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| Photo taken a year ago by holding a Nikon D60 by hand to the narrow eyepiece of a Nikon ED-50 fieldscope [It's not the moon as I thought when I found the photo, but the vignetting of the image, which is the daytime sky behind a dead tree.] |
I don't know what I'd eaten, but the other day I found myself wondering whether, if the Judeo-Christian ethic could have grown up protecting not only one's own group but all mankind—and not only just all mankind, but even all mammalian life on Earth—and not only just all mammalian life on Earth, but even all animal life on our planet—and not only all animal life, but even our living, breathing Earth...what a different world this might be.
We might not put other animals in confined, dark spaces and shoot them full of growth hormones to speed their fattening to slaughter.
We might not slaughter animals at all, we might not eat them.
We might not invade countries to control the oil beneath their ground.
We might not tear down mountains to extricate coal.
We might not use fuel-inefficient means of transportation.
We might not waste wildernesses to build pipelines.
We might not level rain forests to raise beef.
We might not have overpopulated the planet.
...
If we stepped abruptly from the world we know into that might-have-been world, we would not recognize it.
I stepped abruptly into wondering, and I can hardly think coherently of the things we might not do if the Judeo-Christian ethic hadn't been geared to protecting the in-group but to protecting life collectively, and its mother, Earth.
I was just wondering.
Maybe tomorrow I'll come back to reality.
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[follow-up]
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