God's Greatest Miracle

Man ...

Undoubtedly God's most magnificent invention yet possibly the greatest mistake ... Nature's most wondrous beast that roams but possibly her most forlorn child who has now turned matricidal; the paragon of His creation yet the most foul and accursed being in time and space.

Evolution has not changed the very nature of man: vindictive, vicious, spiteful, petty, scheming, vengeful, violent, cruel. Evolution cannot tame the beast that threatens to run rampage. Evolution cannot illuminate the darkness that lurks beneath; it cannot silence the howls of desire.

In the end, we are merely beasts. We've led ourselves to believe, in all illusion, that we have evolved and we are Lord and Masters of all other beasts. We have tamed the frontiers of outer space but we've yet to comprehend the unchartered void of inner space. We turn on that which has fed us and given us life - in a continued act of matricide. We revel in our intellect facilitated by that which supposedly defines our intelligence - language - and use it for conquest.

However much Natural Selection has, as Steven Pinker believes, produced highly evolved mental and psychological traits - memory, perception, judgement, adaptation, language - it has done little to evolve the instinctual violent, destructive, rabid aggression.

We are nothing more than beasts who have the capacity for language. Stripped of our social obligations, we are savages, albeit not in any way noble as Rousseau believed. Nobility has no place in a savage's world. Even in a highly technologised world where life and sophistication are synonyms, we are heathens - barbarous, uncivilized, uncultivated, wild.

We are self-centred. We seek only what we desire, fulfills us, and completes us. We use and abuse whatever we find to achieve that goal of self-gratification - nature, the earth, the natural universe ... each other. We would use one other to get that one rung higher in the social ladder, abuse and manipulate to get ahead, accuse and bemuse that we may be seen in a better light. We make use of another's company and concern so we may not feel the scourging pain of loneliness that tears at our soul every conscious moment.

There is no altruism. Altruism exists only as deception: it is an illumination which blinds us from the truth that we are instinctually not. That very notion, the belief that we can give without return, is already rooted in egocentrism. There is no unconditional love; there is no unconditional giving. Perhaps that is the very same instinct that has led to evolution, a natural selection of those strongest and fittest: we seek only to fulfill our carnal desires; we seek only what's best for ourselves ... and to hell with the price that must be paid.

In a quiet day such as this, I've encountered a great many of such vindictive personalities on the road and in emails. Apology and cordiality seem insufficient - only vengeance would suffice for them.

Humanity has fallen from grace - perhaps it never was in grace.

There is only one certainty: Human beings are God's greatest mistake ...

And I am ashamed to be one...