Human Behavior

Culture is the accumulated wisdom, art, and irrationality of a people, calcified into traditions that can’t be changed.  In a story reported this week by Reuters a woman has been forcibly removed from a hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone, by her family after she tested positive for the Ebola virus.  Too many people there distrust doctors but Ebola is contagious and carries a death rate of sixty to ninety percent and she’s now on the loose.  How many people have to die horribly from this disease before the learning curve overtakes the culture? 

Here in America our stuff has to be big and noisy and wasteful.  This is irrational, unless making an ego statement is rational.  And there’s a lot more that has developed into our present culture: Racism, Greed, Misogynism, Denial. 

And most, if not all, cultures are locked into compulsive human reproduction, even in the face of evidence that this habit we have may result in catastrophe.  I’m saying that cultural mores play a huge part in destructiveness and abuse and we, the human race, may be approaching a tipping point.  I think it’s highly unlikely that humans can change their collective thinking - their cultures - in time. 

Now enter religion.  Some folks want to say that God is going to intervene.  Jesus is coming back to rescue us and kill and torture the bad guys while the planet goes up in flames. 

I think it’s more likely that human behavior is going to result in a massive natural disaster causing a kill-off of billions of people.  Then we will say that God did it.