Unused Portion

I originally wrote this segment for a novel in progress. I eventually used part of it as dialogue in the second chapter:

So why are we here?

Why did we escape the Solar System and settle on the planets of Alpha Centauri?

The fact is that we live in a dynamic universe. A universe whose internal material components are subject to change by entirely natural means. Life, including human life, is the result of a series of an entirely natural processes. The process of life is also a localized acceleration of the process of entropy, the conversion of matter to energy. Simply by living each of us is accelerating the ultimate decline of the known universe. Please don’t tell the environmentalists.

For simple forms of life survival is simply an accident of nature. For Humanity survival is the result of the function of the active mind. And we will think and do what is necessary to live what is properly a human life.

Believe it or not there were people back on Earth who objected to our escape from extinction and actively worked to prevent it.

I am not kidding.

Some of those people believed that our lives were the result of the will of a being commonly known as God. And that the event that would ultimately destroy all life on Earth was also the will of God. They believed that the extinction event was brought about because of our collective sins. The primary sin being the constant refusal to obey the commands of God as transmitted through his self appointed spokesmen. The vilest of our sins being the persistent habit of actually thinking on the basis of the actual facts of reality. The believers in the God Premise deemed us guilty of these crimes and wanted us to sit down without resistance and die for our sins.

Absolutely not, we decided.

The idea that God could eliminate Mankind at a thought and did not require an actually natural event to kill off our species simply did not enter their minds.

This assumes of course that those who believe in the concept of God had actually functioning minds.

There were also those who believed in the concept of material equality. That everyone had to be materially equal regardless of the actual amount of productive thought and labor. They believed it was unfair for us who could build starships to escape the Solar System. We who could should not do so because it was unfair to those who could not. That the truly fair course of action was to do nothing and for all of us to die together.

This view, which was purely emotional, was clearly wrong.

And finally there were the self-appointed elites. They believed that only they had the best of the collective interests of Mankind in mind. And that only the best and the brightest members of the Human collective, as defined by themselves, should be allowed to escape extinction by the means available.

That the elites have always lived off the thought and labor of those they deemed inferior and invariably made decisions for their own benefit was never, ever, mentioned by them or their willing servants.

The fact was that we would not sacrifice ourselves for the benefit of what was in fact a band of lazy and mindless losers.

The fundamental moral value is life. But human life is not simply physical existence. The human mode of life also requires an active mental existence.

In order to live as human beings we must see things as they are and act as we conceive as necessary.

Live with it.

What are your questions on this block of instruction?