Man vs. Nature

Today, I offer another critique of naturalism.

I find it odd that those who would demote humans to the status of evolved animals would still engage in such anthropocentrism. What do I mean, you say? According to naturalistic science, humans, apes, monkeys, horses, dogs, beavers, amoeba and Simon Cowell each evolved from other lower organisms, which evolved from other lower organisms, and so on, back to the primordial soup. We all have common ancestry. We are all animals. Humans are just smarter, although that point may be debatable. If this is the case, then we are faced with the artificial dichotomy of Man vs. Nature.

In other words, if humans are just the next step up the evolutionary ladder, it follows that humans are just another part of nature. Therefore, anything we do or make is part of nature. No one accuses a beaver of destroying the environment when it builds a dam and changes the flow of the river. Yet when humans come along and build a strip mall, environmentalists come out of the woodwork (it's a pun!) proclaiming that we are destroying nature! Following naturalism's logic to its conclusion, we should say instead that nature destroyed nature, which makes little sense. For another example, consider New York City. Humans, which are a part of nature, built buildings, streets and sidewalks out of elements they found in nature (metal, rock, wood, sand, etc). Therefore, NYC is part of nature.

Yet no one thinks this way. Our cities are not part of nature; we are not just glorified animals. We all act as if we are connected to nature, yet at the same time above it. Is that not why people go camping and hiking? We all like to relax and enjoy nature, but only for so long. Then we must go back to our homes, where we have some control over nature. This is the way humans are.

I read a book about this once. It has a very famous first line: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." It's almost like the author gets it...