Nature's indifference to Human Symbolic Status
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| A Man kisses a statue of the Soviet Dictator Joseph Stalin Humans kiss statues, Birds defecate on them. (accumulated grime, algae and bird droppings) |
when a man's is cut off the world still spins. It is not just the fact that a man's head was decapitated like a chicken that is the horror but that it is even possible that nature allows for such a sight, that physics allows for such an
outcome as higher consciousness on a fragile and vulnerable meat stick.
Whether it is the Adam and Eve myth or the Noah myth mankind is the central actor and God will destroy all of nature or change all of nature due to the actions of Men. Man is the center of the Cosmic drama in the Biblical message. But not only in the Biblical message does Man become the center but civilization itself is trying to free man from the decaying power of nature through its symbols of immortality and the will to technological immortality.
Nature's message paints a different picture where man is no longer the central actor but rather just another part of nature in the long evolutionary history of life on Earth.
Some Humans may deny they are a part of Nature but Nature denies Human superiority in the way it treats the Human body and the Human immortality symbols. Viruses and Bacteria will ravage Humans as they will other animals and a Human Body will provide nourishment to a Crocodile or a Big Cat just the same.
Man wants to be the central actor in the cosmos, on earth, in history. But nature's message runs something else in the ear if you pay attention. Nature may declare the glory of God...some God...but it does not declare the glory of man. Nature is indifferent to our self aggrandizing symbols whether they be secular or religious.
John Maisey of American Museum of Natural History
Doves which were freed by children flanked by Pope Francis are attacked by a Black Crow and a SeagullMailOnline
"An animal who gets his feeling of worth symbolically...so openly express man's tragic destiny: he must desperately justify himself as an object of primary value in the universe; he must stand out, be a hero, make the biggest possible contribution to world life, show that he counts more than anything or anyone else. It doesn't matter whether the cultural hero-system is frankly magical, religious, and primitive or secular, scientific, and civilized.
It is still a mythical hero-system in which people serve in order to earn afeeling of primary value, of cosmic specialness, of ultimate usefulness to creation, of unshakable meaning."
Ernest Becker
"It's not the end of the world at all," he said. "It's only the end for us. The world will go on just the same, only we shan't be in it. I dare say it will get along all right without us.”
Nevil Shute, On the Beach
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