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WHAT MAKES US HUMAN?

Vision asks some thoughtful people to give their insights on this age old question.

Asking what makes human beings unique brings to mind a seemingly endless list of attributes and activities, both positive and negative. Self-awareness and free moral agency, speech and symbolic cognition, our nimble thumbs, conscience and the capacity to imagine: these are just a few of the traits that distinguish us from other species.

Vision is hosting a conference in Los Angeles at the end of April on the subject of "What Makes Us Human?" To learn more about it and get registration information please visit www.whatmakesushuman.info.

ISHMAEL BEAH

Vision interviews former child soldier Ishmael Beah about the factors that supported his resilience in the wake of devastating trauma.

Ishmael Beah was 12 years old when Sierra Leone's brutal, decade-long civil war reached his village in January 1993. Fourteen years later, he has recorded his story in A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. This is the moving story of a young man who lost his childhood but gained wisdom and understanding beyond his years. For more about Beah, see Vision's related articles, Repercussions of Revenge, and Hope Springs Eternal.

AMY-JILL LEVINE 

Vision interviews Amy-Jill Levine, Vanderbilt University's E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies. Levine discusses new scholarship about the Apostle Paul.

Did the Apostle Paul steal Christianity away from its founder Jesus Christ to make it a world religion? Did he change its foundational doctrines in order to broaden its appeal beyond the first-century Jewish community where it began? Amy-Jill Levine takes on these questions in light of new scholarship that turns over 2000 years of tradition.

JONATHAN GLOVER 

Vision interviews British philosopher Jonathan Glover, author of Humanity: A Moral History of the 20th Century. Glover addresses the dark side of human nature.

How is that even though humans have advanced scientifically and technologically in leaps and bounds, little progress has been made in tackling evils such as genocide? What is it in human nature that permits these atrocities to continue in our history?