Animal morality: are humans merely animals?

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Fat middle

I find that you, believers of the religion of the all-knowing-nature, have a very low sense of your own liberty...

I agree. I think it's very sad. It's like a gorgeous, powerful stallion moping around in his stall, thinking "I'm just a carrot! I can't move, I can't run free in the sun, I can just lie here and eventually die", when in truth, he's an amazingly beautiful and powerful horse, and can do many, many things.

But as I said, it's less scary to believe you have less responsibility, IMO, and I think many people don't want to seriously investigate the alternative to naturalism because of this.

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

how very narcissistic of you.

If it is indeed the truth that a loving God created mankind and set him over creation, as I believe the evidence indicates, it is in no way narcissistic to believe in this fact. It's like saying "how very conceited it is of you to say that you know that 2 plus 2 is 4!"

[Fat middle]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

Actually, azalea, I was going to ask Earniel to change the title of the split thread, because it was, um, ME who started the rabbit trail. I wanted to change it to something like "are humans merely animals?", because that was the original direction of the original rabbit trail. The issue of animal morals was merely secondary. But then I thought that a title change after a split would be too confusing ... is it ok if we stay on this topic?

Yep, I think that there have been a general agreement about denying the existance of morals in animals.

The debated problem now seems to be if humans have anything else apart of instinct...

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

sounds more to me like the logical progression in nature from simple abundant life to more complex "higher order" life that evolves to utilize the simple life. thats exactly how you would expect things to be.

yes, that's exactly how you would expect things to be if you believe in evolutionism

we are perfectly fitted into nature. we dont stand out at all.

Do you really, seriously believe this? I mean on impartial evaluation, you see nothing unique about humans? That's certainly your perogative, but ... whew! To me, it seems like (I'm sorry to say this, but I think it's true) pretty major denial.

I like this quote (azalea's comment about the garage reminded me of it!) :

The Everlasting Man, by G.K. Chesterson
Man is not merely an evolution but a revolution. That he has a backbone or other parts upon a similar pattern to birds and fishes is an obvious fact, whatever may be the meaning of the fact. But if we attempt to regard him, as it were, as a quadruped standing on his hind legs, we shall find what follows far more fantastic and subversive than if he were standing on his head.
...

The very fact that a bird can get as far as building a nest, and cannot get any farther, proves that he has not a mind as man has a mind.; it proves it more completely than if he built nothing at all. If he built nothing at all, he might possibly be a philosopher of the Quietist or Buddhistic school, indifferent to all but the mind within. But when he builds as he does build and is satisfied and sings aloud with satisfaction, then we know there is really an invisible veil like a pane of glass between him and us, like the window on which a bird will beat in vain.

But suppose our abstract onlooker saw one of the birds begin to build as men build. Suuppose in an incredibly short space of time there were seven styles of architecture for one style of nest. Suppose the bird carefully selected forked twigs and pointed leaves to express the piercing piety of Gothic, but turned to broad foliage and black mud when he sought in a darker mood to call up the heavy columns of Bel and Ashtaroth ... Suppose the bird made little clay statues of birds celebrated in letters or politics and stuck them up in front of the nest. Suppose that one bird out of a thousand birds began to do one of the thousand things that man had already done even in the morning of the world; and we can be quite certain that the onlooker would not regard such a bird as a mere evolutionary variety of the other birds .... That bird would tell the augurs, not of something that would happen, but of something that had happened. That something would be the appearance of a mind with a new dimension of depth; a mind like that of man.

And as for your last comment,

Originally Posted by IRex

thats the genius of having omnipotent centered logic foundation to your thinking. everything can work because thats how he wanted the design to be.

And YOUR logic is certainly no different; everything works because if it didn't work we wouldn't be here, right? That's the genius of having naturalistic centered logic.

(I particularly get a laugh out of statements like I heard at a wild animal park recently - "The deer evolved camouflage patterns to evade predators because it helped them survive." "The predators evolved camouflage patterns to hide from their prey because it helped them survive." "[insert animal] evolved [insert characteristic] because it helped them survive." Talk about lack of thinking!!)

I believe Christianity is true based on TONS of observation of evidence and LOTS of analysis, and I make statements based on what I believe is true. You operate the same way. It's no cop-out for either one of us, unless we make statements without thinking.

[BeardofPants]

Originally Posted by Fat middle

Yep, I think that there have been a general agreement about denying the existance of morals in animals.

No, not so much denying the existence of morals in animals, as stating that "morals" is a human construct as stated best by jenkins

....

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

on the rest, as i said, there is certainly a difference... but i think it is a mistake to draw the lines too sharp... one must remember that morality and intelligence are human 'concepts'... ways of expressing what we see in the world... but as is so often true with words, they do not always capture the full meaning of reality

^what he said.

[Rían]

Originally Posted by BeardofPants

No, not so much denying the existence of morals in animals, as stating that "morals" is a human construct as stated best by jenkins

But please realize that there are some human constructs that are complete abstractions ("Let's divide the world into latitude/longitude, and have the 0 line go thru Greenwich!"), and there are some human constructs that are formed to give a name to an ACTUAL REALITY. We can call it "morals": we could just have well called it "xlseifjs"; the POINT is that it EXISTS, and apparently so obviously exists that we felt it needed a name.

And with that observation, I have to go pick up the kids from chess camp! (Or "chest" camp, as my daughter calls it! )

[azalea]

I added the point in question to the thread title. Hope no one minds.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

If it is indeed the truth that a loving God created mankind and set him over creation, as I believe the evidence indicates, it is in no way narcissistic to believe in this fact. It's like saying "how very conceited it is of you to say that you know that 2 plus 2 is 4!"

2 + 2 = 4 is an absolute. How conceited of you to say that a your particular religious view of the world is the same as a mathmatical absolute. reminds me when it was commonly held that the sun revovled around the earth was also an asbolute. same self centered universe thinking here. It is narcissistic to hold the belief that all matter exists to serve me. by definition. actually I suppose technically its more egocentric but either way its not a pretty word.

[Lizra]

The notion that "a god created mankind and set him over creation" reminds me of racism. Some white people actually believed that blacks or others races were inferior, and it was perfectly acceptable for whites to have dominion over them. They felt the "evidence" clearly pointed to this conclusion, but they were certainly wrong. Just because you can't personally experience (and therefore don't understand) another creature's mentality, doesn't set you above it. IMO

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by azalea

I think humans stand out very clearly -- like a sore thumb in fact. None of the animals I've seen around the neighborhood have a garage on their house!

are you suggesting that the act of having a garage makes humans fundamentally different from the rest of nature? what do you base this on exactly? if i list out a thousand things here that we do have that other animals also have does that negate your point? or does the garage rule supercede everything else?

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

Do you really, seriously believe this? I mean on impartial evaluation, you see nothing unique about humans? That's certainly your perogative, but ... whew! To me, it seems like (I'm sorry to say this, but I think it's true) pretty major denial.

ha! this coming from the creationist who cant see outside her shell of religion. how rich. wake up people. just because humans can make garages and fruit smoothies and sky scrapers and poetry doesnt mean we are somehow fundamentally different from all other life on earth. we fit into the continuum perfectly seamlessly. we can draw a million connections between us and other simians. why selectively ignore all these? being ABLE to create a garage is a particular trait of our species. hippos and bats and slugs dont need garages. so why would they build them? it doesnt mean we dont belong as part of the same over all grouping. thats just patently ridiculous. eskimos dont build garages. are they sub human then? they dont build them because THEY DONT NEED THEM. please back away from the concept that an "advanced mind" is the crowning achievement of our species and makes us demigods in comparison to any other animal. worms dont need an advanced mind but they do just fine. we developed our brain for a number of reasons. its worked out pretty well for us so we kept it. and thanks to it we have writing and computer chips and nuclear physics which we use to blow ourselves up with. but a brain is not the be all and end all for separating life forms. a brain is just a development that has proven advantageous just like a birds wing or a giraffes neck. does it make us unique? well you could probably say every animal is "unique" in some way really. if you want to feel unique go for it. does it make us fundamentally different from every creature that has ever lived before us? no. if anything it just proves the rule that life follows patterns. and sticks with what works. and what doesnt work disappears pretty quickly.

I think we are approaching this point from different levels. Some of you are seeing “intelligence� and “mercy� and “conscious thought� and concluding wow we must be AWFUL special! And better then anything else in the WHOLE WORLD! Monkeys don’t have indoor plumbing! So we are specialer then them! Which means they must all be here to be our slaves!! Woohoo!! But you are ignoring what other creatures DO have. And that we generally DON’T have what they have. What we have is no more special then what they have. We both need our respective states of being to maximize our survival potential in this dangerous world. Don’t knock the other animals just because they don’t need your garages. If we end up going extinct, garages or not, while worms and toads and ugly nasty icky crawly things keep right on living and surviving then who will be the special one then?

[Rían]

Originally Posted by azalea

I added the point in question to the thread title. Hope no one minds.

Thanks, 'zales You rock at modding!


(ps - I hope you haven't been affected by the hurricane? You're in Florida, right?)

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

2 + 2 = 4 is an absolute. How conceited of you to say that a your particular religious view of the world is the same as a mathmatical absolute.

Oh, get off your high horse, stop going on what you THINK I believe and please actually READ my post. You quoted it - please actually read it, and do NOT substitute "this is what I think she believes". READ it.

I'll repeat it for you, and bold the important words, which I often use and you hardly ever use, and let's see who is more qualified to be called conceited:

by RÃ*an; the words that IRex apparently missed bolded and enlarged so they will not be missed again
If it is indeed the truth that a loving God created mankind and set him over creation, as I believe the evidence indicates, it is in no way narcissistic to believe in this fact. It's like saying "how very conceited it is of you to say that you know that 2 plus 2 is 4!"

My point is: SOMETHING is true about the state of the universe, and that "something", whatever it is, is a FACT. And if I believe, based on my evaluation of the evidence, that God created mankind, then it's not narcisisstic to believe that way. Now if I believed that God created mankind ONLY because I wanted to be "special", then I think that would be a narcisisstic belief.

If someone asked Queen Elizabeth, "do you think you are the queen of England?", is it narcisisstic for her to say, "yes, I am"?!? Of course not! It's just simply a fact that she's the Queen of England!

It's the same principle here - I don't believe that humans are different BECAUSE I WANT them to be "special". I believe it to be true based on evidence that I see all around me daily. And therefore it is NOT a narcisisstic belief; on the contrary, as I stated before, it's a rather uncomfy one - "to whom much is given, much is required!" There will be quite an accounting for all the gifts that God has given people.

Personally, and I say this as gently and lovingly as is possible for typing-talk, I think YOU are the conceited one when it comes to opinions. Please review your last few posts on this thread, and tell me if you see any of the qualifiers that I often use in my posts ("if", "believe", "indicates"). YOU are the one that assumes your worldview is correct and mine is wrong, in no uncertain terms. I, at least, use words like "if" and/or "believe" when talking about my worldview.

I know that you think you're right, just like I think I'm right - we can and SHOULD have our own opinions, I think - we should NOT mindlessly take up opinions of others. However, I would appreciate it if you would qualify your opinions more, as I do. I think it's more considerate of other people's beliefs. And as a self-proclaimed agnostic, I think that is an important thing for you to do, don't you?

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

It is narcissistic to hold the belief that all matter exists to serve me.

I agree.

I haven't said that.

No one here has said that, IIRC.

Can you show otherwise?

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Lizra

The notion that "a god created mankind and set him over creation" reminds me of racism. Some white people actually believed that blacks or others races were inferior, and it was perfectly acceptable for whites to have dominion over them.

Just a thought - when your darling boy was a baby, was he inferior to you? No. Were you "set over him" to take care of him? Yes. Was that a bad thing for either one of you? No.

They felt the "evidence" clearly pointed to this conclusion, but they were certainly wrong.

I wholeheartedly agree that they were wrong.

Does that mean that everyone should stop making conclusions of any type? I don't think so, do you?

Just because you can't personally experience (and therefore don't understand) another creature's mentality, doesn't set you above it. IMO

I agree.

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

ha! this coming from the creationist who cant see outside her shell of religion.

I'm sad to hear you say this. It's entirely untrue. YOU are the one that states your opinions so positively. At least I use "if" and words like that. Why can I have an opinion and you have an opinion, and I'm somehow unable to see outside my "shell of religion", and you're not?!?! Unfair and illogical.

just because humans can make garages and fruit smoothies and sky scrapers and poetry doesnt mean we are somehow fundamentally different from all other life on earth.

Neither does it mean we are NOT "somehow fundamentally different from all other life on earth", now, does it? Of course not.


I'm still steaming over you calling me "conceited", BTW. I hope it was just a mistake, because I never said that my particular view WAS RIGHT; I only say that I think it's right, or in my opinion it's right, or things like that. I would appreciate an apology ( a really good juicy one would be fun! )

I do say that ONE particular view IS right (if we could only somehow know which one), which only makes sense, don't you think? I imagine we'll find out which one is right someday. Or if your opinion is right, we'll never really find out which one is right (and that's not a knock on your opinion, it's just a fact that comes along with holding your opinion, right?)

Again, YOU have an opinion on this issue, and so do I. So what's the big difference? Perhaps you have known Christians that hold opinions mindlessly or conceitedly; I hope I've posted here enough to show that I'm not that way. Please judge me on ME; not on stereotypes. I hold my opinions based on thought and my evaluation of the evidence; I'll do you the courtesy to assume you hold your opinions based on the same thing. Please do me the same courtesy.

[Fat middle]

Originally Posted by BeardofPants

No, not so much denying the existence of morals in animals, as stating that "morals" is a human construct as stated best by jenkins

....



^what he said.

What I meant is that almost everyone have denied the existance of morals in animals: some because we think that moral are related to free will and that's only in humans, others because you don't think that morals exist at all: neither in animals nor in humans.

You cannot deny the validity of the concept of morals and also claim it for animals...

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Some of you are seeing “intelligence� and “mercy� and “conscious thought� and concluding wow we must be AWFUL special! And better then anything else in the WHOLE WORLD! Monkeys don’t have indoor plumbing! So we are specialer then them! Which means they must all be here to be our slaves!!

Please provide names and quotes to support your claim, esp. the part about "slaves".

I don't think you'll be able to.

[HOBBIT]

hmmm since I can't seem to sleep, why don't I reply?

Some interesting discussions going on here.

I believe that Humans are just animals (believe based on scientific evidence of course ) You know, physically looking similar to other animals, being made up of the same stuff, all that hair on us, similar chromosomes, genes, traits, dna, similar fetuses, ETC. We also have many "animal instincts" in us, among other things

Of course, that doesn't rule out that a "God" created all things with similar inrediants However, I find that much less plausible than Humans simply evolving from Apes or whatever. I even find the idea that some alien (maybe even calling himself "god") simply sped up the evolution or/and alter the genetics of lower animals (ex: apes) into humans much more plausible than . Of course, that is getting off topic.

With more intelligence than other animals, over the years Humans have progressed far since hunter-gatherer days - when, btw, we were much more similar to animals than we are now.

Other animals are able to make their own "garages." Beavers make dams, ants make "homes" in the dirt, with many passaeways, "rooms" to sleep in, "rooms" for their young, the dead, the processing of food, ETC. Other insects make "houses" out of trees or things and may even have symbiotic relationships with them - the tree providing the house while the ants or insect will protect it. Birds make nests. Other creatures burrow into the ground to make homes (some rodents).

It is clear that animals have intellience and that it is not all just "instinct" However, they also do not think like us and cannot speak in in way we do.

Who knows if they even have any kind of language maybe similar to our early grunts? Who knows, but probably not.

And yet, there must be some reason that animals of the same species like to stay together in groups - almost (not all) type of animal will do this, even jellyfish. They also seem to recognize the call of their kind. Whales and their whale songs come to mind.

Do they have morals? Who knows, maybe animal morals :P They certainly don't mind killing any other creature so that they may live. That is why I don't understand vegetarians - ANIMALS eat other animals all the time.

[Janny]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

2 + 2 = 4 is an absolute. How conceited of you to say that a your particular religious view of the world is the same as a mathmatical absolute.

That is absurd reasoning. 2 + 2 = 4 is only an absolute to the extent that everyone accepts it. If I were to create new arithmatic axioms and say 2 + 2 = 3 then we would reach the same situation where we are now. Study your own truths before attacking others'.

[Lizra]

Rian...I guess the fact that you "CHOOSE" to believe certain "EVIDENCE" (and what you choose as "evidence" seems arbitrary to me...the entire "evidence for creation" thread was unremarkable, in that it produced NO actual evidence....IMO ) is what seems narcissistic. I can't help but think (no matter what you say.... ) that you "CHOOSE" to believe a god created the universe with mankind "set over" (that part kills me! It's like this is all some sort of "free-will" *test*! ) because you see humans as special. Your CHOICE seems narcissitic. This choice of being "set over" other creatures is the part that reminds me of racism. If the other creatures of planet earth suddenly developed human style communication, I'm would really be surprised if they believed humans were created to "set over" everything as you say.