On mankinds greatest 'invention.'
I've been part of aconversation on a message board concerning what people thought was mankinds greatest invention. Ofc ourse, you hqave to narrow down what the word "invention" even means before you can fully get into that, in my opinion. But here was a reply I posted regarding some people's claims of God and feelings such as compassion would apply to mans greatest invnetion title;
Man did not create God, but man does interpret God to his own needs and ends. The idea of God, or a supreme being of some kind higher than ourselves, has been around since long before written language. To claim that man invented God is the ultimate act of hubris and vanity, claiming that not only we are the highest lifeform on the planet, but only we know of the one that is higher than us. Finally, to claim man invented God would be tantamount to claiming man invented his own sense of morality.
I believe there are some larger truths that can not be claimed by man, and one of those is God. Another is gravity. No one invented gravity, and I have a hard time even saying someone discovered it, as it's always been there. All we did was interpret it into our perception of reality.
I can't add compassion and other emotions because they also have always been there, and are not even exclusive to our species. The only emotional concept man might lay claim to, and only might, is war, as no other species can wage it on the same scale as we do, but other species have waged it before, and even used sticks or rocks as weapons to extend their reach beyond themselves. More species than just man uses tools.
If you're going to get into conceptual inventions such as ideals and emotions, then I'd have to simply bring up civilization or the concept of inherent human or civil rights. That people, regardless of their station, have a basic set of human rights (note the use of the term 'human' to describe those claimed rights) inherent in nothing more than belonging to the species.
But in the end, regardless of conceptualism or tengible 'inventions' I'dstill have to say the written word. Not just language, as language can get bastardized and changed and mutated over time. But the actual written word, the written language, that can be passed down from generation to generation. Even with that you get interpretation, as current politics and court proceedings have clearly shown, and the language we're arguing about now isn't even that old.
Language, and the written word, along with the ability to translate between all the desparite is what allows mankind to do everything he has done. Without the ability to translate ideas and beliefs, as well as teach and impart knowledge, man would be a far lesser animal than he is today.
Man did not create God, but man does interpret God to his own needs and ends. The idea of God, or a supreme being of some kind higher than ourselves, has been around since long before written language. To claim that man invented God is the ultimate act of hubris and vanity, claiming that not only we are the highest lifeform on the planet, but only we know of the one that is higher than us. Finally, to claim man invented God would be tantamount to claiming man invented his own sense of morality.
I believe there are some larger truths that can not be claimed by man, and one of those is God. Another is gravity. No one invented gravity, and I have a hard time even saying someone discovered it, as it's always been there. All we did was interpret it into our perception of reality.
I can't add compassion and other emotions because they also have always been there, and are not even exclusive to our species. The only emotional concept man might lay claim to, and only might, is war, as no other species can wage it on the same scale as we do, but other species have waged it before, and even used sticks or rocks as weapons to extend their reach beyond themselves. More species than just man uses tools.
If you're going to get into conceptual inventions such as ideals and emotions, then I'd have to simply bring up civilization or the concept of inherent human or civil rights. That people, regardless of their station, have a basic set of human rights (note the use of the term 'human' to describe those claimed rights) inherent in nothing more than belonging to the species.
But in the end, regardless of conceptualism or tengible 'inventions' I'dstill have to say the written word. Not just language, as language can get bastardized and changed and mutated over time. But the actual written word, the written language, that can be passed down from generation to generation. Even with that you get interpretation, as current politics and court proceedings have clearly shown, and the language we're arguing about now isn't even that old.
Language, and the written word, along with the ability to translate between all the desparite is what allows mankind to do everything he has done. Without the ability to translate ideas and beliefs, as well as teach and impart knowledge, man would be a far lesser animal than he is today.
posted by opus512 at 12:20 PM
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