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Animals don't believe in God.
Actually, come to think of it, barring a few laboratory savvy dolphins and
chimps who when shown a reflection of themselves in a mirror don't think
it's another animal out there, animals don't even believe in themselves.
Therefore, while they may be His dumb creatures and He may be loving them as
his creations, it's only up to us humans-- or other sentient with the
capacity to extrapolate outside their narrow spheres of consciousness -- to
love or venerate Him back in return. This means that if we manage to blow
ourselves up in a nuclear holocaust, or an asteroid impact annihilates us,
or we're totally decimated by some pandemic disease, He's got a problem.
Wait a minute, you say, isn't
that a terribly anthropocentric view of the whole thing ? Who says we're the
only entities around in this humongous universe consisting of trillions and
trillions of stars with trillions and trillions of planets of their own
which might be capable of harbouring highly advanced forms of life on whose
worship and adoration He can also dwell ? In such an imposing scheme of
things how does the extinction of one bunch of sapient creatures matter ?
It's like the death of a loved one. It happens. The worlds move on.
Fair enough. But it's also
true that of the gazillion planets which can support life only a minuscule
proportion would be capable of supporting intelligent life, with the rest
probably teeming with existence at the pre-bacterial or proto-viral level.
Take our own solar system as a random example. With the exception of Earth
the only other habitat around that could possibly have life is Mars and here
too it would at the most be at a single cell stage, if that.
Nor does the argument that
even lowly life could, through the process of evolution, develop into
intelligent forms later hold much water because the majority of planets are
simply not hospitable enough (as we noticed in the case of Mars for
instance) for evolutionary development to take place any further along the
lines it has done on earth. We are then left with the conclusion that either
such life has no purpose (because to exist only to be loved could hardly be
called a purpose) or that, having set in motion the process which ultimately
lead to beings like us, He's thereafter become benignly indifferent to our
existence. And, therefore, is not interested in adulation. |
