I want to get down to this question and start by saying or rather asking is being born a human enough to make us human or is it something greater? There are two black and white categories here that need to be dealt with: first is human and second is inhuman. What separates the two? Where is the line drawn? Let me give you an example. Throughout human history there have been heroes and villains; Hitler, Stalin, Vlad, etc. These I would consider inhuman. The acts they oversaw were despicable to say the least. What human being could have carried out such heinous crimes is beyond me. That is why I will put them in that category. But that is easy, anyone would agree with me. Now where do we put criminals? Rapists? Murderers? Thieves? Druggies? Where is the line. It becomes less black and white and now has shades of grey. So you can't base it solely on what they do.
Let's shift gears a little and look at our society. If you look at it from a conservative point of view you have producers or capitalists and you have moochers and leeches. You have one group that is creating jobs and opportunities and the other side living off of the government and the goodwill of the people. Which of these groups would be considered human? How about if I rephrase and say which group is humans being and which are humans existing? If you contribute to society in a positive way does that make you more human? Does making a lot of money and controlling the wealth of a society make you less human? There is still something more to it.
The question of what makes us human is not a simple one as you can see. So at what point do people start pointing to God and all things spiritual for the answer? Before I do that let's play pretend. Let's assume there is no God and there is no all powerful being of any sort moving destiny and creating the situations that we find ourselves in. Where does our humanness come from? Is it something we are born with, something inherent in our species that sets us apart from all other life forms on Earth? If aliens were to visit would they be able to distinguish us from apes? This could happen if they had a small group of which to observe. After all our DNA differs from apes by such a small margin, something like 2%. Let's say they observe a tribe in Africa. I'm not saying they are animals, savages, or uncivilized in any way. I'm just saying that the lifestyle that they lead is very simple and to an outsider it could be construed that they are indistinguishable from some animals. Is there something that sets them apart to an outsider? Is there a humanness about them and is it visible from the outside?
Back to God. I know there are people that will argue that what makes us human is our spirit, our soul. Is that what makes us human? Did Hitler and those others have a spirit or soul and didn't that make them human? Is being human a question of good or bad? And if it isn't then what is the difference between human and inhuman?
I don't want to hear replies saying that this is a much deeper topic than I have put down here. I understand that. Philosophers have written libraries worth on the subject. And I don't expect to answer the question here on my humble little blog.
My sister had a baby last night. Little Mollie. I wonder if right now she has all the attributes that will make her human or if she will earn them through her life. To be human isn't about right or wrong. Everyone is human and because of that they all have human actions. It is their actions that we can attribute human versus inhuman. It is their character that can be judged. Simply existing cannot be either good or evil and so humans existing can't be good or evil. No child is born bad. They are born with potential. It's like Mahjong; as you clear away tiles you lose the ability to do some moves while gaining the ability to do other moves. If you have gain more moves than you lose you will ultimately clear the board. That is our goal in life. To act human we must work toward clearing the board. Hopefully we will and if we don't let's try to keep the tiles left on the board to a minimum.
