Tag Archives: spirituality

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made – Part 3

We’ve talked about how human beings rank fairly low in the animal kingdom in regards to physical strength and durability, and we’ve looked at how man’s superior intelligence evens the score by giving him an edge in the survival game. But there’s a third factor to consider.

There is an almost undefinable essence that truly sets man apart from the other animals.

Scientists attribute this uniqueness to our DNA. Philosophers call it our soul or spirit. Others identity it as our conscience, while many more call it personality, individuality, persona, or nature. Whatever  label you choose, it comes with an overabundance of quirky eccentricities not found in the other species cohabiting this world.

Personality

Yes, I agree that humans and animals have personalities, but only man can claim the vast complexity of traits that set us apart from them. A recent study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) identified 638 primary Personality Traits. After dividing them into three categories, they classified 37% as positive (ex: amiable, courageous, optimistic, and reliable); 18% neutral (ex: ambitious, determined, self-conscious); and a staggering 48% negative (ex: abrasive, apathetic, discontented, imprudent). (Ref: http://ideonomy.mit.edu/essays/traits.html)

While the list is fairly comprehensive, it is nowhere near complete, especially when you consider the infinite number of possible combinations. And that’s before you take other factors into consideration. Factors like …

Emotions

Plutchiks Emotion WheelRobert Plutchik, professor emeritus at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine with a Ph.D. from Columbia University, set out to classify emotions into primary categories. Working with the Dalai Lama and using scientific approaches to analyze facial muscles used in heightened levels of emotion, he determined there are eight primary states: anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, anticipation, trust, and joy.

Of course, there many, many more feelings than these eight, but based on similar muscle usages, Plutchik concluded that all emotions fall into sub-categories under the primary.

Fact or hypothesis? It’s your decision. But  the question arises – Do animals have emotions? Let’s consider two definitions pertinent to this discussion:

Sentience is the capacity to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively. It encompasses a wide spectrum of both positive and negative physical and emotional experiences. Most scientists today are in agreement that all vertebrate animals, which includes mammals, our winged friends, cold-blooded reptiles, and the creatures of the sea, are sentient beings.

Sapience, on the other hand, is defined as good sense, intelligence, wisdom, or the ability of an entity to act using a mental faculty to apply appropriate judgment (Homo sapiens  – Latin: “wise man”). Sound judgment requires the ability to assess conditions in a complex and dynamic environment, apply a moral code, analyze risk factors, calculate outcomes, and derive a best case conclusion. I believe we can all agree this ability belongs to man alone.

So, to answer the above question,  yes, I believe all animals experience emotion. Consider the threat of danger that triggers fear … which in turn triggers survival behavior (the fight or flight response). This is inherent to all animals, man included.

Emojis

On the other hand, I believe sapience is God’s gift to man alone.

Spiritual Needs

For the duration of a pregnancy, the mother’s body provides everything a baby needs: nutrition, oxygen, temperature control, and waste management. At birth, when the baby is separated from the mother’s body, the newborn must learn quickly how to regulate all of these things for himself, while experiencing a nightmare of new sensations – light, sound, taste, temperature fluctuation, movement restriction, and hunger. It’s a scary place.

Each newborn babe, whether animal or man, comes into this world with an innate craving, a need for connection, acceptance, comfort, and safety.Newborns

Those needs don’t change as time passes. Wolves roam in packs. Red Snapper swim in schools. Geese fly in close formation as they relocate with the seasons. Man searches for a place to belong within families, communities, social groups, schools, workplaces, organizations – and yet he often moves on. Changes jobs. Makes new friends. Searching. Always searching. Always wondering. Always asking questions. Why am I here? What is my purpose? Is this all there is?

Christians often claim there is a “God-sized hole within our hearts that only the one, true God can fill,” which leads us to yet another question; Is this a biblical concept, or just fanciful rhetoric?

My answer is no. And yes.

Back in the 1600s, Blaise Pascal, inventor, mathematician, physicist, theological writer, and apologist, said in defense of Christianity:

“What else does this craving and this helplessness proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object. In other words, by God himself.”

But we can also attribute a story from the Bible where the Apostle Paul was witnessing to the Greeks. Now the Greeks were notorious for all their idols, even a monument to an “unknown god” – kind of like hedging their bet, I guess. In case they missed one.

In Acts 17:22-27, Paul says:

“Then Paul stood before the meeting of the Areopagus and said, “People of Athens, I can see you are very religious in all things. 23 As I was going through your city, I saw the objects you worship. I found an altar that had these words written on it: TO A GOD WHO IS NOT KNOWN. You worship a god that you don’t know, and this is the God I am telling you about!

The God who made the whole world and everything in it is the Lord of the land and the sky. He does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 This God is the One who gives life, breath, and everything else to people. He does not need any help from them; he has everything he needs. 26 God began by making one person, and from him came all the different people who live everywhere in the world. God decided exactly when and where they must live. 27 God wanted them to look for him and perhaps search all around for him and find him, though he is not far from any of us.

All animals follow the primal, never-changing eat-sleep-procreate dictate set out for their lifespans, but only man seeks for more. Call it ego, the soul, a conscience, spirit, chi, or life-force, only man seeks acceptance and a reason for his being.Heart of Clouds

For Christians, the truth lies in that ‘God-sized hole’ in our hearts, the one that Jesus readily fills with love and a peace that passes all understanding.

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made – Part 2

I think we are in agreement that the human body is a unique system of systems. So why then is it encased in such a fragile shell?

In the physical realm, humans rank pretty low on the survival totem pole.  We don’t have the luxury of natural body armor like the armadillo, or a defense system like the porcupine. Neither do we have the ferocity and strength of a grizzly bear, or the speed of an antelope. We can’t smell like a bloodhound, hear like an elephant, see like an eagle, or feel vibrations like a bat.

And yet we don’t just survive, we thrive. How?

Creation - Dominion

Here are 5 reasons (not comprehensive by any stretch of the imagination) that I believe sets mankind apart from the other animals.

  1. clock-70182_640Man is aware of his own mortality. He is conscious of time passing, not like the seasons fade one into another, but of generations gone before and generations to come. We conceptualize. 
  2. Man has an inherent spiritual nature, religious even. The vast majority of people believe and/or pursue some form of spiritual or religious faith. We wonder about what comes after we die. 
  3. Man keeps records. We (sometimes) learn from what has gone before, make plans for the near and distant future, and are always searching for ways to improve or better his life. 
  4. the-thinker-1431333_640Man is a thinker. We reason, question, create, learn, anticipate, apply logic, and discern truth. We also harbor prejudices, vanity, pride, ego, and nurture grievances and seek revenge … unlike other animals. 
  5. Man communicates at a far more superior level than the other animals. We use complex language forms, both verbal and written to connect with other humans. We use this language to satisfy a deeply rooted yearning for community, a need to communicate with others of our kind, to connect.

So, the human body is a (physical) complex machine run by a (mental) sophisticated intelligence. But what about motivation. What drives us? That’s the part I call the “Thou shalt and Thou shalt not” factor.Creatures of logic

Next, we’ll look at what makes man tick.

 

Wake up, America!

The news you choose to ignore, those reports coming out of Africa, the Middle East, Indonesia, South America – the killings, mutilations, rapes, beheadings, genocide, famine, pestilence, epidemics – they exist. And they’re growing in frequency. Just because you find the words and images disturbing, distressing, upsetting, bothersome, and distasteful doesn’t mean they aren’t real. Just because they upset your sensibilities, make your nose wrinkle with repugnance, and don’t touch you personally doesn’t mean they’ll go away if you ignore them.

News Flash: Terrorism has already come to the United States. Terrorists have breached our defenses. Heinous acts are being perpetrated on our own soil, and we’re playing the stupid, foolish game of political correctness.

Look at this list of terrorism acts that occurred inside our borders since 9/11, all of them with ties to Islamic extremists. Remember the headlines? Note also the deaths reported DON’T include the even larger number of victims injured in these attacks.

September 2001 – New York City, Washington, DC – terrorists attack the Twin Towers and Pentagon killing 2, 974; July 2002 – Los Angeles – gunman kills 2 at LAX airport; June 2009 – Little Rock – gunman kills 1 in attack at military recruiting center; August 2009 – Fort Hood – gunman kills 13 on military base; April 2013 – Boston – bombers kill 3 at Boston Marathon; July 2015 – Chattanooga – gunman kills 5 servicemen at military recruiting center;  December 2015 – two gunmen kill 14 at office Christmas party; and the latest,  June 2016 – Orlando – gunman kills 49 at nightclub.

This list is far from inclusive. Many more attacks than those listed above have occurred on U.S. soil, but didn’t quite make headlines because the impact value didn’t measure up to the news media’s drama quotient. You see, Shock & Awe sells. The problem with this tactic is that after a while, Shock & Awe no longer shocks. Or awes. After repeated exposure, it loses its impact, becomes mundane, commonplace, ho-hum. Which means the news outlets have to up the ante, raise the bar in a constant search for the sensational, the higher death tolls, worse atrocities, more depravity, evil and wickedness that assaults our hardened senses. Anything to achieve enough outrage to draw viewers and readers.

Where does it all end? Well, the end may be closer than you think. Ever hear of The Tytler Cycle? It dates back to the 1700s.

Tytler Cycle

I’m afraid, so very afraid. Our forefathers in 1776 paid a precious price in blood, paid with their lives to leave bondage behind and live in freedom. The Roman Empire lasted 1,400 years from rise to fall. Today, in 2016, in just over 200 years, the United States is about to come full circle. We’re staring in the face of a government bondage, one of our own making because of lethargy, indifference, and laziness. We’re already well down that path, a slippery slope that will be nearly impossible to reverse.

Christians have claimed forever that “The End Times” are here, so why hasn’t this God of Judgment zapped us by now?

Let me put it in a way you can relate. Don’t we want the best for our children? Don’t we love them and forgive them over and over? Don’t we give them every chance to do right? To conform? To obey?

God the Father does, too. God is patient and long-suffering, far beyond what our flawed human minds can comprehend. He wants no one to perish – not the murderer, the terrorist, the rapist, the liar, the thief; not the Jew, the Christian, or the Muslim; not even the “good.” For the same reason He promised in the Old Testament to give Abraham’s descendants the land of Canaan forever … but said they would have to wait for 400 years.  Why?

“For the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.” Genesis 15:16.

(The Amorites, who no longer exist, were a wicked people who occupied the land at the time of God’s promise to Abraham.)

God wants no one to perish, but there is a Day of Reckoning. At some point, a time only He knows, enough is enough.