"As birds have flight, our special gift is reason.
Part of that reason drives the intelligence that allows us to figure out and
master DNA, or to build big power plants. Our reason could also keep us from
following blindly biological imperatives toward endless growth.
Our
reason allows us to conceive of our species as a species, to recognize the
danger that our growth poses and to feel something for the other species we
threaten. We could choose to exercise our reason to do what no other animal can
do: limit ourselves voluntarily, choose to remain God's creatures instead of
making ourselves gods." - Bill McKibben
speciesThe human race; humankind.
A
class of individuals or
objects grouped by virtue of their common attributes and assigned a
common name.
A fundamental
category of taxonomic
classification, ranking below a genus or subgenus
and consisting of
related organisms capable
of interbreeding.
In
science, a more or less permanent group
of existing things or
beings, associated according to attributes, or
properties determined by scientific
observation.
In mineralogy and
chemistry, objects which possess the same definite
chemical
structure, and are
fundamentally the same in
crystallization and physical characters, are classed as belonging to a
species.
In zoology and botany, a species is an ideal group of
individuals which are
believed to have descended from
common ancestors, which agree in
essential characteristics, and are capable of
indefinitely continued fertile reproduction through the
sexes. A species, as thus defined,
differs from a variety or
subspecies only in the greater stability of its characters and in the absence
of individuals intermediate
between the related groups.
In the scholastic philosophy, the species was sensible and intelligible.
The sensible species was classified as any
material object which was in
fact discerned by the mind through the organ of
perception, or that which
was in any object which rendered it possible that
the object should be perceived. The sensible
species, as apprehended by the
understanding in any of the relations of thought, was
called an intelligible species.
"All livingcreatures with a brain and a central nervous
system feel pain. They also
experience many emotions similar to those of humans. They have social
structures and varying degrees
of cognitive thinking levels, similar to those of
humans. We are all animals,
just different species." - Jeanette Ferro
"I look forward to the
day when more humans recognize
that we are animals just like every
other animals on the Earth, and we
do not corner the market on
suffering." - Jane Shakman
"Nature in its
infinite complexity is ever
growing to a new development. Each successive result becomes the parent of an
additional influence, destined in some
degree to modify all future results. No fresh
thread enters into the texture of that endless web, woven in "the roaring loom
of time" but what more or less alters the
pattern. It has been so from the
beginning. As we turn over the leaves of
the Earth's primeval history - as we
interpret the
hieroglyphics in which are recorded the events of the unknown past, we find
this same ever beginning, never ceasing
change. We see it alike in the organic and the
inorganic - in the decompositions and recombinations of
matter, and in the constantly varying forms
of animal and vegetable life. Old formations are worn down; new ones are
deposited. Forests and bogs become coal
basins; and the now igneous rock was once sedimentary. With an altering
atmosphere, and a decreasing temperature, land and sea perpetually bring forth
fresh races of insects, plants, and animals. All
things are metamorphosed; infusorial shells
into chalk and flint, sand into stone, stone into gravel. Strata get contorted;
seas fill up; lands are alternately upheaved
and sunk. Where once rolled a fathomless ocean, now tower the snow-covered
peaks of a wide-spread, richly-clothed
country, teeming with existence; and where a vast
continent once stretched, there remain but a few lonely coral
islets to mark the graves of its submerged
mountains. Thus also is it with systems,
as well as with worlds. Orbits vary in their forms,
axes in their inclinations, suns in their brightness. Fixed only in name, the
stars are incessantly changing their
relationships to each other. New ones from
time to time suddenly appear,
increase and wane; whilst the members of each nebula—suns, planets, and their satellites, sweep for
ever onwards into unexplored infinity.
Strange indeed would it be, if, in the midst
of this universal mutation, man alone were constant, unchangeable. But it is
not so. He also obeys the law of indefinite variation.
His circumstances are ever altering; and he is ever
adapting himself to them. Between the naked
houseless savage, and the Shakspeares and
Newtons of a civilized state, lie unnumbered degrees of difference. The
contrasts of races in form, colour, and feature,
are not greater than the contrasts in their moral and intellectual qualities. That
superiority of sight which enables a
Bushman to see further with the
naked eye than a European with a telescope, is
fully paralleled by the European's intellectual vision. Every age, every nation, every climate, exhibits
a modified form of humanity; and in all times, and
amongst all peoples, a greater or less amount of change is going
on.
There cannot indeed be a more astounding
instance of the tenacity with which men will cling to an opinion in spite of an overwhelming mass of adverse
evidence, than is shown in this prevalent belief
that human nature is uniform. One would have
thought it impossible to use
eyes or ears
without learning that mankind vary indefinitely, in instincts, in
morals, in opinions,
in tastes, in rationality, in everything. Even a stroll through the
nearest museum would show that some law of modification
was at work. Mark the grotesque frescos of the
Egyptians, or the shadowless
drawings of the Chinese. Does the contrast between these and the works of
European artists indicate no difference in the
perceptive powers of the races? Compare the sculptures of Athens with those
of Hindostan or
Mexico. Is not a greater
sense of beauty implied by
the one than the others? But, passing to the more significant facts supplied by
historians and travellers, what are we to think on
reading that the Greeks and Romans had a deity to sanction and patronise every
conceivable iniquity? or when we hear of
Polynesian tribes who
believe that their gods
feed upon the souls of the departed? Surely the
characters indicated by such conceptions of Divinity
differ somewhat from ours!
In what regard can it be asserted that human
nature is always the same? Is it in
rationality? Is it in justice? Is it in honesty? Is it in want of
mercy? Is it in vindictiveness?
Where now is the sameness? It is not in actions as we see. Is it then in
manners and opinions? Certainly not.
Whilst all nominally held the creed
professed by ourselves, the Borderer was most zealous at his prayers when going on a foray;
saints' names were battle cries; bishops led on their retainers to
fight; and the highest
piety was in the slaying of
Saracens. Must not our natures have changed somewhat,
when we translate this same
religion into peace, into philanthropic effort of
all kinds, into missionary enterprise, into advocacy of
temperance, into inquiries about "labour and the poor"? Does the agitation for
the abolition of death punishment
indicate no revolution in men's feelings since the days when Cromwell's body was exhumed, and his head
stuck on Temple Bar—the days when criminals
were drawn and quartered as well as hung—the days when church-doors were covered with the skins of
men who had committed sacrilege? (Good
way to reduce critical thinkers!)
But really it is absurd to argue the matter.
The very assertors of this fixedness of human nature
tacitly disown their belief in it. They constantly
stultify themselves by remarks on differences of national character, on
peculiarities in their friends' dispositions, and on their own special
tastes and feelings. Admissions thus accidentally made quite
invalidate their dogma. To the man of any insight,
the mere fact that he himself changes with circumstances, from
day to day, and from
year to year, in sentiments, capacities, and desires, is sufficient to show that humanity is
indefinitely variable." - Herbert Spencer
"The human being who can do without God
and makes no effort to realize God is not a human
being at all; while if he were able to understand God, then that would not be
God. The authentic human being, then, is one who
is never free from striving, who turns restlessly and endlessly about the light
of the majesty of God." - Rumi
human,
homo sapiens - in Latin "wise man" or "knowing man"An
individual.
Having the
form of a human.
Of,
relating to, or characteristic of humans.
Any
living or extinct member of the
family Hominidae.
A member of the genus Homo
and especially of the species Homo
sapiens.
Having human form
or attributes as opposed to those of
animals or divine beings.
Belonging to man or mankind; having the
qualities or attributes of a man; of or pertaining to man or to the
race of man.
Having or showing those
positive aspects of nature and character regarded as
distinguishing humans from other animals: an act of human kindness.
Subject to or indicative of the
weaknesses,
imperfections, and fragility associated with humans: human
frailty.
Humans have four abilities that the other
animals do not share. We have
empathy circuits hardwired into our
brains. People with brain damage in a certain frontal area no longer have
empathy.
Narcissistic people
suppress the compassion they have for others - compassionate emotions signal
weakness of will.
We have the ability to understand that at some point,
possibly and hopefully a distant future,
that each of our lives will physically end and that the lives of all those we
love will also end.
We have the ability to transform the
natural
environment for good or bad through technology and
have, in domination theology
thought, conquered the world.
We have the ability to thoroughly
convince ourselves of the existence of a
false reality other than
the physical one that actually exists.(Delusion is necessary at some level in certain
ways at different times to emotionally continue to
live. For example, understanding that our's and our loved one's lives will
necessarily end must be put in a
compartment, like
Pandora's Box, so that we can continue to enjoy the lives we now have. When
death does occur to intimates we must be able to
delude ourselves in order to
emotionally survive the occurrence - our loved ones
have finally found peace, gone to
heaven, etcetera.)
"What gets us
through life, evidently, is just the right amount of
delusion — enough to
fool us into feeling relatively
good about ourselves but not so much as to exceed our
own credulity. Healthy people can be deluded into greater happiness when granted the mere
illusion of control over their environment. Learning how to
delude ourselves may be a key to
mental health." -
Daniel Gilbert
As a human:You have a body and you may
like it or hate it, but it's yours for life.
You will learn lessons as you are enrolled in a full-time informal
school called, "life."
Lessons are repeated
until they are learned.
A lesson will be presented to you in various
forms until you have learned it.
When you have learned it, you can go
on to the next lesson.
"There" is no better a place than "here."
When your "there" has become a "here", you will simply obtain another
"there" that will again look better than "here."
What you make of your
life is up to you.
You have all the tools and
resources you need.
What you do with
them is up to you.
The choice is yours.
All the
answers to life's
questions lie
within you.
adapted from
Cherie Carter-Scott
"Man would not appear less subjected to the
laws of Nature when naked in the forest
painfully seeking his sustenance, than when living in
civilized society
surrounded with ease, or enriched with greater experience, plunged in luxury, where he every
day invents a thousand new wants and discovers a
thousand new modes of supplying them." - Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach
an adult male human
men considered as a group;
mankind
a human regardless of sex or age; an
individual
the human
race; mankind: man's quest for peace
a male human endowed with
qualities, such as strength, considered characteristic of manhood
a
human or an adult male human belonging to a specific trade, profession, group,
nationality, or other
category. Often used in
combination: a herdsman, a
merchantman, a
businessman; a
clergyman; a
layman; a
workman; a spokesman; a
congressman.
a member of the genus Homo, family
Hominidae, order Primates, class
Mammalia, characterized by erect posture and an opposable thumb, especially a
member of the only extant species, Homo Sapiens, distinguished by a highly
developed brain, the capacity for
abstract reasoning, and the ability to
communicate by means of organized
speech and record information in a variety of symbolic systems.
Males, in most
existing human
social cultures, are taught to bury
their emotions. Males are just as sensitive as
females but due to social cultural
conditions males are typically not allowed to express their
emotions. Males that do express their
emotions are looked upon as weak - unable to
control their emotions.
Males that do not express emotions, or only anger,
are looked upon as strong in these social cultures.
an
adult female human
a
female servant or
subordinate
feminine quality or aspect; womanliness
women
considered as a group; womankind
an adult
female human belonging to a specific
trade, profession, group, nationality, or
other
category. Often used in
combination: an washerwoman; congresswoman; a saleswoman.
In Western
social cultures females are
allowed to express their emotions more than men.
Females can cry but a male that cries is seen as weak.
Females
are attracted to ornamentation.
This is understandable in the fact that
with animals, especially with birds, the females are attracted to the
ornamentation of their more brightly colored male companions.
If human
social culture paralleled animal
social structures then you would expect the males to be the most highly
ornamented.
Looking back in history we see that military men tend to be
the most highly ornamented individuals within a
social culture, possibly with the
exception of royalty or the ruling class. Ornamentation has been used as a
social culture status symbol
throughout history across the face of the Earth.
Social status of men and women in Western
social culture is still judged by
clothing - cut, material, style and fashion.
It should be noted that in
Western social cultures today the
female is typically the one that is the most highly ornamented which is a
reversal of the order seen in the nature.
"Dark
human shapes could be made out in the distance, flitting indistinctly against
the gloomy border of the forest, and near
the river two bronze figures leaning on tall
spears stood in the sunlight under
fantastic head-dresses of spotted skins, warlike and still in statuesque repose. And
from right to left along the lighted
shore moved a wild and gorgeous apparition of
a woman. She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths,
treading the earth proudly with a slight
jingle and flash of barbarous
ornaments. She carried her head high, her hair was done in the shape of a
helmet, she had brass leggings to the knees, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow,
a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her
neck, bizarre things, charms, gifts of
witch-men, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step. She must
have had the value of several elephant tusks upon
her. She was savage and superb, wild-eyed
and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate
progress. And in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful
land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the
fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her, pensive, as though it had been
looking at the image of its own tenebrous and
passionate soul. " - Joseph Conrad |
