Are humans special?

[Mr Walker]

I could just as easily say I KNOW my pets love me and each other because of over 30 years of ongoing daily interaction with animals.

Yes you could as easily say that, and depending on your definition of love you might be correct.

i would argue that you cant have evidence of human type love from animals because they do not have the intellectual capacity to conceptualise and chose love as humans do.

A better comparison is to say you know your house, or your partner, or your animals exist, because of your daily interaction with them. That is something which can be physically known. You can know how your partner thinks and feels, because you can ask them, and they can intellectualise and verbalise an understandable response.

It may or may not be the truth, but communication and knowing is possible between humans.

[Rlyeh]

The fact that we're created in Gods image. No other lifeform on Earth can say the same.

A delusion. If they could talk they could.

[Mr Walker]

A delusion. If they could talk they could.

If they could talk then they would have also been "created" in gods image and could correctly say so. God is, after all, quite a talker.

[redhen]

It is not my job to make anyone believe anything. Thats what belief is. A choice.

I have to disagree. If one were free to choose what to believe, than you could choose something you know to be wrong. That's not belief, that's self delusion.

Belief comes from observations and the word of authorities/experts. I think rather that new beliefs and changes in belief come from persuasion rather than deliberate choice.

[Mr Walker]

I have to disagree. If one were free to choose what to believe, than you could choose something you know to be wrong. That's not belief, that's self delusion.

Belief comes from observations and the word of authorities/experts. I think rather that new beliefs and changes in belief come from persuasion rather than deliberate choice.

Unless one is free to believe then it is not belief. Belief exists where knowledge does not. It can only logically or rationally be chosen where there is no evidence or insufficient evidence to provide certainty.

A person who knows cannot chose to believe or disbelieve, unless they are irrational. The formulation/construction of human belief is a discipline /study in its own right and fascinatiing stuff.

What we chose to believe will come from our pre-existing world view and how appealing, rational, logical. or emotionally charged, symbolic etc the arguments for belief are. Most people are not aware of the way they formulate belief and so it is not always a fully informed choice, but nontheless belief and disbelief are always free choices for a human mind.They are constructed in the absence of convincing evidences, but what is a convincing evidence for one human mind may not be a convincing evidence for another; hence we have people legitimately still believing in creation.

Humans begin the process of creating beliefs from birth. By nine months they can identify agents and non agents and discrimiante between them. Agents are things which can control the world around them and move by them selves, such as animals and people Non agents cannot. Because of our evolved social nature, humans from birth pay particularr attention to agents in their lives and much less to non agents.

Babies understand that agents act to attain goals and that agents do not need to be visible to function. Thus babies begin to develop the concepet of agents which exist but cannot be seen and which consciously alter the babies environment. And so the belief in gods is born.

From these observations and deductions young children create beliefs about why and how their world operates Adults are conditioned by this process into a simlar construction of beliefs Children are alos particulalry receptive to explantions which invoke design or purpose Thus chidren under 10 tend to embrace creationist explanations of living things over evolutionary ones, even where their parents and teachers have been teaching them evolution.(cognitive psychology vol42 p217 ) Further experiments with adults show that we do not simply grow out of this attraction, but that it must be forcibly "tamped down" through formal education/indoctrination in alternative thinking patterns.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Mr Walker

[coolguy]

us humans are just a higher form of animal or what ever you wanna call us

[Rlyeh]

If they could talk then they would have also been "created" in gods image and could correctly say so. God is, after all, quite a talker.

Strange then that he hasn't said a word.

[+Link of Hyrule]

And I envy them...

What is this fact based off by the way?

Obviously I can't answer for the person who sparked this comment but I'm pretty sure you already know what answer will be given.

[Mr Walker]

Strange then that he hasn't said a word.

Well perhaps he hasn't spoken to you, but that means nothing in the overall scheme of things. God has been speaking to humans since cromagnon times, and humans have been responding to his voice.

Pagans, celts, mongols, aztecs, mayans and babylonians, egyptians, romans, greeks, norse, slavs, chinese, japanese, and on and on. Australian aboriginal people, south pacific islanders . In fact I dont think there is a single race or culture which does not have a history of people conversing with "god," and taking advice from "him." That makes you unusual in human history.

[Rlyeh]

Well perhaps he hasn't spoken to you, but that means nothing in the overall scheme of things. God has been speaking to humans since cromagnon times, and humans have been responding to his voice.

And people have seen a leprechaun in a tree.

Anecdotal BS.

Pagans, celts, mongols, aztecs, mayans and babylonians, egyptians, romans, greeks, norse, slavs, chinese, japanese, and on and on. Australian aboriginal people, south pacific islanders . In fact I dont think there is a single race or culture which does not have a history of people conversing with "god," and taking advice from "him." That makes you unusual in human history.

You mean mythology, history is secular. There exists no historical accounts of speaking with god. Edited January 18, 2013 by Rlyeh

[Mr Walker]

And people have seen a leprechaun in a tree.

Anecdotal BS.

You mean mythology, history is secular. There exists no historical accounts of speaking with god.

Dont be silly. History is simply written accounts. it includes diaries letters opinions newspaer articles etc and yes even accounts of people talking with god History is also what can be worked out from many evidences before writing was invented.

There are many accounts of people speaking with god in history. Think joan of arc. Think gilgamesh and other sumerian records. They are historical records. So are the early fragments of jewish writing including the dead sea scrolls and even the first accounts by christians like paul. Just because you dont want to believe them doesnt mean they are not historical records. They are as historical as the original copies of the american declaration of indpendence and say as much about humans of the time as that does.

I cant speak for leprechauns but there are milions of humans who have spoken with god and had a reply.

How do i know this? simple extrapolation About 80 % of the curent worlds population believe in some form of divine spirit or god. In the past it was closer to 100%

About half of religious peole believe they have had personal contact with an angel. It would be incredible then, that out of the worlds population over the years, billions had NOT conversed with a god they believed in; from norse through roman greek to gaean or pagan. It is built into our psychology and self aware sapience to do s,o and we have to be specifically taught not to.

And history is definitely NOT secular. That is a prejudice on your part. Religion is a huge part of humanity and thus of human history. One can't understand human history without taking into account human nature and religious beliefs. Again, think joan of arc. An historical figure who changed history And her belief that she conversed with god was the entire motivation for her part in history. Think whole civilizations whose history was written via their religious beliefs. The pyramids would not exist without religion. Neither would stone henge, or huge amounts of art music and literature.

Even when i write on this forum my accounts of conversing with god they become a part of humanity's historical record. Just like anne frank's diary, they become available to future historians.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Mr Walker

[Sean93]

Well perhaps he hasn't spoken to you, but that means nothing in the overall scheme of things. God has been speaking to humans since cromagnon times, and humans have been responding to his voice.

Pagans, celts, mongols, aztecs, mayans and babylonians, egyptians, romans, greeks, norse, slavs, chinese, japanese, and on and on. Australian aboriginal people, south pacific islanders . In fact I dont think there is a single race or culture which does not have a history of people conversing with "god," and taking advice from "him." That makes you unusual in human history.

It'd Interesting if this were true, of course I can't shake the feeling of 'where did it all go wrong?' as in how many individual messages does god need? and does 'it' or better yet 'they' even value religion because if it is as you say; god has given everyone very different information to all of these historical people and has made such information rife with conflict due to some of their claims of being the only way to god - either the human mind convoluted the message with an agenda, or god is changing it's mind and can't decide on the best mythology to back up his/her existence and to guide human moral values.

Perhaps god intended for different religions for the understanding of individual societies through time but it makes passages like "the only way to the father is through me" and others like this defunct automatically, and it also tarnishes the first commandment - I mention this only because you're a Christian so I'm speaking on your terms - because "You shall have no other gods before me" is very important because if you follow commandment 1, you'll have no problem following the other 9...conflict arises.

Unless of course god has no problem with one choosing a faith that best suits them in which case people should not be horribly ridiculed and alienated for their faith and even grimmer; that a of ill-conceived acts of violence could have been averted.

[Sean93]

Obviously I can't answer for the person who sparked this comment but I'm pretty sure you already know what answer will be given.

You never know what someone will say next but this person called it 'fact' and if so, they must have a strong answer to give.

Bill Hicks once said "All I want is the truth in life, is that so much to ask?". You never know who will come into your life one day and hit you with a truth that changes you forever and I'm looking for that truth, I just don't know what it is yet.

[Mr Walker]

It'd Interesting if this were true, of course I can't shake the feeling of 'where did it all go wrong?' as in how many individual messages does god need? and does 'it' or better yet 'they' even value religion because if it is as you say; god has given everyone very different information to all of these historical people and has made such information rife with conflict due to some of their claims of being the only way to god - either the human mind convoluted the message with an agenda, or god is changing it's mind and can't decide on the best mythology to back up his/her existence and to guide human moral values.

Perhaps god intended for different religions for the understanding of individual societies through time but it makes passages like "the only way to the father is through me" and others like this defunct automatically, and it also tarnishes the first commandment - I mention this only because you're a Christian so I'm speaking on your terms - because "You shall have no other gods before me" is very important because if you follow commandment 1, you'll have no problem following the other 9...conflict arises.

Unless of course god has no problem with one choosing a faith that best suits them in which case people should not be horribly ridiculed and alienated for their faith and even grimmer; that a of ill-conceived acts of violence could have been averted.

I am a christian by adult cultural choice. I could as easily have been a pagan or a gean or anything else. In my opinion, based on experience, there is only one god, the cosmic consciousness. I might be wrong, it might be part of a whole family or race but it doesnt seem that way. and i am pretty certain that one individual has a franchise on earth .

If i am wrong it doesnt matter because, in practice, a relationship with god only exists at a personal and individual level. No religions, no preachers, no books, are required just you and god.

All the other stuff can help or hinder a person but it isnt necessary God exists within us and we exist within god. Thus communication is easy, simple, clear and effective, once it is established. God offers many things in common to all humanity The ability to never fear grow angry jealous envious lonely afraid etc., but also individuall things to individuals mentoring empowerment skills talents energy life protection .

In return, basically, god just asks you to listen and to learn, to grow and become the most you can become. To understand without prejudice or bias ypur self others god and the local universe God teaches that material things are necesary for life but not important comared to things like the human spirit compassion love understanding etc. That if we develop wisdom and spirituality to match out technology, we will survive, evolve and spread throughout the universe; but we couldl just as easily destroy ourselves or limit oursleves to isolation and extinction on this one tiny planet without that wisdom and spirituality.

I could go on but you get the idea. I have no other god but god. I dont worship power or money or good looks or sucess or how people feel about me or any physical thing.

But god is universal As long as your relationship is with this one universal god and not a false construct of god it doesnt matter if you call god allah, or jehovah, or gaea. ANd you will know if you are connected to god. There is no way of not knowing.

You dont have to go to church, pay tithes et.c., although you can do so for many good reasons. You just have to live in the presence of god , acknowledge this in your heart and mind, and act on this understanding, ALWAYS, because how else can you act withtis knowledge. Act, and even think , as if god is within you, and all around you, because you know he is. So dont lie, steal, cheat on your partner in thought or deed. Dont hate fear or disrespect others because they are you, and they also are a part of god . And so on. Easy to say and easy to do, IF you truly acknolwedge and recognise god in you and all about you.

Do be a good steward, do use your talents, do be all you can be, do help others and share what you can with them. Dont damage the world or hurt others by using more than you need. Do love, respect and show compassion for every other human, from your wife (or parents), to your neighbour, to a starving child in mali. Never hurt another intentionally or by carelessness without very good reason. Accept responsibilty for all your thoughts and deeds.

And then, when you have eliminated destructive feelings and enahnced your creative ones, act on your feelings in every way you can. Then you will live life fully, with hever a regret, and your life wil be one of peace, power, love, joy and fulfilment. You will be loved respected, and love and respect yourself . .

...

Edited January 18, 2013 by Mr Walker

[Grandpa Greenman]

Guess what, I came home last night after a long trip. I was standing at the sink washing up a few dishes the cat comes up touches my leg. Look down and said just let me finish. When I was done I turned to go sit down and my leg have out. She then came up and gave me a look of stupid human, I told you. OK Walker, in your infinite wisdom what is going on in this cat's little brain the motivates her to do this. Not how, but why. There is more going on there than instinct,

We are not special, just different.

[Rlyeh]

Dont be silly. History is simply written accounts.

No, history is the study of past events. As a teacher you should know this.

http://cliopolitical...ethod-what.html

it includes diaries letters opinions newspaer articles etc and yes even accounts of people talking with god History is also what can be worked out from many evidences before writing was invented.

Letters themselves may be historical but the contents may or may not be of actual events.

Equivocation is a fallacy.

As to the rest of your post, clearly differentiating between beliefs and actual events seems to be a big problem for you.

BTW the word secular doesn't mean anti-religion.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Rlyeh

[Beckys_Mom]

us humans are just a higher form of animal or what ever you wanna call us

We are a higher form, that will sink to it's lowest..and ironically claim " We are sooooooo special "

[Mr Walker]

No, history is the study of past events. As a teacher you should know this.

http://cliopolitical...ethod-what.html

Letters themselves may be historical but the contents may or may not be of actual events.

Equivocation is a fallacy.

As to the rest of your post, clearly differentiating between beliefs and actual events seems to be a big problem for you.

BTW the word secular doesn't mean anti-religion.

Did you actually read the whole article you quoted? Now, who determines whether joan of arc's visions were real events or not ho decides if they were real encounters with god? Who determines if paul's conversionary experience is an actual event.

History is two things. The past as it was, And the past as it is written and recorded. The latter is very often far different from the former, but the former is the true and real history.

A good historian seeks the former, but often is limited in their studies by the nature of the latter. The historians job is to piece together as best they can ALL the available evidences and use contextualization corroboration and manyy quite sophisticated skills learned on the job from psychology, sociology, linguistics and other disciplines, to decide what is the actual physical history of a time

The article you quoted explained how the second form of history has evolved and the different philosphical views which influenced how people/historians interpreted the actual events of the past. So, MY encounters with gods and angels are actual events. They are alos a part of our past. Thus they are history.

What an historian makes of them and my writings about them, will depend on their individual world view and their cultural millieu/philosophical inclination at the time they are studying them. History is not just an academic study like maths It is the study of actual events which are our history as maths is the study of conceptual ideas. Maths must be proven to put in a text book History is almost never proven, before it is put in a text book, because it is almost universal that not all the facts and intricacies of an event are or can be known.

You can bet japanese history books of the second world war are very different to chinese or american ones, yet they were written by professional historians.

You can bet that the great modern histories of greek and rome and the british empire, left more out of the actual history than they included, and got a lot wrong. It is not as simple as "the victors write the history" but all academic and recorded history is written by humans from within their individual world views and from within the greater cultural understandings of their time.

[Mr Walker]

Guess what, I came home last night after a long trip. I was standing at the sink washing up a few dishes the cat comes up touches my leg. Look down and said just let me finish. When I was done I turned to go sit down and my leg have out. She then came up and gave me a look of stupid human, I told you. OK Walker, in your infinite wisdom what is going on in this cat's little brain the motivates her to do this. Not how, but why. There is more going on there than instinct,

We are not special, just different.

Well a scientific rationalist would have many reasons for her coming up to your leg.

She was hungry because you had been away. she was renewing her scent on you by rubbing her scent glands on your leg Our cat does this each day. Or having been by herself she was just going up to her pack leader for reassuranc, like big cats do in a zoo or in the wild.

Now a scientific rationalist would say it was complete coincidence that yourr leg gave way it was likely to happen after a long trip and standing at the sink washing dishes. NO actual connection between the two events, except in your mind. Some scientists might decide that your body was exibiting physiacl asymptoms of your weakness, perhaps in scent from your body or in a slight trembling either of which a cat could easily detect by natural senses.

It is you who saw and described the look on the cats face and who interpreted it as you did. She didnt actually think that because her brain doesnt have the capacity to verbalise like that or form thoughts like that. A scientist would tell you this is a biological fact.

[Grandpa Greenman]

My dog and my cat really pick up on my emotional and my physical state. They know before I do when I am getting sick. They let me know. One time I was out walking the dog suddenly she starts pulling for home. By the time I got home I could barely walk. She knew I was having a relapse with my MS before I knew it. My cat is even better at it than the dog. She knows I am in danger of falling before I am do. She touches my leg and runs to bedroom. Meaning I need to lie down before I fall down. If they where mindless instinctive robots they wouldn't care enough to let me know what is going on. If they didn't have similar emotional state we have alert dogs couldn't do their job, because they just wouldn't bother. My dog works as a therapy dog. She always knows who needs her the most. If she didn't any empathy she couldn't do it. She had a patient who never responded anybody, (his brain was gone, so everybody thought) but my dog would go up to him and ask to get on his lap. The guy would respond to her and start petting her. His nurses and family were amazed. He was there and she was the only one who knew it.

I never trained my dog to alert, never trained my cat to alert, so why do they do it? There is no real benefit to them to let me know I am not well. Especially with the cat, once I'm safely down she often runs off to do her own thing. They are not robots, there is more going on there than just instinct. There is science behind this but Walker you are doing your usual rejection of it, because it doesn't comform to your world view. Just because a being can't comunicate at your level doesn't mean the can't feel emotions or pain.

As I said in one post, if an animal can evolve to our level, then that would mean we are as they are just a product of evolution and we are nothing all that special beyond that.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6919063.stm

Walk, you haven't been reading my posts. What she does is called alerting. She touches and my leg then runs to the bedroom. She does this only when I am endanger of falling. Actually a lot of animals alert, They have become a big part of service dogs. Most are trained to do it and some like my cat just do it without training. I have talked to a lot of people with alert dogs who have put them in the training, because they started alerting on their own. To be certified they have to be obedience trained. She isn't asking for food. When she want food she meows as runs to her food dish. This is different. She runs to the bedroom, until I go lie down. Once I lie down her job is done, sometimes she lays with me for a bit, most the time is runs off to do her own thing.

This has become very important to me. Falling is a major danger for me. My dog does it too, but she is not as good at it as the cat. My cat is getting older and has pick up some health problems. I spend a good bit of money special food keeping her going, but she is worth every dime. When she is gone I might look into getting a alert dog, but they are expensive. What she is doing is a caught behavior and is tricky to train for, because I have to be in the situation.

[Rlyeh]

Did you actually read the whole article you quoted? Now, who determines whether joan of arc's visions were real events or not ho decides if they were real encounters with god? Who determines if paul's conversionary experience is an actual event.

Read it again, the source mentions the study of evidence.

The rest of your post kind of proves what I was saying about your inability to separate the facts from beliefs or mythology.

Edited January 19, 2013 by Rlyeh

[Mr Walker]

http://news.bbc.co.u...ine/6919063.stm

Walk, you haven't been reading my posts. What she does is called alerting. She touches and my leg then runs to the bedroom. She does this only when I am endanger of falling. Actually a lot of animals alert, They have become a big part of service dogs. Most are trained to do it and some like my cat just do it without training. I have talked to a lot of people with alert dogs who have put them in the training, because they started alerting on their own. To be certified they have to be obedience trained. She isn't asking for food. When she want food she meows as runs to her food dish. This is different. She runs to the bedroom, until I go lie down. Once I lie down her job is done, sometimes she lays with me for a bit, most the time is runs off to do her own thing.

This has become very important to me. Falling is a major danger for me. My dog does it too, but she is not as good at it as the cat. My cat is getting older and has pick up some health problems. I spend a good bit of money special food keeping her going, but she is worth every dime. When she is gone I might look into getting a alert dog, but they are expensive. What she is doing is a caught behavior and is tricky to train for, because I have to be in the situation.

Why assume you have to train an animal to do what comes naturally to them? The training enhances and regularises what is natural behaviour, otherwise they could not BE trained to do this. Your cat sounds like it is naturally doing what others are trained to do But the reasons it is doing it have nothing to do with self aware intent. That simply isnt possible, given the brain structure and capacity, neurology and cognitive ability of a cat. For example a cat wil attack and kill a snake but not to protect you, even though that is an unintended consequence. A human observer who sees a cat kill a snake on the back lawn, which is approaching, say a baby, might think the cat was acting to protect the baby but that thougth never entered the cat's mind because it can't formulate thoughts of that order. It would have attacked a grasshopper or a mouse in the same vicinity.

All the rest is your mind creating connections because IT can; and not only has it the capacity to do this, but it has actually evolved to do this for special purposes.

I hope you find another animal which can help you, and i am sorry to hear of your condition. It must be frustrating. Perhaps i should not continue to "attack" the belief and faith you have in your cat. It serves little productive purpose and i dont want to upset you. Even if scientifically you were incorrect, the effect is positive and productive for you, and that is more important than who is right or wrong..

[Mr Walker]

Read it again, the source mentions the study of evidence.

The rest of your post kind of proves what I was saying about your inability to separate the facts from beliefs or mythology.

That doesnt answer my question. YOU assume there is no evidence for joan of arcs conversations with god, or their validity. An impartial/unbiased historian would not make such an assumption, whether they were an atheist or a theist.. And of course for most of history the great majority of historians were theists, like all other humans. Probably the majority of modern historians, including academics, still are; but they have to be objective and impartial in their study of history.

You believe god is a myth. That informs your total opinion. If god is real your opinion is wrong. God is then a physical part of human history. Even if god is nothing more than a human construct, that construct and its effects make up the majority of human history, because almost every race, society and civilization constructed gods, and lived in a relationship with them that superceded and informed every other aspect of their lives. For almost the entire length of human history you couldnt live without religion, and a god or two, informing your understanding of every aspect of life, and influencing every action you took in life. Modern historians have to take that into account, because it explains almost everything about the micro and macro elements of human history.

[+Liquid Gardens]

Why assume you have to train an animal to do what comes naturally to them? The training enhances and regularises what is natural behaviour, otherwise they could not BE trained to do this.

Huh? What is the natural behavior that corresponds to a dog learning to 'shake' hands? Have you not seen what circus animals are trained to do? There's a lot of it that is not natural behaviour, unless you think monkeys ride bicycles in the jungle.

[Rlyeh]

That doesnt answer my question. YOU assume there is no evidence for joan of arcs conversations with god, or their validity. An impartial/unbiased historian would not make such an assumption, whether they were an atheist or a theist.. And of course for most of history the great majority of historians were theists, like all other humans. Probably the majority of modern historians, including academics, still are; but they have to be objective and impartial in their study of history.

You assert it happened, in fact you attempted to pass it off as a historical event.

You believe god is a myth. That informs your total opinion. If god is real your opinion is wrong. God is then a physical part of human history. Even if god is nothing more than a human construct, that construct and its effects make up the majority of human history, because almost every race, society and civilization constructed gods, and lived in a relationship with them that superceded and informed every other aspect of their lives. For almost the entire length of human history you couldnt live without religion, and a god or two, informing your understanding of every aspect of life, and influencing every action you took in life. Modern historians have to take that into account, because it explains almost everything about the micro and macro elements of human history.

Doesn't work that way, the existence of a religion is not the existence of a deity.

But again thank you for proving that you can't separate the mythology from historical events.