Genesis 1

27 So God created man in His own image;

in the image of God, He created him;

male and female He created them

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth.”

Our group is a good size for campfires. Even with a few of us turning in early, we have great conversation. We have been talking about the population of our species and why we are here. 

While in Ulaanbataar, we saw the 2019 record-breaking-movie, Avengers Endgame. In this movie, the superheroes have lost, and the population has been cut in half. The thing about the story is that the superheroes don’t accept population decline, changing time itself to turn it back.

The Avenger’s passion about preserving their generation contrasts with our generation’s acceptance of population decline. 

Watching the movie, we had to ask: what our purpose is – we know that the Earth will end in the sun’s fire. People are genetically programmed to improve things over time. What is the meaning?

We are made in the image of God. This idea started in the Middle East and then Europe. As this concept settled into our collective subconscious, and when people began to value human life more, our population began to boom. 

Then we went too far. To feed the growing population, we devoured the planetary resources. We injected livestock with antibiotics to keep them alive and growing. We triggered the great battles with viral organisms, which we mostly lost. Meanwhile, we were causing the sixth mass extinction event.

We needed to reassess. Thanos, the 2019 movie villain, snapped his finger and cut the population by half. That, though, is only a temporary adjustment. We needed a sustainable one. 

So we have made this Anthropocene the time of humane rule. That is the framework in which we can improve things (until the inevitable demise of everything) for the fish in the sea, the birds of the air, and everything that crawls upon the Earth.