Recently in Creation Category

Green Spaces Boost the Body and the Mind:

In areas with only 10 percent of green space, about 2.6 percent of people experienced anxiety disorders, compared to 1.8 percent of people in areas with 90 percent green space. The disparity was evident for depression as well -- 3.2 percent of people living in more urbanized areas had depression versus 2.4 percent of those in more rural areas. . . .

"If we're in a busy street with more technology and artificial things, we're going to be multi-tasking more, which prevents us from focusing on one thing," Rakel said. "In this day and age, we really need some sort of centering practice. We need to get our mind out of its own stories and focus on something that's pure. Nature is a beautiful example of that -- it's the way things were meant to be." . . .

"If they're in their heads and not paying attention, it doesn't do them much good," said Ryan, co-author of a recent study report that people who are exposed to natural elements are more socially oriented, more generous and value community more. Another experiment he was involved in found that people who spent time outdoors had more vitality and energy.

So getting out of the house helps relieve anxiety and depression. No kidding?

Dr. Rakel's suggestion for a "centering practice" sounds a bit New Age, but he is right that we need to focus on something pure and beautiful. And in our post-Enlightenment, overly-individualized culture, we could do with a stronger connection to the community and greater generosity. The pure, beautiful thing we should center ourselves upon is God whose love in us leads us to love our neighbors, and, according to St. Paul, we can encounter God, though in perhaps in a limited way, through his creation (Rom 1:20).

It makes sense that man should feel at home in nature and have less anxiety and depression since it was God who put us in his creation to tend the Garden. Unfortunately, after the fall we have not tended the garden so much as raped it. No wonder we're so depressed.

Following is a scientific account of the formation of the universe and the things in it. It has been largely dumbed-down to resemble what you might see on the Science, National Geographic, Discovery, and History channels (although it is far less likely you will see this on Discovery because they show shows about motorcycles, and still less likely on History because, when not showing shows about Hitler, they show shows about UFOs; TLC is right out!):

In the beginning, which was probably around 13 billion years ago, membranes were vibrating. These membranes exist at a more basic level than atoms, electrons, and even quarks. At first we thought they were strings, but it turns out that the strings are woven together into a kind of fabric which we call membranes. Now we really can't see the membranes, but they seem to fit well into some mathematical formulas we worked out.

At any rate, the membranes were vibrating and then, by completely random chance, two of them happened to touch each other. When they did, our universe began in a singularity we call the Big Bang. Now, even though we call it a Bang, there wasn't really an explosion, but all the matter that exists in our universe today sprang into existence at that singularity and then the universe started expanding at an extraordinarily rapid rate, which sort of looks like an explosion but not really. In fact, the universe is still expanding today because of the great amount of energy that was released in the Big Bang.

Because of all the energy released in the Big Bang, things were really hot, so hot that the photons which make up light kept bouncing off the electrons and positrons and the other particles that were bouncing around and could not escape, so things were dark. It took several minutes for the universe to expand far enough and cool down enough for light to move freely through the particle soup. At that point, if human beings had existed and could have survived the excessive heat—and had there really been anything to see—we would have been able to see stuff because, you know, our eyes respond to light.

Eventually, because of gravity, the matter that was formed in the Big Bang, mainly hydrogen, coalesced and formed dust clouds and eventually stars. Lots of these stars exploded (and I mean real explosions this time, called supernovas) making heavier elements like helium, lithium, carbon, oxygen, and iron. Then, there was more coalescing of these heavier elements and more stars formed and eventually planets, too.

On one very non-special planet in a very non-special part of the universe (to paraphrase Carl Sagan) it was cool enough for liquid water to form. Then there were volcanoes that erupted. Those volcanoes, along with even more volcanic activity under this non-special planet's crust, forced land up out of the water. You can still see this happening on the big island of Hawaii.

Somehow (we're still not sure exactly how) carbon mixed with some other elements, molecules called proteins developed, and these, somehow, came together and formed the first molecular life on a very non-special planet in a very non-special part of the universe. I mean, hell, what with all those other universes in the "multiverse" springing into and out of existence by random chance, life had to happen sometime simply because of the law of averages.

Anyway, these simple life forms developed in the water because, you know, liquid water is required to support life as we know it. Eventually, this simple life, somehow, developed new features like gills and fins and eyes and decided to keep them because they were useful. Other innovations were dropped because they were not useful, like the human appendix which, though it is not used, has actually been retained and sometimes has to be removed.

Eventually, this aquatic life figured that it would be beneficial to its survival (i.e. the passing on of its genetic material) to venture onto land. These new land animals (we're not sure how plants got there) continued to evolve new features, one of the more interesting of which is sex. We figure sex developed mainly for the passing on of genetic material. The pleasure and intimacy of sex evolved in order to make it more pleasurable to pass on said genetic material (although we still see single-cell organisms asexually passing on their genetic material without much complaining that it isn't fun and having zero chance of going extinct within the next five billion years).

At any rate, these land animals eventually evolved, somehow, into ape-like creatures which then evolved into modern apes and, in parallel, into human beings. We know this because humans share as much as 90-some percent of their genetic material with apes. Interestingly enough, these human things (and apes and land and water) are made up of the same elements that were created by those exploding stars billions of years ago so, like, we and the stars are made out of the same stuff (to paraphrase Carl Sagan).

Here is a parallel account (slightly edited) that you won't see on the Science, National Geographic, Discovery, and History channels (and definitely not TLC!) unless they're showing a show about how it was all made up and Jesus was really married to Mary Magdalene, and oh, by the way, Jesus was a liberal social reformer who wasn't really concerned with religion and who was just a generally nice guy without all the hang-ups about guilt and sin and stuff that you read about in the Bible, and oh, by the way, who couldn't have raised himself from the dead because that would be, like, a miracle or something and with all our scientific knowledge we know that miracles are impossible:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind: and it was so. And God saw that it was good.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

Comparing these two accounts, we find that they share much in common: First, the universe has a beginning—a revolutionary idea to the scientific world of the early 20th century. In addition, light was separated from darkness shortly after the beginning; there is a sun, moon, and stars; dry land appeared out of the water; aquatic life appeared before land animals; man was the last to arrive on the scene and was, in fact, made from the same stuff as the earth.

However, the two accounts approach the universe from two completely different perspectives. And I must admit, I find the biblical perspective more satisfying than the scientific.

Now, my lack of satisfaction with science has absolutely nothing to do with the goofy Christian-fundamentalist notion that God really created the universe in six 24-hour periods. Why should it have taken God 6 days or 13 billion years? Why should it have taken God any time at all? Let's not forget that time is a thing created by God and that God is eternal, meaning literally that he exists outside of time. For God, there is no past and no future and not really a present. Past, present, and future are ways in which humans perceive the passage of time. We are, after all, time-bound creatures. But because he is not bound by time, asking how long it took God to do anything is a meaningless question. It makes just as much sense to ask what God was doing all that time before he created the universe.

Neither does my lack of satisfaction have anything to do with an objection to the just-as-goofy atheist-fundamentalist notion that science is superior to religion and philosophy, and that with science we can come to a complete understanding of the universe without reliance on silly, ancient "superstition." While I do object to such a position and believe that those who hold it are full of crap, I do accept that science can be a worthwhile pursuit. For example, the flush toilet is an amazing invention; without an understanding of gravity, designing a flush toilet would not be possible. From a religious perspective, we can gain a limited knowledge of God's existence and of his nature by studying his creation; e.g. all the stuff that exists had to come from somewhere, he is a personal deity who made decisions about how to put together his creation, etc. (see Romans 1:20 and Peter Kreeft).

But I digress.

What I find that science lacks is meaning. Because of the way it is structured, science can never assign meaning to what it discovers. Observation and experimentation are important and can explain how, and, like the ancients believed, can be tools for acquiring wisdom. But they can never answer the most basic question that humans ask: Why? When it attempts to answer why, science typically plays the random chance card; i.e. our universe exists because the odds finally played out. If it helps us to understand how the universe works by using chance as a mathematical construct (such as in quantum physics), then fine. But no one really finds random chance a satisfying answer to the meaning of the universe, whether they would admit it or not. Even Einstein refused to believe that God would "play dice" with the universe.

How does the old saying go? Scientists will one day scale the mountain of human knowledge only to find a group of theologians who have been sitting at the summit for thousands of years. This statement is a truism, but what makes something a truism is that it is true. Here's a practical example: Astrophysics has, in the last hundred years, determined that 1) the universe in fact has a beginning, 2) light literally was separated from darkness in the first few minutes after the Big Bang, and 3) man is made up of the same stuff that makes up the rest of the universe. The Hebrews put these ideas in writing three thousand years ago. Science can explain to us how these things happened, but as to why?—the Hebrews wrote that down, too.

This was what I saw out my back door this morning (click the link or the picture for a bigger image). There were about five deer that I was able to spot. In the picture you can see three, the two in the foreground and the hide and tail of a third in the background. The other two were off-camera to the right.

I think the deer hunters around will eventually resent my presence here in the woods. I refuse to allow hunting on any one of my six acres. Not that I think hunting is evil, I just don't want it in my backyard. And because loggers have basically raped the land around here and cleared it of any trees and consequently destroyed habitats for a bunch of animals, I think I'll probably see a higher concentration of wildlife in my backyard, among which there will certainly be deer. And, if I have a high concentration of deer that hunters can't get to, I probably won't be very popular.

I used to hate the trees (all the trees inside the red line are mine), but now I think I'm going to keep as many as I can, if only to spite the hunters and loggers. I know it is unrealistic to imagine that deer and other animals will limit themselves to my six acres and thus avoid all danger. However, they are quite welcome here and they are certainly free to make themselves at home in my woods.

The best description of the global warming crisis I have ever read can be found at the First Things "On the Square" blog. The key paragraph for me is:

The only evidence that can be said to support this so-called scientific consensus is the supposed correlation of historical global temperatures with historical carbon-dioxide content in the atmosphere. Even if we do not question the accuracy of our estimates of global temperatures into previous centuries, and even if we ignore the falling global temperatures over the past decade as fossil-fuel emissions have continued to increase, an honest scientist would still have to admit that the hypothesis of man-made global warming hardly rises to the level of "an assertion of what has been or would be the result of carrying out a specified observational procedure." Global warming may or may not be "the greatest scam in history," as it was recently called by John Coleman, a prominent meteorologist and the founder of the Weather Channel. Certainly, however, under the scientific method it does not rise to the level of an "item of physical knowledge."

No doubt man does affect his environment, but the warming is hardly global. And, like James Kerian in the article above points out, global warming has yet to be tested scientifically. I have, however, personally experienced local warming. The thermometer in my truck drops a full 3–4 degrees Farenheit as I leave the tiny city of Archdale, NC and drive to my home in the country. The relatively small amount of asphalt and concrete in Archdale collects enough heat to raise the temperature 3 degrees above the temperature just across the city limits. I wonder how much heat is collected by the asphalt and concrete at airports, which is where the majority of weather stations are located....

In the last post I wrote that "God values animals... or he would not have created them in the first place." I ran across some scriptural support for this today. Wisdom 11:24 says: "For you love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made; for what you hated, you would not have fashioned" (New American Bible). For those of you who might not trust a Catholic translation of a book you threw out, the King James Version says: "For thou lovest all the things that are, and abhorrest nothing which thou hast made: for never wouldest thou have made any thing, if thou hadst hated it." This goes a bit farther than God valuing animals as I said—in Wisdom God loves everything he made. Because God loves them, I am now more confident that we will see animals in the world to come.

My first child, a daughter, will be born in July. In a few years we will be faced with the inevitable situation that our cat Abigail will die. This may seem like a morbid and depressing thought, but it crosses my mind on occasion. I have buried a few animals in my lifetime and it is never a pleasant situation. We become attached, and it is sad to see them go. No doubt my daughter will become attached to Abby, as Angie and I have, and I will have to answer the question: "Did Abby go to heaven?" My answer to my little girl will be "Yes, of course." When she is older I will explain my thinking to her in more detail in the same way that I will explain it now.

Human beings are the crowning achievement of God's creation. Only after he made man did he see that his creation was "very good" (Gen. 1:31). He placed a unique value on man, making us in his image in order that we could participate in the life of the holy Trinity. Man therefore looks forward to his ultimate salvation—to behold God face to face in all his glory and to be in communion with him for eternity. In other words, man looks forward to heaven.

Animals, on the other hand, were not created in the image and likeness of God and were not endowed with souls and, as such, they will not be able to participate in the "beatific vision" of God that man will receive in heaven. However, God values animals (though he values them less than human life, as we also should) or he would not have created them in the first place. We can also assume that because we possess a care and affection for animals that God also does. Because we are made in the image of God, we would not care for our animal friends if God does not. God also takes great pride in the animals in his creation, as he explained to Job and his companions (Job 41). So, even though animals will never see God in the fullness of his glory, I see no reason why they must be excluded from the new heaven and new earth.

The scriptures do not specifically address the place of animals in heaven, nor has the Church ever made an official dogmatic pronouncement on the matter, so Christians are free to believe what they want about the subject (so long as it does not violate things the scriptures do address and/or other dogmas). The scriptures do hint at the subject, though. Isaiah writes that "The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them" (Is. 11:6, New International Version). I suppose that he means that creation will ultimately be restored and given balance, an opinion which is supported by St. Paul who had this to say:

The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God [Rom. 8:19–21, NIV].

So, God's creation waits for its redemption which will coincide with man's ultimate redemption. That there will be animals in the new heaven and earth seems to follow logically. I suppose the controversy is whether we will see our pets who have died. I see no reason why not, even though they will not see God in all his glory and their presence or absence will not affect man's infinite happiness in the presence of God. Ultimately, it is up to God whether we will see our pets in heaven. But a God with infinite power who created all that is, seen and unseen, and values all of his creation, certainly is capable of making room for our animals and pets in the world to come. I am reminded of the words of George Frances Alexander with which I shall now conclude:

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.

Against my better judgment, I decided to let the hornet live. He wasn't trying to nest, and apparently the things eat spiders and other arthropods. I have several spiders and mosquitoes and such living on the back porch so maybe he will keep them under control.

As I sit at my kitchen table preparing my senior computer science presentation, I see a hornet on my back porch walking around on the overhang. I have no idea what he is doing, but I assume he is looking for a spot to nest. He will most likely die later this afternoon because I will kill him. Several of his friends have already died this spring. I will not have hornets nesting on my house. You would think they would get the idea.

I hate hornets and all other wasps (the insect kind, not the white Anglo-Saxon Protestants). I am sworn to destroy them wherever I find them. However, I wonder if my hatred of these and other nasty creatures is disordered. Augustine writes to God about people who hate parts of God's creation in his Confessions:

Your righteousness displeases the wicked, and they find even more fault with the viper and the little worm, which you have created good, fitting in as they do with the inferior parts of creation [7.16.22].

He goes on to define wickedness as "a perversion of the will bent aside from you, God...." I certainly do not want to count myself among the wicked. Perhaps I should re-think my aversion to hornets, the viper, and the little worm and try to bend my will back toward God. In the meantime, I hope God doesn't mind if I kill the hornets who try to nest on my back porch.