A Human Perspective

To say that our outlook on life is human-centric borders on the obvious. After all, what other point of view could we have? It's unlikely that I'm going to see the world from the perspective of an armadillo, a tree or a microscopic organism swimming in the ocean. I'm a human. Everything I see, think or feel is filtered through my human brain. If I ran those things through the experience of being a tree as, one might filter a pot of coffee, it's likely that I wouldn't perceive the world in the same way that I do as a human. It would also annoy the tree.

I've spent my entire life searching for truth and meaning. Surprisingly, it's only been in recent years that I realized almost all of my questions were half sentences. When I ask “what is the meaning of life,” the unspoken second half has been, “for a human.” All of the religions and other spiritual paths I've explored, all of the books I've read and all of the lively conversations I've had on the subject revolve around the central theme of humanity.

There's nothing inherently wrong with this. We seek to understand the nature of our existence. It's personal, and touches on each of our lives. The armadillos can work through their own philosophical problems. The reality of a modern man or woman is not at all similar to that of a tree, so it's okay that we specialize and tailor our questions to our own species.

All of this is fine until we start making grand generalizations about the nature of all existence. Our search for life on other planets is really a search for biological life as we know it. As a courtesy, we include the armadillos, trees, and single celled organisms. However, once we start talking about intelligent life, the field becomes extremely narrow. The measuring stick is always humanity. Intelligent life means life like us. I can only assume that the people who define intelligence haven't spent much time with the average human.

Once again, there's no harm in looking for other instances of life that are similar to our own. It would make us seem less isolated in the vastness of the universe, as most people don't like feeling alone. Nonetheless, this comes with a side effect. By insisting that we're the only thing that matters, it places great limitations on what we might discover. If it ain't human, it don't count.

In fairness, it's easy to see how we've come to view ourselves as the center of the universe. While we're really just another species of land mammals in the Earth's biosphere, there's no disputing the fact that humans also stand apart from all other forms of life on our planet.

We have a level of intelligence that's significantly more advanced than that of other species, and our language and communication skills allow us to work more effectively as a group. It was inevitable that an us versus them mentality would arise that portrays humanity as the only species that matters, with a divine right to rule over all other life. At least that's what we tell each other. The armadillos have no idea what we're talking about. They just have the common sense to avoid us.

The notion of humanity's divine right to rule the world has been around for a long time in one fashion or another. It's a central theme in most of our religions. Humans are special. Everything else, not so much. That's not terribly surprising since all of our religions have been communicated to us by other humans, either in the oral tradition or later by writing things down.

Whether the origin of a belief system was thousands of years ago or just last week, the faithful believe that those who passed these teachings on to us were either inspired by or speaking for that religion's deities. It wasn't a human talking. It was a human transmitting the word of the divine. And maybe that's the way things work, I really don't know. Such matters are above my pay grade.

What I do know is that regardless of divine inspiration, the person doing the translating was a human. You just can't trust an armadillo with these things. That means that these divine messages were communicated in a way that would resonate with humans, so it makes sense that humanity would be the star of the show.

Often our deities have been very human, as with the pantheon of Greek and Roman gods. Much more powerful than us, perhaps, but frequently taking human form so that we could relate to them. Ancient Egypt had its share of human looking gods as well. Sure, some may have had the head of a dog, but who among us hasn't grabbed the wrong mask at the end of a lively costume party?

Most people today don't believe in the old gods, and thus they can be excused for thinking that our ancestors created gods in our own image, the occasional sphinx notwithstanding. Today many of the world religions believe in a single, all powerful god. In many cases, this deity doesn't have a physical form but is instead a more abstract presence that creates or integrates with all life.

Even so, while these gods may not appear in the form of a man or woman, humanity is still center stage. The overwhelming majority of religions are still all about the humans. Often they explain the afterlife that we can expect when death makes its inevitable presence known. This is certainly understandable, as our mortality is our single most common fear, reaching back to the beginning of our species. We want to know what happens after we die.

This has been going on for as long as we know of, and probably since the very beginning of our species. Moreover, there's absolutely nothing wrong with this. Even though we have a tendency to change the gods we believe in over time, these beliefs nonetheless have a great deal of value.

Our spiritual paths are communicated to us in a manner that tells us our species is the most important thing on Earth, and our concept of gods have often had human characteristics. Even without the physical form of the Greek gods, the deities of monotheistic religions frequently have very human emotions such as anger, love or the need to be worshipped. Most of these spiritual beliefs also give us a framework for how to live and explain what happens after we die.

It feels good to think that we're important, that we're at the very center of the universe. And while there's no doubt that many wars and countless deaths lay at the feet of religions, they've also established moral codes and rules for living in harmony that have benefitted us greatly. Seeing the world through human eyes, with gods who reinforce our divine place in the grand scheme of things, has worked well for us for millennia. It's only in very, very recent times that this has begun to unravel.

Our modern life is so familiar that it's easy to forget how new it is. Humanity has been around for two million years, give or take. And yet, as recently as a thousand years ago it was common knowledge that the Earth was flat. If you'd shown someone a video playing on your cell phone they most likely would have burned you at the stake for being a witch. For all our self-described sophistication and the wonders of science, our current world view is mere minutes old from the perspective of our species' lifetime.

The most dramatic changes have come in the last half century or so, which is relative milliseconds in the timeline of humanity. Many consider the dawn of the space age to be the fourth of October, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully put the Sputnik satellite in orbit around Earth, thus beginning the space race between the USSR and the USA. A lot has happened since then, and it has forever altered the perspective of humanity.

As hard as it is to imagine today, before the 20th century no one had ever seen a picture of the Earth as a blue globe spinning in the blackness of space. The picture of an Earthrise from the surface of the moon was a new and awe inspiring sight. Today it's not unusual to see pictures of a sunrise from the surface of Mars or close up views of Saturn's rings.

At an even grander scale, the Hubble telescope has given us views of our universe never dreamed of by ancient humans. We've discovered that many of those little bright dots in the night sky weren't stars after all. They were actually distant galaxies, containing hundreds of billions of stars of their own. As our ability to see deeper into the known universe increases, we see that our own Milky Way galaxy is just one of hundreds of billions of other galaxies.

That's almost impossible to comprehend. Hundreds of billions of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars, and each star surrounded by who knows how many planets. The sheer size of the numbers is so overwhelming that it's really beyond our capacity, because we have no choice but to filter all this information, and its implications, through our tiny little human brain.

Earth is a small thing compared to our sun, and our star is just one of billions in our own galaxy. As for humanity, if we added up the total mass of every human who has ever lived, it would be such an insignificant fraction of the known universe as to be virtually invisible.

And yet, operating on an automatic pilot that was programmed two million years ago, we continue our lives confident in the knowledge that it's all about us. Our definition of intelligent life is human-centric, as is our sense of importance in the universe. Most of our religions throughout history have emphasized that we have a divine right to rule our world, and each new set of beliefs has reassured us that our deities care first and foremost about us. The armadillos can fend for themselves.

Those who grew up before or even during the space race have usually been a believer in one of the major world religions of today. Faith means maintaining your belief no matter what evidence is offered to the contrary, and most of these people will die with that faith still intact. It's what they were taught when they were young, what most of their peers believed and what their society reinforced. It was easy for them to keep the faith.

Younger generations, however, are facing a spiritual crisis never before experienced in all of human history. They've grown up looking at Martian sunrises and galactic close ups. The staggering size and scope of the universe is as normal to them as the clear blue sky. While many will nonetheless choose the spiritual beliefs of their parents because that's how they were raised, others face an existence with no context, life in a universe where humanity is not at all relevant, let alone important. The concept of a human-centric god who cares only about our species will not resonate with them, nor will an afterlife built around those concepts.

While I'm not yet old, neither am I young. The majority of my search for truth and meaning has been from a human-centric perspective. I've explored a variety of religions and spiritual writings, had wonderful conversations with people of many faiths and have tried to make sense of it all, but for most of my years I did so without realizing how narrow my field of view was. I've explored the nature of existence through many perspectives, but it turns out that all of those were rooted in the assumption that humanity was the only thing that mattered.

My path is also different than that of most people, as I'm not afraid to ruthlessly question my own truths. On the day that one can no longer stand up to questions, I discard it and continue my search. This has on occasion lead to my entire belief system vanishing without so much as a puff of smoke. It's not an experience I can recommend. Even so, I could no more change my path than hide a galaxy in my pocket.

Because of this, letting go of my human-centric beliefs has been easier for me than it would be for most who grew up embracing the various world religions. I suspect that the younger generations will not face this particular dilemma at all, as they'll grow up looking for something beyond traditional spirituality that's in harmony with the universe we can so plainly see. And yet, we both face the same challenge.

Spiritual beliefs have been a part of humanity for two million years, and there's a reason for that. No matter how brilliant our science may be, we nonetheless have many of the same questions and fears as our cave dwelling ancestors. Why are we alive? What is our place in the universe? What happens to us when we die? Do we simply cease to exist, or does a part of us continue? If we do continue, how does that work? These are questions that science simply cannot answer and armadillos have the good sense to avoid asking.

Throughout our history we have created many gods and religions to answer these questions, because the void left by a life without answers leaves us somewhere between uncomfortable and terrified. How much this is felt will vary from person to person, but if it wasn't both common and important we wouldn't have had such a historical need for something to soothe our fears.

A young person growing up in the modern world of science, surrounded by the noise of the Internet and technology, may not even think about these matters. Some will just shrug their shoulders and go on with their lives. Others will find themselves looking for answers, something to make sense of it all, even if they don't realize that's what they're doing.

Either way, the closer we get to death, the more important these questions become. It's not uncommon for people to find religion in the last few years of their lives when they know the end is near and the inevitable can no longer be ignored.

The 60s and 70s were the days of hippies and a search for a new spirituality. As subsequent decades have come and gone that trend has long since faded from view. However, our exploration of the solar system and the universe at large will doubtless continue, leaving in its wake a void where our comfortable belief systems once lived. As a result, it may well be that we're on the verge of a new wave of spiritual exploration, one that will answer our deeper questions and yet live in harmony with the knowledge gained through science.

I don't know what comes next, but it seems reasonable to expect something to arise that fills the void left by humanity's diminishing importance. To be sure, the old religions are not likely to disappear anytime soon. Nonetheless, a rising number of people now describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious,” meaning they know there's more than this but don't believe that any existing religion has the answers.

Will we create new gods and do away with the old, as humanity has done so many times in the past? Are we instead searching for a new perspective, one that offers meaning and a comfortable place in the universe even if humanity is no longer the star of the show? Or are we all just barking at the moon?