bit of fence-jumping doesn’t go astray). This spot, however, is one that I found on a recent Easter trip, and has now made it into my ‘Top 5 favourite places in South Australia.’(Or at least it would have, if such a list existed.)
It often amazes me, as I look at the ocean, that such a huge body of water meets the land, overlapping on such a narrow strip of sand, and yet we can trust it to come no further. We build our houses only meters from the sea, which is incomprehensibly vast and deep, with full confidence that it will not overflow. It reminds me of God’s rhetorical question to Job: ‘…who shut in the sea with doors…and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?