How do theists actually understand what it means to be human?

InChrist said:

I believe the biblical scriptures to be inspired by God for a few reasons when compared to the other religious scriptures/writings, but would say accurate prophecy being the most prominent one, especially concerning Jesus Christ and events revolving around the nation of Israel.

Prophecy concerning future events are conspicuously absent from other religious books that claim to be scripture, including the Koran, the Hindu Vedas, Buddhist writings and others.

In the book of Isaiah, we can read that God challenged the pagan idolaters of that time to “tell us what the future holds, so we may know that you are gods” (Isaiah 41:32).


Prophecy

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The link you provided contains this comment: "Biblical prophecy is always fulfilled right on time in every detail."

So, if you wouldn't mind, please provide a small number (let's say 5 for now) of Biblical prophecies that do that: make a prediction which is fulfilled on time and in all details.

Evangelicalhumanist said:

The link you provided contains this comment: "Biblical prophecy is always fulfilled right on time in every detail."

So, if you wouldn't mind, please provide a small number (let's say 5 for now) of Biblical prophecies that do that: make a prediction which is fulfilled on time and in all details.

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I’m not going to list five, but here are a couple. Messianic prophecies and those concerning events surrounding the nation of Israel ( past and present) are easy enough to research yourself... if you are truly interested in the subject.

Prophecy:
Micah an eighth century B.C. prophet said the Messiah would come from Bethlehem (Micah 5:2).
Fulfillment:
Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem.
( Matthew 2:1-6; Luke 2:4-11)

http://www.newtestamentchristians.c...ent-Prophecies-Fulfilled-in-Jesus-Christ1.pdf


Prophecy:
600 B. C.
Therefore behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “that it shall no more be said, ‘The Lord lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,’ but, ‘The Lord lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north and from all the lands where He had driven them.’ For I will bring them back into their land which I gave to their fathers. (Jeremiah 16;14-15)
Fulfillment:
After WW2 this prophecy came to pass against all odds as the nation of Israel was re-established after over 1900 years of the Jewish people being scattered among the nations. An event like this is unprecedented.

Miracles: Re-birth of the Jewish State in the Land of Israel - Hope for Israel

Human life reviewed.

The See.

I see you whole first. Human first. What I see.

Science who gained advice first medical looking at the dead. Deceased human bodies.

Versus a healer spiritual medical appraised natural human first conscious conscience first basic observation. Spiritual awareness.

Sees the whole self without using human technology to allow minute unknown before to be seen via designed human machinery.

Not even considered as relevant advice to first origin human who chose the science expression as a human.

Says to the theist occult self who sacrificed life by occult sciences how wrong his theories are expressed in the bible as a scientist theist today talking to himself actually.

The medical sciences Jesus the healer review life sacrificed said no man is God.

The occult theist tried to convince everyone God is within us.

Yet we are bio water with mineral chemicals oxygenated living in the water heavens body.

Radiation from core heart said God hurt human life as planetary advice.

Ignored.

Who invented human expressed sciences?

Humans did.

Who said God the planet reactive was a living entity?

Humans did.

Who encoded science reasoning by designs and data?

Humans did.

So who encoded design and patterns expressed by humans as a book writer theist?

Humans did.

The reason why prophecy human chosen. Human patterned own interactive human choices by human readings as read for humans by humans motivating humans

All human. Not some supernatural special event.

When the people irradiated mutated had to migrate due to food shortage they vowed that they would return to their homeland and reclaim health happiness with a non expressed dis spirited loss.

Occult science caused all losses. All misinterpreted readings. Bullying and evil human coercive belief.

Against family. Humans.

No special family anywhere on earth.
No special chosen especial better human life.

Consciousness in human life spiritual first. As was health.

We were mutated irradiated in UFO history.

We lived partially whole human a portion of natural human family genetics survived living with sacrificed life body mutation.

A human memory for everyone. Our parents life continuance was the healthy left as human DNA that survived mutation.

Owned by everyone.

If a human harmed self so evilly. Now comes back to remember history of humans and life. Then it is a proven correlated human chosen outcome.

To remember.
To relearn how wrong humanity is.
And to begin again because we can.

firedragon said:

I am not so sure. I dont want to say "WHAT I THINK" and pretend that is a "CORRECT DEFINITION OF HUMAN NATURE".

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There is no 'human nature' except being 'selfish' (or of any other animal, nothing shameful about it). Not to be so, is a learnt behavior (due to social training).
That is when it becomes shameful.

Aupmanyav said:

There is no 'human nature' except being 'selfish' (or of any other animal, nothing shameful about it). Not to be so, is a learnt behavior (due to social training).
That is when it becomes shameful.

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Quite wrong, actually. I have tried to provide pointers to where you can actually learn something based in science, but if you're not interested, well then, of course, you're not going to be bothered.

But you are still very wrong.

Reflex actions are generally very quick but cannot always avoid damage completely, like a cricketer trying to avoid a bouncer by moving away. The ball may be hurtling at a speed of 100 mph (161 kms - Bret Lee, Shawn Tait, both Australians).

Evangelicalhumanist said:

Quite wrong, actually. I have tried to provide pointers to where you can actually learn something based in science, but if you're not interested, well then, of course, you're not going to be bothered.

But you are still very wrong.

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Science is just a thesis. Thought.

Every state natural exists. Owning no human argument. As even legal would support that status.

Human behaviour is being thought against life origin. No human behaviour exists in first forms. Just realise what evil thinkers claim in a motivated theists reason.

First form contacts for a theory. Not human in any description.

First a human making all claims is self destructive behaviour. Self human is origin only as first to human form. Parents. Ignored human first.

In creation. Humans form however is not first form itself.

How conscious self human lied to self by conscience.

Conscience first gave a name word to any state natural. The first use words holy as a human claim. Every state natural. Normal. Present.

Inventive science not existing.

The ego lie I know everything. As a human.

Then says origin form was a God particle. Knowing we stand on a planet we named God. A planet mass fused is no particle.

Next science thought radiation released out of planet formed gas heavens as very high radiating gases. Spirit. Not radiation a gas radiating.

Human self not there. Thinking is.

Human thought then self human theist used words said invented garden nature wood.

Why you say life thinker conscious was sacrificed on cross of wood. In human life.

When life body was attacked by radiation ground gas burning of God.

As theist claim first firm of a radiating gas as science burnt very cold gases in a cold heavenly water body.

Water kept life safe by a percentage only. Gas burning mutated the rest of bio cell. Actually caused by what is fake theorising.

As a human is origin first in their human form only where they are in a cold water heavens.

Makes no common sense for human owned behaviours to be intricately studied unless the intention is to remove their expressions.

Why the thinker human is a dangerous thinker as human behaviour in a thesis first not pre exist himself.

Thinking AI computer mind coercion programs the whole time. Human inputted. Human control of human designed and human controlled machines.

How evil is a theist. Proven by their thoughts.

Evangelicalhumanist said:

We know what morality is BECAUSE of our human nature -- that PART of our human nature is a sense of what is required to live a human life.

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If activities ordered to human flourishing (and inferred from the kind of nature we have) are what we should do, then what is the reason for why those activities are good?

Aupmanyav said:

There is no 'human nature' except being 'selfish'

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Please provide the evidence for that.

An infant wants food and comfort, nothing else matters. All the rest of behaviors are learnt later.

Aupmanyav said:

An infant wants food and comfort, nothing else matters. All the rest of behaviors are learnt later.

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Incomplete thinking. Try teaching anything to someone who only wants to eat and be cuddled -- you can't, because they'll ignore everything else. The infants mind is alread PRIMED for learning -- that is part of its "nature." It is constantly observing through all of its senses, and trying to organize/categorize and ascribe meaning to everything that it senses/observes. The same thing is true of language: its mind is pre-prepared to assimilate language. It doesn't matter which language, that's a triviality. But it is primed to name things (nouns), assess things (adjectives) and see how things act (verbs). Every language has these constructs. It is also primed from birth to think in terms of will happen, or already happened (future and past tenses). Every language has these, too. This is part of the organization of the language areas of the brain.

If there were nothing like I am describing, then it should be possible for any higher animal, other than humans, to learn language and tool use, too. You just have to teach them, right? But you can't -- part of their nature is not even to possess brain structures that can assimlate that learning.

Evangelicalhumanist said:

-- part of their nature is not even to possess brain structures that can assimlate that learning.

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I find that a bit funny.
Animals use language and tools, learn things. Check on Youtube. Humans are just one more kind of animals.

Aupmanyav said:

I find that a bit funny.
Animals use language and tools, learn things. Check on Youtube. Humans are just one more kind of animals.

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I see the problem -- you are hugely over-generalizing.

Look, while it is very true that much of an adult's mental makeup is the result of his/her history and the enveloping culture within which the individual developed. But you forget that CULTURE itself is a very, very human thing. The question of human nature is whether there are any dispositions or behavioral outcomes that are largely independent from these learning and developmental processes. Are there any social behaviors, emotions, or impulses that are an innate part of the human mental system? The sociobiologists have offered one line of analysis on this question. They note that the human mental system -- cognition, emotions, and the control of behavior -- is embodied in an organ that is itself subject to natural selection and evolution, the central nervous system. So it seems logical to expect that this system will have acquired some socially specific characteristics through the evolution of hominids and modern human beings.

And surely the foundation of the approach is a valid one: the human brain has been shaped through natural selection; skill in social relationships is relevant to reproductive success; so it is logical to expect that there has been specialized brain development around the challenges of social interaction. And the fact is, human beings are a eusocial species. We behave, as a species, in ways that no other species on earth does.

But if you suppose that all you are is a generalized learning machine, and that you could therefore learn to see the flower the way the bee does, you are welcome to think so. If you think a bonobo can learn to write a sonnet or sculpt an image of her friend, you're welcome to suppose that, too. I don't care.

But what you are really saying, over and over, is that there is nothing about being human that is unique from anything else in the animal kingdom -- in which case, why call us human?

Aupmanyav said:

I find that a bit funny.
Animals use language and tools, learn things. Check on Youtube. Humans are just one more kind of animals.

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And ultimately, if you think that all we are is a generalized learning machine -- well, what other animal does that? That, in itself, would be part of "what it is like to be a human."

And what other animal composes music? No, not the brain-mandated songs of birds or whales, nor the mimicry of the lyre bird and parrot, but something utterly new and never-before conceived? Or writes sagas covering generations? Or paints the ceilings of chapels and turns blocks of marble into indescribable beauty? Or walks upright, has sex anytime (not just at mating time), while solving the mathematics behind the lever and in the inclined plane?

What other animal can get together with its fellow bringing a vast variety of very different skils to create a cathedral? (Okay, termites and leafcutter ants can build air-conditioned homes, but they are not bringing multiple skill-sets together to accomplish that, nor are they different expressions of an innate artistic ability to express culture at the same time as they express pure utility.)

If no other animal does all of that, then there is indeed something that it is "like to be a human."

Evangelicalhumanist said:

We behave, as a species, in ways that no other species on earth does.

But what you are really saying, over and over, is that there is nothing about being human that is unique from anything else in the animal kingdom -- in which case, why call us human?

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We have a difference of opinion, Evangelicalhumanists. I feel in behavior we are hardly any different from an ape or a chimp, or even an orangutan. That we can do somethings in a way better than them does not mean much. We cannot swing through trees. Langur, chimp, ape, human, Slender Loris, we are all mammals, and primates of various shapes, all originating from the same stock, that is why different names. Some 6,400 species of mammals evolving over 300 million years.

Evangelicalhumanist, I follow Advaita Hinduism (non-duality), that is why I do not differentiate between people or species. For me it is one single entity, Brahman, which constitutes all things in the universe, right from a grain of sand to humans.

night912 said:

You just contradicted yourself. If you think that when things go by human nature, anything is possible, then it's possible for human nature to come up with teachings like, "love your neighbor."...

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I said: “…anything is possible that benefits the person…”.

Aupmanyav said:

We have a difference of opinion, Evangelicalhumanists. I feel in behavior we are hardly any different from an ape or a chimp, or even an orangutan. That we can do somethings in a way better than them does not mean much. We cannot swing through trees. Langur, chimp, ape, human, Slender Loris, we are all mammals, and primates of various shapes, all originating from the same stock, that is why different names. Some 6,400 species of mammals evolving over 300 million years.

Evangelicalhumanist, I follow Advaita Hinduism (non-duality), that is why I do not differentiate between people or species. For me it is one single entity, Brahman, which constitutes all things in the universe, right from a grain of sand to humans.

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Tribalism is a fundamental human trait – forming groups and getting comfort and pride from familiar fellowship, defending the group against rival groups, etc., are among the true “universals” of human nature. And that contributes hugely to human culture.

Interestingly, once formed, group boundaries are malleable, and we all belong to many groups at the same time, so our loyalties are sometimes split. Members of our various groups consist of allies, recruits, converts, honorary inductees, even traitors from rival groups who have “crossed over.” Identity and some degree of entitlement are given each member of a group, but also, any prestige and wealth a member has may lend identity and power to other members of the group.

Modern groups are psychologically equivalent to the tribes of ancient history and prehistory, and the instinct that leads us to group thus is the biological product of group selection.

People must have a tribe, while other large primates have much less or no such need. Sheep like the safety of belonging to a flock, but safety is all it is – being alone makes a sheep extremely anxious. Moose don’t like the company of other moose, unless it’s late September or October breeding season. Our closest relatives, the chimpanzees, live in groups of maybe a couple of dozen, but it is a single tribe, without any tendencies to form in multiple groupings for various purposes.

But the social world of humans is not a single tribe, but an array of interconnecting tribes, often very hard to map out. We like the company of like-minded friends and yearn to be among the best – an army regiment, or maybe an elite college; the executive committee of a company, a religious sect, a fraternity, garden club, book club – any collectivity that can be compared with other competing groups of the same category.

I don’t know what it’s like where you live when World Cup Football is happening, but in my multicultural city of Toronto, the support for one’s “team” is astonishing. So many cars sporting national flags, or club banners, so many ritual cheers, hailing the superiority of “our team.” Even the games the play are like warrior clashes on ritualized battlefields. Good grief, I’ve even watched the young Lamas in Tibet or northern India cheering on their team.

Not to mention that the Lamas in Tibet or northern India are part of their own elite “tribe,” just as are the Carmelite nuns in one of Canada’s many convents.

Social psychologists have conducted many experiments that show how quickly and decisively people divide into groups, then discriminate in favour of the one to which they belong. Even if the groups were 100% arbitrary in nature, once you belong, you discriminate in favour of your group and against competing groups.

In its power and universality, this tendency to from groups and then favour in-group members has the earmarks of instinct. It is an example of “prepared learning;” the inborn propensity to learn something swiftly and decisively. Thus, the propensity is very probably inherited, and if so, can be reasonably supposed to have arisen through evolution by natural selection. Other examples of such prepared learning among humans include language, incest avoidance and the acquisition of phobias.

If groupist behaviour is truly an instinct expressed by inherited prepared learning, we should expect to find signs of it even in very young children – and exactly this phenomenon has been discovered by cognitive psychologists.

On the downside, this instinct towards forming and enjoying in-group memberships easily translates at a higher level into tribalism. People are prone to ethnocentrism, and don’t kid yourself, even though it is uncomfortable, humans given a guilt-free choice prefer the company of others of the same race, nation, clan, and religion. Even the accents of non-native speakers can lead to considering them outsiders, as we well know. And you can even see that in the Bible, in Judges 12:5-6:


Experiments have been done that show black and white Americans being flashed pictures of the other race, and their amygdalas, the brain’s center of fear and anger, were activated so quickly and subtly that the conscious centers of the brain were unaware of the response. When, on the other hand, appropriate contexts were added—say the approaching black was a doctor and the white his patient—two other sides of the brain integrated with the higher learning centers, the cingulate cortex and the dorsolateral preferential cortex, lit up, silencing input through the amygdala.


So, @Aupmanyav, I contend that even following your path, you incorrectly downplay the fact that there is truly something that can be called human nature, and this instinct towards tribalism is only a single example.

Note: the forgoing was paraphrased with some heavy copying from Edward O. Wilson, from his book The Social Conquest of the Earth.

Evangelicalhumanist said:

So, @Aupmanyav, I contend that even following your path, you incorrectly downplay the fact that there is truly something that can be called human nature, and this instinct towards tribalism is only a single example.

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Evangelicalhumanist, Advaita goes beyond tribalism. It is universalism. What you term as human nature, I would term as animal nature. Are not humans animals too? Why do you differentiate between humans and other animals? It is OK to have different views, after all, am I not a Hindu? We value truth but do not bristle at different views.

Science mentality.

Group control. Human history. Civilization Group a lazy inhumanity.

Not family orientated said you all work for my status. Previously our elder parents owned the respect of non working equality. Family. Community. Self respect. Mutual support

Thinker greedy lazy lives I will invent for my status greedy to evolve. You all must suffer any status I enforce.

Evil human separated group behaviour. Not family motivated.

Owns machines. Uses machines to enforce controls idealised control by machine status.

Studies phenomena.
Sees mind coercion psychic human. Thinks control again.

Build machine program. Is using programs. Machine what he controls does not own what he changes. Heavenly gas spirit body. Feedback. He is not possessing us as his belief.

So he does not actually own control. It is just by machine status only.

Human self owned.

All humans from sperm ovary interaction not any baby not child not adult behaviours.

No human to attack study no science thesis.

All humans die.

Coercive human non stop historic liar a self assessment. Known. Agreed. Aware. But does not stop behaviour himself.

We want you to stop your science self destructive behaviours as human aware and as humans consciousness which you use also. So too are awAre of wrong behaviours but don't impose it upon your own self destructive science behaviours.

When your own consciousness says it is you we want stopped.

The ridiculous ideals of self destructive human mentality. To idealise that a machine could mimic human behaviour when a machine is controlled by its human thinker not behaving.

No scientist you certainly don't mimic human spiritual behaviours.

1213 said:

I said: “…anything is possible that benefits the person…”.

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And how is, "love thy neighbor" not benefiting the person? The selfish person is telling others to love himself. Isn't it beneficial for him to have thousands of people to love him?