Man's "Ruler Complex" and the fall of humanity

First, let me say that when I refer to European culture, or European religions, I'm referring to any of the religions where the Holy Texts describes mankind as the "rulers of the world" or some phrase that puts humans above the rest of the animal kingdom (this seems to generally occur more in the European-based socities and religions). This applies to at least Judaism and Christianity. Regardless of what the exact name of the religion, it's a noticeable trend that cultures with the idea that humans are the rulers of the world and are above nature tend to act more like a virus--spreading, destroying, and spreading some more--while cultures with the philosophy that humans are not above nature, but a part of it, tend to live more in harmony with nature.

The Bible and Man's Perceived Role in the World

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.”
--Genesis 1:26 (Bible.org, NETBible version)

Christianity is one of the most widespread religions in the world. Forced into it or not, most of the people in the world are taught that humans were created to rule the world. This teaching and belief is reinforced by the fact that we are self-aware and participate in upper-level thinking (things like "why are we here?" "is there a god?" and other abstract thoughts). We have science, we make tools, we build structures. We have all these things that make us "more" than animals.

Native Americans, Aboriginies, and Other Nature-Based Cultures

Most Native cultures teach about the "Circle of LIfe," or the idea that everything is a part of the earth and will return to it when they die. They also teach about how the dead help the plants to grow, the plants feed animals who are fed on by other animals, who will eventually return to the earth. Part of that teaching is that humans are a part of that and not above it. Humans will die and will return to the earth. This idea reinforces the importance of keeping the balance, both inside the body and throughout the earth.

Natives are what can be called "Leavers," since they only take what they need and leave the rest to become a part of the Circle of LIfe. Over-production is seen as wasteful, so they don't hunt more animals than what can feed and supply the tribe/family and they don't grow or gather more than what is required to feed and supply the tribe for a given length of time (such as a harvest that will last through the winter until the berries/wild plants come back).

Even their structures were more in tune with nature and the earth than the Europeans and their concrete and metal structures. Native structures were typically stone, clay, wood, or other materials that could be obtained in nature.

The Europeans Compared to the Natives

To the Europeans, the Natives were "savages." Why is that? The Europeans saw civilization as permanent structures, the ability and will to manipulate their surroundings to suit their desires. The Natives, however, chose not to bend nature to their will (like the Europeans), but bend to nature's will. The Europeans built and grew and made things to maximum capacity to sell to as many people as possible and make as much money as possible. The Natives, on the other hand, made and grew and gathered only what they needed.

The Europeans, seeing the Natives as "inferior," killed (intentionally and unintentionally) or enslaved them or otherwised "civilized" them. Through the actions of the Europeans and "cross-breeding," most Native cultures are nothing compared to what they used to be.

The Europeans and "Playing God"

In expanding their farms and industry, the Europeans invaded the territory of many different animals. The animals, therefore, lost food supplies and in turn, went after the farms for crops or livestock (depending on the animal). While animals such as deer and rabbits were merely nuisances and kill on sight only when seen in the crops, other animals, such as wolves, were hunted to extinction, or close to it. In this sense, the Europeans are "playing god" in determining what animals can live and what ones can't.

You also have animals such as the Dodo bird, who were driven to extinction not only from direct human hunting, but also from the introduction by humans of predatory animals (cats and dogs) that made easy meals of the Dodo, as well as other animals, including rats and pigs that destroyed the bird's habitat and ravaged Dodo nests.

Humanity is a Disease

At this point, the European culture and complex is so saturated in humanity as a whole, that we'll just use humanity in general (though I do acknowledge the fact that not every single person or even some groups of people don't follow this).

Humanity likes to follow what it calls "manifest destiny," or the act of expanding farther and farther out. It likes to try to get everywhere and "civilize" people that don't agree with it or make everything in general "civilized." It also likes to make things bigger, make more things, produce more, use more. Everything is more, more, more.

Build more houses, make more clothes, build more and bigger roads. But where do those supplies come from? To build houses you need wood. To get that wood you need trees. Okay, cut down the local forests. That forest is gone, move to the next one. And the next and the next and the next. Roads and cars need gas and tar and oil. Get that from the crude deposits in Pennsylvania. Those are gone, move on to the other states. US mainland deposits are gone (or don't have enough "useful" crude), go on to the larger deposits in the MIddle East and drain them.

But what happens when all those are gone? What will we do when we run out of oil? Or wood that's old enough to use for our "needs"?

Agent Smith, in The Matrix, said it right. Humans are a disease. The only other organism that moves in, multiplies and uses up resources, then moves on is a virus. Humanity is a cancer of the earth.

Speaking of Diseases...

Let's take a step away from "the big picture" and look at a more personal level.

I was reading an article in the latest issue of Newsweek regarding food allergies. Did you know that the number of people with peanut allergies has doubled since 2000? That brought something else to mind--look at all these disease "scares" (for lack of a better term) that we have now. The flu, the avian flu, West Nile Virus, new cancers, e coli.

I don't ever remember having flu vaccinations before I was in upper high school. Let alone these crises with shortages.

Why is it that we no longer have pandemics of polio, or scarlet fever, but now we have deadlier or more dangerous diseases like West Nile and Avian Flu? Hell, these things are crossing over from other species. Why is that?

We're too clean.

Think about it. The new Lysol kills 99.9% of germs, spray it on everything to keep your family safe! But what good does that really do? Sure, it reduces the chance that they'll contract bad forms of e coli (e coli actually exists in our bodies to help in the digestion process), but it's also killing off the little things that help build their immune systems.

The article cited a study done with wild rats and lab rats. The scientists introduced a common allergine (I don't think they specified it, but it was something really common like pollen or something like that) to both sets of rats. The immune systems of the lab rats went into overdrive, while the wild ones didn't really care (they had worse things to fight off, like something actually life-threatening).

That says a lot, if you think about it. I mean, how many of us were exposed to someone who had chicken pox when we were babies? It's arguably the best way, besides a vaccine, to build that immunity.

So, we're exposed to a virus/bacterium and our immune system fights it off. From then on, we're immune, or highly resistant, to that strain.

But what happens when we kill them before they get to us? It's actually a double threat.

First, you keep the immune system from being able to do its job because you give it nothing to do. Then, you kill 99.9% of those germs. But wait, there's .1% that survive. And why do they survive, class?

That's right, they're a little tougher than the rest, so they live on to grow again. Is this sounding familiar? To science-minded people, it should. It's not unlike natural selection. Survival of the fittest. They live, they grow, they change. You now have a different, stronger strain of a given microbe that you now have to deal with.

Except now our bodies can't deal with it because it's never really dealt with anything that strong before anymore. If we're not careful, we could have a potentially deadly strain of....the cold virus.

Okay, This Has Gone on Long Enough

The issue humanity is facing is that we seem to think that we are above the natural system. We think we can control things, that we can consume and kill without consequence. But that's not the case.

We're not going to be able to support our population, there simply aren't enough resources to go around. We're also going to kill ourselves by attempting to destroy the one thing that readily tries to kill us now: microbes.

So what can we do about it? Well, besides not living in a sterile environment, there really isn't much that I know of that we can do.....except maybe pray for something that wipes out most or all of us so the world can actually repair itself.