Maybe We Are The Virus?

Maybe we are the virus, and the earth is cleansing itself with its anti-body.

What is human's worth for the earth? Nothing. It doesn't need nothing from us, human. Human is just a big bunch of protein that serves the earth best when decomposed, as a fertilizer to the soil.

If you are the mother earth with your own beautiful harmony to sustain everything you have, you don't need human to survive. You have a perfect balance and process: from the water cycle, to the devastating yet life-generating volcanic eruption.

I'ts all in a perfect harmony.

And then there come the human--no matter whether it was raised from the family of apes somewhere in Africa or descended from heaven somewhere in the continent, all he/she can do is: consuming whats available on earth.

Killing animals for food, grabbing fruits for snack, chopping trees for houses, burning the branches for warmth, stopping the flow of river for irrigation, etc.

We are like this virus, we are coming to the carrier, consuming the protein in the carrier, replicating ourselves, and is killing the carrier with our behavior.

So, the best a man can do for the earth is in a coffin box: consuming nothing, but providing fertilizer to the soil. Otherwise, we are just virus infecting the planet.

No matter if you're a Greenpeace activist, as long as you are consuming be it foods, plants, energy, space, then you are a virus for the mother earth.

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That harsh reality comes from the 'materialism' point of view.

In science, man usually wants to be put on everything first. He is the center. Thus, he will reject such harsh study, and prefer to make a more man-oriented study.

They call it humanism, but mother earth might call it egoism.

But if you are a muslim, you will find a perfectly balance situation in regard to this. In Islam, you are taught that mankind is the ruler of the Earth, khalifatullah fil-ardh.

Everythings created on the Earth, even the Earth itself, are there to support your life and existence. In this stance, Islamic teaching is inline with the humanism point of view.

However, Islam also teaches you to realize that sometimes the sins you commit may also lead to natural disaster. This verse clearly say about it.

"Mischief has appeared in the land and the sea because of what the hands of the mankind have earned, that He may make them taste a part of that which they have done, so that they may return (turn to Allah)" (surah Ar-rum: 41)

Even your social sins may lead to the natural disaster once Allah sees this as a massive and collective transgression that need to be punished.

History taught us about the wrath that Allah had sent to the previous people (ummah). Allah punished Soddom people by volcanic earthquake and not by heavenly punishment such as the fiery rock by ababil bird.

And so did Allah to the Aad people who were punished through Mother Earth's mechanism with days of typhoon. And the Tsamud people? They're punished through earthquake and huge thunderstorm.

Their sins were not environmental sin, but rather social sins. It didn't have to do with altering or corrupting the nature's cycles, but the punishments were in the form of natural disaster.

And what hinders Allah from sending his wrath again to the community? It is when there are still some pious people who teach the right from wrong, and who ask for forgiveness among the corrupted society.

"But Allah would not punish them while you, [O Muhammad], are among them, and Allah would not punish them while they seek forgiveness." (Al-Anfaal 33)

So if you hurt the nature, you are hurting yourself too with disasters. And if you're hurting yourself by corrupting your soul in massive scale, then the nature--by Allah's will--is sending its wrath to you.

It's more than just co-existence, but a unity in related to God's law.

Thus, in Islamic point of view, I think we are not virus to the planet earth, but we are the cell in the mother earth's body. When some of the cell gets nasty, it may turn to cancer that may kill the other good cells, and in the end kills the body.

We are not outsider, but we are the earth, both of which follow Allah's Divine Law (either the physics law/kauniyah or the written law/kauliyah).

And Allah knows best.. Wallahu'alam