Where Human Beings Cease to Be Human...

Well, sadness hits hard as news continues to spread of the two homicide incidents in Alabama and the German City of Stuttgart. Here as a link to the Alabama case, and the one in Stuttgart. It is such horrible news, both that such evil people exist and that 25 people were killed by their hands. 25 individuals who had family and friends. 25 people who had aspirations to do something in this life, dreams to become fathers or mothers, grandparents to grandchildren. It is vivid example of utter sadness and evil.


While I'm at it, allow me a moment to quickly explain something that irritates me, hopefully without detracting from the seriousness of these recent massacres. When 9/11 occurred, I was driving to a psychology seminar in southern California. I remember driving past the John Wayne Airport, and how eerie it felt to see all our planes grounded. When I got to class, the professor didn't say much about the events. I don't think at that moment the word "terrorist" was even discussed yet. In fact, nothing was discussed in our large classroom of roughly 250 students. The professor proclaimed that we have a moment of silence. We sat in what I personally felt was a moment of awkwardness and uselessness. I never appreciated or understood "moments of silence." Would it not be more useful to take a moment of clarification, or gratitude, or appreciation, and explain to despondent students that we live in a world where evil abounds and a world where suffering occurs. And yet, the world is a glorious and beautiful place where a two-fold joy can be experienced for every downtrodden and sad event in our lives. Why sit in silence? There are wonderful learning opportunities, powerful chances to express remorse for the loved ones of the fallen, and to express gratitude for life itself. If I lose my life or the life of a loved one (God forbid a hundred times) by some heinous act of another, I would rather a professor make one powerful sentence that could forever influence the lives of the living, than 5 minutes of useless silence.

Given the recent events, I predict a brief revival of the discussion on guns and our access to them. There may also be discussion concerning why God would create a world where such things can exist, or how horrible of actions humans are capable of. I recently watched the movie "The Invasion", with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. It is basically a rehash of the Body Snatchers. As some of you may already know, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and thought it achieved great success in being a suspenseful thriller. And I'm not a big Nicole Kidman fan. Honest! I think this was one of her best, along with Far and Away. Daniel Craig was great, but his part in the film was much too small.
The shuttle crash as a means to introduce the virus was clever enough, though not elaborated upon. The use of "House"-like pictures of what was going on in the body was also very good and thoroughly entertaining. Think "The Andromeda Strain" meets "I am Legend". The ending of the film was also a little unsatisfactory.

The philosophical underpinnings of this film were also worth contemplating. Do we have a world without violence by all becoming dittoheads, or do we have conflict and remain human? Some may opt for Stepford, but I kinda like having differences.
One of the alien races makes a profound statement after most the population have lost their free will and become benign zombies:

"Have you seen the television, have you read the newspapers, seen whats happening here? What we're offering? A world without war, without poverty, without murder, without rape...a world without suffering. because in our world no one can hurt each other or exploit each other or try to destroy each other because in our world...there is no other. Fighting us is fighting for all the wrong things. Our world is a better world."

Interesting, but incorrect thought.

The movie ends with the complaint that it would be nice to "imagine a world where every newspaper is not full of war and violence." Daniel Craig sits at the table, reading a newspaper, and complains about how horrible the world is. Then the camera zooms out from Nicole Kidman's face, a look of wonder and confusion on her face, as if maybe the zombie world would have been better.

Life is rough sometimes, but really? Either come out and say it: this world is horrible and it isn't worth having free will. Or teach the viewers a notable lesson: evil exists in the world, but that is the consequence of free will, and that same consequence brings some wonderful experiences in this life.
As a Mormon I agree with one conclusion in the movie: in order to accomplish a world with no pain or evil acts human beings would have to cease to be human. Our nature is quite contrary to COMPLETE harmonious lives together. Indeed, a change in human nature would have to occur in order to live with free will and live without evil inclinations.