Evolution and the Tsunami

The last few weeks since the December 26 Tsunami disaster have shown the heights to which people can go in showing their practical altruism. The world is reaching into Asia to to help these poor souls whose lives have been destroyed. Despite the realities of organizational and logistics challenges, we all want to help those whose lives have been literally unearthed.

I am glad to see this - and not at all surprised - believing as I do that mankind is more than the sum of our parts - but a creature created with a higher and more noble self and calling to servce God and others.

But at times like this I have to wonder what philosophical evolutionists such as the Richard Dawkins of the world conclude when they see humanity reaching out to help others. I ask this because this world view in its most basic form believes that we are animals who happen to, through a series of fortunate accidents, sit at the top of the food chain after a long and painful process of evolution. When disaster strikes one might therefore expect that such "animals" would do little but clean up the mess and wash our hands of it and hope to move on quickly. I say this because our species, under this world view should in a sense be glad to have a few hundred thousand mouths to feed in a populous and poor area. The ones left behind are better off, would go the tune, if you really believed evolution.

How can those from this school of thought explain why we act so altruistically if we are in fact just animals sans a soul?

I am sure they will find some way to explain this and wriggle and writhe through the philosophical nuances of how it makes us feel better about ourselves and creates more serotonin in our brain and so is actually a selfish act. I prefer to look to the more obvious explanation. We are more than physicality and molecules and flesh and bones. We have a soul and spirit an essence that is not from this physically bounded world.

And this soul of man calls us to a higher good and a more noble cause than simply existing for ourselves. We see it every day in small ways - and currently in a big way in Asia - and aren't we all glad that this is so ?