Of Human Nature and Preservation

We recently went to the Akron Zoo. Though very different than the Cleveland Zoo, it was a great experience and a wonderful zoo to visit. One thing I really liked about it was the fact that the zoo was very linearly built. Following the path, you will see just about everything the zoo has to offer. If there is a offshoot for something, it usually wrapped around to almost where it started. This is also my only complaint with the zoo. Not a whole lot of reasons to go back multiple times a year since you can see it all on a 4 hour trip through the zoo.

This is opposed to the Cleveland zoo that has a lot more land and is a lot more spread out, if you want to see it all, you almost have to go two days. This does make it a more worthwhile to visit the zoo several times throughout the year. I really feel both Zoos are wonderful to go spend and afternoon with your family, regardless of anyone's age.

Another nice feature of the Akron Zoo, that could totally be worth going several times a week is at random points on the trail, there are workout like activities you can do. From push-ups to step-ups and arm rotations. They are spaced nicely apart that you could walk, visit animals, and stop for a brief moment of workout then keep moving. If I lived near by, I would get a season pass and, with a few friends, go and do the zoo workout challenge couple times a week.

While we were talking and watching the Bald Eagles sitting around, I overheard a woman talking to one of the zoo workers. He told her how these eagles have it made, no competition for food, and are able to live happy and long lives in their care. She then admitted that she once thought zoos were bad for keeping animals locked up in small cages. This is something that is often an argument against zoos. But as he pointed out, Zoos keep animals safe that would otherwise be hunted down to extinction as is the case with the Red Wolves.

Red Wolves are rather small and, in my honest opinion, rather ugly wolves. They used to roam the wilds from Florida to the Virginia's, from the coast to the plains. It was a huge range, but thanks to hunters, trappers, and urban growth, they are now down to a small spot around North Carolina. In the mid 1900's, the Red Wolf was officially considered extinct. Thanks to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in the 70's and 80's, the wolf has made a comeback and now are only considered Critically Endangered. This is the power that zoos have.

This all leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth, how cruel and horrible man is that we must hunt and kill things to extinction because we are either afraid of, mislead about, or foolishly feel a need to hunt. I am not saying hunting, trapping is bad in anyway, I rather love deer meat, and think hunting is a great thing if you are actually doing it for food. If you are killing them just because you can, and use nothing of the animal, you are a killer and wasting one of God's critters.

We kill animals to extinction all the time, and countless are dying everyday in the rain forests that we are cutting down for 'progress.' There are ways we can get what we need without the mass destruction of things. This leads me down a path of thought and to the idea of how the nature of mankind  has no good in it, and can be summed up as disastrous. We as humans are evil and destructive, we love misery and suffering. People who say that human nature is good and kind are only fooling themselves and leading weak-minded people off on the wrong path of thinking.

I realize I sound kinda mean here, I am not trying to be mean to anyone but take a look at humans and tell me where in our history is there a nature of goodness? All of our history you have a few years of people working together until greed gets its hooks in and civilization begins to crumble. The rest of it is plagued with wars, murders, and any other destructive selfish desires you can think of.

Yet though we are hateful, evil and selfish people, we have a God who loves us faithfully. While we kill his creation, he wants to give us everything we could ever want, though we try to deny his existence, he wants to shower us with every blessing he can. All we have to do is believe, accept and glorify him. This is the crazy part of the love of God. Despite everything we are, despite our nature, He wants to be with us. It is this reason that He sent his son Jesus to the earth, to become sin so that we could be cleansed of our sin.

Man has shown over and over we do not deserve anything from God, not his love, not his son, we don't even deserve to exist. We constantly kill each other, the animals God made for us, and destroy the world he made for our home. Yet he still loves us. The only thing we do deserve is death, yet God still is willing to give us life.

I recently had to kill a raccoon that was eating our chickens. This was hard for me since he was not doing anything bad. Well, not to him he wasn't. He was being how God created him to be, which was in conflict with how we choose to live. I admit that I felt terrible about it, so I prayed that God would tell the raccoon sorry for me, that it was something that had to be done, and asked God if he would hold that raccoon for me and when I get there, I will play with him.

Killing animals is not a horrible thing in its own right, As I've said before, I love meat as a whole, steaks, burgers, bacon, these are foods I cannot live without, I love the taste, the smell, how they fill me up so very much, but it is how we treat the animals that gave us the food. That is where you can see our cruel and evil nature of man shine its dark light. We abuse and torture these animals. Yet God still loves us. It is so messed up that a perfect and holy God can love someone so evil as us, but he does.

We Christians should be among the first of the people out there fighting for better animal rights, fighting to stop the destruction of our forests and our world. With the very same love that God gives us, we should be giving to the animals and planet. This is our only home, the animals, and the planet are the the very first thing God told us to take care of. His very first command was to us was to rule over the fish, the birds and the animals. Ok, actually it was the second thing he told us to do, first being to go and be fruitful and multiply. Good rulers do not kill off everything under their rule, but build them stronger and keep them safe.

Let's start protecting and treasuring the world and all of its creatures. Since we are to go and make disciples of all nations, let us go and protect the land and animals of those nations from human nature. Everything God has in mind for us is against our very nature, and for that I am very thankful.