Originally Posted By: redewenur
Depends who you ask, doesn't it.

Obviously.
Originally Posted By: redewenur

Put another way, "What does being human mean to you?".

To be all that can be perceived within human characteristics, past present and future, and in every aspect of multidmensional possibilities of physical realities in every universe.
Originally Posted By: redewenur
To me, it means being a particular kind of animal with characteristics, experiences and behavior determined by the composition and physics of that animal and the environment. That seems to be a factual foundation. The rest is philosophy and metaphysics, is it not?

Well if philosophy and metaphysics is dependent upon the environment then any relationship to understanding of being human, or human philosophy and metaphysics, is going to be contained in a relative belief.

Originally Posted By: Ellis
So--- Is a conscience merely a behavioural construct? Would it differ in different cultural environments?

Absolutely

Originally Posted By: Ellis

Perhaps the conscience is an indication of refined guilt.

Guilt would have to be a construct, taught to the individual, in order for it to be within ones conscience. Lord knows Religion bases all of morality upon guilt, and the recognition of what one should feel guilty for.

Originally Posted By: Ellis

Has an animal (other than human) been recorded as having a developed conscience? A chimp perhaps? I ask because rede refers to a "certain kind of animal". Is it only the human kind? Does it define us as "human"?
An animal of non-human sort may have a completely different relationship with the world because it may not build it's relationships upon beliefs in good and evil.
For example to kill may be inherent where the need for food arises to a carnivore, and both animals may have a different idea of mortality and their relationship with killing and being killed for food.
Man creates beliefs from fear, Animals respond to conditioning but do not teach belief systems to each other or share belief systems like humans do. You don't see forest animals creating a political system to organize the forest according to authority and power and to worship and believe in separation of states of being by moral authority.

Originally Posted By: Revlgking
I THINK OF MYSELF AS A SOMA, PSYCHE, PNEUMA BEING
Without preaching at people, or being dogmatic, I think of myself as a complex integration of soma (physical), psyche (mental) and pneuma (spiritual) factors. For better or for worse, I am a pneuma-psychosomatic being, who happens to have a psyche (an animal-like mind) and a soma (an animal-like body).

Said another way, a person of belief, with an ego which identifies itself as having boundaries capable of preaching personal belief, like any other ego that identifies itself as being human.
Originally Posted By: Revlgking
IMO, being a physically strong, a mentally well-educated a spiritually-aware and human-like being, full of willpower would not make me, automatically, a moral, ethical, loving, good and humane person. Quite the opposite: It could make me all the more dangerous and socially destructive.

Boy Howdy... wink


Originally Posted By: Revlgking

But without the pneuma factor I would have no conscious awareness of my unique self-hood--of my personal individuality and would unlikely be prepared to make any changes needed. I would not not be able to say: I am, therefore I have the willpower to choose to be what I ought, or not not, to be. With a basic pneuma I am at least prepared to say: I was, I am and here is what I will to be. Therefore, I choose to think, to learn, to understand, to know, to take action and get things done.

You mean without an ego and belief you wouldn't idolize your reality and belief as ideal, nor be able to make comparisons based on your personal beliefs in good and evil, or create a conscience relative to what is good for you or anyone else even tho it conflicts with others who have similar ideas about themselves but are different when it comes to being human and idolizing good and evil?

It would seem our humanity allows us to base our pneuma factor on different ideals, and to preach a metaphysical and philosophical reality that includes both prejudice and judgment. It would seem that free will allows us to pick and choose our humanity and press upon others our changing beliefs.
Originally Posted By: Bill S.
Rev. I read all these words that you and others post, then I have to ask myself if you really posted them, or if they are all inventions of my mind. Samuel Johnson's stone kicking doesn't convince me. How can I know?


Now we are getting somewhere.
Perhaps the Reverend doesn't know either since he follows most of his authoritative reasoning with the quotes of others to strengthen his own resolve.

Who would he be, if he didn't have all of the educational authority behind his resolve. Would he have thought any of his current beliefs into his pneumatic idolatry if he hadn't read so may books and collected all those thoughts into belief?

Perhaps being human is to accept the programming of the authoritative reference to animal behavior, and evolution of superiority in self identification

I was addicted to the Hokey Pokey, but then I turned myself around!!