Secular Humanism and Humanity: What are they?

[Jenny A]

Your original reply DID, in fact, offer a brief (and admittedly non-robust) description of what you think distinguishes humans from other animals. I was interested in exploring that description, but it seems that you are not. That is perfectly fine. All you have to do is say so, which you actually did in this post.

I'd be interested in exploring two particular parts of it. First what makes us human is a matter of degree when we are compared with out animals. The makes it hard to pin down just at what point evolutionarily, people became people. It also creates problems at the margins. Require too much empathy or rationality and you begin suggesting mental deficient people or sociopaths aren't human. That's not a road I want to go down.

Second, the question of why it matters. People matter to people. That is a fact. But most species are primarily concerned with members of their own species. Given how evolution and genetics work, that's no surprise. In other words, while it can be fun determining just how people differ from the rest of the animal kingdom, it is not anything that makes us cosmically special, just very special to ourselves.

]So, how do you define human? Seriously. It's a question that anyone asking should be expected to have an answer to.

Really? People who ask questions are expected to already have an answer to the question they are asking?

The truth is that I am still working out the best way to explain what I think a human being is. Is that ok? And, whateverist, the "answer" I am trying to formulate is being drawn from my own personal reflection of my own human experience together with what I find to be the best of the descriptions which have come before me. Shoulders of giants, as they say.

I expect you to have some ideas. It is after all a question about the basic nature of the species to which you belong. And a discussion requires give and take. Ask but don't answer is an interrogation, not a discussion.