An Introspective Look at Humanity, Could it be an Illusion

            Humanism is an adjunct of the term humanity, meaning for this purpose, those characteristics that distinguish Homo sapiens – in other words an essence or special quality that lifts us far above and removed from the taxonomic, biological classification, species, which ranks we humans as just another member of the animal kingdom. 

            According to biologists we humans are primates, the chimp being genetically, our closest relative.  Biologists also refer to us as members of the anthropoids, another way of saying upright animals.  All of this brands us as mammalian animals –warm blooded, vertebrates that nurse their young.  But because of consciousness and the brain’s ability to think and create, many of us find the thought that we are mere animals extremely nauseating and unacceptable.   

            But look at it this way:  in comparing Homo sapiens with apes, canines and cats, they all eat, digest and defecate.   They all are impregnated in the same manner and suckle their young.  They all have a heart, nervous system, liver, lungs, etc. etc.  They all have brains with which to think.  At certain stages of an embryo after fertilization it is impossible to look at it and tell if it will become a lizard, cat, horse or human. 

            Gees!  How revolting, my nearest anthropoid cousin is a chip!  And here as a youngster I was taught in church that I was created by God in His image – and that that places me in a special category on a par with the gods, a creator species that has dominion over the animals.  Therefore, I am no animal but a child of God – and that is what humanity is all about.  I may have the same organs as a chip, but my behavior and origin is far above and far removed from animalism.  Or is it?

            Humanism is “a doctrine or way of life centered on human interests or values.”  However, can’t we say the same thing about animals?  Isn’t their behavior, like us humans, dictated by self interest and values? 

            Wolves gather in packs and packs fight each other over territory and females.  Men gather in tribes and tribes fight each other over territory and females.  In each wolf pack and in each tribe there will emerge a leader.  Wolves are social animals, so are humans.

            Lions eat deer.  Men eat deer.  Coyotes eat chickens, men eat chickens.  Eagles eat fish, men eat fish.  Birds build nests, men build houses.  So what does God do?  Does He live on milk and honey?  Is His house built of clear quartz or diamonds - are the streets in heaven paved with gold?

              The key to belief lies within the phenomenon of consciousness and the sensation of dualism.  Dualism is the sensation that the mind, soul or self is separate from the body and continues to exist after the body dies.  Dualists are generally creationists who believe Genesis is a matter of fact, that we were actually created by God. 

            In consulting the Internet, a Gallop poll indicates that 40% of Americans still believe that humans were created by God.  Another 38% believe in evolution but that God was involved in the process.  Only 16% of those polled believe humans are the sole result of evolution.  The poll also indicated that the more educated one is the more he is apt to be one of the 16%. 

            Neurologists and modern philosophers using the scientific method are convinced that consciousness, ego, the self, spirit or mind is an offshoot of the brain.  Personality is a manifestation of the mind.  Injure the brain and the personality changes.  Magic is an illusion that confuses the phenomenon of consciousness.  A little less than 50% of human behavior is gene driven.  The rest of behavior is powered by the environment.                      

            For example, all animals including humans have a sex urge – a genetically driven propensity to replicate oneself, put another way, perpetuate the species.  Evolution made the sex act pleasurable to help motivate copulation.  However, the canine, horse, ram and bull are motivated by a scent from the female when she comes in “heat.”  This is a genetic occurrence.  But humans don’t need that added inducement – the imagination will suffice.  In the matter of sex it is the size and sophisticated structure of the brain that differentiates how humans handle the sex urge. 

            When the male dog get’s the “scent” his behavior is predictable.  He will search out the bitch and immediately copulate oblivious of the location or who is watching.  All humans prefer to do it in private except where pornography is concerned. 

            Neurologists tell us the mission of the Y-chromosome is to replicate itself and it doesn’t care how – rape, seduction, free love, polygamy, trickery, coercion, marriage.  The objective of the Y-chromosome is fertilization, but the human mind has invented ways to delay fertilization in favor of the pleasure of sex.  And with pleasure being the objective, it has invented diverse ways of accomplishing the sex act both with the same sex, opposite sex or self-sex (a form of masturbation).  The human sex act may be influenced by pornography, culture, government or religion.   The influence is environmental – meaning the result of thought, a process of the mind.  The sex urge inducement is genetical but the finished product is environmental which is the same as saying a cognitional physiological event.  And this is “humanity?”

            Dualists generally believe the self has free will.  But the self is primarily a product of its environment.  For example, if we take an infant, which is the same as saying an “infant brain” and expose it for 20 years to the culture of Iran, will the self be the same if it had been exposed for 20 years to the culture of Provo, Utah?  You don’t have to be an anthropologist or psychologist to know there would be vast differences in the selfs.  Does a 20 year old Muslim girl in Iran have her free agency?  Or is her mind a captive of Islamic doctrine?  And could we make a similar analogy with Mormonism or Catholicism?

            Could a captive mind be changed by exposure to other cultures?  Of course.  The phenomenon of free will can only be realized when the mind can choose from a variety of alternatives.  And even then free will can only be achieved through cognitive reasoning where the environment allows cognitive reasoning – and even then what the mind perceives as reality, or true, may be an illusion.  (Magic tricks, visions, revelations, obscured vision, hallucinations, etc.)

            Does the lion that kills a deer have compassion for the deer?  Did the Germans that managed Auschwitz have compassion for the Jews they exterminated?  Hitler has been described as a madman, a bruit, an animal.  Does that mean that all Nazis are animals?  When the Nazis were driven out of France, the French Nazi collaborators were attacked and either killed or maimed.  Chinese and Phillipineo collaborators were also beaten, killed or maimed in mob-like attacks.  Allied prisoners of war in Japanese concentration camps were starved, beaten and humiliated to the point that they were reduced to rely on animal instincts to survive.  We found the same dehumanizing acts during the Civil War at Andersonville. 

            From one animal to another, the road to being human is not confined to a belief and worship of a supernatural entity or a paranormal essence.  It is true that religion has made great contributions to morality (right, virtuous conduct) as well as turpitude (war, inquisition, blood atonement, infallibility, discrimination).  The sure way to rise above those primordial instincts we inherited from our hunter, gatherer ancestors is cognition.  Use the brain to think, and that means viewing all dogma with skepticism until weighed by reason – in other words ratiocination, sound thinking. 

            Knowledge has to do with information that is factual, derived from experience, and perceived as truth.  Therefore, knowledge is not necessarily based on the accumulation of vast amounts of information.  An individual with an IQ of 95 may be as knowledgeable as an individual with an IQ of 155 as long as the information acquired meets the above definition of knowledge.  Intelligence is a little different than knowledge.  It is through intelligence - the brain’s ability to think, decipher, understand and remember - that leads to knowledge.  So it is not so much how intelligent and knowledgeable we are – but what we do with what we’ve got. 

            Knowledge and the ability to put it to good use is what makes an individual human, with emphasis on good use; at least that’s my opinion.