The Human Genome, Gene Therapy, and the Irrelevancy of God

Roots. We all have them, embedded somewhere in our past. I don’t recall my birth father and have never visited his grave in Biloxi, Mississippi. My parents were married in 1932, when he was 41 and she 27. I was born in 1934, and he died in 1939. I never had a chance to observe him for the ways in which I might be a chip off his old block. Nevertheless, a good part of who I have become has been determined by who he was and his contribution to my inherited gene pool.

Who we are physically is heavily rooted in the combined gene pool of our parents. Such features of ourselves as the color of our eyes, hair, and skin, our height and gender, and our susceptibility to various diseases are all an outgrowth of our parental gene pool. Your inherited genes can even influence such things as mental abilities, personality traits, and predisposition to certain kinds of talents and abilities. If a person, upon looking in a mirror one morning, is pondering the image that stares back, s/he might check out some old family photos. On the other hand, s/he might consider gene therapy. As incredible as it may sound, gene therapy can involve replacing a defective gene in your present genetic code, silencing a faulty gene, or editing specific DNA sequences.¹

Depending on your politics and/or religious persuasion, gene therapy may sound like science fiction to the unpracticed ear but, like it or not, gene therapy has quietly moved into real life. Messing about in the human genome may evoke images of Dr. Mengele² or Victor Frankenstein (a character in Mary Shelley’s 1818 fiction novel Frankenstein), but if such treatment can improve the human situation, why not?

If you are religious in a traditional sense (an avid church/synagogue/mosque attender), gene therapy may also suggest that those involved in genome research are playing God. At bottom, such an accusation “refers to the powers that science, engineering, and technology confer on human beings to understand and to control the natural world, including you.”³ In aiming at the ability to create life in a petri dish such researchers encroach on a role that has traditionally belonged to God (Gen 1:1-31, for example). And in fact, they have successfully created a kind of artificial life, the first synthetic cell: “it is the first self-replicating cell on the planet [whose] parent is a computer.”⁴

If (or when) they succeed in discovering how to create life de novo, however, they will not have proven the non-existence of God but rather threatened the relevancy of the concept of God. If human beings can create life, even artificial life, and change the human genome so as to alter what God is believed to have accomplished through Mother Nature, God becomes something like a good luck charm to which many may turn in times of crisis—when the limits of human knowledge and ability are reached.

All of what I have just described evokes aspects of the biblical Tower of Babel story (Gen 11:1-9). The sons of men built a city and a tower “with its top in the heavens.” And Yahweh, upon coming down to see the city and the tower, said: “this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing they propose to do will now be impossible for them” (Gen 11:5 RSV). The story portrays Yahweh and his court (“Let us go down and confuse their language so they may not understand one another’s speech,” Gen 11:7 RSV) being intimidated by human accomplishments. Hence, God destroyed their ability to communicate and scattered them around the world (Gen 11:8-9). Apparently, Yahweh sensed that given their present course the sons of men would render the divine Self irrelevant.

Losing relevancy is a genuine, practical, existential threat to a God. Just consider how many Gods through history have fallen into irrelevancy and, eventually, into oblivion. Irrelevant Gods wait, one assumes, in a kind of mythical Nirvana to be rediscovered, to wait until someone calls upon them again and thereby renders them relevant. Or does irrelevancy mean actual death for a God? Has anyone out there ever heard of an irrelevant God being restored to relevancy to “run” the world again?

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/cellular-gene-therapy-products/what-gene-therapy

And: en-wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene-therapy

²en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele

³https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/playing-god

⁴newscientist.com/article/dn18942-immaculate-creation-birth-of-the-first-synthetic-cell/

Humanizing the Lesser Human

On June 5, 2017 I published a blog entitled: "On Becoming and Being Human."¹ The essay closed with this statement, "Being human is not an accident of birth, but a matter of behavior." We modern humans are called Homo sapiens (intelligent man). There was a time when Homo sapiens existed at the same time as others of its genus. They are now extinct. Our nearest "relatives" in the genus Homo were: heidelbergensis, neanderthalensis, erectus, and floresiensis. If I am correct, there is a spectrum, or range, to human behavior, ranging from what is less human to more human. Since archaic Homo sapiens was inferior as a species when compared to modern Homo sapiens, the obvious conclusion is that there is always room for improvement in the humanity of the species. I will describe the lesser human as reflecting the archaic traits of the primitive still surviving in our species. The spectrum raises the question, how do we fully humanize the lesser human? The question seems reasonable, since there are those living among us who have behaved less human than humanity at its ideal best.

            Modern society has developed institutional "treatments" for lesser human behavior in our species. For example, the penal system supposedly aims at the rehabilitation of inmates, those whose criminal behavior has necessitated their incarceration away from Homo sapiens' society at large. The goal of incarceration is to return them to society fully capable of following society's rules—in other words to "humanize" them, since their behavior previously was less than what we think of as ideally human. Society also recognizes that children need to be educated; that is, they should learn how to function and behave in human society. The public-school system in America is dedicated to the purpose of producing well-rounded human beings who will assume their places in society as responsible citizens. Both these institutions in modern society have the full support of Christian Churches as being necessary to society's wellbeing. In other words, the modern Christian Church, as a societal institution, has a vested interest in the humanization of society in the sense I have described it above. What the institutional church does in its religious educational programs is as much for the purpose of humanizing its members as it is for the purpose of religionizing them, since the ideal church member is also expected to be a responsible member of human society.

            It might be surprising to learn that the idea of humanizing society had not occurred to Christians before the fourth century. The early Christians thought of themselves as already belonging to the "household of God" (Eph 2:12) rather than belonging to the present world, for that world was passing away (1 Cor 7:31). The time remaining to them had grown very short (1 Cor 7:29). They stood, they believed, at the very end of time, and hence the usual conventions of first-century society were no longer applicable (1 Cor 7:1-38). The end of the world was coming in their own lifetime (1 Thess 4:13-18; 1 Cor 10:11). Hence, they were not concerned with the betterment of human society. In fact, the Apostle Paul thought that even the created universe would need to be transformed to "be freed from its shackles of mortality" in order to "enter upon the glorious liberty of the children of God" (Rom 8:19-25, Revised English Bible).

The New Testament writers used a collective adjective to describe aspects of being human. A human being (a person) was an anthrōpos, and the adjective used to describe our species was anthrōpinos, "human" (1 Cor 2:13, 4:3, 10:13, Rom 6:19, James 3:7, Acts 17:25, 1 Pet 2:13). They never wrote, however, about humanizing an anthropos. In fact, their ancient texts do not even contain a word for "humanizing." The ancient Greeks, however, did have such a word. The word "to humanize" (exanthrōpizō) is used, for example, by Plutarch in a slightly different way than I have used it above. Plutarch described a humanizing of the divine: that is "degrading things divine to a human level."² On the other hand, I am describing degrees in the quality of human behavior and am arguing for the need to humanize the lesser human as revealed by their negative behavior.

The earliest Christians, on the other hand, were primarily interested in divinizing the human. Here is how the author of 2 Peter puts it:

[God's] divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature (2 Pet 1:3-4 NRSV).

The Revised English Bible translates the italicized phrase above this way "and may come to share in the very being of God."

Only the most conservative of religious groups have retained the intense end-time expectation. The more moderate have adjusted to life in this world and explain the delay in the end as the author of Second Peter does: the end is delayed because of the "forbearance of the Lord, not wishing that any should perish" (2 Pet 3:3-10). Folks, this little blue and white planet so far as anyone knows is the only place in the universe that can sustain life, we had better get serious in caring for it and helping the lesser humans among us to achieve their full potential as human beings. This planet is all we have. And in my view a planet in the hand is worth two heavens in the mind.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Hedrick, "From the Jesus Tradition: On Becoming and Being Human," Unmasking Biblical Faiths. The Marginal Relevance of the Bible for Contemporary Religious Faith (Cascade: Eugene, OR, 2019), 57-58; see also, "On Being Human in the Contemporary World," ibid., 55-56.

²"Isis and Osiris" in F. C. Babbit, Plutarch's Moralia (Loeb Classical Library, 1962), 5.55-56 (360). Plutarch (AD 46 to after 119) was a philosopher and priest of Apollo at the God's cult center in Delphi, Greece.

What is the Meaning of Life?

Who among us, at one time or another, has not pondered what the meaning of life is, or asked: Why am I here? What’s life all about? These latter two questions are asking about the life of the individual. This essay, however, looks primarily at the issue from the “perspective” of Life itself.

The dictionary gives two definitions for “mean” used as a verb: (1) to mean is to have in mind as a purpose, to intend; (2) to mean is to intend to convey, to show or indicate, to signify. These definitions lead me to the question: what does Life intend or signify, if anything? Unfortunately, there is no definitive answer to the question. Here is what I think.

According to scientists, the first stirrings of Life on earth were humble:

In those early days lightning and ultraviolet light from the sun were breaking apart the simple hydrogen-rich molecules of the primitive atmosphere, the fragments spontaneously recombining into more and more complex molecules. The products of this early chemistry were dissolved in the ocean, forming a kind of organic soup of gradually increasing complexity, until one day, quite by accident, a molecule arose that was able to make crude copies of itself, using as building blocks other molecules in the soup.¹

This description of origin distantly echoes elements of the Genesis account of creation:

The earth was without form and void, darkness was upon the face of the deep…a firmament in the midst of the waters…separate the waters from the waters…earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed…waters bring forth swarms of living creatures… (Gen 1:2, 6, 11, 20 RSV) 

When no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up…a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground…formed man of dust from the ground. (Gen 2:4-7 RSV)

The biblical account of creation is a hypothesis and the scientific account is a theory. A hypothesis is a “working hunch or single tentative guess”; a theory is “a broader, more definitely established conceptual scheme. The difference between theory and hypothesis is a matter of degree.”²

However Life on earth may have happened, from inception it must have been self-programmed to survive, continue, and progress—judging by the fact that our earth continues to thrive with Life of all kinds. We Homo sapiens joined this great stream of Life millions of years later.³ Our species emerged from the great stream of Life without being consulted and I doubt we will be consulted about life’s ending or the fading away of our species.

One does well to ponder the meaning of Life, even though there is no definitive answer providing insight into our own personal living of Life. Initially, we pick up a little guidance from the influence of parents, and from that beginning we must make do. The simple truth is we live, and Life will become whatever we make of it.

These observations lead me to think of Life as a spectrum; at one end of the spectrum the meaning of Life is simply the living of it; that is to say: staying alive, or simply existing. At the other end of the spectrum the meaning of Life is living it well, or poorly. Within limits we get to decide which of these three options it will be. Living Life well is whatever one decides “well” is. It might be, as many believe, serving God (if God there be) or helping others; or it might be selling more beer than one’s nearest competitor. Living it poorly translates into frustrating the aggressiveness of life. Life aims at constant movement and improvement. Anything that one does to frustrate or block that intention is living Life poorly. Suicide, war, poverty, ignorance, racism, and other anti-life initiatives all frustrate the bountifulness and progress of Life.

For conscious life-forms⁴ what to do with life becomes an existential choice; non-conscious life-forms⁵ progress over time, or not, by means of natural selection, the process by which organisms change based on genes provided by “parents” and natural circumstances. Life’s prime directive for both life-forms is staying alive and progressing in the great stream of life. It is interesting to me that this areligious directive is not unlike that reflected in Genesis: “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion…over every living thing that moves upon the earth (Gen 1:28).⁶

Perhaps Life’s prime directive will become clearer if one asks oneself what is the meaning of life during a world-wide pandemic? The answer can only be: staying alive!

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Carl Sagan, Cosmos, 30-31. Here is another description of life’s origins: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life#:~:text=Life%20is%20a%20characteristic%20that,and%20are%20classified%20as%20inanimate.

²Louise B. Young, Exploring the Universe (2nd ed.; New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), 23.

³https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution.

⁴Conscious life-forms: capable of thought, will, design, or perception.

⁵Non-conscious life-forms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution.

⁶This prime directive is repeated to Noah with some significant differences (Gen 9:3-7). The formula, “Be fruitful and multiply,” is also found at: Gen 28:3; 35:11; 48:4; Lev 26:9; Jer 23:3.

Judging Others

Jesus said, or at least two gospels attribute the saying to him: “Judge not that you be not judged” (Matt 7:1; Luke 6:37). The saying is a Q tradition, but it may have been attributed to Jesus in error by the later Christian community. Paul (Rom 2:1) and James (4:12) employ the idea of not judging others without making any reference to Jesus, and the idea of not judging others is found in rabbinic traditions. Hence, the concept may likely have been derived from Israelite and/or Christian wisdom. The Jesus Seminar voted that it was not a saying of Jesus.¹ On the other hand if Jesus did prohibit judging others, as the writers of the gospels report, then he failed to follow his own advice, for the gospels depict him judging the intentions of others rather harshly. For example:

But woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you shut the kingdom of heaven against people; for you neither enter yourselves, nor allow those who would enter to go in (Matt 23:13; compare also: Matt 16:6, 12; 23:2-7; 23:13-33; Mark 8:15; Luke 11:39-44; 12:1).

The verse quoted above (Matt 23:13) was printed in grey in the Five Gospels, meaning that the saying itself should likely not be included in a databank of Jesus sayings, but one nevertheless might make use of some of the content for determining who Jesus was. Perhaps the most graphic saying as to how the gospel writers thought Jesus regarded the Pharisees is the harsh depiction of the Pharisee in the story of the Pharisee and the toll collector (Luke 18:10-14).²

            Making moral judgments about others is something that a wise person must inevitably do to survive in life. For example, even Jesus was thought to have denied that Caesar’s government was supported by God (Mark 12:17)³ and he insulted King Herod (Luke 13:32).⁴ Judging others is something we will all do living in a society that has not succeeded in eradicating the presence of grifters, “confidence men,” charlatans, cheats, swindlers, dishonest businessmen, scammers, “snake oil salesmen," and others who prey on the gullible and unsuspecting for whatever reason. I define “sitting in judgment of others” as evaluating their skill, competence, reputation, character, and honesty.⁵ We are particularly called upon to judge those who run for political office, but also used car salespersons, grocers (did they set their scales a bit too heavy, perhaps?), physicians, attorneys, baby sitters and even ministers (you will recall the numerous cases of child abuse involving Catholic priests, among others).

            In our society one cannot take everyone at face value, but is required to dig deeper and even question the motives of others. For example, one must weigh this question upon receiving a solicitation for money on the phone: is the person on the other end of the line being duplicitous or honest? Can I trust the attorney I have consulted about a legal matter to rigorously represent my interests in court? Can I simply trust that a particular charity soliciting funds from me will actually do what is promised or should I first judge their record and validate how they spend the money? All of these in my view are moral issues, and I have a moral obligation to act with integrity in my engagement with society.

            It would be nice if we lived in a perfect world, but alas we do not. The world is a threatening place. Even Jesus said: “be as wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matt 10:16 RSV; my translation: “be as sly as snakes and simple as pigeons”; compare Gos. Thom. 39b).⁶

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

¹See Funk and Hoover, Five Gospels, 153-54.

²This saying is printed in the Five Gospels in pink (p. 369), meaning that Jesus probably said something like this statement.

³As Paul did for example (Rom 13:1-7).

⁴Funk and Hoover, Five Gospels, 348-49. Luke 13:32 is colored grey; the Fellows found it plausible, however, that Jesus “may well have said something of the sort found in this verse.”

⁵I never worry with the intentions of others, for we can never know another’s intentions even should they tell us what their intentions are. Judging someone’s intentions is all guess work.

⁶Hedrick, Many Things in Parables; see pages vii-1x, for a discussion of the saying. The saying is colored in Pink in the Five Gospels, p. 169.

From the Jesus Tradition: On Becoming and Being Human

All of us are special, even those of us who are not. We belong to the animal species Homo sapiens (intelligent man), a thinking animal, capable of abstract thought, and logical analysis. Anthropologists tell us there have been several iterations of the genus Homo that preceded our species, apparently without our mental capability and potential; here are the names of those closest to us in the genus Homo: heidelbergensis, neanderthalensis, erectus, floresiensis.¹ They are now extinct.

 

            As a species of the animal kingdom, our kind (Homo sapiens) often exhibits an insensitive brutish behavior that unfortunately reflects a destructive aspect of our nature. Nevertheless, the higher aspects of our nature enable us to contribute to the enhancement of civilization and life in community through the arts, philosophy, science, etc. This dissonance in the nature of the species Homo sapiens between the lower and higher aspects of our nature, or perhaps better: between the animalistic and the humanistic aspects of our nature, raises the following question: what is the quintessential characteristic of human nature? That is to say: what is best in the nature of our species?

 

            I suggest that what is best in our nature is a kind of liberal humanitarianism grounded in the concept of altruistic and unconditional love. Altruistic love is an unselfish concern for and devotion to the welfare of other human beings without regard for personal benefit or personal cost. In a sense it is a self-denying love for other members of our species of whatever ethnic background.

 

            This kind of love is first met in the ancient world in the Jesus tradition. The Israelite tradition of "love your neighbor as yourself" (Deut 15:1-3) is essentially a tribal ethic, since a neighbor was one of your own tribe; that is to say, your fellow Israelite. And love was also extended to the stranger sojourning in the Israelite community (Lev 19:33-34), a custom grounded in the hospitality codes of the ancient near east.

 

            Through the Jesus tradition love for the neighbor passes over into the Christian communities (Rom 13:8-10) where the neighbor is not a fellow human being of whatever ethnic background but fellow Christians in the community (as in Rom 15:1-2; Gal 5:15-15). James 2:1-13, however, does seem to shade over into a universal humanitarian code of care and concern for fellow human beings of whatever ethnic background because concern and care is extended to any poor shabbily dressed person who wanders into a Christian assembly. So it is not necessarily at bottom a religious community ethic, but seems grounded in a kind of humanitarian concern for other human beings.

 

            One of the clearer expressions of a kind of secular altruistic love as a quality in human life is found in 1 Cor 13:1-13. In this chapter love is not motivated by religious belief or empowered by divine sanction. Here love has more value than religious acts and knowledge (13:1-2) and other forms of charity (13:3). It puts others before self (13:4-7), and epitomizes what it means to be a mature human being (13:11-12). Hence, love has greater value than even religious faith or hope (13:13). There is no mention in the chapter of God or Christ, but love is apparently an altruistic human response to the human other. For these reasons some scholars of the Jesus tradition do not regard the chapter as composed by Paul but as borrowed from the Greco-Roman tradition.

 

            The clearest expression of an altruistic unconditional love is the challenge of Jesus to "love your enemies" (Luke 6:27b; Matt 5:44). Matthew and Luke each try to domesticate the saying by suggesting practical actions one can perform that do not involve one actually loving an enemy—that is to say: do favors for those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for your abusers (Luke 6:27-31; Matt 5:43-44); all of which one can do without actually loving the enemy.

 

            When our behavior displays altruistic love, we are quintessentially human; when our behavior is brutish and uncaring, we are marginally human. Being human is not an accident of birth, but a matter of behavior.

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

¹Richard Potts and Christopher Sloan, What does it mean to be Human? (Washington: National Geographic, 2010), 32-33.

The Missouri “Freedom of Religion” Resolution

Senate Joint Resolution No 39 will likely come before Missouri voters in November 2016.  The Resolution amends article I of the state constitution and aims to protect certain religious organizations and individuals from being penalized by the state for their actions that are based on their "sincere religious beliefs concerning marriage between two persons of the same sex."  https://legiscan.com/MO/text/SJR39/id/1363282

 

Described by its proponents as "Religious Freedom" legislation, the Resolution actually legalizes religious discrimination. The Resolution involves the State of Missouri in taking sides in a religious dispute over the definition of what constitutes marriage.  On one side of the dispute are religious traditionalists, who hold the view that God's view of marriage consists of one man married to one woman.  They support their argument by quoting the Bible, but are simply incorrect in their conclusions as to what the Bible says about marriage (see http://blog.charleshedrick.com/2013/04/gods-view-of-marriage.html).  Their myopic misreading of the Bible makes their argument appear disingenuous.  The other side of the dispute is represented by members of the LGBT community and religious liberals in the Christian tradition who do not share the same definition of marriage and want the same status for same-sex unions as are enjoyed by other Missouri citizens.

 

            This Resolution would add Section 36 (having five subparagraphs) to Article I of the Missouri Constitution, which states that the state shall not impose penalties on religious organizations, clergy or religious leaders, churches and other houses of worship, or individuals who decline to provide goods and services to persons of same sex unions based on their "sincere religious belief" that marriage between two same-sex persons is not God's view of marriage—in short, the Resolution would not require them to associate with "those kind of people."  This Resolution in effect prohibits same-sex couples from describing themselves as married and permits discrimination against them.

 

            If SJR 39 becomes law the State of Missouri will clearly be in violation of Amendment 1 of the US Constitution by establishing a sectarian religious view as the law of the state of Missouri; Amendment 1 of the US Constitution states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."  SJR 39 legalizes discrimination when it authorizes the withholding of goods and services from a group holding to a minority religious view, and would thereby "establish" the traditionalists' religious view of marriage as law.

 

            If civil actions occur, initiated by plaintiffs who feel discriminated against, as well they might, courts will be forced to validate that the respondent's belief is both religiously based and that it is "sincerely" held.  This judgment will be required in order to identify those whose religious view is insincerely held (i.e., opportunistically) and others whose prejudicial views are not religiously based; state protections cover only those whose "religious view" is "sincerely held."  Sincerity (honesty of mind, freedom from hypocrisy) is a state of mind and impossible to determine—we never know for certain if people say what they are actually thinking—even when they tell us what they are thinking.

 

SJR 39 aims to legalize religious discrimination with impunity.

 

Charles W, Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

On Being Human

What are we—we creatures that rule over the earth?  Our scientific designation is homo sapiens (the sagacious primate); we are the surviving species of the genus "homo" (man) of the primate family.  We are mammals, and hence broadly speaking animals.  In polite company we generally refer to ourselves as human beings.  We tout ourselves as "made in the image of God" (Gen 1:26), a "little less than God" (Ps 8:4-8), and believe that we have, or are, an "eternal soul."  On the other hand, we are capable of unimaginable inhumane atrocities.  Two questions arise in my mind: what exactly, besides our brains, distinguishes us knowledgeable primates from the rest of the animal kingdom?  What distinguishes our better self from the egregious evil aspects of our own nature? Or putting the second question another way: could it be that some homo sapiens are actually less than human?

            One way to begin is by asking: what characterizes the species homo sapiens from other mammals?  Here are a few.  Perhaps to some slight degree some of these have been recognized in other mammals as well; nevertheless, it is only the homo sapiens that is characterized by things such as these:

Discovery and use of fire, invention of language, invention of writing and reading, abstract thought, curiosity, problem solving, inventiveness, invention of the family and the state, respectful disposition of our dead, mathematics, geometry, poetry, music, pursuit of science, space travel, etc.

            The word "human" comes from a Latin adjective: humanus: that is, aspects of or characterizing "man."  The word primarily is used of the finer aspects of our nature: humane, philanthropic, gentle, obliging, polite; of good education, well-informed, refined, civilized.  The word and its use suggest that someone can be homo sapiens and yet less than what we characterize as human.  The trajectory of our species from our "animal origins" to a "rage for knowledge" suggests that there are likely degrees to being human.  Apparently not all members of our species have either the capacity or the inclination to achieve in the areas noted above.

            The accomplishments of homo sapiens have generally benefitted our species.  And that feature (i. e., benefitting the common good) might be considered one standard for distinguishing the human among us from those who should be characterized as "less human."  In other words some homo sapiens are more controlled by the animal aspects of their nature than by their humane aspects.  While all of us are homo sapiens, not all of us are human in the sense of behavior embodying, or aiming to embody, the higher aspects of our nature.  Hence, an ethical distinction exists between the members of the species homo sapiens.  Some are clearly human in that they behave according to the higher aspects of their nature; others are less human because they do not; and still others may be said to be only marginally human because they behave in accord with the animal aspects of their nature.

            If these observations have any merit, they raise questions about how we educate and provide treatment for those in society who live by the laws of the jungle.

 

What are your thoughts?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University