If We Are Not Just Animals, What Are We?

1,765 Views | 27 Replies | Last: 7 yr ago by FlyFish95
jkag89
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I found this essay originally published in The New York Times to be an interesting read, so maybe a few of you who peruse the R&P board will also.

If We Are Not Just Animals, What Are We?
By Roger Scruton
Woody2006
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AG
jkag89 said:

I found this essay originally published in The New York Times to be an interesting read, so maybe a few of you who peruse the R&P board will also.

If We Are Not Just Animals, What Are We?
By Roger Scruton
We are not just animals... we are the APEX animal.

Lots of species, especially mammals, preference their own kind. Why should we be any different?
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DirtDiver
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Quote:

If, as many people believe, there is a God, and that God made us in his own image, then of course we are distinct from nature, just as He is. But talk of God's image is a metaphor for the very fact that we need to explain, namely that we treat the human being as a thing apart, a thing protected by a sacred aura in short, not a thing at all, but a person.

This sounds like the God of the gap argument, meaning that if there is something out there and we don't know what it is, we call it God. It seems that according to the author, because we need to explain that a person has value we use the metaphor (or make things up in our head) 'created in God's image'.

These would be my questions to the author.
If there is no God or 'image of God' then why don't we treat people according to their true identity which is a cosmic accident? If humanity is only matter and energy and reactions why would we trust those reactions to tell us about reality? How does matter and energy produce explanations? Why does humanity have value?


Quote:

The astonishing moral equipment of the human being including rights and duties, personal obligations, justice, resentment, judgment, forgiveness is the deposit left by millenniums of conflict. Morality is like a field of flowers beneath which the corpses are piled in a thousand layers. It is an evolved mechanism whereby the human organism proceeds through life sustained on every side by bonds of mutual interest.

How can one know if morality is evolving or decaying unless their is a moral standard?
DirtDiver
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Quote:

We are not just animals... we are the APEX animal.


I like this. I would say we are the APEX of God's creation
mesocosm
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Woody2006 said:

jkag89 said:

I found this essay originally published in The New York Times to be an interesting read, so maybe a few of you who peruse the R&P board will also.

If We Are Not Just Animals, What Are We?
By Roger Scruton
We are not just animals... we are the APEX animal.

Lots of species, especially mammals, preference their own kind. Why should we be any different?


We aren't the apex animal. That honor belongs to cockroaches
Solo Tetherball Champ
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Tell that to all the roaches I've stepped on over the years.
mesocosm
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Solo Tetherball Champ said:

Tell that to all the roaches I've stepped on over the years.


People stepping on roaches has no real effect on their population growth and stability. Long term population viability is the proper metric of apexicity
schmendeler
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mesocosm said:

Solo Tetherball Champ said:

Tell that to all the roaches I've stepped on over the years.


People stepping on roaches has no real effect on their population growth and stability. Long term population viability is the proper metric of apexicity
wouldn't tardigrades be the apex, then? they are basically invulnerable.
mesocosm
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schmendeler said:

mesocosm said:

Solo Tetherball Champ said:

Tell that to all the roaches I've stepped on over the years.


People stepping on roaches has no real effect on their population growth and stability. Long term population viability is the proper metric of apexicity
wouldn't tardigrades be the apex, then? they are basically invulnerable.


Ha! Yes that is probably a better example.
Amazing Moves
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Wrong



GET SOME!!!!

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mesocosm
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Amazing Moves said:

Wrong



GET SOME!!!!


Man that is cool
oldarmy1
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DirtDiver said:


Quote:

We are not just animals... we are the APEX animal.


I like this. I would say we are the APEX of God's creation


I like this. God said man is to subdue all of the earth, when he created man.

See? These 3 sentences "evolved" into an accurate statement.
Woody2006
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mesocosm said:

Woody2006 said:

jkag89 said:

I found this essay originally published in The New York Times to be an interesting read, so maybe a few of you who peruse the R&P board will also.

If We Are Not Just Animals, What Are We?
By Roger Scruton
We are not just animals... we are the APEX animal.

Lots of species, especially mammals, preference their own kind. Why should we be any different?


We aren't the apex animal. That honor belongs to cockroaches
I meant that in the "apex predator" sense rather than in the "species can survive anything" sense.

Little rodents weren't the apex animal during the reign of the dinosaurs and cockroaches aren't the apex animal now.
FlyFish95
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By cockroaches, do you mean longhorns?
oldarmy1
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DryFly said:

By cockroaches, do you mean longhorns?
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Woody2006
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AstroAg17 said:

Why don't you go subdue a blue whale. I'll wait. Video it.
By subdue do you mean catch and keep alive?

Blue whales have been hunted by mankind for centuries.
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Solo Tetherball Champ
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Quote:

Why don't you go subdue a blue whale. I'll wait. Video it.

Might as well request that he ride it like a Shai-Hulud of Arrakis. Wait... that would be awesome.
jkag89
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AstroAg17 said:

God didn't give us dominion over Arrakis.
It never ceases to amaze me the odd direction R&P discussions sometimes head. When I posted this essay a week ago, never did I ever think it would lead to a reference to Dune.
Solo Tetherball Champ
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He gave it to the muslims.
Amazing Moves
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FlyFish95
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Woody2006 said:

AstroAg17 said:

Why don't you go subdue a blue whale. I'll wait. Video it.
By subdue do you mean catch and keep alive?

Blue whales have been hunted by mankind for centuries.
I was in Hawaii 13 years ago on my honeymoon. I've got a great picture of me riding a blue whale and waving my cowboy hat while yelling yee-haw!!!!!
Woody2006
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DryFly said:

Woody2006 said:

AstroAg17 said:

Why don't you go subdue a blue whale. I'll wait. Video it.
By subdue do you mean catch and keep alive?

Blue whales have been hunted by mankind for centuries.
I was in Hawaii 13 years ago on my honeymoon. I've got a great picture of me riding a blue whale and waving my cowboy hat while yelling yee-haw!!!!!
I would love to see that
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FlyFish95
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LOL
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