Human Values

Human Values

If I were to ask you to describe to what you would ascribe the most value of something that you possess you would probably think of the keys in your pocket which open the door of the house you own or of your motor car or motorbike. You might think of your cell phone or of another material possession which you own.

But in doing so you would overlook the one thing which is of far greater value – the human body. To give you some examples of the value of each individual body let us consider first our eyesight. A person who is six feet tall in clear daylight and having an unobstructed view can see a distance of about three miles with normal eyesight but on a clear night one can see the Triangulum galaxy which is approximately 3.14 million light years from our planet.

Working in perfect synchronization with our eyesight is our hearing. Sound is merely the result of our peculiarly shaped ears catching and interpreting the vibration of air molecules at a rate of anything from 20 times per second to 20,000 times per second. The cochlea is the auditory portion of our middle ear. It sorts into patterns and encodes about 30,000 auditory nerve fibers. Without the cochlea all sound would be just pressure waves echoing back into silence. Only through the miracle of hearing does sound take on meaning.

The skin is the largest organ in the human body. For the average human being the skin has a surface are of between 16 – 21 sq feet. The average square inch of skin has 650 sweat glands, 20 blood vessels and more than 1000 nerve endings. It has cells which serve to protect us from dangerous Ultra violet rays which can cause skin cancer and it contains self repairing enzymes so that when we are wounded or injured our skin miraculously begins a process wherein it repairs and restores itself.

In addition to our skin and all the other organs within our body the human heart would be thought of as of the greatest importance. The human heart however weighs only between 7-15 ounces (200-425g) and begins its miraculous function about 21 days after conception. The average heart will beat about 100,000 times in one day and about 2.5 billion times in a lifetime of 70 years. It serves to pump blood throughout the entire human body which gives it life through about 96000 kilometers of veins in the average human being.

Our body also contains the liver and kidney. The liver has many functions. Some of the functions are: to produce substances that break down fats, convert glucose to glycogen, produce urea (which is the main substance of urine), make certain amino acids (the building blocks of proteins), filter harmful substances from the blood (such as alcohol), storage of vitamins and minerals (vitamins A, D, K and B12) and maintain a proper level or glucose in the blood. The liver is also responsible for producing cholesterol. It produces about 80% of the cholesterol in your body.

The main purpose of the kidney is to separate urea, mineral salts, toxins, and other waste products from the blood. The kidneys also conserve water, salts, and electrolytes. At least one kidney must function properly for life to be maintained and we are all born with two for good measure.

If I was an authority on the human body I could no doubt speak in great detail how our body hormones work, how our body regulates temperature and produces symptons such as hunger and thirst, sweating and shivering, sneezing and coughing to identify the needs we have and the illnesses we diagnose. If I was an authority on the human body I could speak of the miraculous manner in which the reproductive organs function perfectly together with different male and female counterparts so that they together can perfectly reproduce another living human being after their own kind.

This is not to mention the miraculous manner in which our intestinal systems function, our skeletal and muscular systems, their parts and functions. This is not to mention the miraculous manner in which our brain directs our bodily and mental functions or our lungs and digestive systems or many other bodily parts and their functions, neither would it begin to describe how they all work in perfect unison to enable each human being to live and have their mortal experiences. And there are so many other features of the body which all have a divine purpose and necessity for the life of every individual.

My purpose is not to give you a long list of all the features of the human body. My purpose is simply to show how this body that we each have is the most precious and vital of all things that we possess and sadly the one thing of greatest value that we all take for granted.

In fact it is not until we fall ill or hurt ourselves or lose one of the organs or members of the body or come close to death that we realize just how important our body truly is. Sadly this is often too late. Which is why we should always do all we can to keep our body from getting infected unnecessarily or abuse it with illicit drugs or alcohol or tobacco or other harmful substances or defile it with impure sexual relationships or through adultery, fornication or self abuse.

The Holy scriptures reveal that in the beginning God created man and woman – in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them. Even though thousand of years have elapsed since the time of Adam and Eve the human body is still a work of divine origin, a multitudinous miracle of divine engineering. Notwithstanding this incomprehensible work which we call the human body it will when it has fulfilled its purpose eventually grow old or sick and die and it will decay and return to the earth from which it was taken.

Yet, for the time of our mortal life, it is ours, a gift from a loving God which in every respect enables us to enjoy our lifetime experiences. Have we not great cause to praise God for the miracle of human life and to respect and follow his counsels to us concerning its proper use and functions?