Is humankind as a species still in a primitive state of evolution?

Rahmona, have you ask yourself why your question gets so few answers? When you say that humans are in a primitive state, then what is your position? With what you are comparing this primitive state? Humankind is what they are and one peculiarity is that they don't like to be criticized, especially in their self image. Humans see themselves as the most advanced beings in the world and the religions support this view and if you exclude religious people, then you are pretty much left alone. So maybe you ask a new question like:

"What is the actual state of evolution of humankind? What should be more developed, what is still missing? What can be done to further our evolution?"

I guess you know what I mean. Anyway, I will answer your question later on...

Edit:

I see that you have posted the edited question to the categories Anthropology, Philosophy and Religion & Spirituality. Except here in Psychology there are a lot of answers, many are silly like always, but there are interesting answers also and reading in the various categories gives a picture how people are thinking and reacting...

I will continuing reading and responding. I nearly was at the point to give up the whole Yahoo Answers, but now this fascinates me again. Thank you!

There is only a short time left to answer this question, so I will do it now:

I understand that you are asking for the state of our growing process as alive beings and you can call us 'human species' without getting too much into scientific concepts. This you can't avoid when you use the word 'evolution', so I will not use it.

The 'actual state' of the human species in their growing process is that they have created and developed an individual 'personality'. In this state humans are totally identified with their manifested entity and that includes their body and their senses and also their mind and emotions. They enrich their personality with what ever they receive and can integrate, making it to their property. In this state humans are aware of their existence, but are not capable to experience their pure state of existence, they need to be reflected through their senses and their reactions in their mind and emotions. They have established their 'personality' and are looking constantly for confirmation, to be able to experience their existence. Everyone is using everyone in this common game and within the established society rules and roles are given. Every thing has its place in the given frame of knowledge with concepts for all and every thing. This gives security and the possibility to rise in the common hierarchy of knowledge and power.

The next step in the growing process is without doubt that people start to be more aware about themselves. (What this means deserves an extra question, because in our present state hardly anybody is questioning oneself.) Then they will get out of their limited state of 'personality' and the rigid frames within society. In this step of their growing process people will step out of dependencies and then they might be able to take self responsibility. This still seems pretty far away in most people's state of growing, but there are more and more individuals who are questioning themselves and finding answers beyond the established system. This will cause a 'quantum jump' and then it will be much easier for others. The need to defend their established state of being will be reduced and new influences will enter into ones system... (At a certain level of consciousness there is no separation and each individual adds into the pool of common consciousness.)

So then people will cling less on concepts and beliefs and relate more directly to their daily reality, being able to respond out of their human potential including their feelings...

The concepts, life style, world view, attitude, beliefs, hopes, dreams and all what is part of society is real for people, because they are identified with it. For them this is not 'fake' because it is the only way they have, out of this they live their life and they can't grab another view and see what might be more *real*. People can't be convinced or forced to get out of it. Even an animal, that has been living all ones life in a cage, will go back to this used space, if you force it to stay outside...

What one can do? Take care first of yourself. You need to heal yourself before you can heal someone else. Get out of your own cage and explore and experience your new freedom. Find your own *reality* and relate and respond from there to what shows up. With this your energy will change and even without doing something specific you will influence what ever you touch or who you will meet.

It is much more difficult to change oneself than giving ones intentions into wanting to change circumstances, others and the world...

With this I hope that I could answer your question and give you a hint in which direction to find your path. There is always the possibility to ask more questions. That's the great thing about 'Yahoo Answers'. The space is there and freely offered, so let's use it in favour of all of us in our growing process!

BeiYin

I don't know if we are still primitive or not. In examining the complete picture, I suspect that we are quite primitive. As to where we might wind up, well, who can say. The concept of evolution as a positive thing however doesn't quite jive with my understanding of evolution. I see it as a change brought about as a result of changing conditions. The adaptations that Darwin observed in his studies. It was the inability to adapt to changes that led, according to Darwin, to the extinction of species. The adaptations made by the various species were, in some instances, so prejudicial against survival that they hastened the process of extinction. So, if we humans are bound by the same rules of adaptation as the other species, then evolution is a crap shoot. We may not pass on to less primitive behavior or we may. No one knows for sure. We may survive or we may go the way of the dinosaur. I, for one, accept that I can't change the process and I'm not even sure I would if I could.

I was searching for hours now to find a question that is also my question. What I found was a lot of bullsh!t all around and if there was a questions with some sense, then the asker obviously didn't know what he was asking. But it doesn't matter, people use whatever to have an opportunity to talk and to express themselves. Obviously this gives them the feeling of existence, being someone pretending to have some knowledge or demonstrating their ignorance.

That brings me to your question. Yes indeed, there is no doubt that the human species is still in a primitive state of evolution. We don't know where we are coming from and we don't know where we are going to. We have developed all kind of belief systems that give some sense to our existence, but we are still following the most primitive needs ans nearly every thing turns around this. We fight for our daily survival, even without knowing anything why we do this and we are using means that are absolutely selfish and it doesn't matter that we cause harm to our surrounding and others.

I don't think we are much different from animals, they are at least honest in their behavior and not pretending so much as we humans. I believe we need to make quite some more steps to get out of our primitive state of being. We are using our potentials very little, that would give us the possibility to go far beyond our limited personality. but obviously we are stuck in our evolution...

Can we do something about it? I don't know. Questioning oneself, asking questions, having doubts about what is offered by this society... What else?

InkyPinkie

I guess your'e right about the war, and the increasingly complex nature of human societies which are leading ot greater environmental problems, and greater probability of all of us bombing ourselves out of existence. In that manner, we may be primitive, because human beings use their intellect to fuel their greed. Under the system that msot of us live in, the politics that drive people's lives and the fundamental factors whcih determine the ethics that underly strategy and policy by goverments and corporations, are probalby an indicator of what stage humankind is currently at at this point time. On the other hand, people say that human beings are considered to be more developed than animals because they possess self awareness and creativity which allows them to plan long-term and control their surroundings; such that they have more power over the environment whcih they live. In the end, it is up to human beings to either save or destroy the world.

When I observe animals, especially my dog, the cats and also the geese, ducks and chicken around, - then some times I think that they are more advanced than humans. But I see that this only seems so, because they are relating directly to what shows up in front of them and then they are responding, although not from their mind and emotions, but from their 'being', even though they are not conscious about it, so we call this 'instinct'. What I can see is, that animals react spontaneously, without reflecting and all seems to have survival reasons and also they do it the most direct way possible, although I also can see, that they return the love one gives to them directly and in a pure way. Observing all this, what can I learn from it and in how far it can help me to understand myself and the world?

Bomoon