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The Nature of Man
by

Ken Bushnell

Adam and Eve should never have eaten that apple. Mankind was not meant to possess knowledge. Look at what we've done with it.

Genetic engineering. Jake a neighbor's dog comes over regularly. He's a retriever. Dozens if not hundreds of lines have been gleaned over the generations to select the dogs that are best suited to retrieving. Jake's a good ol' boy, but pick up a stick and his instincts kick in: he wants to fetch. Nothing else matters till he gets that stick. This normally proud, handsome, confident dog starts drooling and shaking with the thought of chasing that stick. Yet this form of biological selection by mankind hasn't even scratched the surface of genetic engineering's possibilities. How is it possible that we think we can manipulate a genetic structure when we aren't even sure of the building blocks yet?

Technology. The basic nature of man is control. He must control his environment, his possessions, and the people around him, especially in the presence of government and industry. Individuality is tossed out the window when we go to work or when the government enters our affairs. Technology has provided the tools to enhance the power of institutional control over our existence And with media fascination diluting our opinions we've forgotten what it's like to trust or to be an individual; easy fodder for mass hysteria or the controlling few.

The purpose of the human race, if I may quote Robert Schuller, is that "we're in the Angel making business." If mankind is meant to live an eternity, what possible lessons could we learn in our short stay here on Earth that could be used for an eternity? The only answer I can think of is faith. If we're to learn nothing else, and we are to work together with other people forever, think of how much more we could do if we had faith in one another.

Eternity is beyond the comprehension of man. Not being learned in the ways of religion, I think we must turn to those who have made a life's discipline of the subject. We sit here on this rock and squabble over the material and in ten, twenty, a hundred, or a thousand years it will all be meaningless. The vanity of man and our obsession with our biology is all consuming, yet it means nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Fortunately Mother Earth will go on. A thousand millenniums from now the travesties of this generation will be forgotten. Mankind and his offspring may see the heavens. Their love, and their light may be given responsibility to watch over yet another race. And in all loving kindness they may watch, with a tear in their eye, as this race begins its existence by eating from the tree of knowledge. Except this time the Man did it. OK?

February 6, 2000