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Post by Satori on Jan 11, 2005 10:11:12 GMT -5
i don´t personally know what to think of the whole soul idea, i don´t agree with it in the continued consious of a person though. what i more was trying to do was make a point that u cannot say humans have one and animals don´t that all creatures do show intelligence and emotion or awareness so u can´t just see them as lifeless beings here to feed and cloth us I agree. We are animals - evolved apes - as far as I'm concerned.
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Post by Electron on Feb 2, 2005 8:44:42 GMT -5
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Post by cypris69 on Feb 3, 2005 8:24:43 GMT -5
i agree that topic should have its own debate and would have many good replys but i think it should also be discussed here, at the moment the point does offer some solid questions into what we r discussing. also y say that god, if u r religious, created man in hiw own image, it would simply make more sense that man created god in his image, even to me that makes sense b/c i am an atiest. the point for me then is there is no god and therefore the bible is more a work of fiction (although i will not argue the point that it has no historical basis, 1 b/c it has been around so long it truely has altered history, being hte book true or not, and 2 it does seem to have some historical refrence to geological events that traverse all religions and cultures but that really has nothing to do w/ this debate) then u can see that the people who created it, for what ever purpose, did infact create a god in their own image to do what they wanted it to do.
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Post by Electron on Feb 3, 2005 9:36:49 GMT -5
Creationists seem to be appalled by the notion that natural selection could result in a creature bearing a mind bestowed with the ability to be moral, ethical and intelligent. I'd like to know why it is felt to be impossible for these properties to emerge through the process of natural selection.
Why should a gut-feeling about the need for a supernatural designer ovveride the standard methods for arriving at conclusions as to whether a theory fits reality or not? Indeed over this issue creationists can do little more than bring out statements that cannot be tested in order to support thier position.
Given the power of explanation offered by evolution it seems that all that keeps the debate alive is a form of politeness shown towards creationists.
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Post by cypris69 on Feb 3, 2005 9:59:39 GMT -5
i am not on the side of the creationist but i would have to sa this is a form of politness on both ends of the matter b/c regardless of what u think it is important to realize that both sides of the argument r being polite enough to hear the other out and i am very proud of that, that being that both sides r willing to speak civilly to one another and perhaps see things more clearly. on a second note i am curious to hear what a few of u think of the notion of revenge as being a higher form of thought and what not. it just seems that some animals have displayed what some ppl may see as morals and instincs, frankly i don't see y ppl have such a problem seeing themselves as an animal. it does not make us ne less of what we truely are.
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Post by Electron on Feb 3, 2005 16:20:22 GMT -5
Presumably even creationists accept the fact that human DNA differs marginally from animals - never mind our closest cousins, even mice share 98% of our coding.
So if humans were somehow singled out for special blessings in the soul/mind department then gods handywork would need to be contained within that 2% difference otherwise how does we pass the blessing on to our human offspring?
No doubt this will lead to the suggestion that this accounts for the subdivision of our species into atheistsic and theistsic strains!
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Post by cypris69 on Feb 3, 2005 22:04:26 GMT -5
i don't think i fully grasp what u r trying to say, can u say a bit more?
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Post by joelhaldeman on Feb 5, 2005 18:47:41 GMT -5
okay lets set something straight. We may have 98% of the same DNA but you cannot even begin to say we are hardly any different at all then animals. I spent the day today walking around the city of Chicago. Wow, what an amazing city, huge buildings, beautiful architech, incredible design. Last tuesday I was in the art museum-awesome works of art(unfortunetly I dont 'get' most of them), people wandering around explaining to their friends what they think the painter was thinking or feeling at the time. Lets talk about compassion. Being at a bible institute we often have organizations that come here and talk about what they do. May it be helping orphans in Afric whos entire families died of aids, or sending money to feed and house a person who is living in poverty to giving shelter to homeless people; each of these organization has compassion for other human beings. This week is Founders Week at school. All the classes are cancelled and famouse speakers are flown in from around the world and we get to listen to them. People who have been studying religion all their lives, people with doctorate degrees, parpalegics who have put their faith in Christ, men and women of faith who have taken risks to accomplish great things and helped thousands of people and dont take any glory for themselves but give it to God. This is just a few things that come to mind. Look around you, take your head away from the microscope and look around you. We are nothing compaired to animals. There doing the same things that they have been doing for the past couple thousand years. But man sure has evolved and changed and done some incredible things. There is clearly something in humans that isnt in animals. Something HUGE
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Post by Shiggy on Feb 6, 2005 1:23:18 GMT -5
Look around you, take your head away from the microscope and look around you. We are nothing compaired to animals. There doing the same things that they have been doing for the past couple thousand years. But man sure has evolved and changed and done some incredible things. There is clearly something in humans that isnt in animals. Something HUGE Most humans assume that animals don't possess souls because they don't behave in the same ways we do. This is simply the result of our being different species and possessing different mental architecture. No one species of animal can understand any other, so we can never know. Altruistic acts are by no means confined to humans alone; the same sorts of things happen in the wild all the time. The meaning and passion we humans feel in our lives is strong emotion which animals also feel. Contentment, distress, playfulness and fear are all experienced by animals. Their perceived intensity to our own minds is not evidence for our "specialness" in relation to other animals; all animals experience such feelings. The only major difference is our supreme cognitive capacities and our possession of a large cerebral cortex and frontal lobes. Humans' inability to perceive similar, comprehensible (to us) communication in other animals doesn't mean they don't possess their own communicative capacities and, likewise, just because they don't understand us, doesn't mean we don't have our own idiosyncratic senses of meaning and feeling. We are simply an exceptionally intelligent species.
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Post by Satori on Feb 6, 2005 5:32:52 GMT -5
I'd have to go along with what Shiggy said on this. It's our overdeveloped sense of ego that makes us think we're far superior to animals. True, we do have greater cognitive abilities and that is our primary survival trait, but I'm not sure it's reason enough to mark us out as 'special' in any way other than being 'brainier'. Being at a bible institute we often have organizations that come here and talk about what they do. May it be helping orphans in Afric whos entire families died of aids, or sending money to feed and house a person who is living in poverty to giving shelter to homeless people; each of these organization has compassion for other human beings. You have to also realise that we were the ones that allow the poverty-stricken, those dying of aids, those homeless etc. to get into that situation in the first place. We also create war and drop bombs and invade countries. One could point to an equal amount of bad things we've done to match the good things. I presume you get an equal number of speakers from other faiths along with agnostics and athiests? I'd hate to think you're just getting one side of things. Yes, a brain. Do you look down on someone less intelligent than yourself and consider them to be a somehow 'less worthy' person? If so, it would appear that you have some sort of intelligence prejudice; if not, then why look down on other creatures with that intelligence prejudice. I can appreciate what our superior cognitive abilities have allowed us to achieve as much as the next person, but I don't think that's the issue here. Would your faith actually allow you to believe that humans weren't 'special' if you wanted to? If not, then it doesn't matter much about the biology or the zoology - you're anchored to a way of thinking regardless of that.
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Post by Electron on Feb 6, 2005 7:12:22 GMT -5
There is clearly something in humans that isnt in animals. Something HUGE You need to step back a moment - the gap you can see is no more than any other gap in nature. Consider the gaps between (in ascending order) virus, bacterium, ant, mouse etc. I suggest you have too much pride. Some alien civilisation advanced beyond us by millions of years might easily study us now and note little difference between turmite-mounds and skyscrapers. Honestly, you're making a very fundamental error by viewing this from far too narrow a perspective.
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Post by cypris69 on Feb 6, 2005 10:13:48 GMT -5
sure, there clearly is something in humans that is not in other animals but then again there is also something in a mouse that is not in a dog, that is in a whale that is not in a shrimp and so on. each animal, including us, posseses its own unique abilities that allow it to survive and thrive. just because we are different does not make us any better. we are human though and that is y we like to think of our selves as better. i frankly don't like to think of my self as a termite but really i am in a way. also, who is to say we are not worse then other animals. i am sorry to say, more that i am ashamed then anything else, that we have been the most distructive species to live on this planet. nature is a matter of balance and our ego has messed wither that balance. i like to think that we r now becomeing mature enough as a species to start to fix our own ego but there is still a long time before the majority of people are willing to "step away from the microscope" so to speak but this includes you it just so happens yours is focused on religion. i would say that u r just as unwilling as many people on my side of the argument to step back and look at things from anohter perspective.
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Post by cypris69 on Feb 6, 2005 11:45:47 GMT -5
just wanted to note; tnight at 8:00est there is a special on who wrote the bible. could be interesting and offer some insight or good argument for something we were talking about b4. i won't have time towatch it but if someone does let me know how it is, i'm curious to see what they have to say.
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Post by joelhaldeman on Feb 6, 2005 15:23:48 GMT -5
Id say were a little bit more then that. People tell me that dolphins are more intelligetn then humans. Theyve been doing the same thing for thousands of years.
Are you aware that animals dont all sit around and hug each other. There is a food chain where animals eat other animals. There is sickness among the animals kingdom. Do you see any animals building a science lab and trying to figure out how to cure it. Ever hear about animals causing a heard to stampede off a cliff so they can eat all the dead. Why dont you get upset when this atrocity happens? Maybe its because animals are less the humans.
I suppose you guys could thing I am just prideful in thinking we are better then animals. But I would never say we are the best. There is a God who is better by far then any of us.
No, the theme is 'who is God' that would be stupid to listen to an athiest talk about that.
Id say each of these is born with an instinct and does that their entire life. They dont fall in love. They dont create works of art. They dont get together to try and understand a higher being. They do what they are programmed to do. The difference between a mouse and a dog is tiny compaired to the difference between a human. How can you not see this.
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Post by cypris69 on Feb 6, 2005 19:27:37 GMT -5
Id say were a little bit more then that. People tell me that dolphins are more intelligetn then humans. Theyve been doing the same thing for thousands of years. who is to say that that is such a bad thing, what is wrong with doing the same thing for thousands of years. i don't believe dolphins are unhappy and do not live life to the fullest, i can't imagin that they would even want more. also yes there is a food chian but that is more as a matter of survival. i don't see wolves struting around in the skin of the last deer they killed and leaving the meat. the wolves kill the deer to live, weas humans kill for fasion and many other things beyond simple survival more over we even resort to more sadistic things such as animal testing, whens the last tiem u went to a hen house, its isn't the nicest place to live. i think i would much rather be run off a cliff so another animal can live then spend my life in a cage and shipped off to a slaughter house. and i will admit ppl r trying to change animal abuse but it is still around and ppl have been doing it for a long time. that being said i am still gonna eat chicken, beef and other foods b/c frankly that is how i live, not exactly proud of the fact but i am not gonna go vegan b/c i think it will change that world, i am ust trying to make the point thati would say humans do far worse then any animals do in many regaurds.
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