Animals of Fluffy Death

So, today I saw a roadrunner randomly skipping across the sidewalk.
For those of you who watched Loony Tunes as a kid, like me:

No, the roadrunner's legs do not run in complete circles.
It's really just like a less feathery peacock-looking thing with long legs. It has cute, long tailfeathers.
ANYWAYS.

This got me thinking.
Why aren't people afraid of animals anymore?

Like, sure, if a giant herd of angry things with teeth were rushing at us, we would be likely to feel a twinge of fear or two, but for the most part, in our thought lives, we have no great woes in regards to animals.
Originally, especially according to the evolutionist's perspective, mankind was completely weak and inferior to animals. We have no great muscle strength, no natural weapons like poison or horns, and no good ways of hiding ourselves. The only thing we had that made us superior to animals was our minds and our ability to innovate. So, eventually, we got sticks and made them pointy, as if we had those natural defenses that animals have. This put us on even ground more than it gave us a huge advantage. Surprisingly, we had strength in numbers in most cases, because the only animals we had to fear, predators, who were also typically mammals, don't reproduce as often as humans and tend to live in smaller societies. But somehow, eventually, we overcame them, and now, somehow, we are completely desensitized to the fear of animals we had in ages past.
When you go to the zoo, are you even impressed by sights such as a wild boar or an alligator? For the vast majority of human history, these were considered the things of fear. Now, the things we fear are the unknown: darkness, freaky unknown monsters, disease. Take the movie Jurassic Park, for example. This movie scared the Spiderman undies right off of my pre-pubescent bottom. The reason behind this is not because I thought that dinosaurs were really going to eat me, it was because they were more powerful than technology. You remember when the kid finds the night vision goggles, well all they do is show him the thing that's about to eat him. The hunter guy who eventually gets gobbled like a turkey in a Puritan cornfield, he has the most sophisticated rifle thing ever and all this high-tech stuff. When the technology was less powerful, suddenly the people were seen as weak. This is what creates the fear.
So, society today doesn't fear animals because we don't realize that we are weak anymore. We have so separated ourselves from nature that 99% of us don't even know how bad it is when wolves get into the sheep any more. I don't even know if I've ever seen a wolf up close. But I know that if I did, it would be a sedated, tame wolf in some zoo behind a glass window that gets fed bunny rabbits every morning. I think that if I was stuck in the gladiator's ring with a lion, it wouldn't even hit me how much trouble I was in until he started eating my face. I just don't even think about it.
The funny thing about our technology making us superior to animals is that the vast majority of our technology has nothing to do with overcoming animals. Do you think my iPod would deter a rhino from charging? The only thing my electric guitar does to animals is tick off my fat housecat.
So, is this good or bad?
Well, on the whole, honestly, I'd say it's good. Sure, we aren't afraid of animals anymore, but I don't necessarily think that that's a requirement. I'd say it's necessary that we respect them, because God put us in charge of them. He didn't say to do whatever we wanted with them, he said to be master over them. Science, while it has kind of stolen a bit of their thunder, does allow us to observe them and see their glory and magnificence in ways that weren't possible when our only concern was survival.
This, of course, is a choice.
I've been reading through the Chronicles of Narnia lately, as part of my homework for one of my classes, and I think it's interesting that Aslan is a lion. Why should the lion be the king of the jungle?
It's not because humans are afraid of lions automatically, or ever really were, because lions don't particularly like to hunt humans. It's because, due to our observation and study of lions, we recognize the respect that the rest of creation pays to them. They look magnificent and command respect.
Why should we, then be leader over the animals, if they are more diverse and powerful and grand than we ever will be?
I think it's because we have the potential, through use of our reason and innovation and intellect, to be wise and powerful and grand, which is the reflection of God that mankind was naturally endowed with. Keep in mind though, that this is just potential. When I look at the rest of creation, I feel weak and insignificant, and honestly, I should. I am weak, even among men, and I am not cunning as the serpent nor graceful as a horse nor as firm and unrelenting as a great oak nor as powerful as a flowing river, which can break a mountain, but I also have potential to destroy all of these things. Man's capacity to choose in combination with his intelligence makes him the only creature that can choose to keep creation alive. But I also have the potential to cultivate it and admire it's magnificence.
Now, this is not me advocating environmentalism.
The earth is here to be used.
Just not wasted. Not ignored.
I'm rambling now, so I'll close with this:
God didn't intend for mankind to be some great powerful creature who forces all to submit to his great will and awesome power, He set up a weak creature to choose either wise rulership or disdain. So, maybe we should fear the animals a little bit, because humanity is fragile. We're just too proud to recognize it.

A Sidenote...

For the record, I promise to never never never EVER EVER EVER post weird poetry and expect you to interpret the inner meanings of my soul and how it burns with the flame of a thousand stars and is bewildered by the the depression of a crumbling society saturated with sinful psychopathy...

I would never rhyme about the music in my soul
That fills every hole
Or talk about my mole
Or alliterate avidly about droll
Subjects that I cry about at night
Or speak about the plight
Left in me by some girl
I had a crush on in 3rd grade.

I got plenty of love as a child.
I just don't work that way.

Today

So, I have decided to get back into this. I used to have 20 or 30 people (it's a ton, I know) read my deepest thoughts! Usually about dating, since I was obsessed with that in high school. This blog will probably be a different story, not that I have somehow lost my appreciation for women but that they are not my primary pursuit in life.
At least, I hope I've grown up since high school.

I'm a college student, and since many of you who will end up reading this likely know that, I'll tell you a little bit more that you might not know.
I get terribly nervous speaking in public sometimes, and I say stupid things, which is obviously something I am working on, but when I'm writing I have a clarity that doesn't really come out in my speech. I have a much better vocabulary, for instance, and I tend to look back and assess what I've said before I declare my final answer, Jeopardy-style. So, on the whole, you could say that I am a different person behind the keyboard, but I prefer thinking of myself as better prepared for emotional depth behind the keyboard. I tend to observe others before jumping in to conversation, but when I do, I do so boisterously and whole-heartedly. But, I also save most of my thoughts for myself and rarely speak them blatantly.

I am fairly far away at college, farther away than I have ever permanently lived from my original home, but that really doesn't affect me like it does some of the others. I'm older, and I've been through this before.

Despite the mood of this particular entry, I am seldom a completely serious person. I prefer satire to sophistication, any day. (Hey, I just came up with that myself; it's pretty catchy)

I think I'll try to motivate myself to update the joke of the week and a few little things I read about or hear about on the sidebar over there, but no promises. I'll also try to update this blog about 4 times a week. Wish me luck.

So, aside from this little intro, I leave you with a question. One that I actually wrote a paper on just today.

Does the law encourage people to be good?

I ponder this because of something I caught myself doing, today.
I caught myself doing homework.
Now, this may not seem like an over-the-top suggestion, but let's face it, I coasted through high school. I passed because I get good test grades, and I barely ever did my homework.
So, now that I am in college, I realize this isn't exactly an option. Fortunately, I realized it without suffering the consequences, which gives me hope for my psychological state.
The correlation between these two, however, is this:
Do I do my homework because I want to learn or because I don't want to fail my classes?
Do people obey the law because they want to be good people, or because they don't want to suffer the consequences of breaking the law?

If I do my homework to get good grades, then it follows that whenever an assignment is not necessary for my grade, I don't do it.
If I slow down in a school zone because I know cops patrol school zones (you KNOW you do this, too) then it follows that if they took away the signs, I would speed by schools at 4:00 and kill people daily.

People in American society, and I assume other societies as well, see laws as obstacles, instead of good things. Why are there laws? Because laws support the ideal life of the human race. They prevent chaos and immorality because living without chaos and immorality is the way that humans were designed to live. But teaching that if you break a law, you will be punished almost encourages us to believe that if we can avoid the law and still get what we want, it is okay. If, instead, we propagated the idea that by following the law we do a good service to ourselves and others, we psychologically train people to see the law as a good thing.

I would rather have good people who obeyed the law than bad people who were restrained from bad deeds by the law. Wouldn't you?

That's all I have to say about that.