From the beginning of the human race; since man first stepped into the world from beneath the depths of the mighty sea; the jungles of Africa; or from God himself, humans have been presented as the dominant species. Humanity assumes the stature of alpha predator, master of all of God’s creations, and the center of the universe solely from being born on Earth. The misconception of mankind’s importance in the universe has resulted in a species-wide ethnocentrism revolving around the theories of early chauvinism. These theories stem from mankind’s own arrogance, and have distorted its reality as to where its importance lies in the universe. The human races’s ego has developed into an exceedingly destructive problem towards itself, and will continue …show more content…
Even today, there is a large community of humans who still believe in the early concepts of geocentrism, the belief that Earth resides at the center of the universe. One of the most well known supporters is Dr. Robert Sungenis, whose works include books entitled, Galileo Was Wrong and Geocentrism. He is also the president of Catholic Apologetics International, a non-profit organization dedicated to the printing of public works in support of geocentric beliefs. During a debate between Dr. Sungenis and Dr. Hugh Ross, a supporter of a similar form of geocentrism, Dr. Sungenis stated, “This [the probability of life in other galaxies] gets back to the Copernicus principle. You see, if Earth is special and it takes so much fine tuning to create life as we see it today, the odds of that happening on some other planet or out in the remote recesses of space is just practically nil” (“Up”). Dr. Sungenis and his followers favor the ideal that the Earth resides at the center of the universe, and was placed there in correspondence to a pattern …show more content…
Carl Sagan, a distinguished astronomer and author, goes on to explain humanity’s accidental birth in his book A Vision of the Human Future in Space: Pale Blue Dot, “…if the laws of Nature and the physical constants—such as the speed of light, the electrical charge of the electrons, the Newtonian gravitational constant, or Planck’s quantum mechanical constant—had been different, the course of events leading to the origin of humans would never have transpired” (30). The very lives of an entire civilization result from a fortunate collision of celestial bodies that could have never occurred under differing circumstances! The human race is not blessed with a position of relative importance! They are filled to the brim with the ideals of chauvinists who claim that since humans dominate the Earth, they also dominate the universe as the only intelligent lifeforms. These very same ideals are the ones that lead one section of the Earth’s population to directly harm a another seeming indistinguishable section of Earth’s population (Sagan 6). The conquest for power has stemmed directly from the arrogance of the human race and its position relative to others. Mankind is fighting a war amongst its people, one that not only harms those who wish to instill harm on others, but towards innocent men, women, and children. These altercations are not winning the hearts of the people; they are in fact striking hatred and fear into them, which spills over to other
Neither law, nor philosophy, nor reason, nor spiritual counsel has prevailed against this primitive element in man’s nature [revenge]. The upward path of civilization, and it has been upward, is twisted by it, leaving grim milestones in appalling quantity. (Lewis viii)
privileges over normal citizens. The entire human race has become united as one as they all pursue a common goal, the preservation of man. However, this galaxy-wide unity and pride lead to problems as these inhabitants of the stars encounter other space- faring people. “The universe will let us know later whether or not Man has any ‘right’ to expand through it. In the meantime the M.I. will be there on the bounce on the side of our own race”(Heinlein 186) This result of all this is a sort of Arianism where humans believe that they are superior to any and all other creatures, only referring to other species through slurs such as “Skinnies” and “Bugs”. The Humans in this future also believe that they are destined to colonize the universe as represented in the quote
Galileo Galilei and the religious authorities represent the clash between the new ideas and old ideas of the 17th century. Galileo Galilei represents the new ideas with his heliocentric theory, and the religious authorities represent the old ideas while demanding that Galileo Galilei’s ideas are false because the Bible says that the earth is the center of the universe. Galileo Galilei said, “They know that as to the arrangement of the parts of the universe, I hold the sun to be situated motionless in the center of the revolution of the celestial orbs while the earth revolves about the sun. They know also that I support this position not only by refuting the arguments of Ptolemy and Aristotle, but by producing many counter-arguments; in particular, some which relate to physical effects whose causes can perhaps be assigned in no other way.”(3:1) This provides infor...
I also hypothesize that belief a human supremacy is nothing more than a myth that people continue to believe and act upon as response to this supposed mentality of superiority. Throughout the novel I also assert that modern civilization...
As civilization has evolved, expanded, and changed over the course of human history, there has always been conflict between the proverbial “us and them.” So long as there has been social interactions between groups of humans, there have been differences in features, cultures, religions, and many other aspects that have been used as the justification and fuel for bias and conflict. Since early in our species existence we have relied heavily on violence as a reaction to difference and change, and as we travel through history towards present day, we see that groups have always sought to expand their control over others in a belief that they were dominant or superior. It is only recently that the idea of equality-for-all has gained support and
Have you ever wondered who discovered that the sun is the center of our universe? If so, the answer is Nicolai Copernicus. This man was a well-respected as well as well educated man. He explored many different subjects including mathematics, medicine, canon law, and his favorite astronomy. The Earth-centered universe of Aristotle and Ptolemy were Western thinking for almost 2000 years until the 16th century when Copernicus proposed his theory.
Human beings are prideful creatures, and we have good reason to be. We have subdued a planet, changed the course of rivers, watered deserts, written poetry to make angels cry, and wrapped the world in a network of electric impulses and digital displays. We have created and killed not one but many gods. We can make a cloud rain by shooting heavy metal into it, and we can create a lake by pouring concrete in a canyon and damming a river. Most days, it seems that we human beings have everything under control and that if we miss wild nature, well, we can grow it in our gardens. (We can even genetically engineer the plants and animals.) Every so often, however, the universe spins out of our control. Forest fires rage. The earth quakes. Chaos descends like a great modern Zeus hurling thunderbolts and reminding us that nature is not ours to manipulate. In a great universe shaped by raw power and force, human beings are only small, easily crushed, organic structures. We need the reminder. Chaos and destruction are nature’s great gift to human kind because the realization of our frailty and insignificance leads to enlightenment. We learn something about ourselves, how we are here, where we want to go, and what we have to say about it.
The belief of human superiority, also known as anthropocentrism, is vague and a biased opinion. It can be thought of like the idea of racial, gender or religious supremacy. People cannot go and compare themselves as a whole and animals if they have little understanding about how animals, other than them, think. As humans, they would like to think of themselves as important, but in most cases people think they, as a species, are the most impo...
When we see around us we see that we all are in the most advanced and technical world. We are in the 21st century where we consider ourselves the most modest and civilized people. But, I think the more we are modernized and enlightened, the more we are becoming narrow minded about race. According to me, in today’s world race is not only about color now, it is more about the upper class and lower class. We human beings are known as the most smartest of all the organisms, but our smartness is leading us to create and build differences between our own human race. Other animals and organisms with whom we share this planet and the ones from whom the species human came, never show these attitudes towards their other members. Firstly, in this
Before this class my initial stance on the human predicament was the abuse of power by exploiting others to gain more power, but based on our course readings, and my own reflection, I have learned that this is not entirely the case. Now I believe that the basic human predicament is that we are insecure with our being as individuals because of social standards that have taught us it is right to exploit others for our own benefit. To resolve this issue, we need to take time to reflect, ask questions, and trust in God. When we take these steps, God will empower us to gradually learn to exhibit a “self-forgetting love” as Karl Rahner contends, and taking us closer to social justice and confidence with our purpose in life. To support my claim, I will mainly draw on three theologians who share a similar perspective on our predicament.
The Catholic Church stated, “The proposition that the sun is in the center of the world and immovable from its place is absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical; because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scriptures’(Doc.2). This shows the hindrance that the church creates to impede the advancement of science. As known today, the sun is the center of the solar system. Even while Galileo and Copernicus knew that this was the correct arrangement of the solar system and even had evidence, the church still dismissed them and stopped them from sharing their thoughts and
I am proud to say I was born and raised in the small town of Tallassee, Alabama. There are not many landscapes and main attractions that we have in Tallassee, but it is the movement and human-environment interactions of people who live to make their town better that makes it remarkable. Even though I love Tallassee Al, I have always wanted to travel the world and see everything there is to see. So back in 2009, I decided to relocate to the historic city of Montgomery, Alabama and it has been the greatest move I could ever make. Montgomery, Alabama was integrated in 1819, built over rolling terrain at an altitude of almost 220 feet (67 m) above sea level. Majority of Montgomery lies along the southern bank of the Alabama River.
In his essay, The Ethics of Respect for Nature, Paul Taylor presents his argument for a deontological, biocentric egalitarian attitude toward nature based on the conviction that all living things possess equal intrinsic value and are worthy of the same moral consideration. Taylor offers four main premises to support his position. (1) Humans are members of the “Earth’s community of life” in the same capacity that nonhuman members are. (2) All species exist as a “complex web of interconnected elements” which are dependent upon one another for their well-being. (3) Individual organisms are “teleological centers of life” which possess a good of their own and a unique way in which to pursue it. (4) The concept that humans are superior to other species is an unsupported anthropocentric bias.
In Fukuyama’s essay over Transhumanism, he describes this idea as the “most dangerous idea.” Transhumanism is the growth of humans through science and technology in every possible aspect of life. While this idea sounds beneficial, Fukuyama argues, “Our good characteristics are intimately connected to our bad ones.” The author emphasizes the how important our bad characteristics and complex minds to suggest these make humans complete. Without our faults, we would lose basic feelings of love, pain, exclusiveness, and even loyalty. The authors appeal to the readers looks as if, without the “bad” nothing would oppose, and compare to the “good.” In emphasizing the contrasts of human nature, the author creates a clear understanding of how these contrasts work with each other. For example, pain hurts but it is not bad to feel pain because it lets us know something is wrong with us. Fukuyama’s line of reasoning explains the importance of mortality in a way of putting life and humans into perspective on a much smaller scale.
Much to the dismay of the Church, two astronomers Galileo and Kepler had the audacity to challenge the authorities by suggesting that the sun-not the earth-was at the center of the universe. The church had a stronghold on the way the spiritual and physical world worked, so these discoveries only added to the Church’s resistance to their aims. Their discoveries came only after Kepler and Galileo began to question ancient theories about how the world functioned. These ancient truths were widely held but were inconsistent with the new observations that they had made. Kepler had discovered the laws of planetary motion which suggested that the planet would move in elliptical orbits, while Galileo followed with his discovery of the principle of inertia. Galileo concluded his finding b...