Hello everyone, I have been following this forum for quite a while and until recently, I have never had the chance or will to post here.
What does it mean to be a Human in the 21st Century within religion and social context?

The word Human and its associated words , Humankind, Humanity, Humane carry many emotive meanings -

Humanity, one of the definitions is , benevolence, kindness, mercy

Humane, = tenderness, compassion and sympathy for people and animals especially for the suffering and distressed
= acting in a manner that causes least harm to people or animals


Collectively as a species we have generally fallen far short of any of these definitions , not just to our fellow humans, but particularly to the animals
we have also become aware of our maltreatment/lack of respect for our environment and the myriad delicate ecosystems that make up this planet.

As far as our 'humane' treatment of animals goes , 'our?' domesticated farm animals, we have perverted their course of evolution, packed them into smaller and smaller confinement and productionised their lives , not for our survival anymore, but to feed our growing obesity.

on a more general level , we have collectively as a species been responsible for the largest mass extinction of species since probably the meteorite that helped wipe out the dinosaurs .

We poison the land to grow our grains, not just to survive, but to feed our obesity

We desecrate /decimate huge areas of delicate ecosystems to plant our mono crops , not just to survive, but to feed our obesity

We know all this now, this is the age of instant global communication , yet why does it garner such hostility/ridicule when raised for discussion ?

We face major challenges as a species in the coming decades , the gathering mass movements of poor populations is already headline news , climate change [whatever is causing it] will exacerbate this , along with such things as the supply of water and food.

Isn't it time to start thinking globally ,to start formulate some sort of collective solution to these challenges , of course it's ideological , even maybe utopian,
but one is laughed at if one starts up a business without a comprehensive business plan ?

Interesting
Over the ages, human has adapted to series of events in their changing world. Some certain characteristics has evolved and that has made us redefine our kind of species in the present day.

We are often told that the shooting of a lion was wrong, but the slaughter of billions of chickens over the past 40 or 50 years is OK as they were bred to be slaughtered.

Its this kind of thinking we are dealing with. As humans, we have bred what was a normal bird, into something with breasts so heavy and wings so small, it can no longer fly. It is now a Frankenstein bird, which serves no other purpose that to feed the burgeoning masses.

This to me, is a far worse crime the killing of a one off lion.

The domestication and selective breeding of animals is probably the first major effect humans have had on earth. The implication of this should not be underestimated and may have a bigger effect on the earth than for instance, the industrial revolution.

But what do I know I guess, I'm a member of the masses.

One thing that often strikes me is the extent to which we over-rate our own importance. Perhaps only the cosmologists and theoretical physicists come close to truly comprehending what an insignificant blip on the space-time continuum we actually are.

In spacial terms - we inhabit a tiny planet with a volume of 3 x 10 ^ −60 of the universe or 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000003%.

In terms of time - we have been here for perhaps 200,000 years or 0.0014% of the history of the universe. The 200 years since the industrial revolution (the period taken for us to **** the planet up) is only 0.0000014%. That is like the last 30 seconds at the end of a 70 year lifetime.

At the other end of the scale we have the religious fundamentalists who believe the whole universe was created for the benefit of humans. On that basis, they want to shorten the age of the universe by a factor of one or two million (and consequently the linear size by something similar). Unbelievable arrogance!!!

Not wishing to be the eternal pessimist, I feel that in the terms of the original post, nothing concrete can be or will be achieved. The history of the human race shows that we have always, not just in the 21st Century, been better at destroying our world about us than sustaining it. Yes the human mind and heart is capable of wonderful things, beauty, emotion, art, music, literature, architecture, technological innovation. But the dark side of human nature always seems to prevail in the long run. A beautiful artifact that took decades to complete can be destroyed in a microsecond - and as we are seeing, often is. Other things of beauty are ephemeral with no lasting effect.

Humans are avaricious, they consume and store more than they need. In terms of feeding themselves, they slaughter 3,000 animals every second: sentient beings that share this planet with us. We waste and pollute the earth, and deplete its water reserves in order to spend 40 kilos of protein to create 1 kilo of beef. And do we care, deep down? Yes we wail and gnash our teeth about this, and all the other issues that we perhaps genuinely hold dear: the environment, population growth, poverty, refugees, ethnic and racial hatred. What do we REALLY do about it?

The Nations that promised money to the United Nations to care for refugees, did not deliver on their pledges. So we see all the evils of conflict, poverty and mass migration arriving on our comfortable Western doorsteps, and once again we wail and gnash our teeth. But pretty soon we return to such much more vital concerns such as how big a TV screen we want to buy with borrowed money, or the latest mobile phone or other gadget.

I was born and raised a capitalist, and I suppose I still am. But the search for eternal economic growth: growth that MUST exceed population growth, otherwise we are going backwards, whatever that means, growth that must fuel financial and commodity exchanges, so that a few of the world's population can retire gracefully on index-linked pensions while deprived people in other parts of the world work as slaves to make that happen - this I now realise is not the capitalism I signed up for. It is a capitalism that is ripping humanity apart.

And then there is the fatal flaw in the human gene: greed, envy, hostility. Instead of sharing resources, we go to war in one form or another to grab more than we need, leaving the other guy with nothing. We entrust our futures to professional politicians out of apathy: they limit our democratic choices to the point when we no longer see the point in voting. If, of course we live in a country that has a meaningful voting system. And the politicians rule us, they govern us, they steal the money from our pockets, they take us to war, our sons die for them or for some jingoistic call to patriotism broadcast by venal and corrupt leaders.

The world of humans is stifling in corruption: petty corruption to the corruption that goes to the very top. And it is not only in the brutal world of African or Middle Eastern dictators. Recent months and years have shown that we in the Western world are just as bad.

Some have said that it only takes one good person to change the world. I say the opposite: it only takes 1 evil person to dominate and subdue 1,000 - no, millions - of good people. In the "civilised" world this is achieved through the narcotic of apathy and the stimulation of consumerist greed. Elsewhere it is achieved with bombs and bullets and gas and torture chamber. In which we are complicit, wittingly or unwittingly.

It is telling that right now, we are talking of colonising other planets. Perhaps because we know deep down that this one is fVcked?

In the midst of all the pessimism, I'd just like to point out that as a species we are enjoying the best years ever in terms of health, wealth, food, resources and peace .

Dollyak:
In the midst of all the pessimism, I'd just like to point out that as a species we are enjoying the best years ever in terms of health, wealth, food, resources and peace .

Why pessimism or even optimism - it's fact - deal with it?

Btw, some great replies so far.

This thread is interesting. Lalasticlala should lalastically help us stick it to the FP

Ibukunmer:

Why pessimism or even optimism - it's fact - deal with it?

Btw, some great replies so far.

What is fact?

Dollyak:

What is fact?

The opening post - but I'm happy to discuss that fact.

Morning btw.

Ibukunmer:

The opening post - but I'm happy to discuss that fact.

Morning btw.

Some of it is fact, some of it is supposition. You set the benchmark so in the OP you were also able to say humans are failures.

I'm an optimist, I love life, I love humanity and I love what we have built. If you were to ask me I would say we are doing pretty damn good.