God’s Chosen People

We’re always so impressed with ourselves. People argue, all over the world, that we are so perfect in our design and that the world is so beautiful in all its intricacies that it is clear that we must have been created and chosen by God.

For the life of me I still can’t figure out why they believe this argument. It smacks of arrogance, if you ask me.

I think what we truly lack is a comparison to drive home the point of how unimportant we are in the grand scheme of things. It is true that we’ve managed to fight our way to the top of the pile on our planet, but that only seems like quite an achievement as long as you don’t consider how big everything else out there is (look here, here and here to consider it).

But once you realise how small our little ball of water and mud is in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t that make you wonder? Doesn’t it make you think, ‘Gee, why did God put us in orbit around an insignificant sun, in the outer stretches of a rather small galaxy so far away from everything else?’

I think believing that we’re God’s chosen people is very dangerous. It creates a situation where we think we have power and, as we know, power corrupts. Just think of the bullies and the dictators, just think of the military coups and the corrupted politicians. Most of us have that in us, the abusive behaviour, the arrogant disregard for our lessors.

When you think you’re God’s chosen you think of everything as your lesser. You think everybody should bow to your beliefs and follow your ideals, after all, God said you were right.

If, on the other hand, we accept we are not God’s chosen and that nobody out there cares about us but ourselves, then we might have a chance. We might learn some humility and some responsibility (with nobody else but ourselves to blame). We might wake up to the realisation that the universe will not weep at our passing and that in the grand scheme of things our continued existence matters very little.

In the end, the only ones that will care if we fail are ourselves and we won’t have anybody to blame, but ourselves. So we need to learn some humility and take some responsibility and then, maybe, we might actually one day make a difference, many millennia from now.