If you listen very carefully you may be able to hear the roar too.
It is not hard to notice, and one would almost have to be living under a log to not notice, the world is in trouble. Actually, not the world itself, just people.
The world spun relentlessly for billions of years prior to the advent of humans. By all accounts it is likely to spin on just as relentlessly without us. The oldest of the dinosaurs died out some 75 million years ago as they paved the way for more modern dinosaurs that themselves were extinguished some 65 million years ago. They chased each other around for over 165 million years. Mind boggling really.
Humanity is barely the blink of a dinosaur’s eye by comparison.
Given our current and past behavior we are not likely to leave nearly the legacy, in terms of time, that the dinosaurs left.
The two major religions on the planet appear to be on the edge of a precipice where it seems inevitable they will drag each other kicking and screaming into the abyss.
I find this interesting because neither side can objectively claim a high ground, and the extremists on both sides, have caused problems for all of humanity for a very long time. The atrocities of the inquisition are reminiscent of the atrocities of ISIS. In fact one could argue that the inquisition was worse because it was supported by the hierarchy of the church itself.
Even within our own country we only have to look at Christian treatment of Hawaiians, American Indians and Blacks to see that our own experience is somewhat tarnished. In many ways this treatment has become institutionalized.
ISIS does not represent Islam any more than the Ku Klux Clan represents Christianity.
There is a tendency for the believers in either faith to interpret things from the perspective of their own faith and therein lies the problem.
People all around the world are really no different. The vast majority of people practice their religion perfectly willing to allow others to practice theirs. It is the few wackos on both sides that have the power to taint all others and by default end up being associated with them.
While it is easy for Christians to see that they are not like the Ku Klux Clan, it is likewise easy for Muslims to see that they are not like ISIS.
The problem arises when Muslims are taught to see that all Christians are indeed just like the Ku Klux Clan and all Christians are taught that all Muslims are like ISIS at their core. This becomes a sort of collective psychosis, with all the associated delusions, propaganda, hallucinations, and paranoia.
The degree to which this is true is what will ultimately result in both sides losing control—as over the cliff they go.
If ever there was a time for understanding, tolerance, acceptance and turning the other cheek, it is now–both sides teach this, and of course there are ruthless radical factions on both sides that teach the opposite.
At the rate we are going, there will not likely even be a fossil record of us in 165 million years.
When you consider that human beings seem to be destined to destroy themselves, over what amounts to nothing but rhetoric and self-created delusions, the dinosaurs have to be getting the last laugh.
At least it took an asteroid to take them out–they did not do it to themselves.
Charles Buell