We Are All Illegal Aliens

I figured that we would hear some crazy things about the fires in Los Angeles, but I assumed that the craziest things would be about climate change. And we have heard just those things already mentioned in the mainstream media.

But, in fact, someone has said something even crazier. Listening to the radio, I heard someone say that the reason this happened was because "humans have moved into natural spaces." I don't know about you, but I have always lived in a natural space and everyone I know does too.

So, are we humans just invaders on the earth living in places where we do not belong? We know that there are more risky and less risky places to live. We all make those choices. We ought to be ready for when a natural disaster occurs. (Obviously, many governmental officials do not agree.)

What is very strange to me is that sometimes environmental activists talk as if humans are not doing what we ought to do and living where we ought to live, while animals should live as they please. We are not to disrupt this wonderful order with our buildings and lifestyle and such. They talk to us as if we are not part of the natural world.

Oddly, this is similar to what the Bible teaches. In Genesis, chapter 1, it is recorded that God made birds for the air, fish for the sea and land animals for the land, but man (generically speaking) was made in God's image. In other words, humans were not made like the animals but above them, though we have animal-like bodies that need shelter, food and the like.

The big difference between the Bible believer and the environmentalist is how their views of the role of mankind fit in the world. The Bible gives us dominion over the earth and all the creatures on it, while environmentalists want to make us subservient to it. They don't want us to push dangerous animals out of our spaces or destroy the ecosystem of some endangered species.

But we have always done just that and I am fine with it. We transform spaces to make them nice for ourselves. Sometimes we do it well, and sometimes we do not — and suffer the consequences when it's the latter. We learn as we go. We have preserved some beautiful places, and have ruined others. Sometimes, that cannot be helped. We need places to live. We need to make a living. We need to remove trees and plant crops. And, yes, we need to tear down Paradise and put up a parking lot or two so that we have somewhere to park.