What do Human Beings Owe Each Other..?

[HereForNow]

The question skin walker asks is a tough one to answer.

  Good job.

However I want to take a whack at this.

So, the question remains, what exactly constitutes improvement?

Well I would say that we need to take a look at whats failing.
We know that certain things aren't working. How much do we know about the everyday things we take for granted.

I guess understanding things like these would be an improvement all on it's own.

[Jeannette Latoria]

We know that certain things aren't working. How much do we know about the everyday things we take for granted.

What sorts of everyday things are you talking about, HFN?

[Dawn Moline]

It is true that we have a selfish society, I don’t know how it is over much the world, but the selfishness of some Americans is well-documented.

How to remedy that, as Skinwalker and Andrew bring up?  Well, my idea would be to have a greater emphasis on ethics and public service in the classroom.  True we tend to get a lot of our values and our prejudices from our parents, but the school helps, too.  It is where most young people spend most of their time and it's influence isn’t half as realized as it could be.

Ethics, mind you, not religious values.  There the wall between privacy and the church will still be observed.  We can teach our children to learn more about the arts, language and the sciences.  We can also teach them to be better people as well.

I would also place an emphasis on teaching people more about other cultures.  When we learn about one another, what gives each of our races their inherent value, we tend to have more respect for each other as people.  Think of it, we all learned about the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans back in school.  How much prejudice does your average American feel for them?  I would say that the answer to that would be "none."

[Dawn Moline]

To my mind, each person owes another an equal amount of charity and justice. Charity because, to me, there is no good reason for those who possess a lot to not help those who have very little.  Justice because those who see a crime occurring to another person should have in their moral compass, the will to try and stop it.  Those are my ethics.  I only wish I was in a better position to influence more people with them, and try and make this a better world.

[Aristotle]

Charity is the trait of an advanced civilization. Did prehistoric man feel any sense of charity towards the people he lived with?  I doubt it, if the archaeological evidence is any indication, they fought with one another for the material to survive and survival itself was an adventure.  And yet, people did tend to band together, more out of neccessity than anything else - many people can perform more work than one. 

Which brings us to my original point, namely that human beings are not, in themselves, good to each other.  Perhaps it is those instincts from more primitive times surviving, but people still tend to see each other more as competitors than people.  Back then, it was a race for survival, today it is a race to outdo one another and get more money. I don't know how one gets beyond that, you simply can't make people feel more of a responsibility towards one another if they first see one another as rivals.  As the point was made earlier, their really isn't much of a way to collectively improve people as a whole. I wish there were.  Somedays, I look around myself and I am shocked at how bad people are to those in need, especially those in best position to help.  Most charitable contributions, for instance, aren't even made by the rich, but by the poor and middle class.

[no thing]

You have lived your life and experienced many things. You have also been taught by others many, many things about the world, some true, some false. So here you and I sit, with our views, our similarities, and our differences, trying to determine the best way to help one another. In our discussions, we see that the similarities between us are not too hard to reconcile, since for whatever reason, we see eye to eye on something (or at least close). The differences between us are where we oftentimes dig in our heels, maintain our ‘correct’ view, and try and convince the other side that they are wrong and we are right.

So enough of us get together and declare that our view (and don’t forget, we have an ocean full of different views) is correct, and we must ‘convert’ the rest of humanity to our side. We have a bag full of tools to try and accomplish this with…religion, government, war, money, fear, etc. , but here we are in 2008 with war, greed, fear, etc.. The collective improvement of humankind BY OTHERS just does not seem to be working very well. We are in better shape than those living in the dark ages, but we still have many of the same issues.

As humankind grows, the ‘collective awareness’ increases, but I feel it is due to the individual’s striving that allows humanity to benefit. On an individual level, the point at which awareness begins to truly bloom is of course different for each and every individual. Some live many, many lifetimes and never ‘wake up’, but at some point, the individual truly awakens to their purpose. It has never been about changing someone else, for that is not what we are here to do. It has always been about improving ourselves. When we work on our own personal growth, and I am speaking about spiritual growth (not religious growth), we do make a difference.

The spiritual path is a continual search for truth, for, as corny as it sounds, the truth will set you free. When we learn a single ‘truth’, a tremendous amount of our personal views that we use to support our false ideas collapse and fall away. As we learn more truths, our decisions now reflect these truths. By improving ourselves and making beneficial choices in our lives, these choices will now be beneficial to humanity, since they are based on truth, not illusion.
 
‘You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink’. Only the horse can make that decision. You can teach humans about compassion, humility, love, etc., but only the individual can make the decision to apply these concepts.

ILAL

no thing

[Dawn Moline]

A new philosophy is needed if we are ever to better the human race.

What we need above all is the abolishment of money.  Money, the accumulation of it, and the striving to have it, have brought about nothing but misery and arrogance.  Money needs to be abolished if we are ever to progress as a human race.

Cheers,

Dawn

[Rain]

This is karma.  The world has been so greedy, selfish and destructive over the last fifty years that the cosmic forces are rebelling.  The financial crisis iwill be first, "pride goeth before the fall." Then, the world will be headed towards some more permanent change in 2012.  Both the Mayan calendar and the Bible Code say this.

[no thing]

Dawn,

Although money itself is not the real cause, I have to agree that it presents many problems. If we are to have a society/world that operates without it, then as you suggest, we need a new philosophy/paradigm to replace it with. No easy row to hoe for sure, but I feel this would be extremely important task to put our efforts into and would qualify as something that we humans owe to each other. Love would be the motivation. Could this move us away from ‘me’ to ‘we’?

Rain,

The last 50 years are full of greed, avarice, pain, and suffering, but I do not feel this time period is unique. Human kind has been using this approach for much, much longer than 50 years.

The Spanish conquests and unconscionable quest for gold, the French bid for world domination, the British empire, and for certain, the USA’s current and past dark conduct in obtaining natural resources around the world. The depression of the 30’s is remarkably similar to the conditions of today, but I do agree there is a difference at this pint in time. We had, have always had, the opportunity to turn things around, but the bulk of the population of earth was still asleep. Today, there is an awakening, a quickening, towards this change. The year 2012 and the changes associated with it will be scoffed at by many, but I feel it is a line in the sand, and once we reach this line, change will be forced upon us. ‘How’ is a very big question but mute at this point. Unfortunately, I feel this will be catastrophic, but fortunately, more humans are awakening, and the essence for a new earth/humanity relationship will come from this ‘awakened’ core of humanity.

I saw the movie remake of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” on Friday, and although in my opinion, it was only a fair-to-average movie (~B), there was one sentiment that echoed with a ring of truth…we have always had the opportunity to change, but it is not until we are at the precipice of total destruction that this change will take place. Getting to the precipice will be the catastrophic part, but at the brink, we will make the necessary adjustments.

ILAL

no thing

[Skinwalker]

Catastrophe is the only thing that brings about change.  The natural human impulse is towards greed and complacency.

On the bright side, as an actor, Keanu Reeves really sucks, doesn't he?  He is so wooden. he will turn even a good idea, like "Constantine" into crud.  The guy really needs some acting lessons.

[Desolate Angel]

In the end, people do things simply because they have to do them and human nature leaves much to be desired.  More often than not, one's first impulse is towards his or herself and not others.

[HereForNow]

We know that certain things aren't working. How much do we know about the everyday things we take for granted.

What sorts of everyday things are you talking about, HFN?

Economic, Emotional and behavioral, technological, ect., ect.
Just about everything we do to make our lives easier is actually what is staining our whole way of life. 

[Seeker of Wisdom]

It is the simplest things in life that we most tend to take for granted, like peace of mind, for instance!

[Aristotle]

Often, I get the feeling we are seeing, before our eyes, the gradual unmaking of the human race.  Greed and avarice have finally caught up with us.  I do say "us," even though I have never been much of a greedy person myself. Simple survival has been enough at most times in my life, and I have learned to live with less. I'm often the last person to get caught up in current technology. Up until recently, I still watched the majority of things on VHS, and I didn't break down and buy a cellphone until this year.  I am speaking to you from a dial-up modem.

Technology has made the world more convenient, but I don't believe it has made it better.  Each time I remember how much I don't have, I remind myself that ancient man had to get by with far less. 

[no thing]

Aristotle,

Perspective is the ability for two people to look at the same thing and see something completely different based on their experiences.

“Often, I get the feeling we are seeing, before our eyes, the gradual unmaking of the human race.”

I feel the ‘unmaking’ is of the existing human society. We know in our heats that our current approach to life is flawed, but we have been lulled into believing we cannot change it. We can and we will, but I also feel there will be an external motivation, or to put it another way, change will not be an option, it will be forced upon us.

So, if this upcoming dramatic change is in the works and we cannot get out of its way, we will pass through the eye of the storm for it will hit us dead center. The world as we know it disappears. Then we are back to the question of; if the world as we know it is no longer, what do we replace it with? Do we begin to rebuild the old structures, or do we take this opportunity to create something new, different, better? I feel the answer will be that we create anew, for in our hard won wisdom, we ‘know’ in our hearts what needs to be done.

Humans manifest. What we have today, we manifested over a long period of time. We took ideas, desires, needs, etc., and over time, these ‘things’ grew into what you see around you. A new, different world requires new, different ‘things’. If we look through our ‘eye’ of wisdom, what do we want these new ‘things’ to be? We can build whatever we desire, so I feel having a clear picture of this new world is extremely important. Is this what we owe to our fellow human beings?

ILAL

no thing