FlyingHighNow: You just proved my point. Thanks. Hitler and Manson were, uh, humans. Humans who do unspeakably cruel and barbaric things to people, animals, the environment, anything and anyone in their way. Exactly my point.
Abortion, and the population explosion, what your veiw.
by frankiespeakin 134 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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FlyingHighNow
FlyingHighNow: You just proved my point. Thanks. Hitler and Manson were, uh, humans. Humans who do unspeakably cruel and barbaric things to people, animals, the environment, anything and anyone in their way. Exactly my point.
Humans can be very cruel and very stupid. This doesn't mean all humans are very cruel and very stupid.It also doesn't mean that people should take human life less seriously.
The point I am making is that Hitler and Manson valued animal life over human life and thus were able to justify killing many people, millions in Hitler's case. Vincent Bugliosi theorizes that Manson would have killed millions just as Hitler did if he had gained the power to do so.
It can be dangerous to cross the line and to say that animal life is as valuable as human life and to go even further to think human life is less valuable than is animal life. It's a direction I'd not care to go with my beliefs.
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frankiespeakin
FH,
I agree,, our beleifs effect the way we treat fellow humans.
This is why I think "Love" is a safety device and a product of gradual evolution.
I think evolution has given our species the greater consciousness of all that is around us,, which is full of contridictions,, and that "Love" would in a gentle way guide us thru them towards greater and higher forms of evolution which included an evolved "awareness" of (((right and wrong,, or ,,,perhaps not so strongly worded,, would be: an awareness of)) good and not so good.
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acsot
Speciesism
"A striking fact now rendered familiar, even platitudinous, by the triumphs of recent genetic science is how closely all living things are related. Humans share more than half their genes with worms and fruit-flies, and almost all their genes with chimpanzees. Yet this intimate familyhood of life does not stop people from spearing worms onto fish-hooks, or testing drugs on chimpanzees. Nothing surprising there, you might say, given the way humans treat humans; in the face of gas chambers, racism, war and other avocations, what chance has a monkey or a cow?"
"There is a parallel between our excuses for maltreating apes and those for maltreating fellow humans. We locate a difference that we find threatening, or that we despise; we thereby make the other fully Other, so that we can close the door of the moral community against him, leaving him outside where our actions cannot be judged by the same standards as apply within. Racism and speciesism are thus the same thing ? they are myths about who belongs and who is alien.
?? a person?s integrity is never more fully tested than when he has power over a voiceless creature; and the route from pulling wings off flies to committing crimes against humanity is not a notably circuitous one.?
gawd almighty, don't you guys get it? It's so easy for us to say we are the superior species. Love has not had much to do with our history. Of course, if experimenting on animals would cure my mother of the effects of her heart disease/stroke, I'd say, go for it. That does not make me a better species. It merely means I can get away with it. We are different from other species.
The point I'm making is that humans, for all of our supposed higher evolution, have been the ones to cause the torture, degradation, horrors and what have you all throughout our history. That's it. That's the point. We've done that. To ourselves. To each other. To other species. And that makes us better. Yeah, right.
Unless, of course, you're a Raelian, then you believe creatures from outer space did it.
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frankiespeakin
Ascot,
I think it's part of evolution,, for animals and plants to live off each other deaths as well as lifes... , to hunt for pray. This is totally as it should be.
Don't forget that man is a mighty hunter,, and he has no doubt made many life form to become extinct way before our modern times. This has been a part of man's evolution. Yet it doesn't seem that the female of our species was that heavily involved in hunting,,(unlike the lions) but there are exception I'm sure.
Perhaps man will evolve a more and more peaceful behavior towards the process of evolution,, by yeilding to it in a Zen type of way.
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peacefulpete
as it should be.
Do not confuse what is with what should be. Human behavior is not bound to the compassionless patterns of nature.
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frankiespeakin
Pp,
I think it is "as it should be",, because the nature of the universe and evolution has put us "exactly" where we,, are,,. To think differently seems obsurd.
We came from a ground dwelling,,, hunter-gatherer species,, that has and still is evolving greater awareness, and so for mans currant state of awareness it is "exactly as it should be" if you would like to argue this point I think you would have many opponants.
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acsot
Zen - I think the Buddhists got it right - meditating in a cave somewhere, away from contact with other people.
Sorry, I'm in a ranting mood today, mostly from what I hear and read in the news and how our supposedly evolved species rapes little girls and leaves them for dead in the woods somewhere.
Sorry to have hijacked this abortion thread.
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frankiespeakin
As,
That's perfectly alright I think sometimes I feel like you do when I hear about bad things that happen to people,, sometimes it just colors my whole world in shades of gray and blue.
I think you expressed yourself well, and have given your view and that is good,, that's what the theme of the thread is,, to express your own view.
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peacefulpete
Steven Piker does a great job separating the evolutionary realities that shaped our past and present biology, including behavior tendencies, from the civilized present and hoped for future realities. "Is" and "Ought" are separate concepts. I think you are using "should" as meaning "understandably" and if so then we agree, but I am also insisting that our present faculties enable us to consider " ought" for the first time in the history of life on earth. If you are saying"should" meaning "of necessity" then we are very much in disagreement. We are not bound to the ammoral course of evolution, if we choose to we can direct and mold behavior by social conditioning tward a desired goal. Tho burdened with the animal instincts and fears of our ancestors, we can do much to break free the mold of the past using mentle tools that evolution gave us for less lofty purposes.