are we really Intelligent?

I wonder if we as Human beings are really that intelligent. As I look around myself all that I see is a support system that we have built around us, an artificial world in defiance to nature and evolution. Every organism in this world has adapted itself in line with the natural way this planet functions, except for human beings. I wondered in awe when I watched Attenborough(hope this is the right spelling :-) present snakes as one of the highly adaptive species. Snakes have adapted themselves to the land, sea, air(yes, few glide from tree to tree). Snakes are found in caves, deserts, mountains, in deep seas and they've adapted themselves wonderfully to live in accordance to the environment that they've chosen. Snakes which live in deep oceans, have gills and their tails are modified into pedals to swim. When I marvelled at the adaptability of the snakes I realized that they're not as intelligent as we are but they are definitely wise. They don't know about satellites or submarines or space shuttles, they don't run multi national companies or financial institutions but they have been living for millions of years in this planet without destroying it. But we as the self proclaimed intelligent species have developed into a species that is trying to destroy the only home that we have, the earth. We launch satellites trying to explore life away from earth but have we thought about preserving the life in this earth? Its so stupid to look for life away from earth and spending millions on such quests when our survival in this planet is threatened by our inventions, climate change and global warming. As agent smith says to morpheus in Matrix, we humans are a parasite that feeds on planet earth, we are not trying to preserve it but we are trying to deplete it and move on.

Yes, we humans may be Intelligent, but we are definitely not wise.

Uncertainty's child - Part 1

I keep thinking about god and religion, and the relevance and importance of both in my life, thanks to the choices I've made till date in my personal life. I am not an atheist and I'm a Hindu who is fond of vinayagar but that has not stopped me from questioning the relevance of god and religion. Being a hindu has given me the freedom and liberty to even question my faith and god alike, unlike Christians or Muslims who do not have such privileges. I know questioning one's faith is a sin for Christians, for that matter, questioning even the Church is a sin for Christians, but as a Hindu I'm free to do all I want. There are no organisations, priests or imams who would control my thoughts and beliefs. In IT language I should say Hinduism is like open source.
Now back to the point of questioning the existence of god. I kinda realized that there is one thing that humans fear the most, Uncertainty. Uncertainty like luck is an abstract concept, it doe snot exist in this world as a physical entity that humans can counter. Uncertainty is something that even the world's powerful men have to live with and uncertainty has been there from time immemorial. I guess people in ancient times faced hell a lot of uncertainty than we do as modern humans. for instance everyday occurrences like night fall lead to uncertainty, therefore I feel humans started worshiping nature because they would've considered the uncertain nature as omnipotent and as something they cannot control or predict.
As times changed humans became accustomed to nature, seasons and excelled even in astronomy so I guess as humans unravelled the mysteries of nature, nature and the world around them that they worshipped did not seem so uncertain, so I guess humans started moving away from nature worship. As humans advanced they became organised, organisation did give humans the power to counter uncertainty. By being organised the early humans who roamed around as tribals countered the biggest uncertainty they faced during their times, survival. The advancement of humans into organized social animals gave them strength and courage to counter enemies, gather more food and consequently to survive. the birth of organized life sowed the seeds for the birth of religion and god.
Religion and god thrived from their inception mainly because of two reasons, one was that god and religion were an answer to the uncertainty faced by humans and two was that humans found that organisation gave them power. I would say that religion and god was something that started as a concept to provide solace to humans in an uncertain world and then ended up as outliving the purpose they were conceptualised for. Its a classic case of an idea or product being devised to full fill a purpose but was later used for a grander scheme.