Of Salmons and Humans

Came across this very interesting National Geographic Article, where Scientists are claiming that there is evidence that Salmon Farming may be causing the extinction of the Wild Salmon.

When I was young, eating Salmon was a rare treat. In fact, I don't think I ever ate Salmon when I was a kid. However, that all began to change about 20 years ago when Salmon Farming made the Salmon more accessible to middle income families. Now you see Salmon served almost everywhere and Singapore even has a factory in Woodlands producing Smoked Salmon!

The life cycle of the Pacific Salmon has always fascinated me. This fish is spawned in fresh water, spends its entire lifetime in the ocean and swims almost 2000 miles back to the spawning ground to reproduce and then die. During the process of swimming upstream, they have to leap up waterfalls (Hence the name Salmon, from the latin Salma, to leap), brave the Grizzly Bears and Fisherman in order to return "Home".

Now the scientists have evidence that hybrid Salmon ie offspring of Wild Salmon and Farmed Salmon have difficulty finding their way back to their spawning grounds! Every year, there are farmed Salmons that escape and these Salmons get mixed with Wild Salmons. They eventually find their way upstream to spawn. But these hybrid Salmon lack the ability to return to their spawning grounds. If this carries on, scientists are postulating that there is a chance that the Wild Salmon might become extinct.

I thought this was an interesting parallel to the human condition. Allow me to postulate.

When God created the Salmon, He wrote a "home coming" program into their DNA to cause them to return to their spawning ground at the appointed time. Similarly, when God created humans, he also wrote a program into our DNA which causes us to seek after the supernatural. This subroutine explains why all humans have this innate ability to believe in things spiritual. It is also manifested by the almost universal belief amongst every culture in the afterlife and the universal search for the "meaning of life".

Humans were originally created pure and sinless. But unfortunately, because of Adam and Eve's folly, "Sin" entered the world and contaminated the human race. In the pure and sinless state, our human instinct to seek after God is untainted and we will be able to return "Home" to God after our earthly pilgrimage. However, because we are now tainted with "Sin", we, like the hybrid Salmon, have lost that ability to return "Home" and to seek after our Creator.

Having this instinct tainted by "Sin", we replace what should be the Creator's place in our heart with other gods. So instead of seeking the Creator, we seek to worship the created. This can take many forms. But one good example is how we sometimes hero worship Rock Stars and Movie Stars to the extent that you see teenagers going hysterical over them. Worship is innate to the human nature because it is how we were created. If you are standing at the edge of a cliff, staring out into the horizon at the sunset, something inside of you wells up which you need to express. That is worship. That is our "Creator Seeking" program kicking in.

So is there a solution to the problem?

If some scientist somewhere were to be able to create some sort of vaccination which will remove the defective gene in hybrid Salmons, enabling them to return to its wild state, everyone would applaud and call it "Good News". Fortunately, there is indeed "Good News" for humans as God has provided this "vaccination" through the death of Jesus on the cross.

Jesus death on the Cross on Good Friday represents a reversal of the human state of Sin to its original state. Just as Jesus died and rose again, when we put our faith in His sacrificial act, we too will die to our old state and be re-born (born again) as new beings with the ability to seek after our Creator and return "Home" to Him. Its like reformatting your harddrive and reinstalling Windows.

When this happens, the next time you marvel at nature, something will well up inside of you and you will begin to marvel at the greatness of the Creator. And when, the appointed time comes, you will complete your earthly pilgrimage and return home to your Maker.

If what I am trying to say make sense to you and you want to find out more, please visit this link, talk to your Christian friend or write to leslie.tay@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you!

May you be greatly Blessed!