Man's Fate and God's Choice by Bhimeswara Challa (ereader for textbooks TXT) 📖

not intelligence, drawing on their reflexes, not reason. The astonishing complexity of an ant colony and the way the ants, as members of the colony, seem to manage and take decisions stands in sharp contrast to the way we manage the human ‘colony’.

Philosophers too have taken a crack at describing how peerless we are in creation. The German philosopher Schopenhauer, for example, said that “apart from man, no being wonders at its own existence”.157 We ought to but rarely do. St. Augustine aptly said that we wonder at many things but pass by ourselves without wondering. Sri Aurobindo said that man

 

 

 

155 Christine Kenneally. Of Ants and Men: Compare the Two Civilizations, and Who Wins? 2008. [Review of the book ‘The Superorganism: the Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies’ by Bert Holldobler and E.O. Wilson.] Accessed at: http://www.slate.com/id/2205472.

156 Tim Flannery. The Superior Civilization. 2009. [Review of the book ‘The Superorganism: the Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies’ by Bert Holldobler and E.O. Wilson.] New York Review of Books, USA. 26 February 2009. p.23.

157 Cited in: Elizabeth A. Pector. Lumina Dei:Lights of Accessed at: http://www.synspectrum.com/ld.html

 

alone lives in three modes of time, the past, present, and future simultaneously. His disciple Satprem said that we are unique because we, of all things, make mistakes whereas animals do not since they live instantly and intuitively. The more pertinent point is how all these attributes have impacted human personality and behavior in relation to those that do not supposedly have such attributes.

Yet our self-assumed but scripturally sanctioned singularity is at the center of human thought. That is also the basis of our morality and even spirituality. For example, in the Ramayana, when prince Rama kills Vali, the king of monkeys, while hiding behind a tree, and Vali questions the ethics of that act, Rama, himself the direct incarnation of God Vishnu, dismisses the point by saying that hunting an animal is the right of humans, particularly of the royalty. In the Bible and Quran, of course, God specifically anointed man as the lord of all other species. Man has forgotten the difference between a trustee and a tyrant. We have forgotten that to be a steward is to tend, to care, to protect, not to turn other species into trophies and guinea pigs. So, what really separates humans from other primates?

Genetically, though there is not much, the difference between chimps and us is said to be no more than 2 percent, probably only 1 percent. According to a recent study, “nearly 99 percent alike in genetic makeup, chimpanzees and humans might be even more similar were it not for what researchers call ‘lifestyle’ changes in the 6 million years that separate us from a common ancestor.”158

A more recent scientific speculation is referred to as ‘gene regulation’: “Since most primates share at least 90 percent of the same genetic sequences, it is in the ways by which genes are activated, regulated, the patterns of their expression and ultimately how and when they play out throughout development, that drive forward most differences we see in primates.”159

Our intellect, a product of our brain, is not what puts us in a distinctive category; other creatures also have a brain and some rudimentary discriminating capacity necessary for survival and sex. Finding that many things once viewed as exclusive to humans like culture, mind, reading, tool use, morality, emotions, personality are no longer only human, we clutch at things like, in the words of anthropologist Ian Tattersall, “the fundamental human urge to adorn and elaborate.”160 There might be very few ‘only human’ capabilities, but in those ‘common areas’ humans certainly are special in the dexterity and ingenuity in their use. But perhaps it is not our strengths but our foibles and emotions, which have no discernible biological objective, that propel our purposes, desires, and passions, values and wants, which distinguish us from other species. What constitutes ‘humanness’ could be our experience of emotions like being in love and being able to jump into a river to save a drowning dog, and in the next minute, cut someone else’s throat because that person rammed our car on the road. It may be an uncomfortable thought, but it could be that our negative traits like malice and murder are our unmistakable signatures. Finally, the impregnable barrier between other species and us is said to be our innate potential for God-realization that even angels are supposed to envy. Well, maybe yes; then again, maybe not. The scriptures say so, and our

 

 

 

158 Roger Segelken. What’s in the 1% Difference Between Chimps and Humans (DNA). Medical News Today. 20 December 2003. Accessed at: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/4945.php

159 Anthropology.net. Gene Regulation, the Driving Force in Human Evolution. 13 August 2007. Accessed at: http://anthropology.net/2007/08/13/gene-regulation-the-driving-force-in-human-evolution/

160 Cited in: Therese Littleton. What’s So Special About Being Human? Interview with Ian Tattersall, author of the book “Becoming Human: Evolution and Human Uniqueness.” Accessed at: http://www.human- nature.com/interviews/tattersall.html

 

intellect is not capable of questioning them. But, as God’s creations and children, how do we know that other species do not have their own ways to realize God? Swami Vivekananda, foremost among modern-day spiritualists, remarked that if a goat were to visualize God it would be as a goat — and perhaps the same would be the case if it were a dog. God Himself declared He will appear in the form, shape and size that His devotee aspires to. Incidentally, God actually did incarnate as an animal; the ten avatars of Lord Vishnu, according to Hindu scriptures, included the incarnations as matsya (fish), koorma (tortoise), and varaha (boar). That particular manifestation was what was needed to save the world at that time. God did not think it was any different from his subsequent avatars, one of which was Narasimha, the half man and half lion, which again was needed to slay the demon king Hiranyakasipu. While God did not hesitate to identify himself with an animal, humans hesitate, based on the belief that we are inherently incomparable. Animals seem to be ‘superior’ in another respect. For example, it has often been said that “animals have a talent for bypassing the mind and going straight to the heart.”161 And heart is a favorite habitat for God. Who knows, maybe other species, the lowly animals, may have more intuitive knowledge and divine interfacing than ‘mighty’ man.

There is another kind of impending ‘singularity’ that is being predicted — technological. When that happens, humans as they exist today will cease to be the top species on the planet, and the most intelligent. Computers will be many times smarter than men; we will be like children to them, and they, like gods to us. Eventually, computers will advance to the point where there is no difference between them and our current conception of an all- knowing and all-powerful God. Some evolutionary psychologists believe that, at this point in the life of life on planet Earth, natural evolution and natural selection are no longer in operation. As Harvard professor Steven Pinker puts it, “People, including me, would rather believe that significant human biological evolution stopped between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, before the races diverged, which would ensure that racial and ethnic groups are biologically equivalent.”162 Many think that in the future, artificial breeding and genetic engineering could have more say than natural selection. The mutations that are affecting the human condition now are, on the face of it, culture-centric and lately cyber-centric. This is the theme that is expanded in the book, Shattered Self: the End of Natural Evolution (2001), by Pierre Baldi. While that view has been widely shared, there are new trends that seem to dilute that premise. Recent news reports have flashed headlines of speedy human evolution with the implication that instead of becoming more alike, humans are becoming more different. It is reported that a comparison of the genomes of several different people groups showed that many genes appear to have recent mutations, and that the rate of mutation has sharply increased over the last 10,000 years.163 Does that, if further corroborated, have a message for the future? Is it possible that some humans could evolve into posthuman beings while the rest become posthumous? But one could also say that culture itself could have triggered such mutations. The field of cultural evolution is controversial because not all historians, social scientists or even biologists agree that cultural change can be understood in an evolutionary context. Some say that human beliefs and behaviors are too unpredictable, as

 

 

 

161 Cited in: Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly. [Review of the book “God’s Messengers: What Animals Teach Us About the Divine” by Linda Anderson and Allen Anderson]. Accessed at : http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Messengers-Animals-Teach-Divine/dp/1577312465

162 Cited in: Kate Douglas. Are We Still Evolving? New Scientist Magazine. Issue 2542. UK. 11 March 2006.

163 Georgia Purdom. Human Evolution -- Faster Than a Speeding Bullet. Answers in Genesis. 30 January 2008. Accessed at: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v3/n1/faster-than-speeding-bullet

 

it is also claimed that cultural revolution “has an arrow and a direction: towards greater complexity; towards higher civilization.”164 There are others, though, like the economist Robert Fogel, who argues that the human species, during the past 300 years has undergone what he calls a “technophysio evolution” which is biological but not genetic, rapid, culturally transmitted, and not very stable, which has enabled the species to increase its average body size by over 50 percent and longevity by more than 100 percent since the year 1800, and to greatly increase the robustness and capacity of vital organ systems. He predicts a rosy future when the trends would continue and even accelerate, offering man large space and ‘discretionary time’ for pursuit of issues like “life’s meaning and other matters of self- realization.”165 Partially plausible it may be, but such analysis suffers from serious blemishes. First, the data and analysis are confined to a small part of the world, primarily the United States, and ignores the developing world, which has more than two-thirds of the world population. An unconscionably large number of human beings are hungry, malnourished, and susceptible to every passing infection; their bodies are shriveled and their brains paralyzed.

Second, Fogel does not take cognizance of the effect of the processed and chemicalized food we eat and the toxic air we breathe, of our crippling and addictive dependence on ‘add-ons’ and appliances on the human body. Just as we cannot isolate the future from the present, our way of life and the context we create for living cannot be separated from the way human race will evolve in the future.

Along with his enfeebled condition, man’s relationship with other species and with Nature will increasingly play a major part in human future. We are not, and never were, alone on earth, and as a fragment of the totality of life we cannot, simply put, survive as a species without the rest of life on earth. The human species is, even if it is the most potent and powerful, one of many millions of manifestations of life on earth, many of which existed long before man appeared and probably, but for man, will continue long after he is gone. Predator and prey, wildlife and vegetation, play interconnected roles in preserving and sustaining life. No one has a clear idea about how many species existed and became extinct since life began on earth. Scientists have formally identified and named about 17 million species, but the number is yet to be discovered and it may range anywhere between 5 million to 100 million, of which about 30 million would be insects alone. Every species will become extinct at an appointed time, and humans are no exception. Some species like the humans may have the power, but not the mandate, to cause the extinction