Not Since the Banana

From The Circus of Dr. Lao by Charles G. Finney:

There was a pig. A Duroc Jersey pig. It scampered about in its sty, eating slop and entertaining no spiritual conflicts. Fat it grew and fatter. Then one day its master loaded it into a wagon, took it to the depot, put it in a freight train, and sent it to a packing company. There it was slain, gralloched, and quartered after the manner of slaughterhouses. Some months later I went into a restaurant and ordered pork chops. And the chops they served me— may I die this instant if I lie—were from that very pig of which I have been talking. And the moral of this story is that the whole, sole, one and only and entire purpose of that pig’s life, and the lives of its ancestors, and the lives of the things upon which pig and ancestors fed, and the climate and habitat that fostered their propagation and maturations, and the men who bred them and tended them and marketed them—the sole purpose of all that intermixed mass of threads and careers, I say—was to provide for me in that restaurant, at the moment I wanted them, a pair of savory pork chops.

This is yet another moment to highly recommend that you read the book; however, there is a fun (if dated) movie based on The Circus of Dr. Lao. The above quotation was from the colloquy involving the snake and both examples might be a comment of man’s presumption of a special place in the universe granted by God .. or maybe not. And if you’re not familiar with the argument that the banana is proof of God’s existence, look it up!

Another similar observation from the same novel:

Great Mother Nature—she created snowfields for polar bears and pinewoods for black bears and mountains for grizzly bears and toyshops for teddy bears.