Versus: Animal Extinction [Sharon + Matthew]
We’re pee-our-pants excited to bring you a brand new segment called ‘Versus.’ This recurring section will feature contrasting (man, is that an understatement) POV’s from your favorite 'Etc.' hosts. After reading, be sure to tag-team in and post your thoughts in this ideological no-holds-barred, Texas-style, steel cage death match. Today, Sharon vs. Matthew, squaring off on Animal Extinction...
The Jenga Effect - [Sharon]
The animal kingdom is a powerful, diverse, incredible world where such a vast display of God’s creativity is offered, it continually astounds anyone who takes the time to notice it. Unfortunately, this diverse world is being whittled away, year by year, at a speed that most people would be shocked to discover.
When complete and total extinction of a species occurs, it is just that: COMPLETE AND TOTAL. And when the word species is used, it also means just that: AN ENTIRE SPECIES. Not just one family of big cats. Not just one pod of whales. It means that an entire type of animal is gone from the earth, never to be viewed or studied again.
The rate of extinction has been increasing exponentially since the year 1600 AD. Dr. Norman Myers, a British ecologist warns that during the next 25 years, if things continue at the rate they are, we can expect to lose anywhere from 1000 species per year minimum, to a maximum of 100 species of plants and animals PER DAY. This means that people alive in the year 2015 will have witnessed the extinction of possibly one million living things. This kind of rapid extinction has never before happened in earth’s recorded history. Imagine a world without tigers. Imagine trying to explain to your children and grandchildren why these beautiful animals no longer exist, although they most certainly did in your lifetime.
Now, I understand the need for some animal species to end. As we can all imagine, the dinosaurs were of another era, and would not have a place in this day and time. This is why I believe God allowed them to perish in the flood.
However, the vast majority of extinctions on this planet are the direct result of the greed of human beings. Throughout history, records show that following the humans’ movement to new landmasses, a wave of extinctions occurred. These are of course due to over-hunting, as well as habitat destruction, and humans consuming all these animal’s natural resources.
Why is this terrible? Why should people be more concerned about it? I look at it like a game of Jenga. For those of you who don’t know, Jenga is a game where many wooden pieces stack on each other. As the game goes on, one piece at a time is removed. Finally, the entire tower crumbles. It simply cannot stand without its pieces which make it a whole. The animal kingdom is exactly like this. Each species depends on the other. The word symbiosis in the dictionary says: The living together in more or less intimate association or close union of two dissimilar organisms as a mutually beneficial relationship: mutualism. A cooperative relationship between groups. This is what our ecosystem does. Different species depend on each other to survive. Start removing one at a time, piece by piece, and it is assured that the entire system will suffer irreparable damage, and begin to collapse.
If you still think this doesn’t apply to you, and you don’t need to care, consider this: MANY, MANY of these animal species are vital to YOUR way of life. Humans depend on different animal species in more ways than most people recognize. Only one example is the flying fox, a type of fruit bat. Old World tropical plants owe their survival to the fruit bat for seed dispersal and pollination. These “bat plants” provide over 450 different uses for humans, including fruits for food, kapok fiber, charcoal, and medicines. In West Africa, a particular flying fox disperses seeds of the iroko tree, which is the basis of a $100-million a year industry.
And finally, if you STILL don’t think this applies to you, then maybe the Bible will make some sense of it. In Genesis 1:26 & 28, God told Adam and Eve to “have dominion over” the earth, and also said to “replenish” it. The Hebrew word for dominion is:
“Radhah”: to rule or have dominion. To take possession of, as honey from a hive (Judges 14:9). Word used for taking bread out of an oven.
And the word replenish is: Male’: To fill. Accomplish. Refers to placement of an object in a receptacle, whether literally or figuratively. Depicts an act of replenishment.
Now for those of you who want to say that God was only speaking here of filling the earth with more and more humans, think about why then He would have used the word RE-plenish. There had never been humans before, right? So they would not be RE-plenishing the earth with them. Instead, it seems clear that God probably meant to put back what we take from the earth. This is where humans have become so faulty. We take, but do not give back. And entire species of animals, and therefore our entire ecosystem, is suffering because of it.
If you need more Scripture, try Genesis 2:15, where God tells Adam to “dress” and “keep” the Garden. Now, forgive me, but I believe this goes for the earth as well. Not just the Garden of Eden which does not exist anymore...The Hebrew word dress is:
`Avadh: to serve, work, toil.
And to keep is:
Shamar: To keep, guard, keep safe, preserve, protect, watch, retain. To carefully tend.
I do not think God ever intended for us to push certain species of His creation to extinction. I do not think it has to be this way. I believe that if we as humans learned to take care of the earth God has given us, we would glean blessings in areas we have never even dreamed of. I believe the creation would stop crying out as if in birth pangs (Romans 8:22), and our quality of life would be much, much better as we try to get by day after day in this temporary home of ours.
If God wants to end certain species, that’s His prerogative. But who are we to play God? Even if it is only through ignorance, or apathy.
Extinction Gets A Bad Rap – [Matthew]
Think extinction is a bad thing? I got one word for you: dinosaurs. Yeah, consider the potential impact of a 70-ton Brachiosaurus on your morning commute.
Sure, the dinosaur was cool when it was around, but so was the Rubik’s Cube. As thinking adults, I think we can agree that when it comes to dinosaurs, like Ike and Tina, it’s best that we’re separated. Generationally divorced, as it were.
Now don’t get me wrong, would it have been cool to see a Tasmanian Tiger or Pig-footed Bandicoot? Sure. And is it sad that they’re gone forever? Yeah, I guess. But I would liken it to when a relative dies: ‘How can we go on without Great Aunt Giant Moa? Even though she couldn’t fly, I remember she could crush a man’s skull with just her beak.’ But you do get over it. Your life (and animal life), rushes on in the great tide of existence.
Extinction keeps the line moving forward. One species dies, a different but similar one fills in, not unlike the two Darrins on ‘Bewitched.’ Dick Sargent wasn’t a better or worse Darrin than Dick York, just different.
Darwin would look at animals like the Himalayan Quail, Golden Bamboo Lemur, and Greater Prairie Chicken and say the herd thins itself out. I would say those animals were the slow, fat kids in The Great Dodgeball Game of Life on Earth.
Before he wiped them out, I wonder if God had a talk with the dinosaurs: ‘Hey guys, listen. This was good while it lasted, but it’s over. It’s not you, it’s me. I’d like to see other creatures. Smaller creatures. One’s that have opposable thumbs and can talk. Creatures who I have more in common with.’
Need another case for extinction? Consider the pandas. Ling Ling or Bling Bling or whatever they call them. They try to get these kids together to continue the species, but the guy panda just sits there like some kind of black and white eunuch bump on a log. ‘Hey, Mr. Bear, what are you, gay? Either screw or get off the planet, my monochromatic friend. Your home country has like six billion people. If you’re just going to sit there and suck your thumb, they could really use the space.’
I’m sure the cutesy names don’t help. If you want the male panda to feel like a male panda, don’t name him Sunshine Buttercup. How emasculating. Name him Roger. Or Mike. Pretty much anything that doesn’t sound like a flavor of herbal tea will work.
Now maybe you’re still sitting there, dumbly holding onto the tattered shreds of your opposing view, still convinced extinction is bad. Well then, Sierra Club Sally, let me pose a word problem to you.
Picture this: you walk out of Starbucks, four dollar frappuccino in hand, when up walks a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Out of nowhere-- BAM, he drops a Hummer-sized dino-turd right in front of you. You spill your drink and as the final insult, just as you’ve managed to blot the coffee from your brand new Ann Taylor sweater, the T. Rex bites you in half and eats you.
Still think extinction is bad? Just ask the still-standing bloody lower torso of the yuppie frappuccino lady for her two cents.
You think about that.
[end ping]
The animal kingdom is a powerful, diverse, incredible world where such a vast display of God’s creativity is offered, it continually astounds anyone who takes the time to notice it. Unfortunately, this diverse world is being whittled away, year by year, at a speed that most people would be shocked to discover.
When complete and total extinction of a species occurs, it is just that: COMPLETE AND TOTAL. And when the word species is used, it also means just that: AN ENTIRE SPECIES. Not just one family of big cats. Not just one pod of whales. It means that an entire type of animal is gone from the earth, never to be viewed or studied again.
The rate of extinction has been increasing exponentially since the year 1600 AD. Dr. Norman Myers, a British ecologist warns that during the next 25 years, if things continue at the rate they are, we can expect to lose anywhere from 1000 species per year minimum, to a maximum of 100 species of plants and animals PER DAY. This means that people alive in the year 2015 will have witnessed the extinction of possibly one million living things. This kind of rapid extinction has never before happened in earth’s recorded history. Imagine a world without tigers. Imagine trying to explain to your children and grandchildren why these beautiful animals no longer exist, although they most certainly did in your lifetime.
Now, I understand the need for some animal species to end. As we can all imagine, the dinosaurs were of another era, and would not have a place in this day and time. This is why I believe God allowed them to perish in the flood.
However, the vast majority of extinctions on this planet are the direct result of the greed of human beings. Throughout history, records show that following the humans’ movement to new landmasses, a wave of extinctions occurred. These are of course due to over-hunting, as well as habitat destruction, and humans consuming all these animal’s natural resources.
Why is this terrible? Why should people be more concerned about it? I look at it like a game of Jenga. For those of you who don’t know, Jenga is a game where many wooden pieces stack on each other. As the game goes on, one piece at a time is removed. Finally, the entire tower crumbles. It simply cannot stand without its pieces which make it a whole. The animal kingdom is exactly like this. Each species depends on the other. The word symbiosis in the dictionary says: The living together in more or less intimate association or close union of two dissimilar organisms as a mutually beneficial relationship: mutualism. A cooperative relationship between groups. This is what our ecosystem does. Different species depend on each other to survive. Start removing one at a time, piece by piece, and it is assured that the entire system will suffer irreparable damage, and begin to collapse.
If you still think this doesn’t apply to you, and you don’t need to care, consider this: MANY, MANY of these animal species are vital to YOUR way of life. Humans depend on different animal species in more ways than most people recognize. Only one example is the flying fox, a type of fruit bat. Old World tropical plants owe their survival to the fruit bat for seed dispersal and pollination. These “bat plants” provide over 450 different uses for humans, including fruits for food, kapok fiber, charcoal, and medicines. In West Africa, a particular flying fox disperses seeds of the iroko tree, which is the basis of a $100-million a year industry.
And finally, if you STILL don’t think this applies to you, then maybe the Bible will make some sense of it. In Genesis 1:26 & 28, God told Adam and Eve to “have dominion over” the earth, and also said to “replenish” it. The Hebrew word for dominion is:
“Radhah”: to rule or have dominion. To take possession of, as honey from a hive (Judges 14:9). Word used for taking bread out of an oven.
And the word replenish is: Male’: To fill. Accomplish. Refers to placement of an object in a receptacle, whether literally or figuratively. Depicts an act of replenishment.
Now for those of you who want to say that God was only speaking here of filling the earth with more and more humans, think about why then He would have used the word RE-plenish. There had never been humans before, right? So they would not be RE-plenishing the earth with them. Instead, it seems clear that God probably meant to put back what we take from the earth. This is where humans have become so faulty. We take, but do not give back. And entire species of animals, and therefore our entire ecosystem, is suffering because of it.
If you need more Scripture, try Genesis 2:15, where God tells Adam to “dress” and “keep” the Garden. Now, forgive me, but I believe this goes for the earth as well. Not just the Garden of Eden which does not exist anymore...The Hebrew word dress is:
`Avadh: to serve, work, toil.
And to keep is:
Shamar: To keep, guard, keep safe, preserve, protect, watch, retain. To carefully tend.
I do not think God ever intended for us to push certain species of His creation to extinction. I do not think it has to be this way. I believe that if we as humans learned to take care of the earth God has given us, we would glean blessings in areas we have never even dreamed of. I believe the creation would stop crying out as if in birth pangs (Romans 8:22), and our quality of life would be much, much better as we try to get by day after day in this temporary home of ours.
If God wants to end certain species, that’s His prerogative. But who are we to play God? Even if it is only through ignorance, or apathy.
Extinction Gets A Bad Rap – [Matthew]
Think extinction is a bad thing? I got one word for you: dinosaurs. Yeah, consider the potential impact of a 70-ton Brachiosaurus on your morning commute.
Sure, the dinosaur was cool when it was around, but so was the Rubik’s Cube. As thinking adults, I think we can agree that when it comes to dinosaurs, like Ike and Tina, it’s best that we’re separated. Generationally divorced, as it were.
Now don’t get me wrong, would it have been cool to see a Tasmanian Tiger or Pig-footed Bandicoot? Sure. And is it sad that they’re gone forever? Yeah, I guess. But I would liken it to when a relative dies: ‘How can we go on without Great Aunt Giant Moa? Even though she couldn’t fly, I remember she could crush a man’s skull with just her beak.’ But you do get over it. Your life (and animal life), rushes on in the great tide of existence.
Extinction keeps the line moving forward. One species dies, a different but similar one fills in, not unlike the two Darrins on ‘Bewitched.’ Dick Sargent wasn’t a better or worse Darrin than Dick York, just different.
Darwin would look at animals like the Himalayan Quail, Golden Bamboo Lemur, and Greater Prairie Chicken and say the herd thins itself out. I would say those animals were the slow, fat kids in The Great Dodgeball Game of Life on Earth.
Before he wiped them out, I wonder if God had a talk with the dinosaurs: ‘Hey guys, listen. This was good while it lasted, but it’s over. It’s not you, it’s me. I’d like to see other creatures. Smaller creatures. One’s that have opposable thumbs and can talk. Creatures who I have more in common with.’
Need another case for extinction? Consider the pandas. Ling Ling or Bling Bling or whatever they call them. They try to get these kids together to continue the species, but the guy panda just sits there like some kind of black and white eunuch bump on a log. ‘Hey, Mr. Bear, what are you, gay? Either screw or get off the planet, my monochromatic friend. Your home country has like six billion people. If you’re just going to sit there and suck your thumb, they could really use the space.’
I’m sure the cutesy names don’t help. If you want the male panda to feel like a male panda, don’t name him Sunshine Buttercup. How emasculating. Name him Roger. Or Mike. Pretty much anything that doesn’t sound like a flavor of herbal tea will work.
Now maybe you’re still sitting there, dumbly holding onto the tattered shreds of your opposing view, still convinced extinction is bad. Well then, Sierra Club Sally, let me pose a word problem to you.
Picture this: you walk out of Starbucks, four dollar frappuccino in hand, when up walks a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Out of nowhere-- BAM, he drops a Hummer-sized dino-turd right in front of you. You spill your drink and as the final insult, just as you’ve managed to blot the coffee from your brand new Ann Taylor sweater, the T. Rex bites you in half and eats you.
Still think extinction is bad? Just ask the still-standing bloody lower torso of the yuppie frappuccino lady for her two cents.
You think about that.
[end ping]
posted by Etcetera at 3:48 PM
16 Comments:
Extinction huh???
I think I'm with Matthew on this one. No offense Sharon, but if God was concerned about animal extinction or whatever, why would He allow cheetahs to eat gazelles?
Are humans over the top in our progress? Sometimes. But considering the vast amount of resources in the world, I find it somewhat egocentric for man to believe that he has the power to totally destroy what God created.
Still Sharon, some of those facts are interesting...
I'll think twice before sitting down to a nice meal of flying fox stew & bald eagle pie... ;-)
God is in control, of course. But, I find it heartbreaking that many people who believe in God don't blink when destroyng his creation. I mean, say I painted this great watercolor and I was proud of it and said" this is good!"....if you loved me would you just take my painting and rip it into shreds? That would make me sad. I really believe it saddens God when the people that say they love Him, go ahead wreck His artwork.
Oh man, I swore that I would never get into these debates again.
I, generally, think that if an animal or species goes extinct, then it was meant to because of God's plan. Remember that a single bird does not fall out of the sky without God knowing about it. I don't imagine that He is in Heaven freaking out when a species goes extinct.
With that being said, I do think that we should never puposely eradicate a species (unless, of course, you are talking about poodles or other "cutesie dogs".
I also believe the world is more robust than we give it credit. I don't know that man is capable of completely destroying the world. That seems to be a rather high view of man.
those are my 2/5 of a nickel's worth.
hola! Well, Jeff, in answer to your question, God uses cheetahs to keep the gazelle population down. Cheetahs eating gazelles is not going to wipe them off the face of the earth. : ) That's sortof what I mean by the whole Jenga thing: if cheetahs didn't exist anymore, the gazelle population would get out of control... so we need cheetahs. There's a balance. But what humans do in a lot of cases is NOT balanced. We do not give the planet time to adjust itself to what we do to it.
And in response to both Jeff and Jigs' comments, I am not saying we can totally destroy the planet. But I am saying that we can pretty brutally jack it up. And I don't believe that's okay, and that "God's will" is an excuse to do it. Of course God isn't "freaking out" when an animal goes extinct. But that doesn't mean it doesn't sadden Him.
Okay, please don't attack me now. I'm just trying to clarify a little... Okay? Please? Pretty please?
Oh, and thanks Tara, it's a relief to have a similar opinion come through... : ) Whew!
sharon?!?!? what the f***? How could you POSSIBLY think... okay, I'm just kidding.
No, I agree. Man was placed on the earth to be a steward over God's creation, not to abuse that power. And when more people learn to appreciate God through His creation, I think we will find that the abuse of nature will cease (...never happen)
Still, I think the problem with your POV is the way people seem to take it and run with it in the attempt to villify humankind and exalt nature... don't they know that if man wasn't here, the siberian tiger population would reach epidemic proportions??? :)
Seriously though. Even though we can abuse our power, I believe we were put here for a reason, too-- not just the dang dolphins. The technology God has blessed us with is designed to use many of our natural resources. So, in balance, I believe it is healthy & in order.
Unfortunately, there are those who would agree with you, who place more value on some indigenous panda bear than they do human life... (are abortionists here to keep the infant population in check???) uh-oh, I went down the wrong road with that one...
So forgive me for lumping you in with the extremists... my bad. My brother tells me you're hot!! (haha)
Here's the perfect analogy. Even though every blogger site has Word Verification to stop the blog-spammers, they're still out there... (of course, I'd have no problem if we 'brutally jacked them up'!)
Ahhhh.... now that I have that off my chest, I'm gonna go hug a tree :)
It's makes me mad that many Christians are so afraid of being called "tree-huggers" that they then fall over to the "I'm gonna PROVE I don't worship nature group" Hey, I'm proud to say I Love hugging trees, animals, whatever...but I don't worship nature over God (I know HE is the Creator) I don't put a Panda's life over your life (or an unborn baby's!) why are you people so afraid.....people that Love nature, Love God's creation..that honors Him. Don't be afraid to honor Him that way....you won't become a Pagan from hugging a tree. You might even get closer to God (yes I said that!)....have you ever seen something very beautiful in nature and thought "wow...God you are awesome!" That's, ok you know. ;)
Matt, I admire and respect you. In fact, I think you're an outrageously funny man. But I've seen your picture, and I've seen Sharon's picture. Dude, I'm going to side with Sharon. All that and brains, too [/sigh].
I'm surprised no one's used the word "stewardship" yet. Maybe it's too churchy, but I'll say it. Stewardship (to me, at least) insinuates an evenhandedness in approach whose goal is—if not to maintain balance— to avoid disrupting the congruity of a rather complex arrangement.
I agree with Jeff's assessment that, in order to "win the argument," we take elements of a POV and run to one extreme or another. That's especially true with this topic, it seems. On one hand, PETA, and the tree-huggers. On the other, the "dominionists" (evangelicals chief among them), who seem to believe, "Whatever those dirty fag liberals believe, we're going to believe the opposite! God told us to have dominion here, and when we're done whipping this bitch into the dirt, He's gonna come back and make us another one! Yeehaw!"
That said, it seems that you guys are debating two different subjects. Matt, you chose to use the dinosaur as your primary defense for the merits of extinction. And, while I'm as grateful as the next guy that I don't have to dodge the raptors on my way to the mailbox, I don't think that's the issue. From all accounts, whether it's the meteor, or an ice age, dinosaurs were wiped out by forces other than mankind. In essence, God took them out. That wasn't within our control.
Contrast that with slaughtering elephants, leaving them to rot, just to have their tusks. I know it's liberal Hollywood, but who can forget the scene in "Dances with Wolves" when the Native Americans wept as they passed through the field of bison carcasses, killed only for their skin. Even when our intentions are good, we must consider that wolves had to be reintroduced to Yellowstone because the deer population had run amok, harming itself in the process.
While I don't believe that the Earth will be around forever, I don't think that's an excuse to consume with abandon. I think part of the problem is that we don't experience wonder at the creation. We don't open and close our hand in front of our face and marvel at "how is this possible?" We don't appreciate the "fearfully and wonderfully made" aspect of existence because we've become so smart that we can explain it all away.
"Claiming to be wise, they became fools instead." Rom 1:22
OK, this one is totally nonresponsive to the Matt vs. Sharon thing, but it's funny so I'll mention it.
So my family's sitting around one night playing one of those "answer a question and one player has to guess who gave each answer" kind of games, and the question is,"If you could make one species go extinct, which would it be?" As you can imagine, answers included 'cockroaches,' 'spiders,' 'ants,' and... dinosaurs?!
That would be from Jackie, our former live-in who... let's just say... has lead for brains. And I mean that in a loving way.
Dorsey said:
I'm surprised no one's used the word "stewardship" yet. Maybe it's too churchy, but I'll say it.
Uh, dude? Check two posts up from yours, paragraph 2.
Hmph! What should I expect from a plagiarist ballerina disguised as James Bond...
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
Jeff-holio,
Dude, I was fast asleep by "No, I agree..."
Besides, you didn't use the word "stewardship." I stand by my statement.
Where'd you get that tiny hat? Oh...sorry.
My point about the dinosaurs, while humorous, was an attempt to point out a crack in the 'extinction of a species is always bad' armor. I grew up hunting, so I believe in conservation and in being a good steward of the world we've inherited. I agree there's nothing to be gained in using up a type of animal until it's out of existence. BUT, there are some species that (completely apart from man's influence) just don't make the cut. In elementary school I was taught that the food chain was a fragile thing and if the three-footed skink monkey died, then the animal that ate it would die, and so on and so on down the line. But we're still here. Life goes on. Speaking for myself, I'm going to take care of the crap I'm entrusted with and not cry myself to sleep over the dead three-legged monkey skinks. Would this be a good time to reintroduce my manatee-farming franchise idea?
-MP
The bottom line is this: No one who ever abused the nature was doing it under the auspices of the golden rule...what I mean is this: if you actually care about someone other than yourself you wouldn't abuse nature just to suit you own momentary need.
Say what you will about using too much oil, but it the dinosaurs hadn't gone extinct when they did and leave behind their carcasses to form deposits of oil like they did, we would not be able to have a technologically modern society like we do. It's too much of a coincidence for me to believe that it was an accident.
Hey Tim!
I agree. I mentioned in my piece that I DO believe the dinosaurs went bye-bye because of God's choice.
It's funny too, because Matt and I did not read each others' arguments before they posted.. I had no idea his mentioned dinosaurs. And he had no idea I did.
: )
yes, Matt...I think having a dinosaur bite my head off would be sad...so I do agree with you there. :) And that manatee idea...yum!!! I'd stop being a vegetarian for that! Lemme know if you ever get the farm idea off the ground!
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