Back to the Basics - We're All Human

Imagine. We're not white, black, Asian, or any other ethnicity. We're not Christian, or Jewish, or Islamic, or Buddhist, or Hindu, or atheist or agnostic. We're not American, or Mexican, or British, or German, or Iraqi, or French, or Australian. We're not gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual or transgender. We're not intelligent and we're not stupid. We're not creative and we're not analytic. We're not rich and we're not poor. We're not right-wing conservatives nor are we left-wing liberals. We're not right and we're not wrong. We're not meat-eaters or vegetarians. We're not even necessarily male, or female, or androgynous. We're not tall and we're not short. We're not too fat, or too thin, or too old or too young. We're not able-bodied, or physically or mentally disabled. We're not deaf, or dumb. We're not healthy and we're not ill...

"We" describes the human race in this post. Therefore the opening paragraph is true. For example, we cannot say, as the human race, that we're all vegetarians. We're all different in so many ways, but go back to the basics of it all and we are all the same. We are all born equal. A human being born outside a nation, outside a society, outside all the prejudice this world has created, is still, by definition, a human being.

"We're all human, aren't we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving."

― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I'm not a Harry Potter fan (and there are some people out there who would hate me for that) and I agree that it's a weird place to start this post, but this is the one thing that J.K. Rowling has said in a Harry Potter book that has interested me. It's true. "Every human life is worth the same, worth saving". Take away religion, race, beliefs, and society, and let's just get down to the basic definition of who we are: homo sapiens sapiens. We are all born by that definition. Every single one of us. Cut any human being open and you'll find the same heart, stomach, brain and other vital organs that you would find in any other. 

It's the first thing I learned about Christianity when I started school. God creates everyone as equals. I'm not particularly religious, but these are the foundations of the teachings of Christianity. It surprises me how many religious figures seem to forget and pervert these basic building blocks of their religion. Society is no better. In fact, nobody's an angel. You cannot tell me that you have never, at any point in your life, applied just one label or stereotype to another person, even as a joke. You have. Everybody has. Homo sapiens sapiens is by nature, quite a violent creature. We killed off the Neanderthals all those millions of years ago. They weren't inferior. They had larger brains, and they were more peaceful than us. Yet, we have all heard the insult "Neanderthal". It's prejudice. It's a preconceived opinion not based on reason or experience. It's stupid.

We are born as homo sapiens sapiens. That definition is sexless, without beliefs, without labels or anything else. The only thing that definition tells you is that I'm talking about a human being. It's society that heaps on the labels, the other definitions. But society gets it wrong so often.

A newly born baby is, let's say, immediately labelled "female". It's blatantly obvious isn't it? It's one of the first things a nurse checks. So the parents will dress her in pink. And she's heterosexual of course. And she's going to be brought up a Catholic and believe those teachings for the rest of her life. She'll get married to the man of her dreams and have kids- no wait! You aren't her! How do we even know that baby is a "her"? Their sex doesn't tell us what gender they are. She might not be heterosexual either. And she might not want to believe in God. She might not marry a man and even if she does, she might not want to have sex, or just simply, not want kids at all. We get it so wrong, so often.

Then the government steps in and tells her what she can and can't do, but more importantly, it tells her her rights; that she can't marry someone of the same sex, that her brother can't give blood because he's gay, in some instances, that she could be arrested or even killed by her government for who she is or what she believes in. This is about to make me sound very anarchist, but trust me I'm not. These facts just make you ask the question, "where is the humanity in governments if they all take away freedoms to some extent?" Now, I agree that crimes, no matter how serious, cannot be considered "freedoms".

What I mean by my question is, how is it that a government can tell you who you're allowed to love? Love is blind. Love goes beyond every law. You don't choose to love somebody, it just happens. It's a force beyond our control.

As for religion, we must not reject it because religion does not reject us. The ones who do reject us are those who use religion as a weapon to attack the LGBT community and use it as a shield at the same time. Take the religion away and the person is a homophobe. Now introduce religion. It's very useful. One the one hand, you can use it to attack the LGBT community quoting certain controversial verses of the Leviticus for example, and on the other hand you can say that the "gays are attacking your beliefs" when they stand up for themselves. You can act like the "oppressed Christian who only wants to help cure homosexuality" but gets pushed away every time they try.

Being violent with these individuals doesn't make it any better for anyone. Ripping up the Bible because you don't choose to believe it, is wrong. We're entitled to be atheist if that is what we believe, but there's no reason to be aggressive. I'm agnostic, so I'm on neither side of the fence. We all have the freedom to believe what we want, whether it's true or not. It's up to the person.

Go to 2:10

But back to society now, and it has got to the point where there are so many labels, and stereotypes, and definitions, and conflicts of belief, that we're forgetting we're all the same. We're all human. We are all just as valuable as the next person.

So why can't we all be equal? Why is there discrimination? Maybe because we're not an as-developed a human race as we like to think we are. Is it because we all still have a violent trace of our ancestors in us; the ones who wiped out the Neanderthals?