Dehumanization

Dehumanization-defined- simply put is treating a human being as if they were not human. How often does this happen? Some may think that it is a very rare occurrence. This is WRONG, it happens all of the time, in fact it never stops happening.

I will first cover one of the most obvious ways that we dehumanize people-abortion. Simply, a lot of people know that they are killing a baby but they use terms like fetus or say that it is just a clump of cells. Because truth be told if they said that it was a baby then they would be admitting not only to the woman that have the abortions, but to themselves that they are killing a human person. How many people do you know that can live with themselves after knowingly murdering a person? My guess is none. Also if abortion mill workers said that the baby was a baby then how many less abortions would there be? How many fewer abortion mills would there be?

Another way that we dehumanize is when we judge people by what they look like. Everyone does it. We all have a tendency come up with who we think a person is by what they look like before we even know who they are. If we see someone with a fancy car or expensive clothes most of the time we place them in a group of people who think that they are too good for us or are snobby. When in reality they could be very generous people who got there clothes at a thrift store to save money or they are just borrowing a car from someone because they don't have one available to them. We also tend to place people who have messy clothes and messed up hair and dirty skin in a lower class then even ourselves when they could have just finished helping someone fix their yard or paint their house. The thing is that we don't know there story or reasoning for something yet we look at them and push them down, sometimes unknowingly, so that we can build ourselves up. We forget to think of them as humans.

The final way that I am going to mention is teen pregnancies. Think about it, here we are as pro-lifers (disclaimer-not all people do this) and when we see a pregnant teen at the mall or walking down the street we automatically think of them as a bad person for getting pregnant in the first place. But did you ever stop and think to yourself that maybe it wasn't there fault and event if it was then at least they didn't have an abortion. At least they kept the baby and did't kill it. I think that a lot of teens get abortions because they are afraid of what others will think of them for being pregnant. We should show them a little support, they are human and make mistakes just like us.

There are so many ways that we dehumanize people that I am not even going to try to cover them all. Can I make a suggestion? Why don't we all try, when we see a person, to think of them as a person and not judge them for what they look like. It is a very hard thing to do but I personally am working on it because I am pro-life and pro-lifers, who are also human, are supposed to stand up for life from conception to natural death. And that means that we respect and care for all humans whether they are in the right or in the wrong.

The meaning of love

I love like the movie Frozen that Disney made. Olaf is one of my favorite characters. 

He is a cute snowman that Elsa and Anna made when they were little, and he comes to life later on when they are older. His greatest wish is to be in summer and he likes warm hugs, "Hi I'm Olaf and I like warm hugs!" During the course of the movie he teaches Anna what love really is. He says, "Love is putting someone else's needs before yours." This is such a true statement. In today's society love is portrayed as an emotion and the word is thrown around more often then even the word "like". 

Last summer my friend Kathleen and I did an experiment to see which one of us said "like" unnecessarily, more often. at first it was hard to catch ourselves and the other person but by the second day we did a pretty good job of telling the other person when they said "like". What we found out was that we both said "like" all of the time and when we were thinking about it it was hard for us to come up with a word to replace it or to even stop ourselves from saying "like".  

My point is that between the two of us we miss-used the word "like" like all of the time, and we still sometimes do. The thing is "love" is miss-used EVEN more often. we often say that we "love" a movie or "love" an object. When the truth is that you can ONLY love people! We also miss-use it when we say that we are so "in love" with a boyfriend or girlfriend. Are you really "in love" or do you just really like them? And if you are "in love" then that means that you are willing to do ANYTHING for that person, even die for them. 

*Spoiler*


At the end of the movie when Elsa is about to be killed by Hans, and Anna is running towards Kristoff (half frozen) for an act of true love (that will thaw her and save her life), Anna, hearing her sister crying, turns away from Kristoff and runs to protect her sister from harm, in turn she ends to solid ice. She was willing to risk her life to protect her sister. Because of her act of true love towards her sister Anna's frozen heart is thawed and she returns to normal. 

In the past if Disney has taught us anything at all from their princess movies is that you will "fall in love" and live happily ever after. But I like this Disney Princess movie because it actually tells you the true meaning of love. 

And just in case you missed it, when you love someone you are willing to do anything for them, including die for them.