About That Elephant…

It’s late Spring here, and there is new life everywhere. There are trees in our backyard that only 2 months ago had lost all their leaves, you would have sworn they were dead, and now they are covered in fresh new green growth and fruit. Animals and insects are out and about everywhere, and the air is filled with the chirping of baby birds. Our house seems to be surrounded by birds nests, full of little baby birds of all types.

One nest in particular, along our driveway, is a tiny nest, maybe only 5cm across, and is home to some kind of small “finch” type of bird and it’s three babies. We found it before the eggs even hatched, and since that time have checked on it every few days, carefully peering through the branches to see it’s progress. One day there were three tiny little babies in there, and over the last couple of weeks we’ve watched them get bigger and bigger, as the mum goes out and gets them food.

But yesterday morning when we went to take a look at the nest, to our surprise it was missing. And then upon closer inspection we found it, upturned and fallen down into the lower parts of the bush. Looking at the surroundings, a whole bunch of shrub branches directly below the nest have been crushed, snapped, and pushed over, and it seems pretty obvious that some animal, almost certainly someone’s cat, has attacked the nest and devoured the growing babies. Who knows if mum met a similar fate, or if she got away. I don’t know if birds feel sorrow like we do, but it feels sad to think she may still be around, mourning that loss.

Of course, this is nothing new. Every day, death and killing happens millions of times around the world, as it has every day for thousand of years. It’s a sad fact that we live in a broken world, where living things kill and eat each other to survive, or sometimes even just kill for other reasons. Death is a part of life, and will be until all things are made right again.

But this incident does remind me that death can come so quickly, and is rarely expected. I still remember waking up one morning as a 14 year old boy to find my father had died. It was of course the last thing I was expecting, and it changed my life in ways I still don’t fully understand.

Life is precious, and fragile. Remember that the people around you can be here one day and gone the next. Don’t put off anything you can do for them today.

The other day I saw a post on Facebook, quoting Sigmund Freud, which goes something along the lines of:

Religion belonged to the infancy of the human race; it had been a necessary stage in the transition from childhood to maturity. It had promoted ethical values which were essential to society. Now that humanity has come of age, however, it should be left behind.

Several people commented on this post, approving it, claiming it was such an enlightened statement, and how dumb you must be if you don’t agree with it.

But one line in particular from the quote made me almost laugh out loud when I read it: Now that humanity has come of age, however…

Come of age!? On basis does anyone think that we’ve “come of age”? Most generations tend to think that they’ve come of age. They’re much smarter and more enlightened than previous generations. They know so much more. They’ve learnt from the mistakes of their predecessors. They’ve made significant advancements into science and the understanding of life and the universe.

But we’re deceiving ourselves if we think we’ve “come of age”. We still don’t know much about the universe and what goes on around us. We still hurt each other, kill each other, and do things we don’t understand. What we want to do, we don’t do. And what we don’t want to do, we keep on doing.

No matter what achievements or advancements we think we make in unlocking the mysteries of life, usually each discovery produces a bunch of more unanswered questions. Rather than pride ourselves on our coming of age, we should humble ourselves and realise we don’t know all that much really, we often get it wrong, and our understanding of things doesn’t even come close to the infinite wisdom of the creator and designer of all that’s around us.

Life’s a great adventure! Let’s marvel at it, even the things we don’t understand, but let’s never try and claim we know how it all works.

One of the hallmarks of democracy is the ability to have free and open debate. It’s what differentiates us from many communist and autocratic societies, where having a different view to the government or ruling body can get you harrassed, imprisoned, and even killed.

But what if there were some topics that even in democratic societies were no longer open for debate, even though the evidence (or lack of it) demands it?

One such topic is within the area of scientific debate, and in particular the debate about the origin of life. It is not widely known, but there have been many prominent, well respected scientists, professors, and teachers across America and around the world, who have been sacked from their jobs because they have held a different world view on the origin of life.

The fact is, that Neo-Darwinian or evolutionary theory does NOT hold all the answers to how life began. Like most theories, it has many gaps in it. And as molecular biologists and scientists discover more and more about the amazing structures of our bodies, particularly inside our cells and DNA, more and more of them are wondering whether it’s even possible that this could come about randomly by chance. Should they lose their job because they are asking those questions? Why is there a suppression of free and open scientific debate? Isn’t that how science develops?

Evolutionary theory contends that life is the result of a random, purposeless process. This theory is often taught in schools as if it is the only plausible scientific explanation of how life originated and developed. But other theories, such as Intelligent Design theory, challenge evolutionary theory but are being suppressed worldwide.

Both are scientific theories, and the debate is therefore legitimate. Why are people being sacked just for asking the question?

To support freedom of debate in America and around the world, visit this site to learn more and sign the petition.

Studies show that children laugh on average over 300 times per day, whereas adults only laugh on average around 20 times per day.

There’s obviously a number of reasons for this. The main ones are that children are innocent about many of the world’s “evils”, and don’t have the responsibilities that many adults are faced with, like paying a mortgage, dealing with a stressful job, negotiating complicated relationships, worrying about world affairs, and so on. When I think back to my childhood, my fond memories are often related to being in a state of innocence and not having responsibilities.

But regardless of the reasons, it’s still an interesting statistic. We start out in life full of wonder and excitement. Everything is an adventure. And then as we get older we tend to let the burdens in life weigh us down more and more.

I think we have a lot to learn by looking at our children. Not only should we try to laugh more like they do, but I think that taking a look at life and the world through the eyes of a child every now and then is a healthy thing to do.

“Mark this: Unless you accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.”
Jesus