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Rakshith Rao tweets the question wether or not to believe in a supreme being controlling our lives. I wonder whether such a being would know or even need the category “control”? What is there to control if you are a – or even THE – supreme being?
By Detlef.
Ryan writes about us human beings “blending in and standing out”. I like Ryans perspective because it makes me wonder: would we really be standing out regarded from the level of a supreme being? We are the same biological concept as the zebra, the frog, the fly. Do we really act that differently? OK: we have technology, we use artefacts we transform our environment. So do beavers. Homo Sapiens is more successful in the sense that we transform our whole planet – in the brief moment of our blossoming as a species.
Could we even recognize a superior being? Superior regarding what? Intelligence? Knowledge? Those are all human concepts that wouldn’t necessarily apply to a superior being. From the point of view of the chimpanzee Homo Sapiens is an inferior chimp. Man is a very inferior zebra, an inferior dog. No wonder all other life forms seem to be inferior to us – we seem inferior to them, too.
Homo Sapiens stands out in one regard: we can kill all chimpanzees, all zebras, all whales – if it pleases us. But if there would be a virus able to kill our species – would we regard that as a superior being?
So there remains technological superiority, like in the science fiction novels. A species able to travel to earth from their planet would necessarily be superior to Homo Sapiens. A species able to build a noiseless car that’s powered by sunlight.
But “technology” is a very human concept, too. I believe – and I hope – the next level will have to do with the universal concepts of love and kindness.