A rare poem by me!
(For those who do not already know my opinions, I am an agnostic).
What we are:
We humans, who see ourselves
As somehow privileged above all else,
Children of a personal God
Who cares for us above all others,
We humans, who see ourselves
As somehow outside and above nature,
Our hubris leading us to imagine
The world exists simply for our benefit
Religion ministers to his pride
By telling him he is God's noblest creation,
While science also feeds his vain conceit,
By letting him believe he is lord of nature
Even those who call themselves non-believers
Are all too often simply new deceivers
Humans are animals, part of the natural
world,
Like every form of life, evolved
Out of a random rolling of the dice,
Out of a whirling maelstrom of chance,
A world without order, purpose, structure even,
A world without love or pity, thought or feeling,
Simply blind force pursuing an aimless quest
For a meaningless survival
The myths surrounding us are self-created:
We are so rational, we have a consciousness,
A sense of selfhood, a will that's free to choose,
A structured language, creativity,
Inquisitivenness, a desire for exploration,
The capacity to show love and compassion,
To seek to understand the universe
And even fathom out our human nature
The facts of the world say otherwise:
The rationality we prize so much
Evaporates within a microsecond
Faced with extremity; even without that,
Our passions, if they are real, rather than masks
Adopted, like actors, for our latest role,
Are utterly ungovernable. We cannot reason
When anger, lust, greed, take control of us,
And, though we dress our passions in fine words,
Pretending they exemplify a moral code
Based on what's truly good, objectively right,
All that we do is prettify our passions
All life is conscious, living; there's no special
Faculty of consciousness reserved for humans:
Animals, plants, even "inanimate objects"
Possess a measurable consciousness
Selfhood? How real is that? All we perceive
Is a bundle of impressions, which we learn
To call our "self." Our consciouusness resides
Within the structure of a physical object,
The brain. So too our selfhood's fabricated
By the same brain into a false identity,
As mythical, as undetectable, as angels
Free will? That's an illusion; we can't choose
But to act as we do. All praise or blame
For any thought, deed, is irrational;
We have no power to choose. We can't decide
Today we'll like a food but then tomorrow
We'll hate it, can't believe today
That the same thing that made us happy
Now makes us sad
We act on primal instincts: hunger, lust,
And when you study brain waves, you discover
BEFORE the thought has flashed into your mind
The neurons have already "chosen" your path for you
Language is common to all animals:
Only the act of writing makes us different.
In our vast tomes we endless recycle
Paens of praise to ourselves,
Exalting those who made the earth a desert,
Wiped out innumerable animals,
Including tribes of humans
All we are
Is the most succesful, rapacious and cruel
Animal upon our planet
If a God exists
And he chose us
He certainly showed poor judgement