Human, Animal, Nature

[juantoo3]

I propose this is just more egocentric BS.

In other discussion 123 indicated we can never separate ourcellves from our animal nature.

While thru time we are improving....we are still just animals, with opposing thumbs, larger brains, standing upright, but still animals.

But animals are always distinct from other groups of animals in some way, no?
Some can fly where most can not, some breath under water some air.
If true, humans can be distinct from other animals in some way, like what we call reason or morality.
How distinct, I dare not comment on.

 

[juantoo3]

Wil started this, blame it on him.

Yes, I did say that humans cannot rise beyond our animal natures. No matter how evolved spiritually we believe ourselves to be, we are never completely free of our animal nature as long as we exist in this life on this planet.

I do not see this as a bad thing, merely the way it is.

 

[wil]

Women frown upon the fact that we males are not much more than rutting pigs...

We can deny our nature as much as we are willing....it is a battle...hence Billy Graham not going anywhere without his wife.

Some say that men are using that as an excuse.

 

[juantoo3]

The rut works both ways, and serves to bolster my point.

I agree we attempt to rise above our animal nature...seems most religions provide a guidebook for doing so. But we cannot fully suppress or overcome our animal nature. We can try to tame it, even teach it tricks... but it is always there in the back corner just out of sight.

Those that say it is an excuse are not looking closely in the mirror.

You animal you!

 

[Ahanu]

No matter how evolved spiritually we believe ourselves to be, we are never completely free of our animal nature as long as we exist in this life on this planet.

Yes, I agree. The potential is always there to lose your humanity. Here's a relevant quote from Chinese philosopher Mencius:

Chapter 8.
How it is that the nature properly good comes to appear as if it were not so;-- from not receiving its proper nourishment.
1. Mencius said, 'The trees of the Niû mountain were once beautiful. Being situated, however, in the borders of a large State, they were hewn down with axes and bills;-- and could they retain their beauty? Still through the activity of the vegetative life day and night, and the nourishing influence of the rain and dew, they were not without buds and sprouts springing forth, but then came the cattle and goats and browsed upon them. To these things is owing the bare and stripped appearance of the mountain, and when people now see it, they think it was never finely wooded. But is this the nature of the mountain?

2. 'And so also of what properly belongs to man;-- shall it be said that the mind of any man was without benevolence and righteousness? The way in which a man loses his proper goodness of mind is like the way in which the trees are denuded by axes and bills. Hewn down day after day, can it-- the mind-- retain its beauty? But there is a development of its life day and night, and in the calm air of the morning, just between night and day, the mind feels in a degree those desires and aversions which are proper to humanity, but the feeling is not strong, and it is fettered and destroyed by what takes place during the day. This fettering taking place again and again, the restorative influence of the night is not sufficient to preserve the proper goodness of the mind; and when this proves insufficient for that purpose, the nature becomes not much different from that of the irrational animals, and when people now see it, they think that it never had those powers which I assert. But does this condition represent the feelings proper to humanity?

3. 'Therefore, if it receive its proper nourishment, there is nothing which will not grow. If it lose its proper nourishment, there is nothing which will not decay away.

4. 'Confucius said, "Hold it fast, and it remains with you. Let it go, and you lose it. Its outgoing and incoming cannot be defined as to time or place." It is the mind of which this is said!'

 

[juantoo3]

Yes, I agree. The potential is always there to lose your humanity.

I like the quotes you added.

I'm not fully certain about "the potential is always there to lose your humanity." I suppose in the sense of a brain injury or disease, it is possible. I used to be of the camp (from Christian indoctrination) that humans were above the animals, were unlike the animals, were "better" than animals. I spent a lot of time reviewing that position: animals don't have morality...ooops, what do you know?, they *do* have morality! Animals don't have tools...oops, what do you know?, they do have tools! Animals don't reason...oops, what do you know?, they do reason!

OK then, how much like animals are humans? We still have to breathe, we still need water, we still have to eat, and to continue as a species we need to procreate. We are still subject to time and gravity, like all matter including animals. We still poop and pee, and get cranky, and sleepy.

How are we different from animals? I think mostly it is a matter of degree. We have harnessed fire (more accurately, our ancestors did). We have taken tool making to an extraordinary level compared to other animals. And we've taken reason to a level even higher still, and have used that reasoning power to convince ourselves we are no longer animals...but there is far too much evidence to the contrary to support that erroneous conclusion.

 

[wil]

Animals have not been shown to be able to pollute our air and water to unbreathable and undrinkable in soon many areas world wide.

Appears only humans can make this planet uninhabitable for humans....is that humanity?

 

[EdgyDolmen]

https://thinkprogress.org/methane-e...ut-it-might-be-more-cow-than-car-791e5233dc2a

http://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammals/methane-cow.htm

 

[wil]

Yes...you can't call yourself am environmentalist if you eat meat...

And that is man creating industrialized meat n dairy production... Not nature, not animals

 

[Namaste Jesus]

Damed corporate cows!

 

[juantoo3]

"Clearly there are large uncertainties attached to our estimates, but they suggest that the amount of methane given off by sauropods may have been approximately equal to all modern global methane sources, both natural and manmade."

Dinosaurs' Gaseous Emissions Warmed Earth?, -National Geographic,

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...lobal-warming-environment-science-flatulence/

 

[juantoo3]

Animals have not been shown to be able to pollute our air and water to unbreathable and undrinkable in soon many areas world wide.

Appears only humans can make this planet uninhabitable for humans....is that humanity?

I notice your qualifiers...but it would be simplistic to say other animals do not impact their environments, even to the point of denuding or stripping all vegetation within the confines of their range. Humans just happen to have a VERY broad range across the planet. Animals do impact their environs, it's just that humans do so overall on a larger and wider scale.

And if you ever sat next to my dog when she ripped a good one, I don't know how a person could say animals don't pollute the air!

 

[wil]

Oh I got you... There are species which have caused their own extinction.... Best thing in the midaltalntic for gypsy moths is leave them alone...they overpopulate and disease runs rampant and wipes them out.

I don't think anything can compare.to the number of.extinctions we have caused, much less the number if extinctions we continue to cause. And yeah, our methods of domestic meat production.. Are we to blame the animals on that mess now... Yup, the cow, pig, farts...leading cause of climate change (not petroleum)

 

[juantoo3]

Wil...I luv ya, but you're not Bananabrain and you're not Tao....codger doesn't suit you nearly as well. LOL

I don't know how we got from that animal nature within humans to blaming nature for it's own destruction, some kind of slippery slope with an awkward left turn onto a bypass to nowhere...

The more I watch, the more I see people ensnared by either / or thinking. It must be *this* way, and if it isn't then it by default must be that *opposite* way. So few people genuinely consider multiple range of possibilities in between both extremes. Oh, a LOT of them give lip service to the concept, and then immediately use that to justify a leap to one or the other extreme (and frankly, it is usually the one side in particular these folks leap to, the other side tends to be focused on other things and frankly doesn't give a damn). I mean, if we're talking in stereotypes and strawmen anyway, why not get really dirty about it?

We just had the lecture about the "Middle Way," so quickly forgotten? Extremism of *any* kind is detrimental to cohesive society. The left wants to think they have a lock on fuzzy bunny get-along-ness, but their attitudes and methods are just as offputting as the right, and frankly every bit as dangerous to humanity in the long run.

Don't take my word for it, sit back and watch for another twenty years, and see societies around the world disintegrate into madness unheard of before. Of course, by then it will be too late. But pat yourselves on the back today for the job you're doing that will lead the world to its destruction. That's not prophecy, that's following the lines and connecting the dots that are already out there.

Everybody wants somebody else to fix the problem, and nobody wants to be part of the solution...too inconveniencing. There should only be one religion, one political system, one way of doing things...and that way should be my way, and to hell with any other ways.

Rightly, anyone reading that would be indignant at me for saying such things, but every one of you thinks, feels and behaves precisely the same way with the same underlying attitude. And you wonder why there are so many ideological wars??? The intellectual laziness, the political petrification, the social arrogance that passes as daily life among bombastic chest thumpers and goody two-shoes and nosey nellies...and people caught up in this have the audacity to pretend their "god" is better than anyone else's??? Give me a break, such people...which are almost all of them...haven't got a clue.

I stay off the politics board precisely because I see how politicized *everything* has become. I'm walking on eggshells trying not to offend (a futile endeavor if ever there was one)...but you don't have any problems offending me. That's part and parcel of the program, right? Everyone is allowed free speech, as long as it agrees with the party line. *Any* contrary opinion is by default "hate speech." I don't know, sure sounds like totalitarian utopia to me...bull horns in hand, gas chambers and gulags are being built just around the corner...

The media polarizes the population and makes a profit off of doing so, and blind sheep that we are, we let them lead us around with false promises and faded dreams. Actors (professional liars!) and sports figures, who have no idea what it takes to lead in a governmental sense, believe they have the "right" to dictate to the rest of us how it should be...and stupid us, we let them!

Pay should be based on contribution to society...build a house, cook meals, make clothing...those are valued skills. But getting paid big bucks to professionally lie? That's entertainment! Who is laughing all the way to the bank???

Yes, humans *are* animals...and all animals are equal. Some are more equal than others.

Thank you George Orwell.

 

[peter_g]

[QUOTE="I don't know how we got from that to.....Thank you George Orwell.[/QUOTE]

What a gloriously glorious riff!

 

[juantoo3]

Thanks, the tip jar is on the piano to the right of the stage.

 

[Thomas]

Wil started this, blame it on him.

No worries there, I blame everything on Wil! (Love you, Mr. W!)

Yes, I did say that humans cannot rise beyond our animal natures. No matter how evolved spiritually we believe ourselves to be, we are never completely free of our animal nature as long as we exist in this life on this planet.

I agree, but then my Christianity would kick in and say that we are not 'closed' natures, in that our animal nature is subsequent to our spiritual nature, and whilst our spirituality is conditioned by our animality, is is 'open' to the Transcendent and can be drawn into a higher state of being/knowing, always however, with our heads in the clouds and our feet in the clay.

I do not see this as a bad thing, merely the way it is.

Yup.

To what degree animals are open to the Higher is, of course, a profoundly complex question. I would hazard they are, but their response is more in their being than their knowing. I'd go further and say their response is perhaps purer, but less penetrative – they don't (I think) engage in philosophy – but they are true to their natures and suffer no condemnation for that.

 

[juantoo3]

I agree, but then my Christianity would kick in and say that we are not 'closed' natures, in that our animal nature is subsequent to our spiritual nature, and whilst our spirituality is conditioned by our animality, is is 'open' to the Transcendent and can be drawn into a higher state of being/knowing, always however, with our heads in the clouds and our feet in the clay.

Good to hear from you, Thomas!

I like the way you phrased this, it goes very well with my own thoughts on the "matter."

To what degree animals are open to the Higher is, of course, a profoundly complex question. I would hazard they are, but their response is more in their being than their knowing. I'd go further and say their response is perhaps purer, but less penetrative – they don't (I think) engage in philosophy – but they are true to their natures and suffer no condemnation for that.

That is what I sense as well, though we really have no way to be certain.