成人X站

SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Dori: grieving mother Orca reaffirms my belief in God

Aug 1, 2018, 9:00 AM

mother Orca...

In this photo taken Tuesday, July 24, 2018, provided by the Center for Whale Research, a baby orca whale is being pushed by her mother after being born off the Canada coast near Victoria, British Columbia. The new orca died soon after being born. (David Ellifrit/Center for Whale Research via AP)

(David Ellifrit/Center for Whale Research via AP)

I’ve been following the story of the grieving mother Orca that, one week ago, gave birth to a calf. That baby orca died shortly after, and the mom been carrying it around ever since. She will either carry it by one fin or balance it on her head as she travels through the water. Sometimes the baby whale will slip off of her, and she will dive down into the depths of the Sound and retrieve it.

It’s really a beautiful story.

I’m going to get religious on you here. Like most people, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my faith. I don’t think too many people arrive at their belief in God, or their lack of belief, without spending a fair amount of time thinking about it. It’s not something that I just accepted because I grew up in the church — I’ve spent quite a bit of my time thinking on it.

RELATED: Dead calf highlights the tough situation orcas are in

The conclusion I’ve come to is, either we were created by God, or we are the result of a cosmic accident that happened billions of years ago with the Big Bang. The cosmic accident theory is a chain of improbabilities that, to me, is much more incredulous than the idea of a supreme being creating us.

Here’s what I keep coming back to as I try to be as objective as possible about my faith. In nature, everything is optimized for efficiency. That’s the theory of evolution. In all of that, there is no way to explain love. Love is not efficient. It is not efficient for this mother Orca whale to carry around her dead baby for a week. And for humans, as we know, love can be really inefficient. Who of us hasn’t been messed up in our lives because of love?

Where does love come from? That depth of emotion is just so out-of-whack with the efficiency of nature. If there isn’t a god, I just cannot reconcile the role of love out of this Big Bang. Where did it come from out of that? I could not make sense of that intensity of emotion that you feel for your spouse, children, siblings, parents, and friends if we are all just cosmic accidents.

My faith doesn’t need any reinforcement; I’ve reached conclusions that are unshakable and inescapable. But as I watched this mother Orca whale, it just reminded me of the time I spent when I was a bit younger as I tried to rationally justify my deepening Christian faith. I always came back to that — I don’t see that kind of love coming out of the Big Bang without a guiding hand.

San Francisco Public Defender Manohar Raju stands for a photo after speaking at a news conference a...

Associated Press

Democratic states double down on laws resisting Trump’s immigration crackdown

As President Donald Trump鈥檚 administration targets states and local governments for not cooperating with federal immigration authorities, lawmakers in some Democratic-led states are intensifying their resistance by strengthening state laws restricting such cooperation. In California alone, more than a dozen pro-immigrant bills passed either the Assembly or Senate this week, including one prohibiting schools from […]

18 minutes ago

Associated Press

Seattle man charged with string of burglaries at the homes of NFL and MLB stars

SEATTLE (AP) 鈥 A Seattle man was charged Friday with a string of burglaries at the homes of prominent current and former football and baseball players, marking the latest example of well-known athletes being targeted in home thefts. Earl Henderson Riley IV, 21, was charged with several counts of residential burglary in both occupied and […]

1 hour ago

Associated Press

Key moments from the fourth week of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ sex trafficking trial

NEW YORK (AP) 鈥 The fourth week of Sean 鈥淒iddy鈥 Combs 鈥 sex trafficking trial featured testimony from the second of two ex-girlfriends who are crucial witnesses in the government鈥檚 quest to prove sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges against the hip-hop mogul. Combs, the founder of Bad Boy Records, has pleaded not guilty in […]

1 hour ago

FILE - Hundreds of people gather to watch the 3rd Annual Sharpening of the Lake of the Isles Pencil...

Associated Press

Why a Minneapolis neighborhood sharpens a giant pencil every year

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) 鈥 Residents will gather Saturday in a scenic Minneapolis neighborhood for an annual ritual 鈥 the sharpening of a gigantic No. 2 pencil. The 20-foot-tall (6-meter-tall) pencil was sculpted out of a mammoth oak tree at the home of John and Amy Higgins. The beloved tree was damaged in a storm a few […]

1 hour ago

FILE-Fans arrive at Fenway Park in this, Oct. 19, 2021 file photo, in Boston. (AP Photo/Robert F. B...

Associated Press

Brothers bring boxing back to Fenway after 70 years and hope to revitalize the sport in Boston

BOSTON (AP) 鈥 For the first time in nearly 70 years, boxing is returning to Boston’s famed Fenway Park. The 11-fight card is the culmination of years of effort by twin brothers and longtime public schoolteachers who grew up in Watertown and want to revitalize boxing in the city that was home to some of […]

1 hour ago

FILE - President Donald Trump holds up an executive order after signing it at an indoor Presidentia...

Associated Press

The 911 presidency: Trump flexes emergency powers in his second term

WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥 Call it the 911 presidency. Despite insisting that the United States is rebounding from calamity under his watch, President Donald Trump is harnessing emergency powers unlike any of his predecessors. Whether it鈥檚 leveling punishing tariffs, deploying troops to the border or sidelining environmental regulations, Trump has relied on rules and laws intended […]

1 hour ago

Dori: grieving mother Orca reaffirms my belief in God