Religion, Wars And Garbage: Human Capacity For Selfishness

Through-out the history of our species, humans have displayed an unending capacity for selfishness. We've seen religions and cults declaring humans to be "chosen", wars and massacres
waged by self-righteous leaders and the complete disrespect and destroying of the earth and its natural resources.

  Our first display of selfishness in humans can be found by looking no further than modern

religions. I will start with Christianity, as it's one I have a bit of experience with. It is stated that
we were "made in the image of God'. This right from the start, gives us the feeling of superiority

over the other species on our planet. For instance, one can look at the way we treat animals,

we use them as test subjects for our chemicals that we deem not worthy of testing on humans.

Adding to this, religions speak about all sins being forgiven, which I classify as being selfish, due

to the fact that if one believes this they can essentially escape feeling any and all guilt for their

actions in life, and they do not really learn anything, especially from their mistakes. Finally, the

sheer fact that our established religions have continuously meddled in affairs outside the scope

of theology because they feel they have the "divine right" to do so. This can be illustrated by

the fact that most wars in our history have been fought in the name of some religious deity or

another, which brings me to my next topic.

    The next showcase of human selfishness can be found in the countless wars we've fought

and still, to this day, continue to fight. Our selfishness has steadily progressed from fighting

over ideals and thoughts, to fighting over land, to petty fighting over money and profits. One

could start by looking at the Afghanistan/Iraq wars that have recently happened. While the

media portrays that the war is one of us fighting off "terrorists" the reality of it is, the west

is busy securing its own stakes in land masses that are...