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What does it mean to be human?

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Human nature is a concept that denotes the fundamental dispositions and characteristics- including ways of thinking and feeling and acting- that humans are said to have naturally. The term is often used to denote the essence of humankind, or what it 'means' to be human.

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According to Abrahamic Scriptures, God has created man in the image of Himself. He is The One True God, Our Creator and Source of Life- and to Him belong the Most Beautiful Names and Attributes. According to Scripture, man has been granted 'freewill' and has the ability therefore to choose what he or she believes. This is a given right to all humans. Man therefore has the ability (which might vary from individual to individual) according to the use of his mind and heart, through his or her perception of reality and life, and intellect and reason, to establish a relationship with others through knowing and understanding how to incorporate His Attributes into his or her own life. Hence through gaining wisdom and seeking truth with sincerity of the heart and reflecting on and incorporating those attributes through our own experiences and our experiences with each other, we are able to draw closer to 'Knowing' Him and therefore living in 'Peace' within ourselves and one another. According to Scripture: without having a good relationship with our Creator, we are unable to establish good relationships with each other- because all the attributes which enable us to have better relationships with one another depend on 'righteousness' and the ability to judge 'right' from 'wrong.' In order to be able to 'treat one another how we ourselves want to be treated' the Scriptures invite us to taking responsibility of our lives according to our abilities, and incorporating the concepts of 'peace, loving kindness, truth, honesty, integrity, humility, trust, justice, respect, tolerance, sacrifice, forgiveness, joy, gratitude, perseverance and righteousness' into our lives. The Abrahamic description of God through Scriptures passed down through 'prophets and Messengers' is that He is the Source of Life, The Source of Creation, The Source of Truth, The Source of Wisdom, The Source of All-Knowledge, The Source of Light, The Source of Love, The Source of Mercy, The Source of Forgiveness, and Source of all that is 'Good' and all that exists. The Scriptures invite mankind to turn to their Source in order to attain Peace, The One True God, for help and guidance in order for man to be 'saved' from the evil that results from man's own 'free-will.' 

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According to Scripture, without God's guidance, man naturally inclines to evil, and without surrendering to a way of 'seeking truth' with honest hearts, man is inclined to following the pleasures of this worldly life which results in loss, and suffering. When man assumes himself to be 'self-sufficient' he can become ungrateful and 'arrogant' and stop learning and growing spiritually. This can result in lack of understanding and wisdom that can lead mankind to be driven by 'ego' and 'greed' and 'selfishness' which can cause harm to our planet, its creatures and to our relationship with one another. According to Scriptures, the more that a human is given knowledge, the more 'free-will' he or she has, and therefore the more 'responsibility' he or she has to use this in the best way possible in order to establish a better relationship with our Creator and with creation. 

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To better understand the natural inclinations of human nature- let us look at children and their natural tendencies. Children are born into this world, pure and innocent, without the knowledge of how to read or write or speak or create labels to be able to communicate. This creates a sense of 'innocence' about them and they depend solely on the kindness and compassion and love of others to provide and look after them and cater for their needs. As they get older, we see that children live in the moment- they naturally seek the worldly pleasures of fun and games and toys and jokes, and laughter and amusement. They take adults as 'role models' because they naturally seek 'guidance' in order for their development as they get older. They may copy our behaviours because they look unto us as role models. They do not easily reflect on their behaviours at a young age because they lack a certain type of wisdom that comes with experience and knowledge. They make promises and do not keep to them. They are often hasty and do not understand the meaning of 'patience'- when they want something they want it 'now.' CHildren go through a phase of being inconsiderate to others' feelings because to them all that matters is that 'it is my toy and I must have it.' They do not understand naturally the value of money or the requirement to earn something through work. CHildren put their lives in our hands, and surrender to the parents for provision and guidance. This allows them to act irresponsibly- when we provide and provide and if we do not guide them as to what is right and what is wrong. When they behave or say hurtful things that cause harm to others they require discipline and a reminder and often punishment of some sort in order to help them reflect and mend their ways. Once we start to use disciple and punishment as a way of teaching them what is right and wrong, we see that children are much more likely to pay attention to their behaviour. But the punishment we give them tends to come from love for them, because we want them to grow in a way that they take responsibility for their words and actions and want them to grow into adults who have a good sense of what is right and wrong, in order for them to be successful. When children are rewarded for an act that pleases us and we know is good them, they become more likely to continue doing that act. If they are punished for something that they have said or done which has caused harm to them or others, they are more likely to continue avoiding that behaviour. They however are easy to forget, and require constant discipline and consistency in the way that an adult teaches them in order to develop a strong sense of morality of right and wrong.  They depend on their parents to help to 'show them the way' and yet we see that children are much better than adults at generally 'living in the moment' and therefore being happy and at peace with themselves. Without our guidance of what is 'right and wrong' children are inclined to being selfish and inconsiderate of others' around them. However as they get older, and their level of reason and logic and intellect develops, children learn how to question themselves and the behaviours of both themselves and others around them. They may begin to think for themselves and even question the guidance that their parents have shown them. They learn to start to make decisions according to their level of free -will, and understand the concept of free-will and reach an age of maturity where they do not live their lives according to the will of others but according to their own will. 

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Now- if we see ourselves as children, with child-like natural tendencies to behave in a certain way- we can relate to what we learn about the natural human nature from our understanding of the behaviour of our children and apply it to ourselves. We are not much different to children in the sense that all humans require some sort of guidance from a Higher Being in order to be rightly guided. Without guidance and without discipline in our lives, and without reminders of what is right and wrong- we naturally as human beings, incline to forgetfulness just like children do- and get distracted by play and amusement- just like children do- and get distracted by what our physical being as human desires for themselves  making it less likely that we will behave in a spiritual sense of wanting to help others, and treating others how we want to be treated. To children, we are like the higher being and the guidance and light that helps them through their age of darkness. But even they reach a point in maturity that they start to question us and our guidance according to their level of free-will, intellect, and us of reason and logic to help guide them to Truth. The older we become, the more experience we have, and the more opportunity we have to learn from our mistakes and reflect on our behaviours. Our development through childhood can hugely impact the way we live our lives as adults, and much of what we believe and the way we behave is dependent on our upbringing. However it is not definite. When we choose to use God as our Guide and look to Him for wisdom and knowledge- we see that we are no longer bound by living our lives in a way that others expect or will- we start living according to our own understanding and according to His Divine Will. He can guide to the best of characters by His will, and we break free from the normal Societal expectations. Man naturally makes mistakes, has imperfections and therefore his speech or actions will often be contradictory. Man is naturally inclined to seeking perfection- and by having faith in a Higher Being who is Perfect- from a child's perspective they naturally assume this is their parents- but as we become more wise- we learn that even our parents make mistakes which lead to contradiction and therefore falsehood- so we are more likely to look at the universe and turn to God when seeking perfection. We become to see Him like a 'Parent figure' and perhaps this is why some refer to Him as 'Father who art in Heaven.' Humans have the ability to use Him as a role model and a guidance to help them develop their morality and character and shape their behaviour according to what is Best, and His attributes. By seeing ourselves as created in His image, we find strength in His beautiful attributes and strive towards trying to incorporate these attributes to ourselves. For this to happen, we must live in this world of duality, because what is truth without falsehood, what is love without hatred, what is mercy without punishment, what is good without evil, what is life without death?

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Is a human a physical being or are they a spiritual being? When we see being human as simply a physical being- we can sometimes be distracted by the by seeking the physical pleasures of this physical world-  live as we would if we were apes or monkeys, without giving much attention to our spiritual being or the well-being of our human soul. By looking after our spirituality on the other hand, we are more likely to have a level of consciousness which stops us from causing harm to others, and helps to encourage us to treat others as we ourselves want to be treated. If we see being human as more of a spiritual being- we are more likely to seek true happiness through seeking peace in the concepts of love, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, integrity, honesty etc which form the basis of our moral structure, enable to understand and use our consciousness to guide us and differentiate us from other animals and help one another, and look after our species of humanity and the planet on which we live with others of His Creation by seeing ourselves through the reflection in others. 

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Humans are not Perfect. They make mistakes, and without knowledge and wisdom they often cause harm to others without knowing, even though the intention behind the behaviour might be pure. They have free-will to choose what to believe, to think freely, and many have been given the intellect and the ability to learn to read and write and therefore be 'creative' and gain wisdom through knowledge and experience. Humans are advanced when compared to other creatures. Through choosing words to label the physical objects in the world within which we live, and label our perceptions and by writing down names that we have labelled ourselves and reading what others have written we can seek knowledge and pass on this knowledge from generation to generation. Without the ability to learn by 'The Pen' let us ask ourselves what our lives would look like? How would we learn at schools? How would we record historical events and learn from them? How would we learn about Scripture and religion and make advancements in scientific knowledge? The human brain, the intellect, and our eyes, our ears, our tongues and use of speech and sound- has enabled man to be able to 'name' objects and therefore create language as a way of communicating with one another at a level that other species cannot do. Even though we are of the same species as other humans, we have the ability to create new ways of communicating according to our groups and tribes- it is not only an instinctive behaviour- but in fact a huge responsibility given to us. Sometimes we get things wrong. Sometimes our desire for the world life urges us to pass on false knowledge in order to mislead others or because of our selfish desires for wealth, power and and success in this world life. This often leads to contradiction in the knowledge that we sometimes choose to pass to one another. Therefore that huge responsibility of man relies on all of us to ask questions regarding the knowledge that we seek- and use use our own logic and reason and intellect to help distinguish truth from falsehood. 

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According to knowledge from Scripture we learn that free-will enables man to be able to 'choose' whether he or she wants to live in the physical or the spiritual as a human. A good 'balance' of the spiritual with the physical enables humans to achieve their greatest potential. The physical allows us to express and create a positive environment for ourselves and others through spirituality. The duality of the physical and spiritual form of humans is what makes them unique and special. 

 

The 'soul' is something that we do not know much about- except that according to religious Scripture- it is from God, and that all humans and living creatures have been given one. Scripture advises us to look after our souls by being true to our purpose in life and encourages humans to seek knowledge, wisdom, truth, justice and act in loving kindness by treating others as we treat ourselves. It teaches us that whether even though we might be different in the physical sense- black, white, different colours, shapes and sizes, male, or female- that we are all in fact the same in the sense that we all have a soul from Him- and that the only thing which makes one person better than another is their level of righteousness. Free- will gives us the ability to 'choose' what we worship. This is a God-given right to all humans. According to Scripture, angels are made of Light and do exactly what they are told, so they worship their Lord out of compulsion and not out of free-will. Humans however have the free-will to be able to choose whether to worship ( and therefore obey) Him, or be left to their own ways and understanding and reject any guidance that He has shown us. Humans can choose to worship other 'deities'- they can choose to worship a shoe or a fly if they wish- even if it goes against logic or reason as to why they might choose to do so- if that is what they really want to do- God has granted them ability to do so. Scriptures tell us that there is no compulsion in religion. However His guidance advises us that this is man's choice of making a conscious decision to choose to be physically human rather than spiritually human- and that eternal spiritual life is not compatible with living purely in the physical of this world.

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This world we live in is a world of duality. Our perception and understanding and moral judgement of what is good and what is evil comes from our natural inclination and desire to 'know' and 'to understand' while living through human experience ourselves. The existence of our need to use logic and reason gives us the ability to pick out 'truth' from 'falsehood' in a world of contradiction. However as being human we also understand that simply asking questions and seeking answers in not enough- our intellect alone does not answer everything. Our hearts and minds and souls must all be well balances and help one another in the path to Truth and Love. Science for example cannot answer everything: it can help to answer 'how but can it answer 'why?' -only through human experience can humans relate to and understand the concepts of the opposites of existence, and thereby through reflection and mindfulness become more aware of their 'consciousness' and the attributes of a Higher Being: 'what is love and where does it come from?' 'what is compassion and where does it come from?' 'what is forgiveness and where does it come from?' 'what is kindness? and where does it come from?'- and why is it that humans have the ability to feel strong emotions such as love and compassion, and mercy, and kindness? What is Justice and how do we make the moral judgement of right and wrong? How do we measure these things? 

 

According to Abrahamic Scriptures, God has made man in a form that can express and therefore relate to His Beautiful Attributes. Man kind goes through a life of duality or opposites in order to really appreciate His Attributes. Human speech and behaviour if left to its own accord often brings about contradiction. If we believe that only God's Truth and Words are non contradictory- Can we not use this as guide to help us to distinguish Truth from falsehood, and a guide to how we as humans can be more truthful in our ways?- do our intentions thoughts and speech and behaviour contradict one another? If so- then how can it be truth? If only God knows our soul desires, our intentions in our hearts and our innermost thoughts of our subconscious- and Scripture teaches us that He Alone knows everything- He is the Best of Judges, and Most Compassionate, Most Merciful while also being Just- Who is a better Judge than He? So let us not judge one another- let us all take responsibility ion acting in accordance to truthfulness, and live and learn through experience, while intending to help others in our deeds, and if we make a mistake or err- let us forgive one another, pardon each other, and keep trying and learning from our experiences and from each other for we all share a soul- the same soul- which we must look after, protect in order to have spiritual life in this world full of distractions and play.

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We are Human. We can choose how to live our life according to what has been given to us and according to what we have of talents and blessings. We can choose to live a life seeking the pleasures of this world- the physical- the material- such as investing in physical things which give us more financial gain- we can choose to be selfish and cheat and lie and steal and deceive one another for our own financial or material gain or for a short lasting pleasure of the flower of this world which eventually withers and disappears. Or we can choose to live our lives and use our blessings according to what we have of talents, eyes, ears, mouths with which to speak, hearts with which to hear- and our material possessions- not just to help ourselves, but to help the lives of others who are less fortunate than us. This way we can invest in the life of the hereafter- invest in what God according to Scripture invites all of mankind to do regardless of their 'religion label' - to invest in Him who is all Good, by helping one another, while turning to Him for guidance and wisdom, with honest truthful hearts-  in any way that we can. Sometimes the human being must struggle and face hardship in this world in the physical sense, but spiritually he or she will not face 'suffering' but be granted 'inner peace' and blessed with love and compassion and forgiveness and the ability to judge between 'right' and 'wrong' in the face of affliction- He or she will be granted 'wisdom' through making that conscious choice to choose spiritual life over the physical material pleasures of this world which comes through helping others and seeking His Pleasure and worshiping and obeying Him once we have been given the knowledge of what we define to be 'Truth.'

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Humans are constantly changing. We have the ability to learn from the past and from our mistakes and the mistakes of others, and we have the God-given freedom to be able to choose what we believe, learn about who we are and who we want to be- we have the freedom to choose how we want to use what we have been given, our blessings in this world that we have been born into. 

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Through Scripture and experience and reflection we can learn that 'Wisdom' can help feed the soul and protect it from spiritual death. Wisdom from scripture, when sought with seeking truth in loving kindness can help guide us into shaping our behaviours in a way that is form what we understand to be pleasing to the Lord.

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How can we become more 'Righteous?'

 

Here are some characteristics of what God describes from Scripture to be characteristics of a 'righteous' human:

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Honest, peace-loving, truth-seeking, wisdom-seeking, reflective, mindful, thoughtful,  kind and generous, charitable, Loving, compassionate, merciful, gracious, Just and fair, humble and modest, moderate and well balanced, oft- repentant, grateful, forgiving and pardoning to others, non-judgemental, self-critical, disciplined, obedient to Him, respectful to others, tolerant, patient, perseverant, joyful, trustworthy , faithful, peaceful, self-less, chaste, wise, hopeful, light, knowledgeable, having integrity. non-envious, non-gossiping...

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Abrahamic Scripture also describes the righteous as those who Believe in God, The Last Day, The Angels, The Book, The Prophets and in The Act of Giving for the Cause of God. 

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Here are some characteristics of what God describes from Scripture to be displeasing traits of a human:

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Selfish, greedy, untruthful, false,  murderous, unjust and unfair, unwise, impatient, hasty, judgemental, proud, non repentant, ungrateful, unforgiving, angry and vengeful, extreme in religious practice, unkind, uncharitable, untrustworthy, intolerant, disrespectful, conflicting, neglectful, hopeless, destructive, ignorant, wasteful, misleading, lustful, arrogant, idolatrous, disobedient and rebellious despite knowledge, envious, dark, without integrity, gluttonous, depressive, gossiping, slandering...

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( Based on reflections and understanding of Dr Lale Tuncer- May He increase us in knowledge and wisdom, help us to seek truth, help us to and give us the ability to judge 'right' from 'wrong' to the best of our abilities, and help us to fulfil our potentials as humanity according to His Divine Will. Amen) 

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The Seven Noahide commandments given to Noah to all humanity according to the Torah: 

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According to Abrahamic Scripture- The 7 Universal Laws are rules that all of us are advised to keep, regardless of who we are or from where we come. Without these seven things, it would be impossible for humanity to live together in harmony. 

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1. Not to worship idols
    

2. Not to curse God
    

3. To establish courts of justice
    

4. Not to commit murder
    

5. Not to commit adultery, bestiality, or sexual immorality
    

6. Not to Steal
    

7. Not to eat flesh torn from a living animal

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For more knowledge and information about the seven Noahide Laws from a

Jewish perspective please see:

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https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/62221/jewish/The-7-Noahide-Laws-Universal-Morality.htm

 

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4157474/jewish/Seven-Laws-for-a-Beautiful-Planet.htm

 

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For more knowledge and information about the Quranic Perspective on Noahide Law:

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http://www.wikinoah.org/en/index.php/Islam_and_Noahide_Law

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The five Pillars of 'Faith' to help guide us and discipline us to leading a more righteous life: 

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1.  The declaration of Faith 

2. Prayer

3. Alms-giving

4. Fasting

5. Pilgrimage

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The Ten Commandments given to the 'Children of Isreal': through Moses;

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First Commandment (Exodus 20:2)

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I am the Lord Your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

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Second Commandment (Exodus 20:3-6)

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You shall have no other gods beside Me. You shall not make for yourself any graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of any thing that is heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them, for I, the Lord Your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.

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Third Commandment (Exodus 20:7)

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You shall not take the name of the Lord Your God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that takes His name in vain.

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Fourth Commandment (Exodus 20:8-11)

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Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath unto the Lord Your God, in it you shall not do any manner of work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your man-servant, nor your maid-servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger that is within your gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and made it holy.

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Fifth Commandment (Exodus 20:12)

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Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord God gives you.

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Sixth Commandment (Exodus 20:13)

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You shall not murder.

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Seventh Commandment (Exodus 20:13)

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You shall not commit adultery.

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Eighth Commandment (Exodus 20:13)

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You shall not steal.

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Ninth Commandment (Exodus 20:13)

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You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

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Tenth Commandment (Exodus 20:14)

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You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, nor his wife, his man-servant, his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.

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