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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Human Nature
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
How would we have survived if we were entirely well behaved? Surely defending ourselves would, in prehistoric times, required some horrible aggression just to survive?
Great point. As an atheist, I would agree that our evolutionary survival to this point has depended on our aggression and savagery as well as our capacity for reciprocal altruism, and that these components of our nature are as indelible as they are necessary parts of our human nature, despite and even because they are primitive.
Which brings me back to my enquiry. How does a believer in God reconcile these natural traits with their belief that we are created this way by a loving God Who might just as well made our evolutionary progress contingent on, well, godliness?
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این نیز بگذرد
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
I believe God allowed/allows evolution, earthquakes, volcanoes, the Big Bang, the whole crazy caboodle. Allowed because it gave freedom. Freedom to become who and what we are and - more importantly - to choose the good, kind path of love. That freedom also allows natural evils (some truly foul creatures etc) and human, chosen evil.
My belief/faith in this God is faint and flickering. But I can’t countenance there being no unifying, loving ‘force’ holding it all together.
I’ve tried.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
What's it got to do with God, Yorick?
Well obviously, I don’t think it has anything to do with any gods. But I’m wondering how people who believe it has think our badness isn’t actually to do with Him, but is instead something to do with Free Will (and it will all be worth it in the end) or the Original Sin (and we deserve it) or whatever, and that all this satisfactorily sidesteps the bigger question of why it has to be this way anyway, given that we could have been designed to be nice to each other from the get go.
I mean, if we are designed this way it’s all a bit disappointing really.
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این نیز بگذرد
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
My belief/faith in this God is faint and flickering. But I can’t countenance there being no unifying, loving ‘force’ holding it all together.
I’ve tried.
Nothing wrong with that. Hope, I think they call it, and it’s a wonderful thing.
Cling on, Boogie.
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این نیز بگذرد
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Tortuf
Ship's fisherman
# 3784
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Posted
While I am aware that the Bible says God created mankind (twice, I guess in case the first model had defects, or something) I do not believe that humans were directly created by God. We are the product of evolution. So, asking why God created us as capable of sin is, to my mind, the wrong question.
Our ancestors learned fear. Fear kept us safe-ish from predators like lions, tigers, bears, Harvey Weinstein and other humanoid creatures. Later, when humans became the apex predator fear told us to build forts and walls and arm ourselves for protection instead of just hunting.
Fear is inbuilt into our deep psyche. I believe fear is the cause of most bad behavior in the world. Fear that "those people" might have something that "I" want creates jealousy, the Klan, walls on the Mexican border, colonialism, and theft. Fear that the world is not running the way I want it to run creates the desire to direct how other people act and the notion that it is OK to despise them and treat them poorly. Fear that other people will be as hostile and angry as I can be creates the perceived need here in the US to carry guns.
Religions, at their best, try to teach us acceptance instead of fear and compassion instead of judgment. Religions like Buddhism try to get us away from self centered fear by teaching us to let go of attachments. Programs like AA try to do the same thing.
Would I prefer a world where people were perfect? What the hell is a perfect world anyway?
The answer is no. I am just fine knowing that my idea of perfection is not an idea shared by anyone else. I also know that it is a damn good thing that I am not in charge.
Posts: 6963 | From: The Venice of the South | Registered: Dec 2002
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
Hi Tortuf. Great points. I totally agree about fear, and see it as the root of great evil. I would also propose greed as a big problem.
Quick question. Do you believe your God could have created a world that is populated by a race of people who are only good?
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این نیز بگذرد
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Tortuf
Ship's fisherman
# 3784
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Quick question. Do you believe your God could have created a world that is populated by a race of people who are only good?
No idea. God probably could. That being said I believe God loves us enough that it would never happen.
I don't know about you, but I am not enamored of living in a perfect place.
Posts: 6963 | From: The Venice of the South | Registered: Dec 2002
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
Heh. Better hope you’re wrong about the Good News then, eh?
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این نیز بگذرد
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
If I may interject. The word "bad" is a judgment call.
When my dog eats my cat's food, my wife calls him bad. But, in reality, he is just taking advantage of an opportunity that has presented itself because a human forgot to pick up the feline's food.
I think that is the point of human behavior--we try to take advantage of a situation when it presents itself. Sometimes we act out as individuals, but other times we have learned by working with others we can accomplish what we want.
Sometimes what we do will incur positive judgments of others (such as helping an old lady across the street), other times what we do will receive negative judgments (such as stealing the old lady's purse).
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
I agree with Gramps about relative morality- there is no absolute here. But it seems reasonable to assume a majority view that, say, genocide is essentially a bad thing, even though this is subjective.
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این نیز بگذرد
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Tortuf:
I don't know about you, but I am not enamored of living in a perfect place.
Jesting aside, should I take it that you are therefore content with the way things are, that people do such terrible things as they do in this world?
You may not want the world to be perfect, but how about nearly perfect? Or a bit nicer? Or just tweaked to be sunny and dry on Sunday School Outing Days? I mean, would you have our existence improved at all, or do you think we are just about right with the current degree of badness we manifest towards each other?
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این نیز بگذرد
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Hey Yorick, good to see you again.
I would ask what percent of humans are perpetrating this great evil. If the book The Sociopath Next Door is to be believed, about 10% of humans lack the ability to "feel with" (empathize with) their fellow humans. They tend to do well in positions that require a bit of ruthlessness (generals sending young men into meat grinders, for instance), and it is arguable that a certain smal percentage helps the race as a whole, but that too many would drive us into extinction. So the evolutionary processes settled on this small but not insignificant percentage as the best mix. (Forgive the anthropomorphization.)
I think maybe the other 90% are perhaps basically cooperative (without a good deal of cooperation the race wouldn't have survived this long) and need to be goaded, by religion or nationalism or fear or what-have-you, into being "bad." The latent ability to be so goaded is there, but without such goading I think we tend to live-and-let-live, and try to survive in an indifferent world while getting along with our fellow humans.
But maybe I've been listening to Steven Pinker too much.
ETA: Tortuf, it sounds like you've been reading Candide.
[ 12. November 2017, 15:11: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
Excellent point, mt (hi), about MOST people being natively good. That’s Hope again, that!
But would you agree that ALL of us are potential mass murderers, as has been suggested in the Fucking Guns thread down there? But that for the grace of God go we?
If so, why should this be? Why should we be created to evolve this way? Why couldn’t we have been proto-formed by God to evolve into being less prone to be bad?
[ 12. November 2017, 15:14: Message edited by: Yorick ]
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این نیز بگذرد
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
I tend to follow the Adam Hills moral principle : "Don't be a dick". That is the basic level of decency that we should show to others, because we can.
I am wondering about this "Original Sin" idea, and I am still not happy with it. But maybe the idea that we are all basically shit, but we have our brains and ability, which is what we are supposed to use to do better. That is our advantage, but we need to use it to do good, not (as so often) to do bad.
I suppose there is the idea that "to who much is given, much is expected". I also wonder whether this is part of our made in the likeness of God - that God has the power and the justification to wreak havoc, but has to choose not to.
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Blog
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take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
Yeah, but that puts a lot of responsibility on us to outdo our God in overcoming the Nature given to us, doesn’t it?
You know what, I’ve been contemplating the words of our late Gator: “Always be yourself. Unless you suck. In which case be someone else.” I wonder why God didn’t execute such due diligence as this when He put His Almighty Jump-Leads into that primordial soup...
[ 12. November 2017, 15:28: Message edited by: Yorick ]
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این نیز بگذرد
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
But would you agree that ALL of us are potential mass murderers, as has been suggested in the Fucking Guns thread down there? But that for the grace of God go we?
I don't know. Lacking knowledge of what makes a person into a mass murderer, it's hard to say if we all have that special something (or not-so-special, I guess, if we all have it). I'd like to think I'm not mass murderer material, but I've led a relatively cushy life and haven't had the sorts of pressures that sour one on this world and all its vain pleasures.
Nevertheless it seems to me that there are plenty of people who have had shitty lives, who have had the bitterness that your average mass murderer complains about, who have felt that kind of anger even, but who did not go on to become mass murderers or anything like it. I'd say the vast majority of people with the mass murderer M.O. do not become mass murderers. Leading me to think there is something "wrong" with mass murderers that isn't wrong with the vast majority of the population.
quote:
If so, why should this be? Why should we be created to evolve this way? Why couldn’t we have been proto-formed by God to evolve into being less prone to be bad?
That's the $64k question. How much of a hand in our formation, phylogenically speaking, did God, if there is a being worthy of that appellation, take? More and more I am inclined to think She worked with the raw material she had in turning lice-ridden tree apes into potential vessels of grace. Which I suppose is heretical (neo-Platonism, perhaps) but there it is.
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Tortuf
Ship's fisherman
# 3784
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
You may not want the world to be perfect, but how about nearly perfect? Or a bit nicer? Or just tweaked to be sunny and dry on Sunday School Outing Days? I mean, would you have our existence improved at all, or do you think we are just about right with the current degree of badness we manifest towards each other?
Such serenity as I have found in my life has come from accepting things as they are and then doing the best I can, seeking guidance from God. Acceptance of reality is not the same as passive letting things be. I take action all the time; whether it is action to improve the lot of my family and myself, or help others who need help. The difference is I am OK whether things go the way I think they should go or not.
I do what I do knowing that I have never been anointed by God, or anyone else, to run things. So, acting with as much integrity as I can muster may not seem heroic, or adequate, for the state of the world. It is enough for me.
As mother Theresa (maybe) said, “If you want to bring happiness to the whole world, go home and love your family.”
Posts: 6963 | From: The Venice of the South | Registered: Dec 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
What's it got to do with God, Yorick?
Well obviously, I don’t think it has anything to do with any gods. But I’m wondering how people who believe it has think our badness isn’t actually to do with Him, but is instead something to do with Free Will (and it will all be worth it in the end) or the Original Sin (and we deserve it) or whatever, and that all this satisfactorily sidesteps the bigger question of why it has to be this way anyway, given that we could have been designed to be nice to each other from the get go.
I mean, if we are designed this way it’s all a bit disappointing really.
I have no idea what Free Will or Original Sin possibly could be or how the Ground of Being could have designed anything except by exacting dimensionless constants and other apparent arbitraries of the universe so that stuff can do mind.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Yeah, but that puts a lot of responsibility on us to outdo our God in overcoming the Nature given to us, doesn’t it?
No - it is about us using what we have been given to do the right things. And because this is not just inate, we can decide what the right is, and do far more good than otherwise. If we choose to.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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MrsBeaky
Shipmate
# 17663
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Posted
Originally posted by Yorick:
quote:
But would you agree that ALL of us are potential mass murderers, as has been suggested in the Fucking Guns thread down there? But that for the grace of God go we? If so, why should this be? Why should we be created to evolve this way? Why couldn’t we have been proto-formed by God to evolve into being less prone to be bad?
I am fairly certain that given the necessary circumstances we are all capable of many awful things. I'm sure I am.
I'm also aware that in some ways many of us almost have less moral choice than others- we are in part formed by our early experiences and confirmed in our choices by the society and culture in which we live. Some of us get dealt far worse hands than others and it affects us deeply and influences our moral compasses. We all have that capacity.
But here's the thing- despite all the crap I've seen and done and that's been done to me, despite all the atrocities around the world, I still believe that alongside/ at the same time/ in the very midst of the crap lies the remedy: God with us, suffering the evil with us and making Love available to us all.
Why would God let us be like this? It makes no sense and I hate that it cannot be easily explained or quantified.
I only know that time and again in spite of all the ghastliness, I and so many others have encountered that inexplicable Love.
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"It is better to be kind than right."
http://davidandlizacooke.wordpress.com
Posts: 693 | From: UK/ Kenya | Registered: Apr 2013
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Eeee MrsBeaky. Again, what's God got to do with it?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Sorry MrsBeaky, I meant what's it got to do with God letting us be as we are? As for our realisation of Him, invoking His presence DESPITE His immanence, that's us. We like the idea of Him. Lots.
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Love wins
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
My contemplations on Remembrance began with deciding not to watch the Albert Hall performance as it started with "I vow to thee my country", which I find goes strongly against the teachings of Jesus, before him Hillel, and before him whoever put the phrases in the Pentateuch about loving God and neighbour. Nothing there about devoting everything to one's country, including sacrificing what one holds dear, which is presumably one's family and friends. Argument followed with guest who doesn't read it that way.
Then it went on to what I usually do, remembering my Grandad explaining at the top of the Road of Remembrance in Folkestone how it was built to enable the young men to march down to the pier where they would embark to cross the Channel to the guns they could already hear. The young men who would not return.
Then my friend introduced something he was told by someone he knew. "They had to kill the deserters, or everyone would have gone home." And he said how much better things would have been if they had done just that. And I wondered just why, over the millenia, so many young men have felt it right to line up for battle and advance to kill other young men who have done the same thing at the behest of their leaders. Just what is it in humans that makes them so blithering obedient when it isn't in their best interests?
I heard the people who say "If he/she told you to put your hand in the fire, you wouldn't do that, would you? If he/she told you to jump off the cliff, you wouldn't do that." But we do, Gaderene swine, Gabriel Oak's sheep, obediently trot off to die for one's country, which mostly belongs to the few who send out the troops, and in our case is now being returned to a state which has no care for its people at all.
Obviously there has to be some evolutionary advantage to being such woefully self-sacrificing fools, since humanity has done so much better than other primates who do not exhibit that characteristic in reaching every inhabitable bit of this earth. But I despair.
[ 13. November 2017, 09:04: Message edited by: Penny S ]
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Strength is weakness. Weakness is strength. As Jesus shows. Evolutionarily our strength - sentient co-operation - comes at a price. So far it's working. At enormous cost. There is no other way.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Yorick--
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
You know what, I’ve been contemplating the words of our late Gator: “Always be yourself. Unless you suck. In which case be someone else.” I wonder why God didn’t execute such due diligence as this when He put His Almighty Jump-Leads into that primordial soup...
Hi! ![[Smile]](smile.gif) Maybe it's just because our Gator wasn't around yet? ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I never will while I'm dependent on oxygen.
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Love wins
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Whoops! Please ignore.
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Love wins
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
Tortuf: quote:
Acceptance of reality is not the same as passive letting things be. I take action all the time; whether it is action to improve the lot of my family and myself, or help others who need help. The difference is I am OK whether things go the way I think they should go or not.
As the Navajo say, "Walk in beauty". As I understand it, practically all Navajo religious medicine is about adjusting the person to the situation be it physical or cultural, not trying to change the situation.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Yeah, but that puts a lot of responsibility on us to outdo our God in overcoming the Nature given to us, doesn’t it?
(a) Hi, Yorick!
(b) This is interesting. It’s teased my lazy Saturday morning brain into action. To overcome our given nature - it’s a thrilling idea, and there’s a lot of it in the Christian tradition, despite all that “by faith alone” stuff.
I forget where I read - decades ago now - something to the effect that the whole of human history (including prehistory) is lived in the space between the two trees of the Garden of Eden. The trees represent attributes of God: knowledge of good and evil; and eternal life. Without knowledge of good and evil, there’s no morality and no blame, which is why the dog who helps himself to the cat’s food isn't evil. With that knowledge, you acquire one of the attributes of God, but you lack his Nature, which is perfect goodness (allegedly - I have a problem with that one, but let’s persevere). Only when you overcome your Nature and acquire a godlike nature can you be allowed anywhere near the other tree, the tree of life.
Of course, I have no idea how the myth relates to practical reality. But it’s a good myth.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
Good Saturday morning thoughts there.
Guess this touches on a common denominator in all religion.
Buddhism starts with the premise that all human experience is suffering of one sort or another. Then step by step, by means of spiritual discipline, moves the consciousness away from this seemingly inevitable state to the 'other tree' as you say.
That isn’t to say religion can’t just flick the switch the other way, as well our horrible history knows.
There again? Take religion out of the equation completely, as appears the case with today’s modern society, and still we observe similar proportions of goodness and badness going on around us. Some might say a good deal less badness than when religious establishments are in the driving seat. A matter of opinion.
But then what does any of that have to do with the Self I wonder.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
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Posted
Yorick: quote:
why would a loving Creator design a species to be so readily capable of badness?
Most Christians I known would say that is the same as: "why would a loving God design a creature"?
And there are several answers to that.
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Schnuffle schnuffle.
Posts: 2538 | From: UK | Registered: May 2006
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sharkshooter
Not your average shark
# 1589
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Posted
This thread is begging for someone to throw out the term "Total Depravity". So, there.
I guess if God had wanted a race of puppets, He might have made us so we would not be able to choose being bad. Instead, I believe, He wanted us to be able to love Him, which I don't think would have been possible if we had no choice.
Or we could just go back to the theology of The Fall.
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Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. [Psalm 19:14]
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Please. The free will argument is bullshit and depends on a God is apparent narrative that doesn’t work in reality.
[ 21. November 2017, 17:31: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
In other words, for such a choice to be valid, it needs to be clear and unambiguous. The existence of any god, much less the Christian one, is neither.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
The question was: "Why not create an entirely well-behaved species?"
It seems obvious that there are many well-behaved species: grass, mushrooms, butterflies, sharks, frogs, etc. Let's try to avoid thinking only of the human species.
Can we imagine a species (of more than one individual) possessed of intelligence, imagination and free will that is not capable of making wrong choices? How would that work?
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
'strewth lilBuddha! Careful. You sound like me. In my dreams.
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Love wins
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
The question was: "Why not create an entirely well-behaved species?"
It seems obvious that there are many well-behaved species: grass, mushrooms, butterflies, sharks, frogs, etc. Let's try to avoid thinking only of the human species.
Can we imagine a species (of more than one individual) possessed of intelligence, imagination and free will that is not capable of making wrong choices? How would that work?
Yes, free will is necessary for Christianity* to make any sense. However, by itself, it is not sufficient. If the consequences/rewards of one's choice are not clear, the choice isn't truly free. The bible and its religions do not constitute sufficiency.
*Several other religions as well, of course
[ 21. November 2017, 19:06: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Free will is something I will have to remain invincibly ignorant of. Christianity makes no sense beyond seek to be nice for all will be well. Does free will, whatever that is, improve on, add to that?
I'm just reading Arthur C. Clarke's 3001 The Final Odyssey (I get there in the end...it's 20 years old) which discusses this very thing, human nature, especially chapter 19, The Madness of Mankind, which I read earlier this evening, including deist Dr. Ted Khan's definition of religion as a psychopathology. I wouldn't have been ready for that 20 years ago.
Fear makes us evil and God is only knowable by our existence and Jesus' (my paraphrase of Ted's annoyance at God for hiding so well): I cannot see how it can be otherwise for any sapient species.
I've yet to see whether the monolith makers are to blame for religion and correct that on Europa. I won't spoil it. But we're only a third rational; we're a rhetorical species: logos, ethos, pathos. That will always tend to the bad. And some eventual good. I cannot imagine a sapient species evolving otherwise.
Except by suffering.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
The question was: "Why not create an entirely well-behaved species?"
It seems obvious that there are many well-behaved species: grass, mushrooms, butterflies, sharks, frogs, etc. Let's try to avoid thinking only of the human species.
Can we imagine a species (of more than one individual) possessed of intelligence, imagination and free will that is not capable of making wrong choices? How would that work?
The case of cetaceans is particularly interesting. Research seems to indicate that they have an emotional life that is at least as complex as that of humans. They are intelligent. The fact that they can plan and play indicates that they have imagination. And they seem to have free will too.
I have read - though I don't know if is true - that instances have been observed of a male dolphin killing a baby dolphin, so that its mother will be interested in mating again.
And orcas who have been mistreated in captivity have killed humans. I don't think we know enough to know if this is premeditated and intentional killing (and if it is, it might be understandable in the circumstances - self defence, even), but I don't think it has been ruled out.
I tend to think that there are probably not-so-nice cetaceans as well as nice ones in their societies. Like ours.
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Dolphins/porpoises (don't remember which) have been known to war among themselves. Also groups of male dolphins have been known to kidnap females from other groups.
Possibly they're about as bad and good as we are.
God help us both.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
It seems obvious that there are many well-behaved species: grass, mushrooms, butterflies, sharks, frogs, etc. Let's try to avoid thinking only of the human species.
All of those are capable of what we would call evil acts - even grasses fight each other (in their own way) for access to resources. Butterflies, sharks and frogs can be very territorial, and will fight and even kill rivals who try to enter their territory.
Male lions, tigers, leopards, wolves, hyenas etc. will all kill pups that aren't theirs in order to mate with the mother. Ants will literally dismember outsiders who enter the nest. Chimpanzees live in large family groups which regularly wage war on their neighbours in order to gain territory and resources. Meerkat families will fight other meerkat families for the same reason, but the dominant pair will also kill any young within the family that aren't theirs.
Seriously, I can't think of a single species that could be describes as being completely well-behaved.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Also groups of male dolphins have been known to kidnap females from other groups.
Not only kidnap, but rape.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Also groups of male dolphins have been known to kidnap females from other groups.
Not only kidnap, but rape.
Rape, as in have sex with against the female's will in order to instill fear? How would we know that?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Rape, as in have sex with against the female's will in order to instill fear? How would we know that?
As in "have sex with against the female's will", yes. As far as we can tell from behavioural observations, that is*. It happens in other species as well, from insects to apes.
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*= there is a strand of thought that says we shouldn't use the word "rape" to describe what animals do as we can't possibly know what "consent" means for them. Personally I think that if the female is actively struggling to get away while the male copulates with her then "rape" is a reasonable word to use.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
*= there is a strand of thought that says we shouldn't use the word "rape" to describe what animals do as we can't possibly know what "consent" means for them. Personally I think that if the female is actively struggling to get away while the male copulates with her then "rape" is a reasonable word to use.
This is an interesting question. Some species of mantis (preying mantis) have the female eat the male after copulation, with the initial theory that after mating he's useless and might as well provide nutrition to his unborn baby insects. If was also found that males copulate more reliably after their heads are bitten off and eaten. This suggests various amusing things about men, thinking and sex, and also cautions about projecting human values and nature on to animals.
It might seem easier to think of intelligent dolphins as possibly raping, but we also have species of insect which mate via "traumatic insemination" where the male basically punches a hole in the female's abdomen creating a bleeding wound to use to inject her with sperm. This seems to reinforce not using human values as a model for what happens with animals. There are other examples which are more upsetting to me as a reader about them.
We could also observe that in the non-thinking animal kingdom, that coercive sex, if a behavioural pattern produces more offspring, and this behaviour can become genetically programmed, that is is adaptive in the evolutionary sense. This has nil to do with right nor wrong nor as any form of guide or lesson for humanity.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Also groups of male dolphins have been known to kidnap females from other groups.
Not only kidnap, but rape.
Rape, as in have sex with against the female's will in order to instill fear? How would we know that?
From the nature show I saw, long ago, I think maybe they were planning on keeping the females long-term. Sex-slaves, basically. Rape of the Sabine women, etc.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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simontoad
Ship's Amphibian
# 18096
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Posted
I am always very tempted to say that humans are basically arseholes, but I try to keep in mind that I am extrapolating from my own experience of myself. Yet there are little daily horrors that I see and hear about, and which are enough to put the species in the dock, even if you ignore the history of Western civilisation, to name but one.
So I think it is a good rule of thumb to assume, when dealing with a human, that they are going to try something nasty. Dogs you can usually work out by seeing if they will sniff a proffered hand.
Just what the force for good that showed itself to me fleetingly some time ago and that I choose to identify with Jesus Christ has to do with my rule of thumb I can't rightly say.
And yet I did read today that a homeless bloke in Pittsburg used his last bit of cash to buy petrol for a lass whose car had run out.
It's a puzzle.
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Human
Posts: 1571 | From: Romsey, Vic, AU | Registered: May 2014
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
This seems to reinforce not using human values as a model for what happens with animals.
Oh, absolutely. But as long as there are people claiming that animals are good, pure and well-behaved when compared to humans there will need to be people like me to remind them of what nature is really like.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
That fits in with Yorick's question as to why God would make humans with a certain amount of bad. But we can enlarge it to nature - why so bloody? I suppose deists can argue that nature follows its own course.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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