What Does It Mean to Be Human?

We humans have lost our identity. As a people, we no longer have the answers to these questions:

• Who am I?
• What is the purpose to life?
• Who is God?
• Why was I created?

These questions and the corresponding answers directly effect what we believe, how we view life, and how we live. The root of the issue is this - without an identity in Christ, we cannot see ourselves, others or the world in the proper context. We mistake a lie for the truth.

Marcel LeJeune, at Mary's Aggies, has been tackling this question lately.

First, read this, whence came the above excerpt. It is good and thoughtful.

Secondly, take a look at this review of a documentary about what it means to be human. Here is a bit of it but there is much more and it is well worth your time to read it. I also am putting the movie trailer below. If you watch, please view the trailer in its entirety as the beginning seems rather grim, but actually is setting up the reason the movie was made.

The story of the film revolves around a young man and his brother and their quest to find what it means to be human in light of their own experiences and struggles. They have three different life-transforming experiences in search of the answers to the questions about the meaning and purpose of life. What does it mean to be a human? Why do we have to suffer? Where is God? Where can we find hope?

The movie never gives an explicit answer to these questions and I believe that it achieves it's ends much more effectively because it doesn't provide the answer for us. It challenges us to do the same as the young men in the film - go and find what it means to be human. They never get preachy in the film, but rather witness to what makes us all human by experiencing those situations where hope seems distant. ...