Humanity's greatest problem is hubris derived from religious arrogance in believing that mankind was made in god's image. For millennia, people of nearly all cultures have been taught that humans are special in the eyes of their god or gods, and that the world is made for their benefit and use. This is all made clear enough in Genesis 1:1. If the opening salvo in the bible were not enough to define mankind's supposedly special relationship with god, then all ambiguity is removed with the following passage:
Of all visible creatures only man is able to know and love his creator. He is the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake, and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God's own life. It was for this end that he was created, and this is the fundamental reason for his dignity. (CCC #356)
But our arrogance does not end there. The bible teaches us that the earth is the very center of the universe. God tells us that the sun, and the planets and stars, orbit an immobile earth. While Copernicus and Galileo proved that conception to be incorrect, the idea that we somehow anchor all existence remains deeply embedded in our psyche. We are so damn special: sitting at the focal point of all that is, and looking just like the god we worship.
Such extraordinary self-importance is not only embarrassing in light of the realities of biology and astronomy; our species-centric hubris cultivates a dangerous attitude about humankind's proper role and place on earth. Paradoxically, this egoistic religious focus on our species will ultimately undermine all that is taught by religious doctrine. If the foundation is flawed so too is all that follows.
Cracks in the foundation were made more evident by the announcement from astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics that an earth-like planet has been found outside our solar system. The discovery of GJ1214b is significant as the first of a new class of "super earths" to be documented, an ocean-bearing planet orbiting a red dwarf 42 lights years from our own orb. As astronomers perfect tools of the trade, new planets akin to GJ1214b are popping up like paparazzi around Angelina Jolie. More are added to the rolls almost every day, with 11 just recently reported including one with the sci-fi name of 61 Virginis. With each discovery of another potentially habitable world the odds increase exponentially that millions or billions of other planets support life that would look familiar to us; and increase the odds that creatures more intelligent than us are looking for their next cup of morning Joe.
As Galileo forced the Church to backpedal from 1500 years of violently enforced geocentric dogma, so too will the discovery of intelligent life on other planets call into question the most fundamental biocentric claims of religion. I am not naïve: the Church will come up with some twisted post-hoc justification for the new discovery, pretending that biblical teachings are and have always been fully consistent with the existence of smart little green men. In fact, the Church is already setting the stage for such dissembling:
"Just as there is a multitude of creatures on Earth, there could be other beings, even intelligent ones, created by God. This does not contradict our faith, because we cannot put limits on God's creative freedom." Ah, the ultimate cop out: we cannot understand god. That little gem comes from the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory.
But really the anticipated response is an act of desperation. The bible's insistent focus on how special and unique we are is fully undermined by the discovery of life elsewhere. What will we say when the green men claim that they were made in god's image? We only get away with our own bizarre claim now because we do not yet speak another animal's language, so don't know that octopi believe that they are made in god's image. What if the green men are stronger, smarter, wiser and without sin? Would they not have the superior claim to a proximity to god?
We need not, however, look to the heavens to undermine our arrogant claims of superiority. Animals here on earth are teaching us a lesson in humility. That fact was highlighted by the fortuitous juxtaposition of an article about octopus intelligence adjacent to the story about extraterrestrial life in the December 17 issue of USA Today. God works in mysterious ways. Or at least newspaper editors do. The octopus in question showed foresight, planning and tool use by searching out, gathering, and constructing a protective shelter from submerged coconut shells. All very human-like. But really this impressive feat does not deserve any press, because intelligence, self-awareness, culture, empathy, tool use, language and music are all commonly found in the animal kingdom. We do not need little green men to prove ridiculous the claim that humans are special; earth-bound life tells the same story. But intelligent life elsewhere that can clearly outsmart us would certainly be the final nail in the coffin of religious species-centric hubris. Yes, again, I understand the Church would weasel its way out of the dilemma with an appeal to god's mystery, but still... The Church will be like the kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar; no matter what story is told to explain away the obvious, nothing can overcome the fact of the hand buried in plain sight in the container. The weight of reality sometimes crushes any attempt at creative spinning.
Pending ET's discovery, however, many religious apologists still desperately want to find a single trait or capability that can be a defining characteristic, anything that can prove we are special. That search though is as futile as looking for a liberal Democrat at a Tea Party protest. No single trait, behavior or capability can ever define humanity. Even when we give ourselves a big handicap by creating self-serving definitions that we know beforehand will prove advantageous, the categories of "uniquely human" talents are shrinking rapidly as we learn more about other animals and their adaptive behaviors. Characteristics previously considered special to our species have eventually been found, at least to some degree elsewhere in the animal kingdom. Tool manufacturing and use are perfect examples because these talents were considered uniquely human until only very recently.
In fact non-human primates and birds commonly use tools, mainly to gather food. Chimpanzees, for example, regularly use stems as tools and can even pound stones with purpose, although they have never mastered flint-making. Chimps also use leaves as toilet paper. Egyptian vultures will search up to 50 yards for a rock to use to smash an ostrich egg. Green herons drop a small object onto the surface of the water to attract fish, which are fooled into thinking prey is nearby. The heron then turns the table and makes a meal of the unsuspecting fish. If an elephant is unable to reach some itching part of his body with his trunk, the nearest tree often serves to relieve the problem. Just as often, however, an itchy elephant will pick up a long stick and give himself a good scratch with that instead. If one stick is insufficiently long he will look for one better suited to the task.
With what appears to be clear intention, elephants have been observed to throw or drop large rocks and logs on the live wires of electric fences, either breaking the wire or loosening it such that it makes contact with the earth, thus shorting out the fence. Elephants are undoubtedly clueless about electron flow, but have mastered the use of a tool to avoid its unpleasant consequences.
Even more impressive is the learned use of a tool set. Chimpanzees in East and West Africa sequentially use four tools to obtain honey, all gathered together for that specific purpose. They start with a battering stick, then a use a chisel-like stick, followed by a hard-pointed stick, finally ending with a long slender flexible dip stick to pull out the honey. Each tool is used in a specific sequence, and sometimes made to order by clipping, peeling, stripping or splitting the wood to the desired specifications. New Caledonian crows are famous for their ingenious tool fabrication, both in the wild and in captivity. Betty, a female crow, was filmed taking a piece of wire and trying to use it to grab some food at the bottom of a narrow tube. After several unsuccessful attempts, she removed the wire, fashioned a hook on the end, and subsequently used her new weapon to grab the food with ease. In the wild, these crows make an impressive variety of tools using a wide range of materials for diverse purposes. These birds actually shape different hooks for different tasks. This is tool use by any definition. Still not convinced? Check out the video here.
We can show similar capabilities in the animal kingdom in every realm once considered uniquely human. Yet we still resist a humble understanding. Maybe we'll finally get the picture when we encounter beings clearly more intelligent than us, and we can finally stop the silly debate about humanity's unique relationship with god.
When we reject the hubris and conceit of religion, we will redefine our relationship with each other without calling upon god to smite our enemies. When we understand that true morality is independent of religious doctrine, we will create a path toward a just society. When we accept our humble role in the biosphere and universe, we will be free to live a full life in which we no longer accept the arbitrary and destructive constraints of divine interference. With less hubris maybe we will understand that dumping 70 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air every year might actually have an impact; or that destroying rain forests will affect biodiversity; or that killing off coral reefs will reduce available food supplies just as a growing human population needs the nutrition most. Perhaps with less collective hubris the world could come together at meetings like Copenhagen and actually take actions to save the planet instead of deadlocking in pathetic paralysis.
Those little green men will mock us for our belief in the supernatural and for our blatant disregard for the resources that sustain us. To them our belief in god will be nothing but an entertaining relic of past biology, much as we are amused by a dog vigorously shaking a rag doll as prey. To them watching us destroy our environment will be like us witnessing a bacterial colony depleting all available nutrients and then perishing in the face of unconstrained consumption. We could be primate research subjects, and our claim to be made in god's image as impotent and laughable as if a marmoset made the same claim today.
When we finally discover our green friends, or they us, the Church will spin the story like a whirling dervish, but the inevitable conclusions from that encounter cannot be suppressed.
Follow Jeff Schweitzer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JeffSchweitzer
But it's unlikely that we will be quicker at dissolving our interpretation problems when it comes to their deities than we are when it comes to our own, from good old terra firma.
Is this trouble? No. Of course not. It's the opposite. Of course religions started out as precursors to a scientific worldview and one day they became opponents. But whose fault is that? Why did this happen? Is it useful? I don't think so.
Think about the religious definition of what 'mystical' insight is. It's roughly the claim that it must somehow be possible to account for individual experience of ultimate truths in the same framework as tradition and objective truth, transmitted by others, using their previous experience. Fine. Now what else is a human being going to do when faced with the inapplicability of rigorously known science to 'everyday' problems, including 'last things'?
The poor pal is bound to be a mystic, right?
And of course he won't know whether that's a good idea or not.
Point is: there's only one task, and that's facing uncertainty and dealing with it even when historical data are nowhere near sufficient to predict anything, even in the face of all the laws you can come up with.
So what's wrong with calling this little piece of conditio humana the source of religious thought?
Of course it means that everybody needs to learn and never cease to learn and make sure they don't contradict themselves. Yeah. That's what it means. With no shortcuts available.
End of gambit.
Yeah, what if; but sadly the god of Abraham is a buff white guy with a mean streak; or maybe he was black. But he sure is more than an idea of humanity's goals and tasks according to the 66 books of the bible.
Very few catholics or jews would accept that notion of god. And one of the reasons for that is that such a god is certainly not a fixed entity at all. It's part of his essence that every couple of generations he is being reinvented and rewritten anew, according to a totally unpredictable joint effort of authors, exegetes, readers, and in recent centuries, even scientists and facts and events concerning planet earth.
Of course it's a minimalist version of precisely the god that changes meaning anytime you find out something new that's too important to ignore.
As I said, few catholics or jews or other theologians are ok with this notion. What I am saying is that the construction serves to separate certain lines of thought and helps to avoid misunderstandings.
This is at the same time very complicated and very simple. So it must be important.
you wrote:
'Humanity's greatest problem is hubris derived from religious arrogance in believing that mankind was made in god's image.'
No doubt there's tons of hubris and it is the mother of all trouble. dto for religious arrogance. But the concept of 'god's image' is one heck of a lot trickier. That's because it's a two-way street. And that's the solution to most of these woes. Let me explain.
Here's a little gambit: the thing which makes man special is that man is the only animal that has arrived at a notion of god.
You don't like that? You hate it? Let me explain.
What if it's the god that H. Bloom's favorite author J wrote about? What if it is a giant allegory for precisely what you explain to be humanity's most noble goals and tasks? What if THAT is the meaning of the catholic's 'holy spirit' and the jews' 'shekhinah' and 'tikkun'?
What's the problem with reading Ludwig Feuerbach backwards and forwards? Let's face it. That's precisely what exegetes have always done. Starting with Ms. J.
Our homo genus has been around for about 2.5 million years, beginning in Sub-Saharan Africa. The best guess for the origin of language and recorded word (and civilization) is about10,000 years ago. The earliest evidence of religion (Hindu) dates from about 5000 years ago. If we use a 24 hour clock to represent 2.5 million years, language and recorded history took place about 6 minutes ago, and religion developed about 3 minutes ago.
What is known about our ancestry, and that of every other living thing, is that there was one entity that was revered (honored profoundly and respectfully) - to do otherwise meant extinction. We call it (her) nature, and I have written several books extolling her virtues.
It is our outrageous arrogance and ignorance that presumes we are somehow special in the grander scheme of things. I believe nature has a very different view of our place among living things, and it is certainly not at the top. Actually, there is no top.
The beauty of revering nature is that she provides the same guidance to all living things, and we don't need self-appointed paid intermediaries. We do not have to suspend reality or have an unrealistic belief system. We just have to look out the window at the plants, animals, and soil, and there she is in all her beauty.
Roy Mankovitz, Director
http://www.MontecitoWellness.com
How many chimps have sent men into space? To how many decimal places can an aardvark calculate pi? How many novels has the most erudite parrot had published?
We are more incredible than any other species. There is no hubris in saying that we are the creators on earth, because we were created to be so by the Master Creator.
It is also naïve to believe that the universe is teeming with little green men, for a couple of important reasons.
Firstly, there is no evidence for extraterrestrial life. The SETI project hasn't produced anything. If there were creatures much more advanced than we are, and presumably there must be according to Jeff Schweitzer's worldview, then they must know we exist and are keeping us in the dark with regards to their existence.
Secondly, these little green men presumably evolved from lifeless chemicals, but isn't it true that the odds of it happening once are staggering? Scientists talk as if all you need is some water and a lot of time and eventually, complex creatures will be roaming around. I don't buy this.
The green men won't be appearing, but the Saviour will be, and I don't mean Obama. Hubris and pride lead to destruction and perhaps the greatest hubris, as demonstrated by Jeff Schweitzer, is in thinking you can mock the Almighty and get away with it.
If your point is that the bible and Church never claimed the earth was the immobile center of the universe: good luck with that. But I am not surprised that you can ignore facts and rewrite history to conform to your myths and fantasies -- because that is exactly what is required to hold the beliefs in the first place.
If I am not mistaken, then the single one thing you're not supposed to do when participating in the faiths that refer to that 'almighty' god you've mentioned is to judge with more determination than you can live up to.
I think the Creator of the Universe is 'all mighty'. How could He not be? How is this hubris? And who's judging? I am a sinner; I need redemption and renewal as much as you and Jeff Schweitzer and everyone else.
You say "nearly all cultures" here, but only really write, and apparently correctly, about the Judaeo-Christian tradition. One need only look as close as "native American" cultures to find another example.
What about the misuse of natural resources in present-day China? They weren't exposed to this same cultural hubris.
I think there are many more sources of this type of arrogance regarding the natural world. It pretty much boils down to greed coupled with ignorance, which is pretty much universal.
Then again, nobody ever expects the Spanish Inquisition.
The bible is unamibuously clear that humanit and the earth are the center of the universe. Remember Joshua?
'In God's image' doesn't mean God is a bipedal humanoid. It means that, through acts of free will, we make a difference.
Really? Did you ever hear of the myth of Jesus? He sure looked like a bibepdal humanoid according to the story.
Only humans have free will? The whole free will argument is just a weak attempt by religion to explain evil in the presence of a benevolent all-powerful god, but the idea fails at every level. I've dealt with this issue extensively elsewhere. But let's say you're right -- and then we meet little green men who claim that THEY are the only ones with free will and therefore were the only one's made in god's image. That kind of ruins your story, no?
It says Joshua commanded sun and moon to stand still, and they did. Even taken at face value, how does this put earth at the centre? Sun, Moon and Earth could, all three, be a trillion light years from the centre, or at any other distance.
"Did you ever hear of the myth of Jesus? He sure looked like a bibepdal humanoid according to the story".
God appeared to Moses as a burning bush. The Holy Spirit appeared variously as a dove, as tongues of flame, etc. In the Narnia stories, God manifests not as a human but as a lion, just as might be expected in a world of talking animals.
"Only humans have free will?"
Not necessarily; but only humans are co-creators. Cattle, for instance, may put methane into the atmosphere, but they have no choice in the matter. They can't even grasp the issues involved. Hairy can only build webs. Only humans, of all the known animals, decide what they are going to be, and how they will shape the world.
Saying this isn't hubris. Rather, given the way the world is going, it's an admission of guilt and failure. It hardly makes us superior. Other species can't formulate plans to get us out of the mess, but then they weren't responsible for the mess in the first place.
The claim that only humans are co-creators is exactly the hubris you deny. How ironic.
Really?
"God tells us that the sun, and the planets and stars, orbit an immobile earth. While Copernicus and Galileo proved that conception to be incorrect"
... and General Relativity returns us to square one. Anything can be regarded as the centre around which all else dances. Disputing the issue is like arguing the difference between half-full and half-empty.
"[the Church will pretend] ... biblical teachings are and have always been fully consistent with the existence of smart little green men".
When have they not been fully consistent?
"What will we say when the green men claim that they were made in god's image?"
Maybe "Jeff sure was wrong to think you aliens would mock us for our belief in the supernatural".
'In God's image' doesn't mean God is a bipedal humanoid. It means that, through acts of free will, we make a difference. We are co-creators. The world is the way it is because of us. All those tons of CO2? We put them up there.
Hairy the spider wasn't in God's image, not because of his spidery shape, but because he lacked free will. He built webs superlatively well but couldn't do anything else. Octopuses, for all their ingenuity, are in a similar boat. They have no enduring culture, no history, no big issues that they could meaningfully make a difference to.