Sometimes it's astonishing how little we know about God's vast creation, but yet how filled with hubris we've become with our human station in the world.
A situation that is a result, I think, of humans taking to heart a little too literally God's decision that man should "have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” (Genesis 1:26)
Imagine that! ... 100 potential new species we may share this planet with that we previously never knew about! And yet there is virtually no public fanfare, because after all, they're just some useless deep ocean creatures.
I think the trouble with us humans is that we've become so convinced of our superiority as the apex creature here on earth, that the discoveries of just how much we don't know don't match with our self image.
We've put feet on the moon, and we've built nuclear power. What more could there possibly be to learn, right?
But au contraire, my friend. Au contraire. ... We have only scratched the service of what there is to learn about God's creation.
For instance, marine researchers believe that of the 2.2 million species living in the earth's oceans, scientists have yet only described about 240,000 of them. That's only 11 percent of the total number of ocean life that has been scientifically recognized! ... That should be mind blowing!
A new scientific collaboration called Ocean Census which launched in April 2023, and conducted the recent scientific search off of New Zealand, has set a goal to identify 100,000 unknown oceanic species in the next 10 years. A goal one of the explorers called "very exciting."
How exciting? ... Well, consider that in this most recent adventure the scientists found that new starlike creature that could be a new species of octorcoral, or something different altogether!
Additionally, they believe the have found a new species of eelpout that was previously unknown. Yep, that's right, a new vertebrate species -- or animal with a spine -- that we didn't know about! ... So, this isn't just about a bunch of squishy fishlike objects after all! We're talking new vertebrate life that we're finding!
It's true that humans have discovered a much larger percentage of the animal and plant life on hard ground. But we don't know it all. Scientific estimates set the figure of unknown animals on this planet at about 5 million species, or about 86 percent of all animal forms are as yet undiscovered.
That's a sobering number, isn't it? ... Kind takes the wind out of the sails a bit of those who believe that humans know everything we need to know about our planet. The truth is, we're just getting started.
It's disheartening at times to think that we'd rather rage war and bicker over how best to exploit the planet when we could be pouring that energy into productive efforts to better understand God's infinite universe.
However, I think this is where as faithful people we could exert our influence.
The Western Christian concept of the "dominion" God gives humans over the earth isn't in line with what God actually intended. We'd be far better off substituting the word "stewardship" when talking about our place in nature. Stewardship means "the conducting, supervising, or managing of something," versus the word dominion which implies that humans somehow own God's creation.
If we approached our responsibilities as stewards of the lands, seas and air that our God lovingly provided for our sustenance, it would completely rewire the sentiment of capturing, taming and domineering the natural world. Which, if you actually think about it, is the antithesis of how God cares for us!
The natural world is still filled with wonders, and it would serve us well to commit to life-altering ways of caring for it. I, for one, would love to read more news stories about animal and plant life that we've discovered ... versus more stories about the species we've made extinct.
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