My Country Is Called Earth (5 page)

We are nearing the end of the material age, which began when Western man decided to deny his connection with the earth. Today we are beginning to reawaken to that truth still known in native cultures, that “we are part of the earth and it is part of us,” in the words of Chief Seattle. Once we understand this, we will not be able to treat the earth as a thing to be used and thrown away, for we will realize that what we do to the earth we do to ourselves.

True Communism Is Christlike

And all who believed were together and held all things in common. And would sell their possessions and goods and distribute them all according as anyone had need.

Acts Of The Apostles, 2:44-5

True communism, which is community ownership of property, is based upon love and sharing. The first Christians were true communists. Saint Francis of Assisi, who gave all his property away and spent the rest of his life serving others, was a true communist. Mahatma Gandhi, who dedicated his life to the people of India and set up communal farms wherever he lived, was a true communist. Mother Theresa, who nurses and feeds the poor, is a true communist. Lenin, Stalin, and Mao Tse-tung believed in a Communism that was as far from true communism as the Inquisition was from true Christianity.

Party doctrine says Communist society is classless and democratic. In fact, Party and military leaders and the bureaucrats are an elite. They receive the best housing, education, medical care, food, and jobs. To retain control they do not allow open elections. As China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba adopt capitalist systems, these same Party and military leaders will become major owners of property and the means of production—members of the class of exploiters Marx denounced in
The Communist Manifesto
.

The integration of love with Communist ideals results in a communism that recognizes the sacredness of the individual and that does not resort to violence to achieve its goals. In Israel, responsible people living by the principle of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” have created over two hundred prosperous, autonomous communities called kibbutzim.

Marxist Communism is correct in one very important sense: The rights of workers to a decent income are superior to the rights of property owners to a decent return on their investments. The Communist Party is wrong when it says—and herein lies the main mistake of Communism—that the rights of the state are superior to all other rights. The state has no rights, only responsibilities: to protect and serve men and nature. At the end of his lecture “On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience,” Henry David Thoreau said:

There will never be a really free and enlightened state, until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.

Science: The Religion Of Modern Man

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding another pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

Isaac Newton

A study of history and literature from earliest recorded time until the last century reveals that when man thought or talked or wrote, he would often make references to his God. Today the theory of evolution has become so interwoven with our culture that we think and talk and write in scientific terms. Science has become the religion of modern man, and scientists have become its priests. And like every institution that has overstayed its welcome, science is guilty of taking itself too seriously. Science needs to learn the humility of Isaac Newton, the great scientist of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The history of science is the story of many wrong turns. Today’s scientific truth is often tomorrow’s stepping stone. Many times in the past discoveries have been made that upset the conventional scientific wisdom; there is no reason to believe there are no major upheavals around the corner.

For instance, for hundreds of years educated men said the universe revolved about the earth, and they devised an elaborate scheme to explain the movements of the sun, the moon, and the planets. It took the work of Copernicus, Galileo, Brahe, and Kepler in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to knock man off this pedestal.

In the eighteenth century scientists were amused by the French farmers who told them rocks were falling from the sky. Today we call those rocks meteorites. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, some doctors diagnosed illnesses they could not explain as due to too much fluid in the body, and they prescribed bloodletting by the placing of leeches on the patient’s skin.

At the beginning of this century scientists were saying the field of physics was complete except for a little fine tuning. This was before the discovery of the atom and quantum physics. This was before Einstein’s theories of relativity. At the beginning of this century scientists scoffed at the continental drift theory. Now continental drift is being taught to school children. Six years before Sputnik was launched in 1957, a prominent scientist said the idea of an artificial satellite going around the earth was “utter bunk.”

Early in this century astronomers said there was only one galaxy in the universe. Fifty years later astronomers said there were one billion galaxies in the universe and 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Now they want us to believe there are 200 billion galaxies in the universe and 400 billion stars in our galaxy.

A knowledge of the past mistakes of science leads one to ask the obvious question: Why should we trust scientists when they tell us they have the universe figured out now?

A popular scientific theory today is organic evolution, which says: Living things are in savage competition with each other, and those best adapted to their environment will survive and pass their traits onto the next generation, while the characteristics of those not as suited to their environment will vanish from the earth.

All of biology is dependent upon a belief in evolution. The sciences of cosmology and geology have incorporated the concept of evolution into their theories. If evolution were found to be wrong, modern science would be thrown into chaos. That is why scientists defend it with such vigor.

Let’s look at evolution in more detail. This is how science explains the existence of life on earth: Three and one-half billion years ago, atmospheric gases energized by lightning, ultraviolet radiation, or volcanic heat combined to form the first organic molecules. By pure accident some of these molecules later developed a cellular structure, including a primitive genetic code, which permitted them to reproduce themselves. Then a gene of one of these organisms mutated, again by chance, allowing its offspring to have different characteristics than it had. Everything was now in place for the evolution of species: Through chance genetic mutations and natural selection—reproduction over time—species after species arose and disappeared. Nature advanced from bacteria to algae to marine invertebrates, fish, insects, amphibians, mosses, ferns, reptiles, trees, birds, dinosaurs, mammals, and primates. And then, just a half million or so years ago, bingo: a man was born.

I think it is ridiculous to even consider the possibility that the beauty and diversity in the world, the order and cooperation in nature, and the marvelous complexity of living things all happened by accident. Scientists tell us a belief in the creation story of the Bible does not take into account the age of the earth and the fossil record, but for scientists to believe that chance is the cause of all the wonders of nature is the bigger leap of faith!

Scientists say that if there are two theories, one elaborate and the other simple, and both explain a phenomenon, the uncomplicated theory should be accepted. So several hundred years ago, science rejected the geocentric theory of astronomy, which stated that the earth is the center of the universe, because it required an intricate series of invisible spheres to explain the motions of the heavenly bodies. They adopted the heliocentric theory, which said that the planets revolve about the sun in elliptical orbits.

Evolution is like the geocentric theory—it requires a complicated, clumsy explanation. My theory of life is simple and easy to understand: There has been a separate creation, an implant from the spiritual world, for every form of life. Afterwards, a god or an animal or plant consciousness looks out for each species. I am not talking about a creation similar to what is described in the Book of Genesis of the Bible, which took place over a period of seven days a few thousand years ago. I am talking about a constant creation of new species and continuous change over time within a species that is the result of spiritual forces acting on the physical world.

Evolution has recently become more difficult to believe than it already was. Scientists have been saying for years that man first evolved in Africa because the oldest homo erectus bones, from 1.8 million years ago, were found in Africa. Now pre-human bones from Indonesia have also been dated at 1.8 million years old. Malcolm W. Browne wrote about the discovery in the
New York Times
in 1994:

Although most anthropologists believe that the human race originated in Africa, the new measurements open the possibility that although its pre-human ancestors began in Africa, different variants of the primate genus Homo may have independently evolved in Africa, Europe, and Asia.

So science has man appearing in several places at approximately the same time—an incredible coincidence, given that evolution depends on chance.

The fossil records, which show that other species existed in the past, are one of the primary proofs of evolution. Yet they are so incomplete that no link has been found between apes and man. The fossil records in fact tend to demonstrate the truth of my theory and the fallacy of evolution. The records show that species appeared and disappeared suddenly. This is contrary to what evolution would predict: Darwin said that gradual changes led to the development of new species. But suddenness is consistent with my theory, which says that each species was implanted on earth from the spiritual realm. I can explain the disappearance of a species as a trial that was terminated in this reality.

Evolution will forever remain a theory, because it cannot be tested by experimentation. And since evolution depends upon lots of time, no scientist will be around long enough to witness the evolution of a new species.

Just as evolution cannot be proven by scientific methods, it cannot be disproven. This allows scientists to make outrageous statements. For example, scientists say that altruism—sacrifice for others—can be explained as a misguided parental or group survival instinct. According to science, then, when a policeman risks his life beyond the call of duty to save the life of someone he has never met, he is endangering himself because his brain has misinterpreted a genetic code that tells him to protect members of his group.

Scientists believe every action, characteristic, and impulse in living things can be classified as either aiding or hindering the survival of the individual or his group, and the actions, characteristics, and impulses that do not increase the chances of survival for the species will be discarded through natural selection. Their cold, mechanistic view of nature is due to their belief in an accidental universe.

Many of those who experience the world without scientific tunnel vision understand their survival is only possible because of the cooperation that exists in nature. All animals are aware that they are dependent upon other animals and plants for food, and that they are in turn food to other animals and plants. Plants realize that they are dependent upon the sun, the water, the air, the soil, and the animal world. On a level below normal consciousness, every animal and plant consents to its death, knowing that it will live through the creature that has eaten it.

Scientists have studied animal populations under crowded laboratory conditions and have discovered that these societies practice infanticide, and are more prone to disease and violence. Due to their belief in evolution, scientists are required to find a survival advantage. So they say the infanticide, disease, and violence are instincts built into the genes—developed by chance and natural selection, of course—to reduce population density, because overpopulation can lead to starvation. Isn’t it more sensible to believe that when life is not worth living, animals (and men) will choose to die? Survival is not what drives nature, but opportunities for value fulfillment: lives of quality, growth, and action.

I recently heard a gene scientist make this statement: “I don’t think there is anything going on on our planet that is more humane, and more concerned with human values than science.” If science is dealing with values, then it is working in the domain of religion. This scientist doesn’t understand how scientific thinking has influenced society: By preaching a mechanical, accidental universe, science has taught men that their lives have no meaning and that they are not responsible for what they do.

I read of an experiment conducted on a group of rhesus monkeys to study natural selection. To get food, a monkey would have to pull a chain in its cage. This chain would cause a monkey in another cage to receive an electrical shock in full view of the first monkey. After discovering the effect of pulling their chains, eighty-seven percent of the monkeys decided they would rather go hungry than hurt their brothers and sisters.

I would not call the scientists who conducted that experiment humane. Or is it considered humane to abuse animals because human knowledge might be increased? Science has a perverted sense of humanity if it believes that only man is worthy of compassion!

Science, like Christianity, is built upon a foundation of faith, not fact. In the case of science, the faith is that the world was created by chance—that spiritual reality doesn’t exist or at least cannot affect the universe today. There is no way science can prove that.