Humans are not as special as we once thought.  Until about 1960, people living in the Judeo-Christian tradition believed they were the masters of the Earth. Today, most of us realize that we are dependent on the interrelationships of nearly all plants and animals to sustain the biosphere that keeps us humans alive.  For practitioners of Continuing Creation, “love” means deep and caring personal involvement with some person, place, activity or thing.  If we do not love Earth’s plants and animals and their entwined relationships, we cannot love Continuing Creation: The Growing, Organizing, Direction of the Universe because It is those things.

— We humans have good eyesight, but nothing like the eagles.
— We can run for longer distances than any other animal, but we cannot fly.
— We have sympathy and empathy, but elephants and whales may have more.
— Our language is the most advanced, but whales, birds, and even trees also communicate.
— Our tool use is the most advanced, but chimpanzees and crows also use tools.
— We raise livestock and build cities, but so do certain species of ants.
— African lions hunt, but no multi-cellular species on Earth kills as many creatures as we do.
— Chimpanzees and ants make war on each other, but human war exceeds their brutality.
— Without machines we cannot echo-locate; but bats, whales, and porpoises can.
— Human beings are unable to turn sunlight into food. Only Earth’s plant-life can do that.

Are there are things humans do that are unique?  Yes:

• We alone create machines that are themselves open thermodynamic systems (they run by animal power, burning fuels, nuclear power, falling water, solar, and wind power)
• We alone can create machines that communicate and process information.
• We alone can create cultures far advanced from what other species create.
• We alone pollute the Earth.
• We alone over-consume the resources of the Earth.  While there is enough acreage to house our growing world population, there aren’t enough resources to supply all of us; especially not enough for everyone to live a modern “Euro-American” lifestyle.

Continuing Creation encompasses the universe. But The Earth is the most tangible and fulsome creation we experience in our daily lives.  In our minds, Planet Earth pretty much represents all the interacting Processes of The Growing, Organizing, Direction of Continuing Creation.  Ancient myth personified this reality in the person of Gaia, Mother Earth, or Mother Nature.  If human minds have an insatiable need to anthropomorphize the Processes of Continuing Creation into a person, Mother Nature / Gaia would be our choice for the role!  Of course, we would always need to keep in mind that “Mother Nature” is only a fictional, symbolic character.

        — J.X. Mason, 2-28-22.  Click here to subscribe to my blog posts!  Free and without ads!