In order to answer this question, one needs to understand that every person comes from a different background and that everyone has a different way to perceive the world. Thus, the starting point for understanding what it means to be a human would be choosing a specific worldview approach. According to Paul Hiebert (an American missiologist) worldview is defined as “the fundamental cognitive, affective, and evaluative presuppositions a group of people make about the nature of things, and which they use to order their lives”. (quote here) In other words, the way one comprehends life and the world at large. This explanation is generally accepted by society. However, there is not a single definition completely agreed upon all. The main worldview approaches discussed in class are: naturalistic, postmodern, and theistic. I will base my answer on the theistic approach, for it has provided solid …show more content…
evidence and strong supporting arguments. First, from a theistic point of view, humankind is the creation of God. God made man from dust and breathed life into him, thus, man became a living creature. Since we are not capable of grasping this whole concept, scientists have come up with different theories that differ from theistic thoughts. For example, naturalists believe that man is just an organism that evolved from other living creatures. Therefore, there is nothing non-physical about us and whatever the Bible says is just metanarrative. Furthermore, post modernists claim that humans are natural beings. That being said, the only natural aspect of us is our body. For this reason, the idea of an immaterial part of us such as "spirit" or "soul" only represents our personal identity which is acquired from culture. In my opinion, there is something about humans that goes beyond us being only a physical “body”. It is clear that we have certain physical characteristics that are similar to other living creatures but there is also a part of us that makes humans unique. If human beings do not have a mind or soul (just like naturalists and post-modernists argue) then, why is it that when we do something wrong, a part of us (our soul or spirit) makes us feel bad for what we did? If humans being are just a body, could we argue that robots are humans in a certain way? Throughout time, technology has created robots who are capable of performing actions that seemed to be only human. For example, robots can answer questions and reason. Additionally, some robots today utilize deductive reasoning in order to solve situations never faced before. Furthermore, there have been some limbs created with the purpose of substituting human parts that seem not to function well. Nowadays, humans can replace an arm, a leg, and even a kidney and still be able to perform their daily activities the way they did before. There will be a point in the future in which a person will be able to replace most of their body parts for robotic parts in order to improve their quality of life. However, there is a part of the humans that cannot be replaced, the mind. The mind and the body cannot be separated for they both work together. The mind helps the body grasp what reality is, thus, it helps humans make decisions. Someone knows that touching fire with their hand will have negative consequences. However, this though in the mind will be proven until this person touches the fire and burns himself. In addition, even though our behavior is influenced by our environment and other outside factors, humans have the ability to reason and make decisions (for example, the person decides if he is going to touch the fire or not) characteristic that other living creature’s lack.
This brings us into a topic that has been very controversial through time, free will. Free will is a concept that becomes null for Sociologists for they claim that humans are controlled by biological reactions and their environment. For example, sociologists would argue that if you happen to have the desire for ice cream and you eat some, you are not taking this decision freely. There is an internal force that drives you to eat ice cream and you cannot overcome this desire. I disagree with this point. Yes, there may be an internal force that sparks the desire for ice cream in us. However, we are the ones who decide to eat it or not. Moreover, God gave us the ability to make our own decisions, he did not programmed us to act in a certain way. Therefore, humans actually have a mind in which free will
operates.
What does it mean to be human? To most people it means being high on the food chain; or having the ability to make our own choices. People everywhere have a few things in common: We all must obey Natural laws, and we have preconceived ideas, stereotypes, and double standards. Being human is simply conveyed as human nature in “The Cold Equations”, by Tom Godwin, where the author shows the common ground that makes each and every one of us human.
A theoretical perspective or paradigm is a set of ideas that attempt to guide your thinking and explain viewpoints. Within the field of sociology, there are many paradigms. These include structural-functionalism, social conflict, feminism, symbolic interactionism, and postmodernism. As a female who appreciates a viewpoint outside of the standard male outlook, my favorite theoretical paradigm is feminist theory.
To answer the question if human beings possess free will successfully, you have to understand what ‘free will’ actually means. Free will is having the the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate. The ability to act on one 's own desires. There are a couple different ways of answering the free will question that get broken down into three main beliefs; Compatibilism, Libertarianism, and Determinism. Libertarians believe that humans are capable of possessing free will. Determinists believe that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to will. They believe that human beings are not morally responsible
About 2 weeks ago my thoughts towards the reality of free will ceased to exist. Everything that I had previously thought did not mean a thing; I was given a new perspective that grasped me almost instantaneously. Robert Blatchford, author of "The delusion of Free Will" provided me with a new perspective that has taken over my thinking on free will. Blatchford states, "the will is not free, and that it is ruled by heredity and environment." All it took, were those words, ...
Answering the question of what humanity is may be the most difficult thing to do, as it is such a complex, ambiguous, and multifaceted concept. Many have tried to put a finger on what exactly makes them what they are, and the result of this is culture, stories, and myths. The overreaching conclusion in many of these myths is that man lies somewhere above beast and below gods. While this could be viewed in very simple and general terms as correct, it leaves out the fact that man often behaves very much like a beast, or like a god, while simultaneously embodying characteristics that are so alien to both of those beings. Something so intricately inherent to what makes humans what they are is the fact that in
Our decision making skills are based upon the principle of deliberation, in which one weighs the advantages and disadvantages of all the options, and picks the one that would most benefit us and our needs at that particular point in time. This, however, does not constitute the act of free will, for it is based on one’s feelings. When one thinks that they are deliberating, they take into account only the external factors. For example, when a person breathes, they are not aware of the mental processes that take place. There may also be internal constraints that one does not consider, something imbedded deep in our psyche that one has no control over, thus the fact that people feel as if they are deliberating may often be an illusion. Evolutionary traits, such as the need to procreate and find food, are instinctual attributes that subconsciously motivate us to make choices. This can be seen in the case of a starving man stealing food from another in which to survive. He is faced with the options of starvation or the will to live, and intuitively chooses the continuation of his own mortality over death. The fact that he could of chosen deat...
On the other hand, who is to say that we really have free will in actual reality? What if what we perceive to be free will is us actually being inside the Experience Machine right now? Or perhaps the choices we make are the result of environmental factors and internal chemical triggers. If that is the case,
Since the dawn of time, individuals have been taught that they possess an innate quality known as Free Will. This phenomenon is essentially the “freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention”(Merriam-Webster). Therefore people believe that they possess the ability to decide their fate. But do humans really have this ability to do this? Philosophists have argued this for some time now and have raised some objections towards this view. On the contrary, the theory of determinism, which is often contrasted with the theory of free will, says elsewise. This theory states that “occurrences in nature or social or psychological phenomena are causally determined by preceding events or natural laws” (Merriam-Webster). In other words, a determinist believes that for every rational decision that an individual has to make, there is a predetermined course of action. Various views
Today plenty of people think about what it means to be human, some people think that it is unimportant. As human beings with limited time on this earth we must focus on bettering the lives of the individual and the lives of others, the most important question is definitely not what makes us human. Culture may be seen as something that tears us apart. The fear of death is much more universal than thought and something that may rip us from our time with those that still alive. Some may even go as far to say that the ability to empathize with other people is neglectable. The only thing that makes us human is the ability to ask that question, or at least that is what some would say who have not put much thought into the
To be considered a human being I would have to say that one has to be able to feel emotionally and physically. Human beings have to have the mental capacity to know right from wrong. I think human beings have the need to always want to be accepted by someone. They have to be able to accept others’ feelings just as they want to be accepted. To be a human being is pretty much the definition of humanity itself. In Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, the Creature shows all the characteristics of being considered a human being from compassion to revenge, and even being accepted by someone.
What does it mean to be human? Sure, one must have the usual physical features such as fingers, eyes, arms, hands, feet, etc., but what does it really mean? Must the human be able to speak? To take upon the actions of themselves? Whatever it means, it can be interpreted in any way from anyone. The physical attributes of any human can be compared to those of our evolutionary ancestors. However, it is possible to believe that there are many characteristics that make a human, but only six define the true, ideal human.
In the short story "Through the tunnel", Doris Lessing describes the adventure of Jerry, a young English boy trying to swim through an underwater tunnel. Throughout the story, the author uses the third person omniscient point of view to describe the boy's surroundings and to show us both what he and the other characters are thinking and what is happening around them. By using this point of view, the author is able to describe the setting of the story, give a detailed description of the characters, and make the theme visible.
People have no control over the external events that happen to them over the course of their life. For example a healthy toddler may wander off into traffic to retrieve a balloon, they let go of, get struck by a vehicle and die as a result of the collision. That toddler didn’t make a conscious decision to walk into an extremely dangerous situation and die. They were guided to that moment by an inner force telling them to retrieve the balloon they had just lost. They did not choose to be hit by the car, and they did not choose to be so enamored with the balloon that they would chase the object into oncoming traffic. Everything in that situation was predetermined by the toddlers nature and the events going on around the toddler. Every situation an individual finds themselves in is a combination of that individual's nature and the events happening around
There have been many correlations with humans over time. There are many specie specific qualities such as the difficult task of interpreting, language, and free will, being able to break the rules and regulations of language at anytime or any other cycle that animals are compelled to because of instinct. Humans are the only creatures that know who they are, who they aren't and who they will be. Unlike animals we understand death, and can take our own or anyone else's. We are also able to forgive. So as you can see there are many answers to the question of what it means to be human.
Humans may be one of the most complex species on this earth thus far. We are the only known species who contemplates their existence so deeply and writes novels worth of work on it. But what exactly does it mean to be a human and how is our humanness defined? For centuries philosophers have written countless works on what they believe makes a person truly humane and how we differentiate between those who are “bad” and those who are “good” humans. In a world that is so subjective and that has so many opinions, routes, and options this may be one of the hardest concepts to define.