Throughout mankind there has always been a lure for something greater than ouselves. Most of the time, it is found in religion, but even athesits bring about this need too. I will explore more the people who reject God or gods to try to provide a case for humans hating to be the best.
Many believe that life exists on other planets...some go as far to say that they built the pyramids or the "Contact"theory "given the infinite size of the universe, it appears that if Earth was the only one to sustain life, it seems like an awful waste of space. The thing that is intriguing is that no matter what kind of aliens that people have professed exist, there's always one underlying fact...the aliens are more advanced than us. Why is this the case? Can't micoorganisms exist on other planets and in 4.5 billion years, when our sun dies, another planet will take our place, but that's still 4.5 billion years away? Why can't trilobites exist on other planets and the reason they won't communicate with us is they don't have the technology yet? This conclusion seems preposterous to those who believe in aliens because although people argue on what these aliens look like, the undeniable fact is that they're more advanced than us. We send signals into space looking for someone to answer back but never assume that maybe they can't recieve or transmit radio messages at light speed. Dolphins and Chimpanzees are supposed to rival humans in the intelligence department but if we sent radio wave messages to them, they wouldn't be able to send them back. What if other planets have this same problem?
The other common theme is werewolves and vampires. Werewolves and vampires have all the features of humans plus more. They are much stronger than us. It takes a tremendous human to defeat them and almost all fail. Many vampire movies document ancient texts professing vampires and werewolves amongst us. This can also be said about witches and wizards. A lot of times it's routed in theology. Twilight is written by mormons, who are devout Christians. JK Rowlings the first author to achieve billionaire status, is deeply religious and has that as an undertone in the Harry Potter series. This is fascinating to me because I believe it can be argued that God or gods is just another example of humans trying to find something greater than themselves. Vapires, werewolves, witches and wizards seem to be competition on this level.
The Renaissance gave birth the humanists. People who believed that humans were # 1. What if they are? What if we're the greatest thing in this universe? Why is that so bad? Maybe because if this were true, then we make the rules and we battle ourselves for who is correct without an arbitrary judge. If we are the best, then morality and truth doesn't exist. Science helps with this because we can't break scientific laws. I was raised on the notion that either God is the laws of science or he created them and let it take its course. Science, though, is neutral on morality. It can't tell you if what you're doing is right or wrong. There needs to be a greater source to determine right and wrong. Some will say, "it is right if you're acting in accordance with nature" but why is it physically possible to go against nature? Where did this free will to do things that are against our nature like drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, performing sexual acts that make it impossible to procreate come from? Why are these same anti-nature; anti-science behavior found amongst the animal kingdom as well?
If we truly aren't # 1, then why do these problems that I proclaimed with being # 1 not exist amongst gods? It doesn't seem possible unless there was one God. if there is only one God, then there's nobody to fight with, nobody else to make the rules, nobody to answer to. We see on the human level that totalitarian rule by despots or kings does not work. So then how can I say it is good for there to be one God that judges right and wrong. I call this god "Objective Truth." It's easier to think of it as an entity. I'm convinced it's not but let's take as an argument that it is. It can't be the way organized religion describe Him as omnipotent and able to do whatever he wills or "His will be done." The greatest thing in the universe is not someone whose "will be done." The creater of the universe needs to be someone that has no will. He is a slave to never stray from the right path, a path made of princple, integrity, objective truths.
I don't think many people think about these things...yet, it appears that most everybody subconsciously believes it. Do we understand at a subconscious level the need to not be the best as I described in the above paragraph? Do you have another reason why we hate being the best? Or do you disagree entirely with the assumption this question takes as a given?
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