Well, we could disappear tomorrow and the ecosystem would survive perfectly. The same could be said for all animals and other forms of life that find themselves between the plant link and the decomposing bacteria link on the food chain.

We exist by consuming other resources, sometimes to the point of destruction, yes. Just like parasites. And, uh, *cough* viruses. But that doesn't make us "unredeemable"; it just makes us, well, beings that exist at the cost of other beings around us.

As for our "great accomplishments", I dunno, aren't most of them oriented towards the propagation of our own species, which can then continue to expand and destroy? I can't think of many great accomplishments that benefit any other species other than ourselves, unless perhaps as an additional side benefit.

That doesn't make us evil though, any more than a tick is evil. Maybe we give the universe some kind of balance. Or maybe we were supposed to, but got off track somewhere along the way.

A psychiatrist once told me that he believed firmly that man was a bad seed from birth. He pointed out that babies bit their mothers if no milk came out, and that children who grew up with little supervision turned out horribly violent. I hope he was wrong.