While scientists and researchers engage in debate about whether or not people are innately violent, they don’t doubt that our genes and cells have one imperative — survival of the host. To protect that host, they will do anything, but what they do is not at the conscious level.
The need to survive, to procreate, and to protect our progeny is the most powerful instinct in our being. Parents will kill to protect their progeny and no court in the world would rule anything other than justified homicide.
If we can agree on the foregoing, might it follow that many of our behaviors, including the willingness to go to war and to murder in certain circumstances, is a higher manifestation of something we can see at the cellular level very easily.
Consider our white blood cells — they are real killers. Click the following link, or cut and paste it, to see how determined a white blood cell is to capture, consume, and kill an invading bacterial organism. The chase and the violent ending are quite dramatic.
The need for organisms to protect and to perpetuate themselves is not something that can be controlled or intellectualized about. The irresistible drive springs from our very cells and from the molecules from which they are made. We may think the imperative of procreation springs from within our brains, but this is not the way it works. Yes, our brains are needed to achieve action, but it is evolutionary coding in our genes that subtly delivers messages to our brains about behaviors and actions that are most likely to ensure that we survive and thrive.
We think we exercise free will, but in situations that have long-term survival implications, we are subconsciously directed by the trillions of cells and molecules that function in concert as a subliminal conscience. And this is a conscience that has only one purpose — to maintain the integrity of the host body.
From the eBook: War, murder & human nature: Why people kill, available for $2.99 on:
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