Tag: humanity

We are more human than enlightened

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As modern man, we became more arrogant than enlightened. The rapid expanse of secularism has resulted in a false sense of enlightenment. We have not escaped the questions, cravings or issues of all history. Rather than view prior humans as primitive, we should view ourselves in the same plight as ancestors past.

Created or Evolved:
We’re the pinnacle of life.

Given our language, technology and care (or lack) of the Earth, we stand as truly unique in all life. Regardless of our view on origins, we are more developed than other forms of creation. We care for our own, help those who cannot help themselves, and our communication is vastly complex. Perhaps we’re here to take care of life?

Theism o-?-r Atheism:
We seek our end, our beginning and our meaning of life.

The entirety of human history is filled with pursuing answers, forceful neglect or running away from these questions. While our knowledge of nature is better, the conversations about these questions remain just about the same. We crave knowing, repress that craving, or try as might to ignore it. Have we came any closer to an answer, or do we merely recycle ones of old?

Good or Depraved:
We crave justice and our own rights, while getting frustrated when they are thwarted.

Despite our view of man, whether naturally good, blank or depraved, we act unjustly and get frustrated with injustice. While each person’s view of right and wrong may be different, we have it. Regardless of a person’s birth, we all crave our sense of justice, violate our own sense of justice, and cringe at injustice. From a do nothing approach to tyrannical rule, we cannot escape this struggle. Despite technology, education, culture, time, history we cannot escape this. Have we really improved?

Absolute Truth or No Absolute Truth:
We crave our own pleasure and get confounded at its disruption.

There are three things that we crave: Pleasure, control, and autonomy. In the pursuit of these things we have little tolerance for accountability and authority. Good, blank or depraved, do we not rebel against our authorities, especially as children? A friend of mine stated that “non-absolute truth ends at math.” While another said “absolute truth can be tyrannical.” The discussion on truth seems more rooted in the things we crave. Perhaps the origination of the discussion comes from what makes us most human: we are finite and mortal. In searching for objective, verifiable truth we are still left with our own interpretation and bias. Can any person claim absolute knowledge?

The bottom line:
Biological Machine or Soul

In our modern claims of evolved or enlightened, I think we are we’re just human like those before us. Have we really become more evolved or more enlightened?

The greatest crime of our age is not in becoming secular but ignoring something understood throughout our prior history as humans: We have a soul. For sure religion has been abusive, used for control, domination and an excuse of injustice. But, religion is not a disease, its pursuits not primitive, nor its conclusions trite.

Religion tyrannically ruled over the soul, but secularism tyrannically neglected it. Different, but equally a crime. We still struggle with the same questions, cravings and issues of all history. Secularism leaves humans with more emptiness than a true sense of fulfillment or yearning rather than answers. Claims of progress also have claims of the regression. In ending diseases, we also have the holocaust. In industrial progress, we have environmental destruction. In the development of equality, we have the destruction of the family and loss of identity.

With the current discussions of being spiritual or the re-discovery of human talent, perhaps we are re-discovering our soul. There is significant tension between the soul, reason and justice. One to the detriment of the others is the wrong approach. That approach seems, after all, what we all have in common. We are just as human as those of history. Maybe more knowledgeable, but not more enlightened.

Social media: Pensées au sujet des medias sociaux

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Thoughts about social media

The last few years I jumped into the social media frenzy: learning, participating, engaging, listening and observing. I thought it would be fun to highlight some of my thoughts. After all, we’re all human…

Social Media is a cure of LIAR’s
LIAR stands for Low Information to Action Ratio… The dilemma many deal with is having too much information. This eventually trains people to ignore large volumes of solid thought. In a real sense our information driven culture trained us to ignore Sunday mornings or other “data dumps.” This leads to us knowing lots, but acting little. Social media is an ironic cure.

Social media helps in two venues:

  1. It breaks large chunks to doable small chunks. The best example observed: Rick Warren’s tweets.
  2. It builds a passive accountability. Social media gives opportunity to soak, digest and respond to information given. It allows community to live truth out together in real-time.

Social media is the Borg at birth
Star Trek created the Borg as an allegory for over invasive technology. If you read up on this sci-fi nemesis, you’ll find remarkable parallels. While the real-time connection to community is a help, it is also a vice. The Borg, even while right next to each other, have a blank stare and only connect through the hive (network). Kind of like talking to your friends by texting when they are right in front of you. This hurts.

Social media hurts in two venues:

  1. Artificial communication often replaces organic real-time conversation. The text, Facebook, tweet replaces the sit down conversation over coffee. Nothing can replace human interaction. Environments, touch, smells, etc are equally important to the human experience and communication. These dimension cannot be carried by technology.
  2. Always on can lead to allows off. The ability to focus and develop the depth needed for many things can be diminished with social media. While processing one can lose the product. This is more than just getting work done, it is also a matter of deepening relationships; the key one being with God. Humans need down time and periods of quiet reflection. Always on breeds the expectation for always available. We’re not God. Let Him be the always on always available guy.

Social media is the new old
I hear often that social media is a revolutionary not evolutionary thing. I disagree. Social media demonstrates something that has always been true: People want to be known, their fallenness unknown and both openly revealed. Any engagement with humans leads to this interplay. While the technology, feel and look may be new, human nature and the proverb…I mean torch runner… I mean bumper telegram…sigh… are still around.

The old renewed:

  1. Human depravity and redemption is active in social media because we can not escape our depravity and need of the Spirit. We can’t stop being human.
  2. Humanity always craves simple and brief tidbits of communication.

The bottom line
While social media is in vogue and seemingly new, it reveals that which is true of all ages. It has strengths it has weaknesses and it will be used for both. I do not advocate balance & wisdom. I do not advocate passionate usage & complete openness. I advocate remembering we are human: fallen and in need of redemption. We cannot escape that and anything “revolutionary” will point out that we’re a mess and God loves us anyway. C’est la vie.