Hurricanes, floods, tornados, drought, dust storms, and tsunami; all natural scourges humans and animals alike have faced since the beginning of existence.

Ancient humans decided there must be some cause for these horrible tragedies. They fabricated a cause: Gods, demons.

Nature has no conscience or consciousness. Nature does not act for or against any organism. Nature is what simply is. It cannot continue blithely, for that would imply an ability of attentiveness that is ignored, but in reality, an attentiveness that does not exist… nature simply is. Nature is indifferent. It is not out to get you. It has no direction. It is simply a product of the forces at work around the planet.

There are no gods to thank for your survival after a horrendous hurricane. There are no gods or demons to damn after the death of a loved one in a tornado. Luck plays no part. Luck is another of those nonexistent fabricated forces which humans invented. If you survive a flood you simply survived, it just so happened. If anything at all played a part at all it might have been your determination to survive.

There is yet another thing which does not have any intention or plan. It is evolution. There is no goal inherent within evolution. Each organism survives simply because it possesses that which is necessary to exist within its environment. The lion is well suited to where it lives. The mouse is also well suited to where it lives. There was no plan for these organisms. They are the product of small changes over time that ended up beneficial for survival in the niche in which they live.

Most surprising for many is the truth that humans are not the end product of evolution. We too, simply possess attributes, attributes that accumulated through minute gradual changes, unplanned, that ended up what was needed to fit the environment, our niche. These changes were affected by the environment. Changes that were not beneficial were eliminated as the pressures of the environment caused an organism that was unfit to die, eliminating them from the procreation pool. There was no goal, no end point, no higher purpose… there was only natural selection. There was no anger, no malice, no none of those, there was only indifference.

Did you know that, where evolution is concerned, the chimp is better adapted for its environment than we? Does that make them higher on the tree? Is there a “higher” on the tree?