Recently I have been seeing youngsters wearing a t-shirt that says Being Human. The reason is a simple one. It’s because Salman Khan wears it and has founded a charitable trust by that name. The purpose of this trust is to help the underprivileged and in my opinion it is commendable. However the purpose of this post is not advertising. I want to just put my thoughts on the matter of being human.
When someone talks about “being” something they always talk like if they know what it is. So first of all, let us know what the phrase “being human” means. I did quick lookup on dictionary.com for word “being” and there are other meanings, but only one can be used in this context. The meaning of “being” that can be used here is “essential nature”. For the sake of simplicity, from now on I will call this essential nature of human beings as human nature. So let us see if we can demystify this “human nature”.
In saying “being human” we are saying that we should have this human nature. But what is this human nature? I think we all know what it is, we certainly know what it is not. We know it is not arrogance or dishonesty or cowardice or selfishness and the list can go on and on. So if we take the opposite traits of these negative ones like humbleness or honesty or courage or selflessness, do we become human as in being human? Maybe.
But then question arises that why choose courage instead of cowardice or why choose honesty instead of dishonesty. After all cowardice keeps me away from danger and dishonesty helps me make easy money. So why not just take what is advantageous to me? Why does it have to be the things that are hard to do. You may say that it is because it is good for human society as a whole. But, it is same as saying because it is good for other people (certainly, it isn’t good for me!). And then we may ask “why should I care what is good(or advantageous) for other people when it is bad(or disadvantageous) for me? Why can’t I just take what is good(or advantageous) to me?”. And then, we are where we started. So let us stop here.
The point is that it is in human nature to be good, to be decent. And it is against human nature to be bad. At the same time the phrase “being human” means we are still trying to get there. That we are not good enough or decent enough yet. I think we all agree on that.
So to be human, we should be good. And in being good, I think we have an advantage. Because, We as humans find ourselves in pursuit of good things. How so? Well, nobody likes to do something just because it is bad or wrong. A thief may steal because he wants money, But money in itself is not a bad thing. A man may kill someone in order to take revenge, but only because he seeks justice. Only because the things that they seek, money and justice are in themselves good. Only the means to achieve these things are bad.
You might have heard people say “You should do it because it is the right thing to do” or “It is a decent thing to do” but have you ever heard someone saying “You should do it because it is wrong”? I haven’t. And probably you haven’t either.
People can do good things just for the sake of goodness but don’t do bad things just because the sake of badness. There must be something good behind everything a sensible human does. Interesting. One must ask, why? But before we go asking “why” of these matters let us define “what” matter we are discussing first. There is one more interesting little fact needs to be addressed.
Good and bad only comes to play in relationships. Before we move ahead, let’s make clear a requirement of a sensible relationship. Requirement of a sensible relationship is sense itself. If you do not understand what I mean, let me coin a little more formal word to describe it. Sentience. One can not have a relationship with a stone. At least not a sensible one. And if someone does have a relationship with a stone, I’d say that neither party has any sense.
Now what does sense have to do with good and bad? Let me use a simple illustration. If I take a little stone and throw it in a lake, would you think that I’m a bad person? Now suppose If I take a puppy and throw it in the lake, what would you think of me then? What about a human baby? What is the difference here? I’m doing the same thing to a stone, a puppy and a baby. It can’t be the action which is bad. Certainly if throwing is bad then cricket should be outlawed. It certainly is not the action. Is it the object? Are stones, puppies or babies bad? Certainly not!
But what relationship do I have with a stone? None. It isn’t good or bad to throw a stone in a lake. It doesn’t matter to a stone what you do to it. It’s got no sense! But now look at the cute playful puppy! What relationship do I have with it? Not much. But it does matter to a puppy what I do to it. It does have some sense and it is alive. It does value it’s life and does not want to die. That is why it runs away when you hit it with a stone. It does have a will to live. Now if I try to do something against it’s will, then there I think the “badness” of the action lie. So when I throw a puppy into a lake, I am doing something to it, against it’s will. Imposing my will on it’s will.
Now let’s look at the baby. Biologically a baby isn’t much different from a puppy. Why is it bad to throw a baby into a lake? The case would be very similar to the puppy. I do have a closer biological relationship with a baby than a puppy. Also, a human baby may not have much sense yet but when he/she grows up, he/she would become a human. The highest form of life on this planet. Why? Because only humans reason. Only humans have an idea of right and wrong. But logically and biologically it still doesn’t look much different from a puppy to me. But I’m offended with myself that I am comparing a human baby with a puppy. Why? My conscious tells me that a human baby is worth infinitely more than a puppy. But why, I can not answer yet. Maybe there is something more to this world than mere logic and biology.
You might have noticed a sudden change of subject in the last few paragraph from “being human” to “good and bad”. Well, I can not discuss about “being human” without discussing “good and bad”. If you do not agree, read the earlier paragraphs again. It is in human nature to be good. In fact, If one were to replace the word human on the t-shirt with the word good, I think it would still have the same meaning or it would still convey the same message.
It’s been a long discussion, let me try summarize the points before I go on. * It is in human nature to be good. * Humans are still trying to be perfectly good. * Humans have an inherent desire for good. (we have yet to deal with this. why is it so?) * Good and bad only come to play in relationships.
We yet have one more point to discuss. Why do humans have an inherent desire for good? Being myself a programmer, I can only say that we are programmed this way. By whom? Some say it is nature. Darwinism say that we are product of evolution and natural selection. It says that a long time ago we were all monkeys and then somehow we evolved into humans. But I find two major questions that this theory does not answer. First, where did the intelligence come from. Second, when did we learn to differentiate between good and bad.
Others, myself included, believe that there is a divine eternal being who created the universe and created us humans. I believe that there is a God. Not just any God, but the one who created the whole universe, the God of the bible. Why I believe in him? Because only christianity answers all of my questions and answers them coherently. If you want to ask me specifics or you have any question yourself, you can ask in the comments. I’d rather not go into it because the story of why I believe what I believe is long and personal one and this post is already long enough. Someday I will write about it but not in this post. For, we have yet to reach the conclusion.
So after all that hard work, how does putting God in this matter make any difference? Well, it makes all the difference in the world. Let me tell you what bible says about human beings very shortly.
Bible says that God created humans in his own image, in his likeness. He gave us life. Adam and Eve were the first humans. God loved them. God gave them freedom to choose him or reject him. He instructed them to restrain from doing one thing and warned if they did it, they would die. The humans did exactly which God had forbidden. And that became the fall of man.
This explains our observations much better than Darwinism. It explains why we value a human baby much more than a puppy. Because humans are created in the likeness of God and therefor have much greater value. It explains why is it in human nature to be good. Because we are created in the likeness of God. And God is good. We are not perfectly good because humans have fallen. Because we have fallen we no longer have the same relationship with God as we did before and that is why we feel that we have an inherent desire for good. In fact, the desire is not for good but for God himself. We try to get closer to him by doing good things. That leads us to the last point. Good and bad only comes to play in a relationship.
I could have written this whole post without this last point and it still would have been pretty good. But the reason I chose to include it is because the whole idea of “being human” or “being good” in itself presumes other people. If I was alone in the universe, there would be no good and bad. Or more like, there would be only good. But I would not be calling it good, I wouldn’t be calling it anything. You can only be humane to someone else. I think that needs to be stated clearly and explicitly. Because, even after the first three points someone may not see this truth and go on pursuing good things for himself.
So how would one go about really “being human”? Not just wearing a t-shirt but to internalize it. I think the first thing to do, would be to re-establish your relationship with your creator. Then learn from him what you were meant you to be!