What Does It Mean to Be Human? : Reverance for Life Reaffirmed by Responses from Around the World
Author: Frederick Franck, Richard Connolly, Janis Roze
List Price: $14.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0312271018
Publisher: Griffin Trade Paperback (03 November, 2001)
Sales Rank: 529,177
Average Customer Rating: 3 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
A book to read again and again
There are very few books I know I will ever go through the effort of rereading. This book is one which can be picked up time and time again, for a quick reconnection to our human condition. People from around the globe with differing backgrounds offer their opinions on what it means to them to be human. The overall message of this book is one that has been heard before but few people have heeded; namely that humanity needs to relinquish greed and reconnect with its spiritual nature to allow us to realize our full potential as a species. A very difficult task indeed in our consumer based economy. The writers realize this and demonstrate that it is possible to be true to our human nature. I continue to lend this book to anyone who can appreciate the meaning and depth behind the words.
Rating: 1 out of 5
This is a kind of humankind
This book impoverishes Frederick Franck's work. It's seems to be a pluralistic work which main purpose is to convey what does it be to be human. Sadly, what the book shows us is that to be human is to be spiritual or a sort of enlightenment being. There is no place to heterodoxies or alternative ontologies in this literal world. For instance, you will not find words which can present a lesbian humankind, or atheist o radical secular human being. You just have to unveil the very essence of yourself, and just be. Multiplicity is narrowed in a only universal face, a christian-buddha face. There are some contributions which are interesting and inspirational. The best are Frederick Franck itself, Cornel West, Thomas Berry. Others are so poor that to be human is to becoming a colombian indian or a new human according to other side of the genes, its invisible moral, in other words, the gen-ethics as Muņoz Soler preaches. No sense and reductionism; to be human is to become pure. A shame! Fredrick Franck deserved a better luck in order to present his interesting, but failed idea, of a ABC program against the new barbarism. What we see through this book, is no less that a kind of pure spiritual barbarism, one who can not tolerate real differences.
Book Index