1. My simplified way of saying that I believe that humans have souls, and animals do not. No dogs go to heaven in my book. When animals die, they return to dirt, nothing more. When humans die, their bodies return to dirt, but there is more in store for the soul...One creature is created in the image of God, the other is not. So, no comparison, far below.....yeah. 2. No way of knowing. Ask yourself how you'd feel if your dog or chimp got hit by a car, what would your reaction be? How would it be if your child had the same fate? Or another loved one? 3-4. You seem to want to prove that we are related to, or derived from chimps, thus including humans in the animal kingdom. I believe the animal kindom to be just that. With humans as the rulers. I'm not buying into the theory that people are just animals. We are put here to care for ourselves, with the world at our disposal, until it ends, and it will. With that said, I decline to entertain the process of comparing how common we are to an chimp or a turtle. Similarities to a species is just that....a relation is different, which I don't believe we are related at all.
I think that, for many, the second reason you gave..." sport" differs little from " hunting just for the sake of killing something"...
1) I will grant your right to believe that so long as you are aware that the operative word is 'believe', with all the inherent limitations of that operant when put into action. 2) I don't see the correlation. I have known people who were closer to their pets, and more emotionally affected by them, than by other humans. But the point is subjective, asi ti's likely that many cheetahs are more affected by the loss of their offspring than by some human with whom they interact...is that evidence that they are superior to us? 3-4) Not trying to prove anything about our relation to chimps, merely stating biological fact as we know it. Again you bring faith into it, and I apply the same reservation. And at whose disposal was the warold put during the time when dinosaurs were highest on the food chain? An era which makes ours look like the blink of an eye...Who was "put here" to take care of themselves and rule by divine right then? And the similarities were stated to refute the idea that there is a clear distinction: humans and every other animal...ot animate species, if you prefer. And although you didn't raise it in this thread, I have a question about your challenge re: animal made songs or art...would that be in English?
Really? please enlighten me...you seem to have a unique grasp of the definitive answers to some seemingly complex questions, such as what does and what does not qualify as art, to what degree the perspective of the operant and/or observer affect that qualification, which faith based systems have legitimate usages in human relations, and now which perspective on the morality of sport hunting is indicative of knowledge and which is not...I am all agog waiting for your responses to these questions.
Why? Is it conclusivley comprehensive? If so...have you read much about the theological/political debates which lead...over years...to the decisions of which writings would and would not be included in 'the Bibile' at the Council of Nicea, etc.? Not to mention the millenia of debates about interpretations...
I got my first dog when I was four years old. When I was 19 my mom and I took her to the vet to be put to sleep. She had lived 15 years and was in really bad physical condition. Before the vet stuck her with the needle, as we were unsuccessfully fighting back tears, my dog began to cry. Not a moan or wail like dogs usually cry, but silently shedding a few tears as we pet her and said our last goodbyes. The vet stuck her with the needle and she drifted away to sleep as her body went limp and died. So, yes, some animals actually have MORE rights than humans. Last time I checked Euthanasia was still illegal for us.
I challenge you to show me one single painting or song created by a severely handicapped person with an IQ of 10 and limited to no motor skills. Incidentally, how much money do you donate to your local/national arts scene?
The very reason we keep such people around versus nature, in which weakened and deformed animals die, is the very thing that separates us from animals.
What? Compassion? Caring for those less able/fortunate? Simply not true... It is very common, for example, for herd animals to 'adopt' orphaned youngsters. There are many other examples...dolphins interjecting themselves between wounded humans, even, and sharks...In some species, say South African wild pigs, it is very common when they are confronted with a Jaguar, for one of the 'adults' to sacrifice himself and draw the Jaguar away to enable the other adults to get the youngsters to safety...endless examples.
It's not true compassion in our sense, but simply instinctive. No rationality or depth of thought exhibited there. I say again, anything not capable of rationality is unable to have rights. The only reason that the severely handicapped among have rights is because of our rational, moral nature, which does not exist in animals.
Then how do you account for the many times and places in human history where the handicapped, insane, etc. were shunned, abandoned, imprisoned,and more often destroyed? Is this rational, moral nature which separates us from animals a recent development, specific to certain parts of the globe but not others? If so, are there times and places when we have been indistinguishable from animals in this manner? And upon what do you base the instinctive basis for a member of a herd to scarifice his life...countering everything we know about basic instinct, excepting occassionally with regards to identity transfer on the part of parent, predominantly mothers...for the sake of the collective? That sounds counter-instinctive, and damned cold reason to me. Additionally, it is not absolute; there are times it happens and times it does not...were it merely common insitinct, as you suggest, it would be consistent.
Macbeth, I never said that it was all-encompassing, this ability for morality. Since all humans are born inherently sinful and wicked, this is no surprise. Rights are not applicable to animals because they are not rational creatures. Rights derive from the natural human spirit and protected by a social compact with society, a compact that an unrational, instinctive animal is unable to achieve. So how can animals claim rights when a social compact is required to protect and nurture them, through the formation of a government? We may have evolved from other animals, but our ability to be rational, create art, machines that do work, develop a complex language, protect our indigent, have a sense of right and wrong, develop a belief system and most importantly, been born with an innate desire to explore one's world and find out what one's place in this world is. Animals can do none of those, so rights are not applicable to them. The idea of rights ascribed to animals is beyond ludicrous.
Makes sense. I'd further elaborate on the issue of right by saying that right is what its masters define. Animals, or other living things, such as aliens or Russians, can be admitted as members of a corporate body as its members wish. Dual citizenship is a form of acknowledgement of former outsider's "new" right within a corporate body. There is no hindrance for the members of a body to adapt the definitions of "member" as they see fit. Therefore, the status quo of animals and Russians having no membership and subsequent rights in another corporate body does not prevent them from being so in the future. With that said, it raises more questions on the concept of "right", as I see it, and reality entails it, right is something that has no exceptions unless a member revokes his right by some banned actions known as crimes. For animals to be admitted as members and enjoy their rights, such as the right to live, then under no circumstances should such right be revoked unless an animal breaks relevant code. That means, a white mouse shouldn't be subject to cruel medical tests to develop new medicine for human beings, unless the animal law says it's a crime to be born a white mouse, which is just absurd. Plus, a man that gets lost, starved and to feel cold cannot kill and eat rabbits and wear their hides without being held responsible, for rabbits can't break any law by seeing a man and run away. etc... In short, if the right to live, which is the most fundamental ground for any other right, is guarenteed for animals, then it would be placing aminals' lives at the same weight of humans, which is absurd. On the other side, if exceptions are to be made in circumstances to revoke the right to live for animals unprovoked, then so called rights are really not rights, but rules to be bend as we see fit, which goes back to status quo - limited privilege and protection for animals, but nothing close to right. Either way, animals shouldn't have real unchangable rights, even though their privileges granted by us can be made into inferior, change-at-our-whim-and-fancy type of "rights", such as the right to not to be abused. Right, priviledge and protection, in this case, is just semantics.
