The fundamental question humanity should ask is: what is natural in nature? Albert Einstein suggested, “Look deep into nature and then you will understand everything better.” In the wake of global warming, this question is more relevant than ever. In trying to capture and subdue nature, we rational beings have forgotten to respect that which is natural in nature or have just proceeded with flagrant disregard for the nature of the natural world. We must realize that the earth and its atmosphere predate us. Man’s ability to reason should have guided him to explore nature responsibly, which would imply that natural law would be respected. Yet that has not always happened, and global warming is among the results. So now we in contemporary society are destroying much of what is natural in nature, and perhaps it will be lost forever. G.K Chesterton said, “The modern world is insane, not so much because it admits the abnormal, as because it cannot recover the normal.”
The Industrial Revolution brought about tremendous changes in society, and ushered in new possibilities whose consequences were not always fully explored before they were seized upon. But world leaders have not always been mindful of the consequences of the excess use of fossil-fuel, or the by-products of using it, which we now call greenhouse gasses. Suddenly people around the globe are waking up to the hard reality of nature’s wrath fully displayed for all to behold.
What is driving this? Human greed has prompted humans to manipulate nature, including the food we consume. Most food products consumed today are adulterated. They include essential human needs, like water. Today much of the food products available in markets are genetically-modified so more can be produced at less cost. In recent times, the people of Goa have come under the grip of formalin. One of the essential needs of Goans is fish. And, the fish that is available in markets is adulterated with formalin. Why? Is the addition of this putting people’s health at risk? Are most of the sicknesses from which people suffer direct results of the consumption of adulterated food and polluted water? The cry of a poetic, who expressed the sentiments: “If I were a tree, I would have no reason to love humans”. Because of humans, the natural is lost in nature.
Today, humans are boasting about what artificial intelligence may someday soon be able to accomplish, as if it could supersede human intelligence. What stupidity! Leaving aside why humanity wants to create artificial intelligence so it can abandon the use of its own God-given intelligence, how can a product made by a human be more intelligent than its human creator? Clearly, we do not understand the nature of our own intelligence. It is an immaterial gift from God our Creator, while artificial intelligence technology is created by men of matter. How can matter be superior? Over time its machinery will rot. As for humanity – If it continues to allow pride and greed to determine what humanity produces and how it is produced, those vices will cause our demise, and that of the planet. Hence, before we digress too far from God’s nature, perhaps we should take time to develop some respect for the environment and intelligence God has given us, and start asking how God might want us to employ both for the good of all his creation.
