When the Stork Fails

In recent years, the subject of population decline has started bubbling up from the depths of our social consciousness.  The first stirrings of depopulation began quietly in the east with falling birthrates and shrinking populations in Japan, China, and Korea.  As of 2025, China's population has fallen for 3 years straight.  Japan, on the other hand, has been shrinking for 15 years, and it's been called a 'silent emergency.'  At first, this might just seem like an Asian problem, and some could write it off as a quirk of foreign cultures.

The reality is that fertility is falling all over the world, everywhere.  Western countries aren't as far along on the curve as the countries mentioned above, but it seems that we're all going to the same place.  Africa and a few other scattered places still have relatively high fertility rates, but they will soon begin to fall as well.  The global total fertility rate peaked in 1963 at 5.3 births per woman, and since then it has steadily fallen each year, down to 2.2 births per woman today.  The United States is below the global average with a rate of 1.6, which is below replacement rate: 2.1 births per woman.  Without immigration, the population of the United States would already be shrinking.

This trend has also begun to take hold in my home state of Utah, which used to be the second-most fertile state in the United States.  Despite its religious commitment to natalism, the fertility rate declined the fastest out of any state in 2023, falling to the eighth most fertile state.

Globally, it is apparent that the total human population on Earth will peak and begin to decline relatively soon, before the century's end.

Population decline generally leads to economic instability.  A shrinking population means less people are working, spending, and paying taxes.  The population begins to age as birthrates decline, and the growing elderly population becomes a greater and greater economic burden on working age people.  It may in fact cause a fertility 'tailspin,' where young people respond to hard times with less children, which leads to less workers, which leads to more economic instability, thus the cycle continues.  

Political ideologues have thought of many bad ideas to counter the fertility decline, which range from the ineffectual strategy of paying people to have kids, to stalling by importing immigrants en-masse, to authoritarian forced-procreation schemes.  I doubt any of these 'solutions' will have much success in the coming years. 

Total fertility for the globe over time.

Fertility rate by country in 2024

To understand what's going on, we need to take a brief look at history.  For most of human history, the human population grew almost imperceptibly slowly.  It was only at the beginning of the industrial revolution that population began to increase rapidly.  Medical innovations ensured that less mothers, children, and babies succumbed to disease, reducing deaths.  Industrial agriculture and the mass production of goods made the necessities of life cheaper, allowing families to support more children and increasing births.  What's changed since then?

The most commonly cited reason I hear online for the fertility decline places the blame squarely on women.  Access to birth control, abortion, education, and women's rights more generally are diagnosed as the underlying problem.  This idea is obviously useful for culture warriors but I doubt that it is the root cause.  Culture generally lies downhill from economic and material factors.  People are indeed choosing to have less children, but we should ask why they are making that choice, instead of laying the blame on the brute fact that they can make that choice.

Besides all of the celebrated technical, medical, and productive advancements of the industrial revolution, there was another, quieter shift in human society that often goes unnoticed.  For most of human history prior to the industrial revolution, the majority of the population lived in isolated farmsteads and small villages.  For the people who lived in these rural areas, the center of economic activity was not the business or corporation.  It was the household.  Each household was a small family enterprise, and there was no difference between 'work life' and 'family life.'  As a result, having a large number of children was not just emotionally fulfilling or a religious obligation.  It was also an economic advantage and a matter of survival.  In a household economy, your children are your workforce, your lovable employees.  Furthermore, before the age of steel, engines, and coal, there was a much greater need for manual labor in the home and in the economy at large.

With the industrial revolution, that relationship began to change.  As a result of factory production, economic activity began to centralize in industrial centers in cities, and the household morphed into a place for consumption, not production.  The family lost its central role in the economy, replaced with impersonal transactional relationships between employers and a faceless, replaceable mob of employees.    This change was gradual, not instant, and it was faster in some parts of society than in others.  The mechanization of agriculture took longer than other industries, so rural life managed to hold out a more family-centered mode of production for a little while longer.  But the machine was relentless, and today a vast majority of agricultural land is owned by huge agribusiness, not by family farmers.

In this new state of affairs at the height of industrialism, it is no longer economically advantageous to have lots of children.  Life is divided into the 'work life' or career, and 'family life' or home life, and often these two aspects of life operate in opposition to each other.  Another child isn't another pair of hands to work the land, it's another mouth to feed, another insurance bill to pay, another college tuition, a bigger house, a bigger car, etc.  Other factors at play include the unique circumstances of industrial life.  The peak of fertility for young couples happens to coincide with important education and career decisions, leading couples to delay childbearing until later.  

Economic pressure has driven the single-income family to the brink of extinction, making it harder for potential mothers to have time for child-rearing and for families to juggle career and familial responsibilities.  When children are a luxury rather than a necessity, people will generally choose to have fewer of them.  It's simple math, really. 

Some might object to my argument, pointing out that I am essentially arguing that industrialization is responsible for the population boom and bust simultaneously.  This is where culture comes in.  It takes a while for cultural momentum to be beat down by a new economic reality.  The children of the pre-industrial age who have just moved into a city and gained industrial employment are going to see the large families they were from as the norm, and will act accordingly.  However, over time, the culture loses force and each generation will have less and less children as they gradually adjust to industrial realities.

In short, the population boom is caused by a holdout pre-industrial culture within an industrial society.  But this must give way to an industrial culture, which then leads to the population bust.  I believe this is clearly borne out when looking at the map of fertility decline.  The countries with the highest fertility are the least industrialized, and the countries with the lowest fertility are the farthest along the curve of industrial development.  The Amish, who spurn industrial life within their insular culture, have a birthrate nearly four times the average in the United States.  Industrial civilization is not just ecologically unsustainable, it is also sociologically unsustainable.

I do not believe that there is a viable remedy to this problem on a societal scale, because the problem goes much deeper than government, politics, or culture.  Even if a natalist government were to put a blanket ban on contraceptives and abortion, people would find other ways (both legal and illegal) to prevent pregnancy as long as the incentives remained, and the birthrate would still inevitably decline.  A 'War on Contraception' would end up exactly as effective as the War on Drugs has been.  Governments are not omnipotent.  In the end, you can't force people to do anything, especially something as personal as bearing children.  In a society that had already divorced family life from economic life, the sexual revolution was an inescapable conclusion.

People often hearken back to the rosy sitcom image of the 50s family as a solution.  In my opinion, the stereotypical family of the postwar period is not the legitimate traditional family.  It is a modern invention, a re-enactment of something that is long dead.  It is preferable to the current state of affairs only in the way that a cold corpse is preferable to a rotting one.  Authentic family-centered life does not resemble the fairytale of 50s consumerism.  It is something quieter, closer, and deeper.  We should look toward the Amish, the Pioneers, the Native Americans, and the multi-generational homes of rural Latin America for inspiration.

The fertility collapse is inevitable, and also the least terrible way that the population boom of the industrial age could end.  The population simply cannot grow forever on a finite planet, so the boom had to end sooner or later.  Not long ago during the rapid population increases of the 80s and 90s, we had Malthusians warning us about a coming 'population bomb' which would exhaust natural resources and end in mass starvation.  Instead, people are just quietly choosing to have less children.  I am sure that after many years of decline, the population will become stable, the industrial age will burn out, and the world will settle into a new normal where the family recovers its venerable role.

Now that I've gotten through all the doom and gloom, what's left for us to do?  

Even though I believe that there is no way to restore society at large to family-centeredness, I still think that it is possible to shift our priorities as individuals and families toward living family-centered lives.  Doing this necessarily goes against the grain of culture and mass society, and is very difficult.  Most people will simply follow the route of least resistance.  But if small, insular groups (whether religious, racial, or cultural) can find a foothold, they will have the long-term advantage.

As individuals and communities, can we reverse the general trend toward fertility decline?  No, and that's okay.  Because we can create pockets of family-centeredness, oases of meaning and tenderness in the desert of nihilism and selfishness.  And that is worth the effort.

 

Getting Over Video Games

Hello, my name is Rainer Hurtado, and I'm a recovering video game addict.  The first video game I ever played was one of those old flash games on my Dad's laptop.  My Dad was good with computers and he was forward-thinking.  I'm sure he thought that my interest in video games was a good thing, that it would lead to other useful pursuits in computers and technology. (This has been true, to some degree.)  I’m not blaming Dad for my video game obsession, other kids in the family had the same opportunity to play them but it never became a problem for them.
 
When I was a kid, I was only permitted 45 minutes of video games a day, which seemed painfully brief.  Over time I bent the rules more and more, and whenever my parents left the house, the rules went out the window entirely.  Video games quickly went from being a harmless once-in-a-while indulgence to the default activity that I filled all my time with whenever I didn't have school or work, and it had begun to spin out of control.  Playing a few minutes of video games every once in a while with friends on a weekend is harmless, but when hours and hours of gaming becomes a daily habit, it's a serious problem.

The only thing I looked forward to at the end of the school day was hopping on the computer and playing games.  My parents tried to get me to become more well-rounded and stop playing so much, but it was to no avail.  I was completely absorbed in gaming and I had no will to change.  As I entered college and started living on my own, gaming took up so much of my time that I'm ashamed to even think about it.

When I look back on all the time I wasted, the most obvious question is 'why?'  What was so alluring about video games that drew me to them day after day for hours on end?  What made me prioritize them over all other activities?  After mulling it over, I think I found an answer.  To understand why, we first have to take a look at what distinguishes video games from other forms of media.  

All video games, from the earliest, simplest ones to the complex behemoths on the market today have one thing in common.  They are deeply interactive.  Movies and TV shows typically don't take input from the user and alter the experience accordingly.  In fact, this was one of the reasons that in the early days, video games were considered a more positive form of media than the alternatives, as they encouraged activity rather than passivity.  The interactivity of video games allows the gamer to become the protagonist of the game and share in the joys and failures of the protagonist in a very intimate way.  People watching Harry Potter might get deeply immersed in the story and sympathize with Harry, but they do not become Harry.

Accordingly, the gamer feels a sense of achievement and a thrilling rush of dopamine as they accomplish tasks and outwit obstacles in the game world.  This becomes more insidious the more you think about it.  Besides just being entertaining or stimulating like other forms of media, video games have something else up their sleeve: they are machines that manufacture fake achievement.  And worse than this, accomplishing achievements in video games is carefully designed to be just challenging enough to give the gamer a hit of dopamine, but not so challenging that they become frustrated, lest the gamer 'ragequits' and finds something better to do with their time.

Everything worth doing in the real world is hard.  Going to the gym is hard.  Relationships are hard.  Hiking is hard.  Writing is hard.  Art is hard.  Meditation is hard.  Gardening is hard.  Eating healthy is hard.  Learning an instrument is hard.  Sometimes, even getting out of bed is hard!  Real life is just deeply, deeply hard.  The mismatch between the ease of accomplishing a simulated achievement and the stark challenge of accomplishing something real leads the gamer to spend more and more time gaming and less time living.  After all, when everything seems so hard, what else is there to do? The gamer is left impoverished of real achievements, while a vaporous cloud of fake ones evaporate in the sunlight like dew.

(Some gamers might quibble with the distinction between a ‘real’ and ‘fake achievement, but to such people I would pose the question: Would you rather finish a ‘dating simulator’ game or actually get a real girlfriend?)

I can recall very real opportunities that I passed up on because they would interfere with gaming.  As a kid, I quit taekwondo because it was hard and games were easy.  In my teens, I rejected an opportunity for voice lessons because it would interfere with my gaming time.  In my early college years I spent most of my free time gaming in my apartment that I could have instead spent on making lasting friendships and learning new skills.  And as I look at my Steam page with its countless pointless hours sunk into games, it's impossible to avoid the conclusion that I could have done something, anything better with the time.  This is the tragedy of video game addiction, it takes away your time, saps your willpower, and gives you nothing in return.

I finally had this realization a year or so into my marriage. I felt disgusted and realized I needed to take a step back and think deeply about who I wanted to be and what I actually wanted to achieve in life.  I decided to quit gaming and fill my time with other things.  I drew up a list of things I wanted to learn and practice.  I wanted to start going to the gym and improve my physical fitness.  I wanted to learn to garden to become more self-sufficient.  I wanted to hike regularly to become closer with nature.  I wanted to take up a practice of meditation and prayer to deepen my relationship with God and improve my mental faculties.  I wanted to write a journal to leave something behind for my descendants.

Now that I had my goals, I began taking steps to achieve them.  I got a gym membership, dug out plots for gardening and bought seeds, began writing a daily journal, and started a simple practice of daily meditation and prayer.  In this early stage of development there were a lot of setbacks and ‘relapses’, and it was difficult to juggle all of my responsibilities.  The urge to play video games would rear up frequently and it would be very hard to resist.
 
In a strange turn of events, I was reminded of a particular game called Getting Over It. In a way, it's an anti-video game.  In the game, you play as a guy stuck in a cauldron holding a hammer.  The task is to climb a huge mountain of garbage with nothing but the hammer.  The game is meant to be completely boring, unforgiving, and difficult.  There are no save points, there are no exciting enemies to battle, there’s no satisfying powerups or thrilling music, and there is no way to make the game easier.  It’s just a mountain of garbage.  One slipup can lose you all the progress you’ve made in a single second.  When you fall, a narrator dryly mocks your failure, rubbing salt in the wound.  Most people give up the game after a few minutes of boredom and frustration.

A screenshot of Getting Over It

I thought about it for a while, and wondered if I could use the game the same way a heroin addict uses Methadone Maintenance Therapy, using brief hits of a less potent drug to take the edge off of withdrawals.  Whenever I felt the urge to play video games, I was only allowed to play Getting Over It and nothing else.  These sessions rarely lasted more than five minutes because of how much I hated the game, and then I would get up and do the stuff from my list of tasks.

Surprisingly, this actually worked, and soon enough my daily routine stopped revolving around video games.  Hours I would have otherwise spent gaming were replaced with hiking, reading, writing, meditating, drawing, and doing chores.  On the day I finally finished Getting Over It, I deleted it from my computer and that was that, no more video games.  I no longer felt the compulsion to play them, and finding better things to do with my time had become second-nature.  It was a hard process, but very worth it.  Progress in personal goals is slow and sometimes it can be discouraging, but when I look back on it I know I am forging a way forward and all I need to do is persist.

It’s been almost 2 years since I cut video games out of my daily routine, and in that time I have become stronger and more fit, able to endure harder labor and strenuous activities.  I have spent more time reading, writing, learning, and engaging with complex ideas.    Spiritually, I have maintained a regime of meditation, contemplation, and prayer each day which has helped me to feel the presence of God and think with clarity.  As I write my journal each night, I note how much more interesting my days are now that they aren't parasitized by a single activity, and before I go to sleep I smile knowing that I am no longer allowing life to pass me by.

Our little piece of Nowhere

 

When my wife and I got married three years ago, we had a dream.  In short, we fantasized about going "back to the land" and becoming homesteaders.  Back-to-the-land movements have sprung up repeatedly in the history of the United States and elsewhere as a response to an increasingly inhuman world.  They eventually die out as the ex-urbanites learn the enormous toil and struggle that comes with living off the land and being isolated from society.  Some people can make it, but most people can't.

As we contemplated the realities of trying to live off the land, we realized that there were serious problems with our plan.  First of all, purchasing enough land to live on would be a tall order.  Land isn't cheap, and we're not going to be wealthy any time soon.  Second of all, farming has a steep learning curve, and if we were depending on our land for our sole source of food, our first season would end with desertion at best and a couple of frozen corpses at worst.  Third, we can't make it far without access to municipal water and electricity.

The probable fate of a city slicker trying to 'live off the land'

As a result of these considerations, we rethought our dream and downsized it to something that we could actually achieve.  Instead of living off the land in an off-grid cabin, we decided that we wanted to aim for a smaller parcel of land near a small town.  That way, we could have jobs, access to grocery stores, municipal water, electricity, and sewer, and our kids could go to school.  We would create a garden and expand it over time to supplement bulk foods that we would purchase rather than trying to get all of our calories from the land.  Over time, we would become more self-sufficient while still having a support structure.

Our specific metrics were:

• The property ideally needs to be 1-5 acres.
• The property needs to be near a town which has a hospital, school, grocery store, and other amenities.  
• The property needs to be able to be hooked up to municipal water, electricity, etc. 
• The road needs to be open all year round.
• Absolutely no HOAs!!!

Unfortunately, it became obvious quickly that this dream wasn't going to be possible in our home state of Utah.  Homes here cost over twice as much as they did when I was in High School, and any decent-sized plot of arable land near a town costs half a million at the very least.  We resigned ourselves to the truth that if our dream was to become a reality, it was going to have to be far away.

Over the years we've been monitoring our options near and far.  One day we saw a property which caught our eye, and it seemed more and more promising the closer we looked at it.  This particular parcel was on the edge of the town of Ainsworth, Nebraska.  Ainsworth is small, but it has all the necessities.  Among other things, there are grocery stores, hardware stores, a school, some restaurants, and a hospital.

 
The town of Ainsworth

The property itself is three acres, with one cleared acre and 2 wooded acres with a little creek running through.  On the north side there's 2nd street, which is open all year round and is plowed by the city.  On the south side, there's the cowboy trail, a 300-mile bike trail which goes through much of Nebraska.  To the east, there's a neighbor and the city's storage yard.

 
A view of the property with rough boundaries

Ainsworth is the county seat of Brown County, which is known for being in the 'Middle of Nowhere.' The population is small and close-knit.  Nebraska has a reputation for being flatter than a pancake, but this is not the case for Ainsworth and the surrounding region.  Much of the western half of Nebraska is covered by the sandhills, where ancient sand dunes are held in place by prairie grasses.  The sandhills are unsuitable for plowing or planting, so they have been left relatively unchanged, and there's plenty of wildlife management areas and recreational areas in the region.

A satellite view of some sandhills.  The green areas are low-lying wetlands, the blue areas are lakes and ponds formed by the aquifer that underlie them.

The property looked so good to us that we reached out to the realtor and did research on Ainsworth and the surrounding areas.  We commissioned a survey of the property and looked through the zoning laws in the town.  The only objectionable thing we found in the zoning code was that there was a limit on chickens... no roosters were allowed within our zone and only 6 chickens maximum!  Seemed unreasonable to me, but it wasn't a dealbreaker by any means.  (There weren't any rules about ducks or quail!)  We talked to the realtor over the months and had the realtor give us a tour of the land via video call.  She was very helpful and friendly.

In the end, we made a big gamble.  We purchased the property without having been there in person.  It was a risky decision, and not one that I would recommend others do.  But our intuition was that this was a good choice.  Now all that was left was to plan a journey to the property to see if our gamble paid off.

We purchased the property in Feburary of 2025.  We planned our trip to be in the following spring, because we wanted to see the property in full bloom and we didn't want to take a chance on icy roads.

We began our journey to the property on May 12th.  Northern Utah and western Wyoming are quite beautiful, and the ride was very scenic.  We were driving white-knuckled a few times along the way due to high winds and swerving semi-trucks.  We stopped in Cheyenne for the night after driving 6 hours.  The following day we left Cheyenne and soon crossed into Nebraska.  Eastern Wyoming was a flat wasteland, but upon crossing into Nebraska it gave way to grassland with some interesting sandy landforms and pine trees.  

Before long, we had crossed into the sandhills proper.  They were beautiful.  They reminded me of the foothills I like to explore back home.  There were tiny unincorporated towns nestled in the sandhills, and we stopped at one to get lunch and stretch our legs.  I thought about what it would be like to have been born in one of those little towns.

The sandhills and their bovine inhabitants 

Eventually, we came to the southern part of Ainsworth.  I recognized buildings that I had seen from satellite images, and we turned left on 2nd Street.  Soon enough we arrived at the property.  This was the moment of truth!

Upon setting foot outside the car, the first thing we noticed was how good the air smelled.  I had heard from the internet that Ainsworth often smells like cow because of the feedlots to the north, but our piece of forest smelled very crisp and fresh.  We were both ecstatic.  We ran through the clearing and plunged into our two-acre wood.  In there it was like our own world of green.  The trees were enormous, and some of them had abandoned treehouses in them.  The little creek had a population of little fish and there was a family of ducks in the pond.  I had my first encounter with ticks, which we don't have at home.  I like to wear shorts, so this led to a frantic run back to the car to get some pants on.

 

Bree sitting on the fallen tree 

A view of the forest

The little creek 

 

The cleared acre viewed from 2nd street

Overall, the property was even better than we had expected.  After we settled down, we grabbed some cookies I brought to bring to our neighbors.  We met our neighbor who was also the seller of the property.  He appreciated the cookies and he gave us a friendly tour and talked about the town.  He had a hard time hearing us, but he loved to talk and over the course of the conversation he answered all the questions that we would have asked.  After exploring our property a bit more, the sun began to set so we stayed the night in a bunkhouse in the nearby small town of Long Pine.  The bunkhouse was very nice, especially for how affordable it was.  I would highly recommend visitors to the area to stay there.  As the sun was setting, we took a leisurely walk to the nearby bridge, where we got a nice view Long Pine Creek.  On the way we saw some rabbits and other woodland creatures.

 
The Long Pine Bunkhouse

The railroad bridge

 

Long Pine Creek as viewed from the bridge.

The next day, Wednesday the 14th, we relished exploring our land again, but then moved on to exploring the town.  There's a grocery store a mere block away from our property, which is very convenient.  There's also a Kung Fu studio, but it wasn't open while we were there and I never found out if it's still in business.  We bought some groceries and I got a haircut at the local hair salon.  Bree visited the hospital and talked to the lab workers there.  She is sure that she could get a job there.  We visited a bunch of the stores, including the thrift store and the bookstore.  There was a museum we were excited to see, but it wasn't open at the time.  Everyone that we met in town was friendly.

 
The museum

We reached out to the realtor to let her know that we had made it to Ainsworth.  She was delighted to hear that we were there, and she invited us to have dinner with her at the Tipsy Pine, a pizza place in Long Pine, about a 30-second walk from the bunkhouse where we were staying.  I brought some cookies for her and she surprised us by paying for the meal, which was very kind of her. Our realtor was very helpful and kind. We talked with her about the property, the town, and our plans for the future.  The pizza was good and the owner of the restaurant was friendly.  As we left the Tipsy Pine we noticed that the feedlot smell mentioned earlier had rolled in.  It wasn't so bad. I've lived in a small town before, and there was a similar situation with their turkey farms.  The locals call it the 'smell of money.' 

On Thursday the 15th we went to the nearby town of Valentine and rented bikes to bike along the Cowboy Trail.  We biked from the town to the nearby Niobrara bridge.  The river was broad and beautiful.  Along the way back, the wind started picking up. We had plans to tube along the river, but unfortunately the storm rolled in and frustrated those plans.

 

Biking along the cowboy trail

A view of the Niobrara river from the bridge.

 

Once we were finished biking, we drove to the Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge.  There was a lookout point which overlooked the canyons and hills.  It was a beautiful place and our photos didn't do it justice.  It is home to bison, elk, and all kinds of wildlife.  The whole region was beautiful, and over the course of our trip I really fell in love with it.

Overlooking the refuge

 

The next place to visit was Smith Falls State Park, the home of the highest waterfall in Nebraska. Compared to some of the waterfalls we have at home it was relatively small, but it was still beautiful and worth visiting.  After we visited the falls, we hiked around the park and I learned something interesting about the ecology of the area.  During the Ice Age, the cooler climate made it home to boreal trees, like spruce, birch, and aspens.  However, the warming climate at the end of the ice age caused these trees to disappear except in the canyons that are sheltered from higher weather.  It made me think about what people can do today to help make these areas more resilient in the age ahead.

 

Smith Falls

 

Us in front of Smith Falls

 

Bree in front of the falls

 

In the evening we took soil samples from the property for later testing.  Since we plan on growing a big garden, it's important to know the characteristics of the soil.  After that, we went to the bunkhouse for our last sleep in Nebraska.

 

The next day, the 16th, was the final day of our trip.  There's little to write about.  The trip home was fine and we did all 12 hours in one go.  When we got home we were relieved to be back, but we were left with a distinct longing for our little piece of nowhere.  I'm sure we'll be back soon.  I believe that our gamble paid off in the end.

 

 

 

On the Origin of Life

  

I consider the formation of biological life the second most mysterious phenomenon in the universe.  Each organism is a little universe which reflects the big universe in which it lives.  Therefore, the existence of life is a double-mystery, almost as mysterious as the existence of reality itself.  Scientific inquiry has of course made great strides in understanding life and the history of our planet.  But the mystery remains, at least for the time being.

Let's imagine, for the sake of argument, that the mystery was solved.  Entertain the thought that scientists have discovered some complex natural process from which life came forth from nonliving material.  Does that thought seem threatening to you?  If it does, this post is for you.

That same fear and indignation you may be feeling right now has catalyzed longstanding resistance to biology and geology since the inception of those disciplines.  A century ago in 1925, fundamentalists put a high school teacher on trial for teaching evolution and even brought out live chimpanzees to help ridicule the idea.  Since then, there have been countless attempts to remove the teaching of evolution from the classroom and insert young-earth religious ideas.  But let's think about this a bit further.  Why are the earth sciences so threatening in particular?

 
A chimp at the scopes trial.

In the western mind, there has been a longstanding conceptual dichotomy which divides the world into natural and supernatural causes.  Natural processes happen on their own as a result of natural laws, while supernatural events violate these laws and occur completely separately from nature.  This means that for any given event, there are two distinct agencies that can be responsible.  Mechanical natural processes or the supernatural powers of a sentient God.

Thinking about it this way, it becomes crystal clear why science seems so threatening to God.  Because of the dichotomy (which is taken for granted by many theists and atheists alike) when science discovers natural processes responsible for various aspects of our world, the agency and power of God appears to shrink, and God can only live within the rapidly narrowing gaps of our knowledge.  When the theory of evolution explained the emergence of different species, it then followed that God could not be responsible for the creation of those species.  Under this worldview, if some working theory of abiogenesis was discovered, it would be the worst assault upon God possible, usurping his power to create and sustain life itself.

A USSR propaganda poster created after Yuri Gagarin's flight.  The text reads "There's no God!"  When we see God as distinct from natural processes, every discovery becomes a blow to Him.

Following this dichotomy, the atheist sneers that since the science is correct, God is dead.  The religious fundamentalist retorts that God is alive, so the science must be wrong.  Seeking safety, they turn to pseudo-scientists who assure them that these scary scientific discoveries are indeed frauds.  They move to suppress these ideas in public schools, or corral their children into home-schools and religious schools that won't expose their delicate ears to these evil teachings. 

 

It should be clear that there's a flaw in the dichotomy and that we are starting from bad assumptions.  To reiterate, the dichotomy divides the world into natural causes and supernatural causes.  Natural events happen automatically as a result of natural law, while supernatural events occur because of divine intervention.  But if we take God seriously, this dichotomy cannot hold.  God is the wellspring of all being and the ultimate cause of everything.  He is the First Cause, the Absolute, and reality at every level proceeds from Him.  Thus, all processes are ultimately supernatural processes in the final analysis, and therefore the dichotomy is revealed to be completely meaningless.

Every process that science describes has God at its root, but because we assume that these processes must be blind and mechanical, it seems as though science is uprooting the influence of God wherever it goes.  Scientific discovery appears to turn a living, wondrous world into a dead machine, and a retreat into the warm blanket of ignorance may seem preferable.  Thankfully, this is all just a self-imposed delusion.  

There is no reason to divide the world into blind processes and God-ordained processes, and there is no need to think of God as an alien agent acting upon the world from some faraway throne.  With this in mind, science stops being a threat to God.  It merely becomes a way to describe how the processes set in motion by God have played out over time, and how his will has unfolded throughout the universe.  

Man is the child of God and nature, because the two have never been separable.  Whether Adam was made of literal clay or rather of the 'clay' of archaic biological matter makes zero difference to me and my faith.  God's providence sustains the universe and is the ultimate source of all its activity, from the formation of the stars, to the first quickening of primordial life, to all the diverse forms of life that have been lovingly fashioned by the divine will through eons of time.  

I don't need to try to find 'seams' and 'cracks' in nature to pour God into as if he was a quick-drying cement, (as 'Intelligent Design' proponents try to do), Because He is the very foundation nature rests upon. He is the beating heart of the cosmos, and nature is His perfect order, from beginning to end.  In him, we live and move and have our being.

It is worth bearing in mind that this attitude was what kickstarted the natural sciences in the first place.  Because the universe proceeds from the mind of the divine, it reflects the order and intelligibility of the divine.  Therefore, we can use our share of intelligence to interpret and understand the divine processes that shape our world.  Science is not a threat to deity.  It is only possible because of deity.  And at its best, it is a process of discovery and communion with deity.

 
Gregor Mendel, a Catholic Monk, is held to be the father of genetics, which he discovered by experimenting with pea plants in his monastery.  Genetics is one of the strongest lines of evidence supporting the theory of evolution.

Note what I am not saying here.  I am not saying that science can answer every question.  The reason science is so effective is because of its laser-focus on a very narrow portion of a broader reality, that being material processes.  Just because certain materialist dogmatists assert that the only reality that exists is the part amenable to scientific inquiry doesn't make it so.  But the limitations of science do not mean that we shouldn't give it its due when it is investigating things that belong under its purview.  Sometimes science is abused, but what science can do, it usually does well.

I doubt that this post will convince anyone in the fundamentalist camp to embrace the discoveries that have been made in earth science and life science.  These discoveries are compatible with a belief in God, but they are much tougher to square with a naive, literalist reading of scripture.  If you're committed to that view, there's not much I can do for you.  All I can do is articulate how I am able to hold a faith which is curious, rather than afraid.

Finding the 'Cave of Death'

Originally I was planning for this month's post to be about lighter subject matter, considering the content of last month's post.  Well, something happened that changed those plans!  Don't worry though, this blog is not intended to be "Rainer talks about the dark and disturbing."  Future posts will be much lighter than this!

I'm a bit of a nature lover.  Fortunately for me, I was born in Utah, which has a lot of really great natural areas.  My neighborhood is nestled up close to the Wasatch Mountains, and I have spent many days wandering the valleys, canyons, and foothills.  One thing of particular interest besides the woods and wildflowers are the caves in the limestone of the Wasatch Front.  Most of the caves I've stumbled upon in my journeys have been very small clefts in the rock, hardly deserving the title of 'cave.'  There have been a few that I could actually fit through, and a couple that I could stand up and walk through without issue.  I think caves are interesting, but I have enough claustrophobia and common sense to avoid any kind of exploration that would necessitate squeezing, crawling, or worst of all, swimming.  In my opinion, there's just too much that can go wrong in a cave.

Still, there are many for whom the urge to explore outweighs the risk.  Many spelunkers have skills and strategies that minimize that risk.  But still, mishaps and unfortunate circumstances can pose a deadly threat to even the most prepared explorer.  One such tragedy happened in Provo, in "Gollum's Cave," also known as "The Water Mine" and most ominously as the "Cave of Death."

Gollum's Cave is a small cave in some foothills a little ways from the Seven Peaks water park in Provo.  The main stretch is ~100 feet long. At the end of the main stretch, there is an underwater passage that leads to another small room, about large enough to hold 4-6 people.  It is for this passage that it is called 'Gollum's Cave.' 

Part of an illustration of Gollum's Cave.

Five friends visited the cave on August 17th, 2005.  Beforehand, they had been talking at a restaurant when one of them, Jennifer Galbraith, related her experience of exploring the cave and nearly freezing to death.  She remarked that it was the 'Cave of Death.'  Only four of the five committed to entering the cave: Jennifer Galbraith, Scott McDonald, Ariel Singer, and Blake Donner.  The fifth, Joseph Ferguson, showed up but waited at the entrance of the cave.  When his friends hadn't come out after 45 minutes had passed, Joseph called the police.

All four of the friends made it into the chamber, but none of them made it out.  The air in the chamber had very low oxygen and the four were depleting it by the minute, forcing them to leave.  Ariel tried to leave first, but she drowned in the passage, inches from breathable air.  Her body blocked the exit for the three friends behind her, and all of them drowned.

 

When the police and searchers arrived, they began pumping water out and air in.  Soon, they found the bodies.  The cave was sealed up with concrete, and a plaque was put up to memorialize the four. (This was a very brief summary of events, here's some great sources for more in-depth research: israelniederhauser blog, ksl article, deseret news article, utah caves blog)

After I heard this story, I wanted to visit the cave to see it for myself.  I've heard of other, more high-profile cave accidents like Nutty Putty, but this one was so close to where I live and I had never heard of it before.  Unfortunately, sources on the internet were very weird and gatekeepy, refusing to give the exact location of the cave.  I decided that I would find the location and put it on Google Maps to make sure that the tragedy is never forgotten.

Finding it wasn't all that difficult, which made me further confused over the weird caginess and secrecy online.  The KSL article provided a very helpful image from the air with an 'X' marking the location of the cave.  All I had to do was find the rough location on Google Maps and go there.

While land use has changed since the image was taken (ugly McMansions have unfortunately crept up to the foot of the mountain) I was able to pretty easily match the bushes and drainages in the picture with Google Maps satellite images.  I was pretty sure I had the right spot, now all I had to do was go there.

I parked at a nearby parking spot, "Summit Drive View."  Parking there was allowed during the day but forbidden at night, presumably to prevent teens from fornication.  I would have rather biked there, but I had an event later in the day that limited the time I could spend on my adventure.  From there it was a pretty short walk to the spot.  I had to wander around a bit because all I knew was that the cave was in the general area of a certain cluster of bushes.  As I was walking along a footpath, I noticed water trailing down from above and I knew I was at the right place.  I followed the water uphill through some thorny brush and ended up at the entrance to Gollum's Cave.

A video I took once I reached Gollum's Cave.

When I arrived at the cave I took some pictures and videos, then I realized I had worked up a thirst.  I've only drank spring water a couple times, and this was one of those times.  The water was cold and good but I felt a sense of melancholy that the same water was responsible for the deaths of the adventurous hikers who came there before me.  May they rest in peace.

 

Once I got home, I put the location on Google Maps as "Gollum's Cave Memoriam."  You can view it here.  I hope that others will visit and pay their respects to those who lost their lives here.  Remember to tell your loved ones that you love them, and if you're the type who loves spelunking, be very careful!  Even small caves close to civilization can be very dangerous, and even experienced cavers can die inches from safety.