mapkinase's Journal: Science: Humanity. Definition

Many people erroneously believe that what distinguishes humans from all other creatures is the intellect, abstract thinking, making theories, generalizing, etc...

This is wrong. The mentioned features being unique to humans as a whole are not unique to humans in their purpose. They are not unique in the fact that main reason of existence of all those traits is to ensure the survival of humans as a biological species. In that aspect the intellect is not different from dog's ability to bark or amoeba's ability to change the shape of its cell.

What truely distinguishes humans from animals is the existence of a moral code that is not related to the survivial at all, namely, the sole recognition of the Creator and submission to Him. This recognition is not related whatsoever to the survival of humans as a race in this world, but is solely important to the existence of human's soul in the Hereafter.

There are many indications in the modern world that this moral center - monotheism - is in no connection of superficial scientific cause and effect to the biological survival either of individuals or the human race as a whole.

1. The religion teaches us that we have to love God and his Messenger, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, more than anything else in this world, including ourselves (sic! survival of the individual) and our children (sic! survival of the human race).

2. The religion teaches us to give and to sacrifice: our money, our belongings, our time, our lives to the cause of the Creator that is in contrary to what biological instincts are telling us (this including modern models of "altruistic" behaviour that pop up from time to time in the Nature magazine). Moresoever, it teaches us to do it preferably anonimously, so not to get any recognition in this world for the acts of charity (thus making it different from the aforementioned "altruistic" models).

3. The religion teaches us to rely on the Creator above that what he created: the recognizable order of this world, that is called science. You know, statistically speaking, relying on science will give you best results in this world. Yet the believer, who relies only on Allah, will certainly sometimes neglect scientific indications which will lead to his physical demise statistically more often. The truth is, sometimes we need just to die instead of holding to life.

One might say that despite all this, religion, especially Islam, have a viral tendency to survive over the centuries of persecution. It is true that one of the consequences of the following of the moral conduct is to restraint from harm to yourselves and to other humans, to be moderate in consumption and in emotions. That is of course, "healthy". But, this is in no way a primal motivation of any religious person, since he knows that this life takes a day and may be a little more compared to the life of Eternity. Of course, Islam teaches us not to restraint from having kids, except out of the concern for the well-being of the mother. That leads to the faster growth of little Muslims compared to the "material girls" and boys. But again, this is not the main purpose. In fact, Islam teaches us to marry only to protect ourselves from doing what is forbidden, namely copulating like an animal with everything that moves, from fornication, sodomy and all other perversions. Not for the pleasure, not because it is better for our prostates to have a regular intercourse, not to procreate. The rest is left to our animal nature: the desire to have sexual intercourse with our wives and the love for kids.

In fact, Islam is complementary to our animal nature. It offsets what is forbidden to us in our animal nature - killing in competition, fornication, overconsumption, aggression and suppression (alpha-males), rape (there is a species of scorpions that have males with special tools for that) and allows freely what is Halaal in our animal nature - having children, moderate consumption of food, water and sexual intercourse. The most offset trait of us as animals is of course our intellect - this is the area the religion restricts us the most. The foremost perversion of intellect is denial of Creator. That is the sin of the clever, the sin of the scientist. The denial of Unseen. "I see only wallpaper". Closely related to that is the forbidding of arrogance, which is also a sin of intellect. Pride is closely related to arrogance.

In other words, humanity is not what we do, it is first of all, what we do not do, never, under no circumstances. Humanity is defined by taboo.

The choice is yours, dear reader. Whether you are submitting to your animal nature, either by freely following your bodily desires restricted only by the same desires of others and by playing intellectual games, charades, solving puzzles, again, for the pleasurement of yourself, pride, honour and social recognition. Or you are humbly submitting to your Creator.

Do you want to be like other animals: "cat meouws, dog barks, human animal thinks", or you want to be the summit, on the top of the world, vicegerent of God on this Earth?