Who here is not a Christian? Describe your own beliefs

[hiphop]

Man is not the pride of creation. The pride of creation is the silence on the 7th day; this silence can be interpreted as a symbol for the harmonic, balanced life of mankind with nature.

 

[hiphop]

Plus, again a special add.on for A_Wanderer: I have shared more material on that topic in one of my earlier threads, you can look for it since you´re a premium member. I think the thread was called something like "Development policies".

 

[A_Wanderer]

Wow touchy, guess that one can really hit a nerve if you cut at it hard enough

If technology is so great and the solution to all poverty, why has the overall standard of living not increased significantly in the last 50 years? If technology was the means to save people who hunger, then why didn´t it save the big numbers since the start of the 50s?

Famine is really more often a product of poor government policy than a genuine shortage, in relation to the 20th Century compared to the 19th Century one can see that food production has increased at a much greater rate than population growth and the yield of farmland has also increased, that increase is a direct result of scientific investigation and technological application. Since 1950 the population has doubled and food production has tripled, but by the same token food security has dropped in some parts of the developing world leading to famine. But overall people are better fed today than they were 50 years ago and in the developing world have a higher average daily calorie intake. The negative trends that are observed in some places are results of goverment and unsustainable farming practices that are supressing supply, I do not think that they are a direct result of ag tech. The problem as you highlighted is the unequal distribution and trade barriers (and I think that elimination of subsidies will be a step in the right direction). The great famines in the 20th Century have a much higher correlation to experiments in collectivism by totalitarian communist regimes than a genuine inability for production.

Oh and I think the H-Bomb is a great technological invention, doesn´t harm nature at all and will save a couple of million lives

How is it not one of the most remarkable inventions of mankind? Applied to weapons uncontrolled nuclear fusion is surely a terrible destructive power but when we can harness that very same power in a controlled manner we will possess a virtually unlimited source of energy, such a development could eliminate the need for fossil fuels and nuclear fission for energy production.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Man is not the pride of creation. The pride of creation is the silence on the 7th day; this silence can be interpreted as a symbol for the harmonic, balanced life of mankind with nature.

And if this is just mythology then what?

Human beings are just an intelligent species of primate that can use tools to manipulate our environment to our advantage and expand into new habitats without the need to evolve into a new ecological niche - we want to settle the cold we kill animals and use their furs, we want to have food instead of gathering then we rotate crops, we want to move around we domesticate horses, we want to defend ourselves we build fortified cities etc. all the way up to automobiles, material engineering and genetic engineering - our imperitive has always been modifying to our advantage, I think that we are at a stage now where our advantage is protecting the environment and technology is the path that we use. Wherever we have expanded to human beings will alter the environment and can at times do it drastically (the colonisation of Australia by homo sapiens is marked by exctinction of megafauna and changes in vegetation). It's what we do, the only feesible ways that the world can keep existing is for us to do what we do best and develop a solution, or we can wait for this system of self organising criticality to collapse and emerge with stable population levels.

What about mass extinctions? Meteorite collisions, massive periods of volcanism are we but a super-species, an evolutionary wildcard that brings about massive changes due to our unique attributes. The world changes, it always has and always will. There is no perfect state of creation, there never-ever has been because as long as life has existed things die off and dominant forms take their place, environments change and those that cannot adapt die. Treating it all as a wonderfully static piece of perfection is dogma that does not fit with the facts. For the facts I ask people to look up the 5 previous mass extinction events and the current holocene mass extinction event.

 

[hiphop]

How many months have you spent in the developing world?

 

[A_Wanderer]

None, and I am not claiming any special first hand experience and anecdotes to backup my assertions.

 

[hiphop]

The problem as you highlighted is the unequal distribution and trade barriers (and I think that elimination of subsidies will be a step in the right direction).

Agreed. It´s just that I don´t see it coming.

You ask me why you hit a nerve? Because outr develoüped industries have been exporting technology to developing countries and they made lots of profit by doing so. At the same time, subsidies make it impossible that the products generated with this technology are sold at the world market. Consider that those two facts are bound to each other.

What is the sense of having, say, 10,000 agricultural machines if you can´t get a fair price on the world market for the food you produce? there´s no sense. Except of the profits the industrialized nations are making.

Also consider: to be on the forefront of technological inventions, a country needs extensive Research and Development. Developing countries can not invest in R&D - it can be very expensive.

The trick works like that: export technology, make money, but don´t export R&D knowledge (they could develop their own systems, technology, machines - and would be more independent then). The center (USA, Europe, Japan, maybe Australia) keeps everything under control, while periphery still suffers.

I am for a reasonable use of technology where it is needed, instead of a "let´s try this and see what it brings" attitude (see GM food).

 

[A_Wanderer]

I think every plant, every animal, every living being has the same right to live like a man.

Come on, non-sentient life forms having equal rights to man? What about Tsetse flies or malarial mosquitos should they have equal "right to live" as human beings? The rights of man should not be extended to non-sentient organisms because they are unnacountable for their actions. We are not going to be sending a tiger to jail if it kills and consumes a gazelle, that is nature, that is the order of things. Likewise I am going to be species-centric and state that human life has a higher value for human society than other animals and sacrificing other animals for human benefit is perfectly fine. This includes hunting (I can speak from experience in trapping, skinning and eating rabbit, a pest of a creature here in Australia that does damage here), domestication, consumption, animal testing, using animal hides for clothing. As long as the animals are treated in a humane manner I do not have a problem with it.

I also despise the shortsightedness of techno-materialists when it comes to the systems of nature. That balanced system has been in tune (sometimes more, sometimes less, but basically always in tune) for 100,000 years and more. Why change it?

IT HAS NOT BEEN IN TUNE! What about the freaking ice age that wiped a shitload of species off the map and nearly took out human beings that only ended 10,000 years ago? Whatever happened to the wolly mammoths, smilodons and dimetrodons? What about North Africa before desertification managed to transform so much fertile land into sandy waste? These major changes occured without the intervention of man. Increased volcanism during the cretaceous allowed the atmosphere to be pumped with CO2, I am taking bulk quantity that is several magnitudes higher than what we have today. That was a natural process, natural global warming, the contribution of human emissions today relative to that given off by the earth during volacanic events etc. is less than 5%, or we can go to the carboniferous period when mass glaciation occured and the entire continent, it also had the burial of masive quantities of carbon from swamps that lead to oxygen concentrations 80% higher than today. The earth is dynamic, understanding it is science, understanding our limits, what we can do, what we cannot do and what we shouldn't do is also a product of science.

It has had no fewer than six mass extinction events when >30% of all species were wiped of the face of the planet.

Look at things in terms of geological time, human beings may be able to pack an apparently awesome punch in the 2 million years that we have had to populate this rock but on the scale of the world we are a geological blink of an eye. Geological time is the opposite of being short sighted.

 

[hiphop]

None, and I am not claiming any special first hand experience and anecdotes to backup my assertions.

Fine. I have been spending two months in India, six weeks in West Africa, three or four in South Africa, two months in South America, seven weeks in Central America and the Caribbean, and about two more months in SE Asia.

Believe me, I have been talking to many people. Borlaug is wrong when he says "If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals".

Technology itself may be necessary to improve living standards - like in the case of hygiene, clean water, etc. I am not foolish, I know that techology that cleans dirty water from microbes can be essential if you don´t want half of the population to die.

I have also talked to Indians who try to grow species of plants that were eradicated by colonizers. Fertilizers? They will laugh at you when you start talking of the positive impact of fertilizers. Believe me, these people have more knowledge of the sacred Earth than you and I combined will ever have. Just because they´ve been dealing with extermination (of plants, animals, and their own race) for centuries.

It´s about time you go there and talk to the people. An elitist prejudice of someone who hasn´t been there, who hasn´t been talking to the people, is just not credible enough for me, sorry.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Your speaking about the earth as if it is some mystical thing, unless you are being metaphorical that is illogical.

 

[hiphop]

1. Come on, non-sentient life forms having equal rights to man? What about Tsetse flies or malarial mosquitos should they have equal "right to live" as human beings?


2. We are not going to be sending a tiger to jail if it kills and consumes a gazelle, that is nature, that is the order of things.

3. Likewise I am going to be species-centric and state that human life has a higher value for human society than other animals and sacrificing other animals for human benefit is perfectly fine.

4. As long as the animals are treated in a humane manner I do not have a problem with it.

1. Imo yes, all creatures have the equal right to live.

2. That´s true. And we´re not going to send a man to jail when he´s hunting. To be fair, we should include that a tiger apparently needs meat; the human race does not need it (you can see that in the form of the teeth).

It needs to be added that I am not against hunting when done in a responsible manner. I like to eat meat. You will have to agree, however, that 15,000 chicken living under extremely bad conditions in an animal concentration camp is not to compare with a tiger killing a gazelle. The problem is mass livestock husbandry.

The development got out of control, can you relate to that? When man started to hunt, he was humble. He even asked for the permission of the animals to kill them (in ancient tribes). Today, we educated Westeners laugh about ritual dances, or masks - we don´t see any real meining in it except of some strange culture that is there to entertain us. What a morbid society we have become!

3. I don´t think so.

4. But they are not treated in a humane manner, they are treated in a human manner: without any respect. Why without respect? Ha, go look up your own argument at 3.

You think human life has a higher value? Our race has a higher value? Go ahead, this argument serves as an excuse for mankind to treat animals just like Nazis treated Jews in concentration camps.


To return to a sound balance for all living beings, we must value the life of other species just as much as ours.

 

[hiphop]

Your speaking about the earth as if it is some mystical thing, unless you are being metaphorical that is illogical.

True. Planet Earth is full of miracles that we will never be able to explain with our wimpy human logic; asking for the meaning of life like a beggar, while overlooking the miracles.

 

[A_Wanderer]

A chicken is not a human being, a chicken is a very dumb bird, a human being is a sentient life form. Its not a case of gassing and cremation = slicing the head off and bbq.

I stand by that statement; treating animals humanely is by not inflicting undue pain. Doing things like killing them quickly. It doesn't make a damn difference if their heads are shot off in the back of a farm or if they are run over a buzz saw in an industrial plant. If that makes me the moral equivalent of a Nazi then just say it.

Shutting down mass livestock farming would lead to a serious nutrient defficiencies in all those people who havent the time to hunt or support their own livestock or pay the exhorbitant fees of buying hunted meat.

Fuck the ELF, ALF, PETA and all other of the fucking anti-human "animal-rights" groups and their thuggish tactics. I will enjoy my modern medicine, pets and leathe clothing - they should just live their damn lives without.

 

[A_Wanderer]

True. Planet Earth is full of miracles that we will never be able to explain with our wimpy human logic; asking for the meaning of life like a beggar, while overlooking the miracles.

Really like those miracles in pieces of religious iconography that get proven fakes time and time again? the raw numbers game that of the six billion people on the planet a small number seem to beat odds that are one in a few million? the rising of the sun or the birthing of an infant and all the other of those everyday "miracles"?

Does there even have to be special meaning to life or is that just a great little mental artefact left over to stop insane apes from going insance and facilitating social cohesion and altruism.

 

[A_Wanderer]

If we give animals equal rights then do we get to enjoy things like honey (bees are animals too), pets or racing?

 

[hiphop]

a chicken is a very dumb bird

Fuck the ELF, ALF, PETA and all other of the fucking anti-human "animal-rights" groups and their thuggish tactics. I will enjoy my modern medicine, pets and leathe clothing - they should just live their damn lives without.

That says it all. Congratulations. You are a very intelligent modern human.

As to the way we treat our animals, I wasn´t referring to the method of killing, but to the method of keeping them before of killing them. For me, it makes a difference whether a chicken is living its life on a farm with enough place, other chicken, grass, nature etc. around, or if 60 chicken are stuck on one square metre of space behind bars, getting so crazy they are biting each other´s wings off, living a life full of aggression. Besides, it also makes a difference in the taste of meat whether a cow is pumped full of hormones or not.

How can you be naive enough to believe that living in an industrial plant is not inflicting undue pain? For you it doesn´t make a difference, hah. If it was you instead of them, it would.

If it was you behind these bars it would.

You talked about honey or pets. I have explained in my previous posts that I am all for the use of the productivity of animals as long as mankind stays humble. A beekeeper, or an owner of a pet, treats animals very very different from the owner of a mass chicken farm.

This is my last post regarding that topic, since you have done a good job of describing your belief - that worships technology, but despises creation and life - over-abundantely clear.

 

[Rono]

That picture made me realize that i worked in such a farm for more than a year. when i was 16 years old,....and after that i know the respect for animals starts when people have the luxury to buy ecologic or biological produced food. I mean, it comes with a price. That farms will disapear when everyone will be able ( and wants ) to spend a 3 cents extra for a egg.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Lets See:

> Resistant too change
> Strict and dogmatic worldview
> Themes of apocalyptic danger to creation from evil
> Places am inherent moral value upon life
> Supernatural underpinnings and willfull abandon of logic.
> Emotional faith based arguments ahead of empirical evidence.

Yes, sure seems to match a broad definition of religious belief.

I think that I proved my point well enough about the near religious belief that is demanded by some quarters that ilicits the same righteous anger when threatened. Yes this worldview is as much if not more of a threat to humanity than creationism. It is anti-human and technophobic and if followed to the logical conclusion would lead to a fuckload of people (im talking single digits multiplied by ten to the power of nine big) dying in mass starvation until the numbers reach a naturally sustainable level, like any fundamentalist belief system it can lead to violence and terrorism such as the ALF.

Fuck, poke at the belief system enough and people will get damn riled up and you can get a response more akin to that of a bible thumping true believer than a reasonable and logical individual.

I worship the anti-Christ (technology), that despises creation and life maybe us infidels should be burned at the stake - no wait that pollutes the environment - okay just dump us out in the ocean somewhere and we can feed some fish. Then they can keep going after the "bad sciences" of genetic engineering and nuclear physics that will lead to ruin and lead humanity away from nature.

I guess my contempt for life makes sense given my sheer enjoyment of looking at dead things (fossils) and studying death at the level of species (evolutionary biology). I guess when I look at life on earth from the perspective of the 99% of all species that ever existed on earth being extinct and the inevitable natural creep of extinction and regeneration of biodiversity it is very easy to turn into such a goul.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Oh one more point I think that I may be a mass murderer because just this september I killed 1653 Drosophila melanogaster just to find out how giving them ammonia in their nutrient base would effect their life cycle and fecundity over generations

Guilt and fear are powerful emotion tools, historically used by religious authorities and politicians alike to keep people in line; that is why we are the moral equivalent of Nazis if we don't believe that a fucking chicken has the same rights and status as a human being, people generally don't want to be Nazi's so they can be guilt tripped into going along with the argument. Likewise upsetting the balance of nature by changing organisms so that human beings can gain more for less is inherently wrong and must be opposed outright, cost be dammed. If you don't agree then you are the anti-life bringer of the apocalypse.

 

[hiphop]

Reread my statement: "this argument serves as an excuse for mankind to treat animals just like Nazis treated Jews in concentration camps". I stand by that statement because in many situations mankind does not treat animals any better.

I never got personal in that sense, so will you stop that guilt trip? You´re not the victim of the situation.

Thanks.

 

[A_Wanderer]

No I think the victim is the poor sap who would be duped into towing the line because of the implied moral equivalence and emotional appeal (what if it was you!?). Maybe they can pony up some money when confronted with the posters care of PETA?

Wow, classy but hey who the fuck am I to complain, I despise life

It's nothing personal, but this fucking campaign is built on the same kernel that your argument is. If you genuinely didn't mean a moral equivalence then I can accept that, but the church has spoken and it's dogma is diametrically opposed to my anti-Christ moral compass. Oh an here is your full quote, for context of course

You think human life has a higher value? Our race has a higher value? Go ahead, this argument serves as an excuse for mankind to treat animals just like Nazis treated Jews in concentration camps.

this argument refers to me putting the life of a human being ahead of that of another species of animal. You then elaborate to a rhetorical question to suggest a race based issue, because plainly if I see a difference between a chicken and a human then I would have the same attitude towards other human beings. I think people can decide what you were saying.

I am nothing but bemused at this religious belief system.

A paradox emerges, if all animals were to be considered equal, and that some animals would be justified in eating other animals then is there any real difference between a human eating a fish and eating another human being? We really need a Green Moses to lay down the law from on high, maybe he can talk with the animals and get some consensus.

Well after that sickening display this is the product of the green revolution. This is why mass famine a'la 'The Population Bomb' has been averted, this is why forests have been saved and people are getting more calories than they ever have.

link

Brought to the world care of other anti-life minded people.

 

[martha]

in all seriousness, or some form of seriousness, what are your problems with Karma? Or, am i missing something that happened in some previous forum?

You misunderstand. I am not the one with problems.

And yes, you have missed many discussions on the subject right here in FYM.

 

[blueyedpoet]

You misunderstand. I am not the one with problems.

And yes, you have missed many discussions on the subject right here in FYM.

I figured i must've missed something.
whenhiphop, it seems like you have a hegelian philosophy about the world. do you indeed see the world as a mystical being? what does it mean for us to be humble? what does the picture look like of us using animal produced products while remaining humble?
wanderer, you do seem to care about the problems our world faces. you also criticize the notion that our code of morality stems from a god of some kind. what is your picture then like? how do we form moral codes? why should you bother caring about others? some philosophers have argued that everyone ought to just be selfish - society in fact will benefit best that way. your thoughts?
This was not the direction i forsaw with this discussion, but hey it's interesting and a little different than the typical bash-liberals/bash-conservatives type of forum, and it's still related to my topic.
thanks and keep it going

 

[MacHat]

where does this belief come from?

What do you mean?

I'm really tired, so I'm not sure I follow you .

If you're asking where abouts the term karma etc comes from, I'm pretty sure it's from India, but someone can correct me if I'm wrong. What you give you always get back in return.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Morals are a biproduct of social interaction influencing the evolution of human beings, they are innate emotions that maximise the opportunity for individual reproduction by means of group protection. It is grounded in emotion and at points produces illogical responses.

We can draft logical axioms to craft morality based on the no-harm principle. For many of us we are beyond hunter-gatherer societies and have developed philosophy.

We bother to care about others out of reciprocal altruism and genetic hard wiring. We can try to fight against this and vigourously pursue a life of virtuous self-interest but being a Randian superman generally entails being an utter bastard.

I don't believe in God and I have experienced euphoria before, but I understand it to be the working of brain chemistry and not supernatural intervention.

 

[Got Philk?]

I don't believe in God and I have experienced euphoria before, but I understand it to be the working of brain chemistry and not supernatural intervention.

I guess as far as religion goes, this is a big difference b/t you and me. You know though, this is interesting to me. See, for me this is blind faith that this intervention you speak of is a blessing from God. And I love how He works in my life.

But now I'm interested in how this is the workings of the brain. Can you explain how you see this as so?

And Whenhiphop,
As long as Iowa isn't wiped off the face of the earth somehow, there will always be farmland. And I will support it.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Feelings of intense happiness coupled with an almost tingling sensation down my back and a wave of feeling across my scalp. Sparked by emotional responses, completing the biological imperitive or stimulated by opiates. The control of these is very complex and I have not studied very much neurology, I do understand that dopamine is an important neurotransmitter but it's function is not quite as simple as a increased levels = increased happiness.

Like everything else in the universe we are but a complex system that can be reduced to it's basic components; energy, dimensions and fundamental physical laws. Interactions born from these are what forms everything in the universe and it is not impossible to explain them.

 

[blueyedpoet]

What do you mean?

I'm really tired, so I'm not sure I follow you .

If you're asking where abouts the term karma etc comes from, I'm pretty sure it's from India, but someone can correct me if I'm wrong. What you give you always get back in return.

i'm interested in understanding where your particular belief about karma comes from? what experiences make in undoubtable?

 

[blueyedpoet]

Feelings of intense happiness coupled with an almost tingling sensation down my back and a wave of feeling across my scalp. Sparked by emotional responses, completing the biological imperitive or stimulated by opiates. The control of these is very complex and I have not studied very much neurology, I do understand that dopamine is an important neurotransmitter but it's function is not quite as simple as a increased levels = increased happiness.

Like everything else in the universe we are but a complex system that can be reduced to it's basic components; energy, dimensions and fundamental physical laws. Interactions born from these are what forms everything in the universe and it is not impossible to explain them.

I've never understood why natural explanations neccesarily eradicate the possibilty of God. Might the way we are be a result of some design?

 

[Got Philk?]

^ Agreed

I don't know...I still sit here and feel the same way. I mean, I agree we are a complex system. I agree these feelings and sometimes even tinglings can come at times where I am not so much thinking about God and his grace. Yeah probably they are b/c of our make-up However, to me, I usually thank God for them while they are happening or later when it hits me how good God was to me in whatever situation brought the feelings upon me. Does this make sense?

Recap? Sure. My body is how it is and how you think it is, complex. But perhaps God made it or perhaps God uses it and brings on those feelings. I believe he did and he does.