we are animals and you placing yourself upon a pedestal does not make us any better than animals and to be an animal is not a degradation this is more of your pro-human bias placing yourself above animals like some sort of vain arogant ape which is wht you are, we are all apes. that is the truth, I have told you it on multiple occasions, this does not degrade you. lying and self deception does not change it. you are an ape, I am an ape. every member of the human race is an ape. chimpanzees are apes bonobos are apes gorillas are apes urang utangs are apes.
I'm not denying that we are animals, lol. We've been given the bliss of high level consciousness and self-awareness. Other animals do not possess that and that's why it's degradation when you revert to the more animalistic levels. the differentiation is purely linguistic. Animals in my view are also spiritual creatures and I don't think that our animalistic side should be shuned away from -- it has to be consciously intergated in us for us to live a full and balanced life, but a lot of it, of course, has to be kept on a leash at first, and then later, understood both consciously and subconsciously as unpractical -- fboth for ourselves and for other human beings. Hence, when humans commit what you may call "sin", they trigger their more primitive animalistic qualities within themselves and make them a more important part of their psyche at the sacrifice of consciousness and awareness, which inevitably leads to stupid suffering. I suggest you read what I wrote if you're interested in shaking your beliefs a bit or two
that must be why he keeps repeating it. with the wrongest explanation. and to illustrate nothing. after being repeatedly corrected. I said you were a vain arrogant ape that puts itself on a pedestal, no need to hammer my point home. please define high conciousness.
This entire sentence is ******** for many reasons, like how some human cultures are much more open to sex kinda like bonobos are and you could use this logic to say that these people that do not share your culture are inferior because they commit what in your culture is a sin. great job, was **** pseudoscience your goal or a side-effect?
have you talked to many non human animals about this? or do you find their lack of capacity for human forms of communication makes it hard for them to explain their emotions and experience?
I do not fear the universe, I am submerged in it. no the majority of us abhor slavery, love freedom and democracy think women can teach and vote. and think people should not be murdered for wearing clothes made of different materials. these are modern western vallues, they exist despite religions, not because of religion.
see, that's exactly how atheists are christian. you immediately thought of promiscuity as sin where as I haven't implied that it was. My views on sex aren't christian, FYI. yeah, but they didn't reply in a coherent manner. That's certainly one part of the issue. I think they just don't particularly feel inclined to express it, unless it's within the realm of the instinctual or a matter of eat, Bane Shift, piss etc. (although obviously there are some exceptions and instances where the behaviour gets more complex but it really goes nowhere near the point of the stuff that man does.) all of these ideals were born into fruition because of how christianity in its most radical form made a countermeasure inevitable. so in a sense you're right but again, I really don't see how these principles don't correlate with Christ's teachings, and also there's the fact that a lot of the religious ideas quite peculiarly were transposed into the realm of the secular -- like for example the Christian idea of eventual heaven on earth morphed into the notion of progress through which mankind can achieve the same result through technological advancement. (although the more sane people nowadays when looking at how destructive we've got kinda acknowledge that that's not enough.) Why do you still cling to your idea that christianity is for slavery even though I proved it wrong? Would you really rather stick to your superficial reading of a particular part of the Bible due to your strong distaste towards it as a whole rather than honestly reevaluating it, like a man of science should? Your feelings are clouding your judgement, the way I see it. Oh and I'm not sure you understand the word ethics correctly: I meant something entirely different -- the general conduct, the idea of what's good and evil etc. You've just told me about ideology, and funnily enough, ideology is the closest thing that modern secularized man has to religion -- given how fanatical and fervent he gets about it. Could you elaborate on the murder thing? I don't put myself on a pedestal. That's just the way things are. You can't deny that the power that man has gained through his development of intelligence and intuition exceeds that of animals. You're really just doing rhetorical nitpicking and it's going nowhere. I'll just end up yet again explaining to you really obvious stuff that you initially willfully distort due to our fundamentally different linguistic points of reference and subjective feelings of connotations which you don't in the least way attempt to reconcile. High conciousness is the ability of coming up with intelligent long-term solutions, figuring out the way things work, understanding the world on multiple levels of being and being self-reflective about it. Other animals don't have that. Hence, when I say animalistic, I'm really just referring to the traits of the great majority of the animals. We're an exception so I commit a generalization so that it stays simple and convenient and understandable within the already existing cultural differentiation that is at the roots of it. So when a person commits a generalization -- just so you know in the future -- in most cases, if he's more or less honest and rigorous in his attempt to get to the truth of the matter, the generalization is never done to a full extent without the person accounting for the fact that there are some kind of exceptions, nuances etc. So all in all, just so we're clear and you don't bring this up again -- I do acknowledge that man is an ape, an animal, but he has such distinct features which completely remodeled his life that it's perfectly justifiable to make a differentiation based upon that even though it's probably not exactly the best way to put it.
except some birds, some apes, some cetaceans, and many others. putting yourself on a pedestal while saying you don't much? humans spend millions of years hunting and gathering like animals before some figured out how to farm crops which freed up time to devellop written language, gorillas and chimps have shown the same capacity for understanding written languages if taught from a young age. beavers build dams which alter their enviroment to their own benefit. stop trying to make humans ( and by extension yourself ) special, you are not special.
that's why I've been telling you all religions are evil and everyone who tries to explain the world through spirituality is full of Bane Shift. you know, just so you know in the future.
Really? so you decided because animals lack the capacity for human speech and lack the understanding of human communication ( and we theirs) they do not have an inner life. I can't understand Sentinelese, do they lack feelings, inner though and all that jazz?
I meant all of those qualities as a whole. so why don't we see them academic chimps or beavers that can help us with our environment for example? Picking out specific animals that excel in a very specific skill does not prove that they have the same kind of high level consciousness as we do. Just admit that you were nitpicking cause we both know I'm right. I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not, because as far as I remember, that was the general gist of your rhetoric throughout all the times I saw you argue on religion. No. I decided that based on my intuition. Their body language lacks complexity compared to ours and they are far more reactive since they are less self-aware then we are (although sometimes that is good since they can sense when nature is gonna do something big on them.) And I didn't say they don't have an inner life, although I understand why you'd come to that conclusion. They most certainly have one, and it probably has lots of interesting elements to it (I'd love to see the world through the eyes of a raven or a cheetah for example), but in terms of consciousness and self-awareness and self-reflectiveness they are nowhere near man. We are the only animals that are capable of such high level of reflectability of the cosmos and thats what makes us special. That's what made us powerful. But obviously, it's a double-edged sworded, and as of now, unfortunately, it is to our detriment.
you came to the conclusion that they don't without any basis for it. so same question. Why don't the Sentinelese help us? where are their academics? Why did you skip over my question about them? broadly, you just said hyperbole sweeping statements were okay. don't disgree with everything religious, just the deceptive and harmfull parts. are you infallible now? does intuition never lead anyone to wrong conclusions or wrong choices? [citation needed] [citation needed] [citation needed] [citation needed] [citation needed] the majority are certainly more self aware than you are.
I don't think that religion has done much for human intelligence, but I do think it's the source of our basic moral code and laws. It allows society to survive far more peacefully than otherwise. Although, it's obviously tough to figure out if a violent society creates a violent religion, or a violent religion can make a society more violent. Probably both, I guess.
this is easy to test. we take a religious country like the US or Italy and a more atheist country and compare the murder rates. or we take a group of children raised religiously and a group raised atheist and compare the rates at which both groups commit crimes.
Oh no, every single successful country nowadays has used religion as it's source of moral guidance. Sure, once we've progressed this far countries can look at other sources for moral guidance, but that doesn't mean that it would be in the state it is in now if it wasn't for religion. You'd have to travel a long way back in time in order to do any sort of test of the sort you're describing.
I already told you the basis of my conclusion. I didn't know about them until you mentioned them. They seem like a purist society which likes to keep their traditions. That can be both good and bad in certain cases when looking at it from the bigger picture, although it really depends from what standpoint you evaluate it in the long run. I didn't say they were OK. I said that these kind of things aren't out of the ordinary when your rhetoric builds up. Yet, I wouldn't call it demagoguery because he is basically quoting Dostoevsky when he says that. Again, I doubt that he thinks so himself, or atleast not in such extreme degree. After all, he constantly debates with atheists and acknowledges many of their positive qualities like their pursuit of maximum clarity, conciseness in speech and critical thinking. No. It does. I'm willing to be proven wrong if you manage to do so with sound arguments, not vague hypotheses based on idealistic notions. Dunno man. I've yet to see. But maybe.. Also, I thought you might find this interesting. I feel like their debate resembles in many ways our differences of opinion.
