Nature Is Red In Cilia And Membrane

There are a lot of interesting things going on in current events and I have ignorant opinions about all of it, but I really wanted to explore something else: What can we infer about Jesus' message from the nature of the world God created?

Chatting away with ChatGPT, hereafter referred to as AI, about my current favorite topic - the Kumeyaay of San Diego and Khoisan of South Africa - I brought up one of my favorite jokes.

If we want to give the land back to its original inhabitants, if we want to do land acknowledgements, if we want to atone for the sins of imperialism, then the recipients of our restitution really ought to be ... single-celled algae.

It's time we gave back the land. And, of course, the water, too.

Pulling that thread, AI and I discussed who and what were present back in the halcyon days of yore when single-celled algae was the dominant life form. Did the flora and fauna include any predators?

Absolutely. AI's summary:

Types of Early Predators

1. Large predatory bacteria

• Example: Bdellovibrio-like organisms (today these are tiny bacteria that invade other bacteria).
• Prey: Smaller bacteria.
• Method: Some burrowed into prey cells and digested them from the inside.

2. Eukaryotic predators (protists)

• Example: These were single-celled organisms with a nucleus, and they were more complex than bacteria or archaea. Likely ancestors of modern amoebae and flagellates.
• Prey: Bacteria, other protists, and perhaps algae.
• Method: Phagocytosis—they surrounded prey with their cell membrane, enclosed it in a bubble (vacuole), and digested it internally using enzymes.

How Did They Eat?

Phagocytosis (literally "cell eating")

The predator would approach its prey—usually a smaller microbe—detect it chemically, and wrap part of its membrane around it. This created a food vacuole, like a tiny stomach inside the cell. Digestive enzymes broke down the prey, and nutrients were absorbed.

Examples of feeding behavior:

• Amoeboid predators flowed around their prey like goo, engulfing them.
• Flagellated protists used whips or hairs to move and sometimes to stir prey-rich water toward themselves.
• Ciliates (if present) may have used coordinated hair-like cilia to sweep prey into a cell mouth-like structure.

Imperialsm!

They might as well have worn red uniforms, carried Martini-Henry rifles and worn their beards in the Imperial style.

This is an electron microscope photo of early Eukaryotic predators. No, really, it is.

God Is Love

As we know from Pope Francis' document, Amoris Teletubbius, God is love and that's all He is. Just love. And also cuddles and soft blankets and gentle voices. Yes, God is love. Kissy-kissy love-love. St. Tinky-Winky said so as well.

Oh, Please

Seriously, what are these pathologically feminine prelates on about? The whole model of the world God made is effectively, while not utterly, Darwinian. Violent competition is a part of life at all levels. It is into that world that Jesus came. It is that world that gives us the dramatic conflicts of our lives, conflict being a necessary element of any story. Our lives are art expressed through our bodies and our actions and that expression forms the story we author with our lives.

It is in such a world, deliberately and purposefully created this way, that we are called to serve God, love our neighbors, forgive each other and care for the least among us.

The world in which Jesus lived, the time and place of his life, was implicitly violent and harsh. You didn't need to tell anyone in Judea circa 30 AD that life was violent and competitive by nature. It was only once we invented faculty lounges and 300-count cotton sheets that we forgot that.

Our pathologically feminine leaders have forgotten the true nature of the world God made. They deliberately close their eyes to the canvas and palette He expects us to use to create the art which is our lives, the tools we must employ to serve Him.

The Devouring Bishop

This leads me back to Carl Jung's Devouring Mother.

Devouring mothers, particularly, are characterized by over-nurturing, smothering, overly protective, and possessive behaviors.

"Cardinal McElroy, please pick up the white courtesy phone ..." 

Exit Questions

What is the proper role of a man in a world red in cilia and membrane if he is to serve his family, build and maintain civilization and serve God with love and charity? What do Jesus' teachings mean for men in a violent and competitive world?