Human Effort
I used the "Trebuchet MS" font in the title because I like the name. Trebuchets are cool. If you don't know what they are, they're like catapults, but work on a different principle. Rather than explain it myself, I'll just refer you to wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trebuchet. Saw a flaming piano flung by one of these things on TV, once. Awesome!
Oh, look! Here it is on YouTube!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wVADKznOhY
Are you wondering why I seem to have hijacked my own post, right off the bat? I am actually giving examples of
human effort! YouTube itself is an example, which built on technologies (video, web, computer, etc.) developed by human effort. Trebuchets are awesome examples. Pianos. Fonts. Wiki. Etc.
A complete catalog of human effort would be unimaginably huge, of course. Bridges, skyscrapers, cars, airplanes. Libraries are chock full of examples. Universities are dedicated to expanding it. And on a smaller scale, people living their everyday lives use it just to survive! And to get along with each other, and to improve the human condition: contributing to charities, volunteering locally, posting on web forums
, etc.
And yet, human effort is to be disdained, even shunned, according to some. And when stacked up against God's
divine effort (creation of the universe, for example), they perhaps have a point. But is that a good reason to put it down so much? Some folks will say things like "I am nothing, without God", or "I don't want
my will for my life [which sounds like an oxymoron!], I want God's will [oh, OK then]", or "man's righteousness is filthy rags". Talk about an inferiority complex! But, again, if you are comparing us (whether humanity as a whole or any individual human) against God's infinite perfection, sure. Relatively filthy. Relatively puny. Relatively worthless.
But the key word is "relatively". What is the point of comparing any potentially imperfect thing (whether it is "effort" or "goodness" or whatever) against absolute perfection? You will never be perfect, so what is the point of even trying?
Now, some may point to the story of the tower of Babel, and say that God
wants us not to use human effort to accomplish things. God seemed to be really concerned about that! Yikes! Can't let them get away with building this tower, or there's nothing they can't do if they put their minds to it! Smash it! Scatter those people, confound their language, quick! Whew, that was close.
And what about those kids in the garden? They messed up. Better banish them quick, before they eat the fruit of that other tree and live forever! Yikes!
Anyway, back to the topic. Human effort. Yeah. Think what you want about it. Think of it as futile and evil, if you like. I prefer to applaud it, and encourage it to grow, to make life better. Seriously: what could it hurt?
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