What makes us human?

We aren’t the only sentient life, but we are the only species that has a conscience, and this along with empathy and compassion separate us from the rest of the animal kingdom. Does that make us better? No, we just understand consequences of actions, and that some decisions can be detrimental and others can be advantageous. This power of our imagination helps define a person’s character.

The human race is governed by its imagination.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

Are humans natural savages despite the knowledge they’ve acquired, and developed through Evolution?

We’ve all seen ‘Lord of the Flies‘ and how if humans are left to their own devices in a small colony, they can revert back to primeval behaviour. Theists say that with a God in their lives they have a guideline for objective morality, but imagine a situation where a collection of theists are stranded in an isolated place where there are no laws.

Would those alleged god-given morals matter?

Would it be survival of the fittest?

Would they work together to ensure survival of the group, or would a hierarchy form where the most important, or confident took control?

At the end of the day it’s instinct to survive and maintain self preservation , but would a Christian group cope better than an atheist group?

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.” – Dalai Lama

What makes us different to other sentients is language, bodily communication, and expressions, and add the ability of independent thought, decision making and problem solving through the use of the complexity of reason. Despite this, the main thing that distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom is the ability to form emotions, and how you portray those emotions can be the difference between being beneficial or detrimental to other people.

Are the emotions of love and hate what defines humans and distinguishes the difference between us and other sentient life? Of course some species of animals mate for life, but it’s not love as we know it. It’s instinct and they mate to continue the species to survive. Animals don’t understand the concept of hatred as that also requires understanding what hatred is, and if an animal goes on the offensive it’s either to defend or to capture prey. It’s not through a strong dislike, or hatred of another animal.

When it boils down to it, curiosity and imagination is what took humans out of the trees and led us to explore beyond our comfort zone as a bipedal Hominidae. We emerged from the forests and became a social species that had to co-operate to advance, and some found a purpose in faith as humanity clearly ultimately needs to believe in a higher power to direct them through life, but other people choose to question everything and live a virtuous life based on compassion and a love of humanity, using independent thought and critical thinking.

If you’re in agreement with what I’ve said, or not, we can’t be human without other humans. We are meant to interact; to dream; to have ambitions and goals; to seek happiness and solace when we are in need of comfort; to be human is about choice, individuality and acceptance. You can’t truly love another until you learn to love yourself. We aren’t meant to be alone.

“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.” – Lao Tzu

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Uncompromising views

I’ve decided to write this after reading some arrogant theist claiming that he’d dubunked homosexuality as he misinterpreted what evolution is and confused it with elitist social status; but would you expect anything otherwise? They are often so ill-informed and misguided by the holy books of their faith that they simply cannot see the bigger picture and everything isn’t black and white. He attempts to mock evolution and claim that nature wouldn’t have created homosexuals because we are meant to breed. But hold on; what’s the alternative? God either created homosexuals, or he made a mistake. You know me well enough to know that I’m not suggesting you’re a mistake, but I don’t view the world through god goggles.

They act like homosexuality is a new trend, but the Romans wrote about gay orgies as it wasn’t a crime in their polytheism, but the Roman Empire embraced Christianity and it all became taboo. The biggest issue that arose from it concerning sexual activity is it’s supposed to be between a man and a woman, who are married and create a family. That’s all nice and traditional but it’s not even remotely in the real world. There are a multitude of definitions people use to describe their sexuality and homosexuality is just one of them. What gets me is the Mitzvah’s.. they each have their own command and condemn incest, and two men sleeping together, but it has no mention of two women sleeping together. Why is that? God thought two men was a sin, but he liked a bit of lesbian action so thought he’d let that command slide.

They often claim that it’s unnatural. No one is forcing you to participate, so what’s the problem? What exactly is it of your concern what two, or more consenting adults do in a private location?

“existing in or derived from nature; not made or caused by humankind.

The above quote is the Oxford dictionary’s definition of natural. Homosexuality isn’t a choice, or a lifestyle; it’s genetic. If it’s genetic then it’s natural.

“Numerous studies have established that sex is not just male or female. Rather, it is a continuum that emerges from a person’s genetic makeup. Nonetheless, misconceptions persist that same-sex attraction is a choice that warrants condemnation or conversion, and leads to discrimination and persecution.” – Source

Is religion an emotional response to reality?

Humans have evolved into a social species, and no one really wants to be alone, or lonely, unless they’re not wired up right. We all know that life can be a struggle and we are often affected by situations that are out of our control, but is turning to religion an emotional response to this as they need comfort and support when there’s nothing else, or is it down to fear of being mortal and knowing one day we’ll die and the need to believe that this life isn’t the end? Piety, which is the status of being reverent towards religion is described by the Oxford dictionary as ‘a belief which is accepted with unthinking conventional reverence’.

‘To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us – and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. 
Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.‘ – Thomas Merton

It’s almost a dependable emotion through fear that they’d don’t want to be alone, and through faith in the individual’s personal god, they can seek solace knowing that they’re being watched over and guided. Many theists that I’ve engaged with make the claim that through submission to god they lead an objective life with god as their guide, and often maintain that atheism and agnosticism are emotional responses as our desire to sin outweighs our desire to love god, and to some extent even hate god. I’ve seen a lot of tweets recently claiming that atheists are living in denial, and we know god exists, but rebel because we want to lead a hedonistic lifestyle that’s filled with sleaze and debauchery, and it’s the emotion of hatred, that’s influenced by Satan that leads us to claim that we refuse to believe in god/s.

I’m an emotional person. I feel empathy and compassion. I’ve felt love and I’ve felt loss and sometimes it’s hard and a crutch of support would have been useful in times when I’ve felt alone, but despite my emotions, I’ve always managed to remain rational and the ability to apply logic and reason. At not one time in my life have I ever been down and felt the need to talk to any god. How do you know which one you’re even talking to? How could you possibly know they were even listening?

Religion is usually indoctrinated into children and depending on the location, or the culture, a person will often grow up studiously learning about their religion, and what’s expected of them. Some faiths teach the children from a young age that it’s a sin to question their faith and that god just is, you must love him undoubtedly, a obey his every command. It’s a classic case of Stockholm Syndrome where a captive falls in love with their captor as over time they’ve become to know no better. Regardless of what many theists claim, a lot of cultures and religious communities have guidelines and expectance and one cannot just simply dismiss their faith or they’ll become an outcast or worse. So essentially religion is bondage, and it’s a prison for the mind.

Despite this, many theists creepily get joy from the fact that they are a servant to their master, and pledge unconditional love to their god. They love through dependancy as they can’t abhor the thought that this life is the only life, and that they don’t want to die alone. They love through fear, as their actions, if they violated any scripture, could end up with them being judged by god and punished for disobedience. They love through ignorance as they’d rather dismiss the reality we live in, and ignore the progress that science is making and just accept that god is the creator, we are his creation, god is just, and if babies die it’ll all be part of god’s master plan. They’re in love with an idea. A concept if you will. A concept of spiritual make-believe that gives them superiority over the faithless as they believe that once they leave this life their spirit with reside beside god for all of eternity. They’re in love with objective morality as they believe that without god you have no guide to lead you through life to be virtuous. I’m sure that you’ll agree there’s a lot of alleged love involved with religion, amongst other emotions, especially fear. Fear of eternal damnation and being a slave to god’s nemesis, Satan.