Humans are creatures of evolution. After millions of years of evolution, the human brain got things like consciousness, empathy, the ability to feel sadness, and the power to make moral choices. Feelings like happiness and pain are made by hormones in us, and these hormones made us "social animals." This means we are animals who want to live with others, feel their feelings, and build a society.
This "social instinct" (which we can call humanity) is the base of our moral sense, not the threats from some holy book.
When humans started living in a society, they felt the need for rules like fairness, empathy, truth, and helping others. Hormones in our brain that are linked to feelings like empathy and happiness connect us to the pain of others. This biological and emotional base is what creates humanity.
Religions put these moral feelings, which were already there, into their own ideas. They tried to make these feelings stronger by using punishment and reward. But their real source is human consciousness, experience, human evolution, and natural instinct (humanity), not religion.
Morals did not come from any book or from the speeches of any prophet. They were created by human consciousness, human experience, human evolution, and the needs of a society. When humans started living in groups, they felt that they needed to help each other, show empathy, be fair, and follow rules, or else everything would fall apart.
This moral system was there even before religions, and it can stay even without religion.
The Link Between Humanity and Morality
Are humanity and morality almost the same thing?
The answer: No, they are not the same, but they are very deeply connected.
Morality is a system of rules that decides which action is "right" and which is "wrong." This system can be made from human logic, philosophy, religion, society, or personal experiences. For example:
- Lying is wrong.
- Making fun of a weak person is not moral.
- Honesty is a good quality.
Morality often becomes "laws" or "rules," whether they are religious or non-religious.
But humanity is a feeling. It is the name for feeling empathy, mercy, help, brotherhood, and feeling the pain of others. For example:
- Helping an injured person, even if they are an enemy.
- Helping an old person cross the street.
- Hugging an orphan child.
These actions don't follow a rule. They come from a person's inner "heart" and "feelings" (which are influenced by human hormones).
The link between them is that:
- Humanity gives life to morality.
- And morality gives order and system to humanity.
The example of this is:
- If a person gives food to a hungry person, that is humanity.
- If that person makes a rule to share the food fairly, that is morality.
But sometimes, there is no link between them. For example:
- If a person is punishing a criminal according to the law, that is a moral action, but maybe the feeling of humanity is less in it.
- If a person forgives an enemy, just because they see their tears, that is humanity. But sometimes this can be seen as not moral (for example, against justice).
A complete human is one who has the feeling of humanity and also the rules of morality.
If there is only morality but the heart is like a stone, or if there is only humanity but no rules, then a society either becomes cruel or becomes weak.
An example of this, in my view, is the secular Western people of today. They have a lot of humanity, but they are not able to follow the needs of moral rules. They give extremist Muslim fanatics the right to come to their society and the right to preach. They also give them the right to build their "own mosque" (Muslim community) and do not ask them to join their Western society.
This is not morality, and secular people in the West should realize their mistake. Otherwise, only the secular forces will have to pay the price, and extremist right-wing forces will become stronger in the West.
Because of such wrong moral rules, Western society is becoming weak.
Hassan Radwan