Gopher: You are soooo bad
"I believe you made a good point. I cannot be sure but I believe it."
Bradley, I agree that all life has a purpose. That purpose is to continue existence, and to make sure you stay on the top of the the food pyramid. Have you ever read "The Selfish Gene" It is so amazing because you find the nuclear drive for changes which outlive each generation and cause not what many called mutation but survival - building tactics. Our DNA is life. We are the well built carriers. And our ability to communicate led to the evolution of our frontal lobes to be smarter than the average great ape. Our primal drive for success is our selfish genes way of self preservation AND continuance. What may make us really different is that while humans "could" destroy the planet, we just might make it better for the future of our kind. I know we have the ability. The question is how will we use our talents? Will we continue just to preserve humanity? Or will we strive to use that glorious primate brain to change the primal drive for self preservation and add to that global preservation. I think that first we need to recognize our position on this planet. We are not above our cousins, we're just on another ring of the circle.
BTW chimpanzees are self-aware, which is horrifying when we consider the experiments done on them.
Oh and lest the theists feel forgotten here ... there is no god except the ones created by people. The personal need for a god or the lack of facts proving the existence of aGod does not lead us to the conclusion that there is a god. Once we realize this and take responsibility ourselves for the plight( and blight) ; once we accept the responsibility and that no one but u and me will change things; that no amount of prayer will do anything but give you momentary solice, once we enable our big brains to realize that no new system will come by any means but by ourselves, then we will have achieved even more than our selfish gene have built us to achieve, we will have become the sole primate mitigating the survival of the entire ecosytem (us and out cousins). Is there any more glorious and awesome future than to preserve this blue planet?
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." Seneca the younger
Panda