Humanity’s Track Record of Inhumanity

After hundreds of years of “enlightenment” and the working of the “human spirit,” mankind still demonstrates a severe lack of common decency toward one another. In this brave and bold 21st century, how is it that man still doesn’t know “why can’t we all just get along?”

Seriously. Why can’t we all just live in peace? With all the talk around all the tables and all the research and all the resources and all the speeches, one would think that this world’s problems would be solved by now.

Ask politicians, Nobel Peace Prize winners, philanthropists, celebrities, specialists or sociologists, and they’ll tell you their answer: “It’s the other guy’s fault.” Instead of taking a harsh look at the reality of what all of us humans are capable of doing to each other, most people play the blame game.

Some may want to blame it all on organized religion, yet …

• Even though Stalin and Mao touted their atheistic beliefs and communist form of government, which was supposed to bring equality and peace to all, they still slaughtered tens of millions of their own people through persecution and total indifference to mass starvation. Many websites and sources on genocide claim that Mao and Stalin are responsible for more deaths than any other humans in history.
• Though giving lip service to a deity and the Catholic Church, Adolf Hitler was a staunch believer in Darwinian eugenics. This belief that he could create a master race and that other races were inferior led to the slaughter of millions whom he “naturally selected” to die.

Of course, those who call themselves religious are no strangers to inhumanity either.

• Consider the bloody Crusades and the Inquisition, all done supposedly in the name of Christianity, and the jihads in the name of Islam.
• Some Christians who believe that abortion is taking the life of a human, and therefore a sin according to the Bible, feel that in order to profess their disgust of others committing this sin, they must commit other sins such as arson, bombing buildings and murder. They must fail to see the irony in murdering someone whom they condemn for murdering someone.
• Some Christians, reading that the practice of homosexuality is a sin according to the Bible, believe that they are called to do more than encourage repentance. They engage in beating, insulting, harassing, humiliating, bullying and even murdering the person. Christians who act unchristian too often display inhumanity.

We are the problem; God has always been the solution

The above examples are not meant to be compared to each other, and they are not meant to be any sort of ranking system of atrocity. They point to a problem that infects both the irreligious and those who claim to be religious: the problem of human nature.

The reason we can’t get along is that for thousands of years we have looked to human reasoning and the human heart for answers to our biggest problems and questions, including how a Christian should act toward others, especially those outside the faith.

The Bible tells us that God has always bemoaned this self-centered human reasoning: “Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep all My commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever!” (Deuteronomy 5:29, emphasis added).

God’s instructions and commandments have always been and will always be for our benefit, whether we like them or not. When humans ignore or go against the instructions for happiness and peace that are given to us by our Creator, it is no wonder that atrocity and destruction occur.

God wants us to change our minds and our hearts about this through His inspired Word and intervention: “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

What are we supposed to do in this world gone mad?

God tells us the answer is to love God and love one another. Unfortunately, mainstream religion has turned “love” into a syrupy excuse for accepting destructive behaviors. This approach enables us to rationalize and continue harmful thinking and actions.

Christ defined the two greatest commandments we are to follow in terms of real, godly love: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40). The Ten Commandments and the teachings of the whole Bible expand on and show us how to love the way God loves.

By repenting and striving to obey God’s beneficial commandments and treating others with decency and true, responsible love, we will show our Creator that we are done with man’s inhumanity to man. Then we are ready for spiritual things—when God can put His Spirit and heart in us (Acts 2:38; Hebrews 8:10).

Eddie Foster, a school speech-language pathologist, and his wife are members of the Cincinnati/Dayton, Ohio, congregation of the Church of God, a Worldwide Association.

Related links:

• The Ten Commandments for Today
• What Is Repentance?
• How Does Jesus Christ Live in Us?