The God Delusion

Over a Christmas drink one of my neighbours, stimulated by seeing the faithful going to church on Christmas eve, made an interesting point, which distinguished 'believers' from 'non-believers'.

Non-believers often have very fulfilling lives, and at the end of their life can look back and think they may or may not have done something useful, creative or productive. But what about all those believers, from the pope downwards, who devote their lives to the service of what many of us think of as a delusion? If we are right and they are wrong, then a large part of their entire life has been wasted on a futile gesture (Even one hour a week in church adds up to the equivalent of about a year of ones life). At least the non-believers don't have this worry; doesn't this every bother them? And perhaps this is a major hindrance to wildlife conservation, and also why so many conservationists are non-believers (I include atheists, agnostics and anti-theists in this category). A Non-believer cannot just sit and pray that god will sort it all out, a non-believer is more likely to think that he or she must get on and do something. It would be an interesting area for reasearch.

Christmas is coming and the Goat is getting fat

Regular readers will know my views on goats, and will also know that there has been a massive drought and die off of domestic lo]ivestock in East Africa. Any details of what is happening, plus your views will be very welcome, as I am planning to write more on this subject.

Another week goes by....

My blogs are getting fewer and fewer. And for those that read them my apologies. However, the reason is that the World Land Trust is getting busier and busier. Despite the recession, we are getting more and more companies wanting to support us. I have mentioned this several times already, but it is still true. The current interest is clearly influence by the up and coming discussions in Copenhagen relating to Climate Change, and carbon offsetting. However, I think we are all missing one major issue, which is only faintly heard in the background. The 'elephant in the room' is the human population. Recent predictions indicate that the UK's population is going to grow to an unsustainable 70 million or more. But this is insignificant compared with the predictions for other parts of the world.

As far as I am concerned there are two over-riding priorities for conservation: first save as much of the world's natural habitats as possible, and second support any initiative that addresses the human population crisis. Everything else pales into insignificance by comparison. This is not to say that the myriad other conservation activities are not worthwhile, but without natural habitat in the future, captive breeding, research etc are all futile.