Am I More?

Killing is the predatory mechanism that drives evolution through survival of the fittest. The food chain is an easily understood example of this. This is also the great irony, that taking life is necessary to sustain it. Someone more knowledgeable in the subject may well prove me wrong, but I doubt that the cheetah that runs down the gazelle is guilty of malice, but instead is simply trying to survive. The little fish is eaten by a larger fish which is eaten by a larger fish, and so on. This isn’t rocket science, but it is acknowledging the primal urge to live that is supported by killing. Some behaviorists regard humans as nothing more than sophisticated animals. Recent research into the ins and outs of human sex reduces the process to one of evolutionarily selecting a mate on the basis of perceived positive reproductive characteristics. Reproduction; there’s that wanting to live thing again. In a kill or be killed scenario, the gene pool is enhanced by those who successfully eliminate the inferior and the weaker. In this sense, the humans who are alive today are the product of the most successful killers. The killed just didn’t make the cut because they had no progeny. I understand how this is not a very flattering picture of the human condition, but one need look no farther than Nazi Germany to realize its deeply inherent truth. If human existence truly is nothing more than kill or be killed, the ideal will be achieved in the last man standing. But throughout the course of human history runs a thread of something more, the notion that humans have been created “a little lower than the angels.” (Psalm 8:5) This is what I’m going to concentrate on to try to answer for myself the question, If I am created in the image of my Creator, can I really lower myself to the kill or be killed paradigm?