Then the second angel sounded: And something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. And a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.
– Revelation 8:8 (The Holy Bible)
There is always a resounding irony in the way the religious represents their worldview to the world. Trapped in a pleasurable world where they work hard to fit in, in order to maintain their sanity, the devout is still filled with visions of a soon-coming catastrophic judgment on that same world. So, they are literally confused, at work and at home. Should I work to save the world in my office, or should I pray to raze the Earth in my closet?
Yet again, as we commemorate the World Wildlife Day 2019, which fell on Sunday, March 3, one cannot help imagining the paradox of an endangered wildlife. As quoted above, when the Christian faith, reflected in the Bible, already relishes visions of an apocalyptic end-of-all-things in our ecosystem, how then can the average Earth citizen muster the passion and energy to continue working at safeguarding the same flora and fauna that are already on a highway to fiery obliteration?
On December 20, 2013, at its 68th session, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed March 3, the day of signature of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, as the UN World Wildlife Day to celebrate and raise awareness of the world’s wild animals and plants. This year, the WWD is celebrated under the theme “Life below water for people and planet”, which aligns with Goal 14 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Marine wildlife has sustained human civilisation and development for millennia, from providing food and nourishment, to material for handicraft and construction. It has also enriched our lives culturally, spiritually, and recreationally in different ways. The capacity of life below water to provide these services is severely impacted, as our planet’s oceans and the species that live within it are under assault from an onslaught of threats: over-exploitation of marine species, pollution, loss of coastal habitats and climate change. These threats have a strong impact on the lives and livelihoods of those who depend on marine ecosystem services, especially women and men in coastal communities.
Nigeria, surely, has a large portion of its land on coastal frontiers. But the same country also boasts one of the largest conglomerations of the world’s religious organisations and their devout practitioners. Many of the groups and sects in Nigeria are millenarian-minded by inclination and by practice. From Exclusive Brethrens – like Deeper Life and Jehovah’s Witnesses – to gun-totting Apocalyptos – like Boko Haram, and the defunct Maitatsine, our mainstream researchers have yet to peg our problems on the clash between science and religion.
Even globally, the world is still in denial as to the reality of the clash of the two worlds. Science says the earth is billions of years old; religion accepts just a few thousand years of historic timeline. Science splices the DNA helix to change a congenital condition; religion goes for exorcism, prayer and fasting. Science says there is no life after death, until proved otherwise; religion says faith proves everything. Science says resurrection is a myth; religion keeps mum.
I think we have come to that place where the two must sit down together, face each other and try to solve our existential problems, especially eco-related ones.
For instance, going back to the Biblical quotation at the beginning of this article, one realises that the infamous book of Revelation could not be entirely a book of religious phantasmagoria. When put side by side with emerging scientific evidence, it could signify a very possible reality in astrophysical experience of the Earth. It says. “…And something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood.”
To be sure, “something like a great mountain burning with fire” sounds very aptly like an asteroid or comet, coming down fast from outer space to the Earth surface. Could it be that when it finds its way into the sea, the collision impact kills many living things in the water (humans and animals), thereby churning up bloodied waters in the apocalyptic vision?
As it stands today, we are already aware of a similar event where the comet hit Earth many years ago, but at that time, it hit land, and not water. Perhaps, the Bible is telling us to expect a similar future event that would hit water this time round!
In 2016, it was confirmed that it actually happened 66 million years ago. The discovery was made in the 1970s by Antonio Camargo and Glen Penfield, geophysicists, who had been looking for petroleum in the Yucatan. They found what is known as the Chicxulub crater, an impact crater buried underneath the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Its centre is located near the town of Chicxulub, after which the crater is named.
It was formed by a large asteroid or comet about 11 to 81 kilometers in diametre, the Chicxulub impactor, striking the Earth. The date of the impact coincides precisely with the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary (K-Pg boundary), slightly less than 66 million years ago, and a widely accepted theory is that worldwide climate disruption from the event was the cause of the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event – that is, a mass extinction in which 75% of plant and animal species on Earth became extinct, including all non-avian dinosaurs.
The crater is estimated to be 150 kilometres in diameter and 20 kilometres in depth, well into the continental crust of the region of about 10-30 km depth. It is the second largest confirmed impact structure on Earth and the only one whose peak ring is intact and directly accessible for scientific research. In 2016, a scientific drilling project drilled deep into the peak ring of the impact crater, hundreds of metres below the current sea floor, to obtain rock core samples from the impact itself.
The discoveries were widely seen as confirming current theories related to both the crater impact and its effects.
Last week on this column, I mentioned the book, “Worlds in Collision”, written by Immanuel Velikovsky, as one expounding one of the fringe theories on pole shift. Today, we can put the book’s theories side by side with the Chicxulub crater discovery and see that Velikovsky’s theories may have been partly confirmed in the 1970s discovery in Mexico. Instructively, his book was written in 1950.
“Worlds in Collision” postulated that around the 15th century BC, Venus was ejected from Jupiter as a comet or comet-like object, and passed near Earth (an actual collision is not mentioned). The object changed Earth’s orbit and axis, causing innumerable catastrophes that were mentioned in early mythologies and religions around the world. Granted, many of the book’s claims are completely rejected by the established scientific community as they are not supported by any available evidence, but we can easily recognise the spirit behind Velikovsky’s theory.
The truth in the science is that what the religious describes as God’s judgement or Angelic warfare may actually be extreme weather events, cosmic disturbances and extraterrestrial upheavals. Could it be that the prophets of old were actually using their intuitive abilities to detect or foresee future climate change cataclysm, and wrote their visions down in the religious framework of their intellectual capacity?
One then wonders what stops us from putting on our own sophisticated tech-savvy thinking caps, in order to convert these ancient prophetic titbits into munchable modern solutions to emerging ecological challenges. To me, there is no better way to ensure the survival of the Earth.
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