A Philosophical Comment on “The Modern Crusade” by Dr. JB Lim

The blogger’s note:  In response to the discussions among the e-buddies on the subject of many controvesial religious issues (likened by someone to be a “modern Crusade”) happening in this country of late, the blogger’s most-learned Great Sifu Dr. JB Lim penned down the following interesting and philosophical comment.  Incidentally, the blogger just watched the latest American sci-fi action movie “Transformers: Age of Extinction” last night in a cinema.  He wonders if the Age of Extinction of Earthlings is near if we don’t repent now?

From: Lim Juboo

Date: Sunday, 29 June, 2014, 2:22 AM

  

I remember this lecture in microbiology repeatedly taught to us during our student days when I was studying nutrition, food science, and comparative medicine in different universities in England in the 1960’s and 1970’s in that, if you inoculate a single or a streak of bacteria into a culture media and incubate it, you observe an interesting growth behavior.

Initially nothing happens as the bacteria adapt themselves to its new environment. This is called the lag phase.

After some time they begin to multiply very rapidly because of the abundance of nutrients and space. They commence doubling themselves exponentially. This is the log or exponential phase.

Then they begin to stabilize the number and size of their colonies (population growth) as nutrients and space becomes limited, and competition among them becomes challenging. Their growth plateau off as the stationary phase. 

In the last phase, they begin to die off due to lack of space and nutrients, and the accumulation of toxic wastes such as organic acids that changes the pH of the media they thrive on, similar to climate change, global warming, and environmental pollution, the lack of food and water, and living space in the surroundings we live in.  

Adverse conditions retard the bacterial further growth, and they begin to die off. This is called the death phase.

  

Thus this scenario of growth and ultimate death was shown so clearly to us by the humble bacteria. And yet, being the highest living creature on Earth we are multiplying and colonizing on limited space and resources on this planet as if there is always a tomorrow? This is greed, and we are very assuming.  

We never wish to learn from the humble bacteria God implanted onto this same Planet we live in together with them.   

Our Earth is nothing but a nutrient ball teeming with life hanging in isolation in the void of space, as much as bacteria inoculated in nutrient agar are left in isolation on a Petri dish and left to incubate over a period of time till they die off?  

Perhaps our Creator is watching our activities on Earth like an experiment from space similar to a scientist watching the growth and fate of bacteria on a Petri dish in a laboratory?

Perhaps He is watching how far can we go?  We are put here like a scientific experiment and being observed. This is very uncanny to my mind.

How long more can we continue to multiply, produce, consume and pollute on Planet Earth on a much larger dimension in space and time, in as much as on a smaller space-time frame scale for bacteria on a Petri dish?

This notion is very eerie to my mind never being thought of, discussed, and shared by my fellow scientists before. 

Think, think about this. Our End Times perhaps is nigh because of our greed, stubbornness in everything, especially in material wealth and extreme religious beliefs that plagued us poles apart.

lim juboo

BSc PG Dip MSc MD PhD FRSPH FRSM

(A student in the process of endless learning and thinking)