You believe in God, right? I believe that there’s an intelligence, a spiritual power that I don’t understand. I call it God because I don’t know what else to call this great spiritual power. It gives me strength. I’ve also had amazing times alone in nature when for a moment you forget you’re human. Your humanness goes away, and you’re part of that natural world. It’s the most amazing and wonderful and beautiful feeling.
How do you square things like environmental degradation and war with a belief in that overriding intelligence? Traditional faith will have you believe in a loving God, and when I look at what’s happening on the planet, I think if there is a God like that, is he playing with us? Are we living in some great experiment? How can you believe in a loving God when you see the horrors that are perpetrated against nature, against animals, against each other? I sometimes think it is like an experiment which has culminated in this strange, confused creature that is human beings, and we seem to be lost. Who are we? What are we? Why are we here? I don’t know what the meaning of life is. The meaning of my life is to give people hope because without hope you give up.
–Jane Goodall, interviewed by David Marchese in the New York Times Magazine
another eye opens 