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jimservo
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08 Jan 2007, 7:05 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:
Ah, but what line should we draw and why. As well, can we really draw as direct of a relationship between cruelty to animals and cruelty to humans as you imply? After all, not all people who are cruel to animals are cruel to humans, and many sports and activities we still have are have liked historically are cruel or violent to either animals or humans or imply such cruelty or violence, such as wrestling, boxing, hunting, bullfighting, gladiatorial matches, or even modern video games and movies where killing often occurs. Given the role of violence in modern and historical entertainment and the fact that animals are subject to our desires can we not argue that what we typically call animal cruelty should be allowed as it is done by humans to improve the quality of their lives.

Well, actually it seems that headphase has sort of advocated the same position that I am attempting to argue. He is sort of correct too, if it is alright to have an animal killed at a slaughterhouse for your pleasure then what is the moral difference between that and killing the animal personally for your pleasure? The animal dies and the individual gets pleasure from that death in some form or fashion. To state that one form of pleasure is better than another is in its own way imposing your morality on that other person.


(Sorry I did not respond earlier) This is a fair response. I believe what I was attempting to to state was there have been cases in which murderers and brutes have been advanced from maiming animals to maiming humans. However, it is also correct to state that there are those who view animals on an almost equal plane that have gone on to commit terrible acts of violence. I wished to imply that because both occur faulty reasoning used often by animal rights activists that somehow their position would automatically lead to a less cruel world vis a vis human beings.

My position on animals is that is is very important to emphasize that animals should not have the same rights as human beings in that animals should not have the right to be alive. I say this because I think making that type of decision would, I think, have disastrous effects on society. I think society (ie: legislatures) can properly decide to make decisions regarding cruelty and things like that (this is obviously more subjective).



CeallachSolomon
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08 Jan 2007, 7:30 pm

Here's my thought: if you're gonna shoot 'em, shoot to kill. Don't torture an animal with poor living conditions, extreme amounts of pain, or some other crazy ********. And for crap's sake, if you're gonna kill 'em, please eat them. Don't waste a good dog if you're not gonna eat it.



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08 Jan 2007, 9:34 pm

jimservo wrote:
(Sorry I did not respond earlier) This is a fair response. I believe what I was attempting to to state was there have been cases in which murderers and brutes have been advanced from maiming animals to maiming humans. However, it is also correct to state that there are those who view animals on an almost equal plane that have gone on to commit terrible acts of violence. I wished to imply that because both occur faulty reasoning used often by animal rights activists that somehow their position would automatically lead to a less cruel world vis a vis human beings.

My position on animals is that is is very important to emphasize that animals should not have the same rights as human beings in that animals should not have the right to be alive. I say this because I think making that type of decision would, I think, have disastrous effects on society. I think society (ie: legislatures) can properly decide to make decisions regarding cruelty and things like that (this is obviously more subjective).

I know that you tried to advance that psychological argument but people use that same argument about video-games, drinking(well, not exactly the same but still upon the same line of consequences), and just about any activity they disapprove of. The only thing is that the entire reason this problem exists is because of the fact that we disallow such action in the first place. Past civilizations actually killed individuals for pleasure but they still had some level of internal stability, why not allow such things even in this age.

Why can society? The average person can barely make good decisions for himself, why should he make decisions for another man with different beliefs and ideals? The existence of power towards these ends does not mean that these ends must be pursued, democratically we could vote away every single freedom we have and some thinkers would argue that such can be properly decided by legislatures, but if such decisions are bad then why should they be made? Can it not be said that the only legitimate use of power is to protect man from others not to prevent man from acting freely? For to do one is merely protecting one of our own, while to do the other is forcing our will upon that other man. Certainly it is true that totalitarianism can be voted in, but that is no reason for us to be totalitarian.



peebo
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09 Jan 2007, 6:34 pm

"He who sees that the Lord of all is ever the same in all that is -- immortal in the field of mortality -- he sees the truth. And when a man sees that the God in himself is the same God in all that is, he hurts not himself by hurting others. Then he goes, indeed, to the highest path."


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Awesomelyglorious
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09 Jan 2007, 9:16 pm

peebo wrote:
"He who sees that the Lord of all is ever the same in all that is -- immortal in the field of mortality -- he sees the truth. And when a man sees that the God in himself is the same God in all that is, he hurts not himself by hurting others. Then he goes, indeed, to the highest path."

Ok, biblical. Why should I care? Should I pull out passages saying that homosexuality is evil and that money lending is wrong to show us that we should kill bankers and gays? Or can we accept that the Bible is only the basis of a theocratic society and that non-theocratic societies draw their basis off of something less biased towards a certain religion and more objective?



CeallachSolomon
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10 Jan 2007, 12:15 am

Awesomelyglorious wrote:
peebo wrote:
"He who sees that the Lord of all is ever the same in all that is -- immortal in the field of mortality -- he sees the truth. And when a man sees that the God in himself is the same God in all that is, he hurts not himself by hurting others. Then he goes, indeed, to the highest path."

Ok, biblical. Why should I care? Should I pull out passages saying that homosexuality is evil and that money lending is wrong to show us that we should kill bankers and gays? Or can we accept that the Bible is only the basis of a theocratic society and that non-theocratic societies draw their basis off of something less biased towards a certain religion and more objective?


Better yet, you could pull out a passage claiming homosexuality is evil, then pull out another saying it's OK! Wouldn't that just burst their bubbles?

Honestly, while I know support for the Bible and the use of the Bible as a support might be a part of the religious man's belief, but not everyone can be swayed so easily. For a great deal of people, most especially those in their youth who, at one point or another, feel they cannot trust anyone, words and speeches and passages and stories just aren't enough. They need something concrete, something physical; something that can't be conveyed over the internet, for one thing. Religious or not, this applies to all people; the only way to learn anything is to experience it yourself. I'm no theologian, and I'm no psychologist, but I'm a man who's seen things, even in my short time in this world. Until you've seen life through the eyes of another, you can never truly understand his decision. And you shouldn't expect to be able to influence his thoughts, either.

To keep this on-topic, I wanna say that I still think eating animals is OK. If you can find 'em, kill 'em clean, and cook 'em up, they should be free game. So long as you don't sit there torturing them, or leave them to stew in their own filth, or neglect to feed them or something, I think what you do with an animal should be up to you. Of course, this limits the choices to keeping them as a well-treated pet (and member of your family) or eating them, but then again, maybe it's better that way.

Now, get over here Menchi, you're going in the pot!



Awesomelyglorious
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10 Jan 2007, 1:15 am

CeallachSolomon wrote:
Better yet, you could pull out a passage claiming homosexuality is evil, then pull out another saying it's OK! Wouldn't that just burst their bubbles?

Honestly, while I know support for the Bible and the use of the Bible as a support might be a part of the religious man's belief, but not everyone can be swayed so easily. For a great deal of people, most especially those in their youth who, at one point or another, feel they cannot trust anyone, words and speeches and passages and stories just aren't enough. They need something concrete, something physical; something that can't be conveyed over the internet, for one thing. Religious or not, this applies to all people; the only way to learn anything is to experience it yourself. I'm no theologian, and I'm no psychologist, but I'm a man who's seen things, even in my short time in this world. Until you've seen life through the eyes of another, you can never truly understand his decision. And you shouldn't expect to be able to influence his thoughts, either.

I could do that for fun, but my point was more one to keep non-theological debates secular.

Some of what you say has some truth, I am not sure about the young though, it really depends on what you really want to hammer at. A lot of the young are very trusting and are known for idealism, and possibly only distrusting authority. I would definitely say that your analysis ignores the power of ideas too much as well and of logic, people can learn things and truths through logic and reason and there are many that do find new truths through such things, especially on aspects about abstract ideas which experience can never allow us to deal with. As well, I can most certainly expect to influence the thoughts of anyone whether I truly understand the depths of their position or not, if we accept reason as a method through which one can learn and test ideas, then by reasoning with an individual it is theoretically possible to influence their thoughts even with imperfect knowledge, just so long as it is sufficient knowledge. In fact, all debate is an attempt to influence the thoughts of others, in many cases it succeeds as unless somebody comes up with an idea so air-tight that no other argument can dare penetrate it in its current conception then thoughts must be re-evaluated or additional thoughts must be created/developed and put into this debate.



peebo
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10 Jan 2007, 3:21 am

no, not at all, that's not from the bible. it's actually from the baghavad gita.


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Awesomelyglorious
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10 Jan 2007, 9:22 am

peebo wrote:
no, not at all, that's not from the bible. it's actually from the baghavad gita.

Oh, wrong religious book. Still, seems random to me as even fewer people care about Hinduism than the bible considering that most posters are from North America or Europe or Australia. Really though, I am not Hindu, but isn't it true that the varying religious books for Hinduism end up with a lot of contradictions? I just remember hearing that somewhere.



snake321
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10 Jan 2007, 1:35 pm

Well zen buddhism is a bit like that too, eastern philosophies tend to be more philosophical based as opposed to their dogma-based western counterparts. I'm atheist myself and I follow nothing 100%, but I'd be more likely to agree with eastern religions than western ones.



CeallachSolomon
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11 Jan 2007, 2:02 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:
CeallachSolomon wrote:
Better yet, you could pull out a passage claiming homosexuality is evil, then pull out another saying it's OK! Wouldn't that just burst their bubbles?

Honestly, while I know support for the Bible and the use of the Bible as a support might be a part of the religious man's belief, but not everyone can be swayed so easily. For a great deal of people, most especially those in their youth who, at one point or another, feel they cannot trust anyone, words and speeches and passages and stories just aren't enough. They need something concrete, something physical; something that can't be conveyed over the internet, for one thing. Religious or not, this applies to all people; the only way to learn anything is to experience it yourself. I'm no theologian, and I'm no psychologist, but I'm a man who's seen things, even in my short time in this world. Until you've seen life through the eyes of another, you can never truly understand his decision. And you shouldn't expect to be able to influence his thoughts, either.

I could do that for fun, but my point was more one to keep non-theological debates secular.

Some of what you say has some truth, I am not sure about the young though, it really depends on what you really want to hammer at. A lot of the young are very trusting and are known for idealism, and possibly only distrusting authority. I would definitely say that your analysis ignores the power of ideas too much as well and of logic, people can learn things and truths through logic and reason and there are many that do find new truths through such things, especially on aspects about abstract ideas which experience can never allow us to deal with. As well, I can most certainly expect to influence the thoughts of anyone whether I truly understand the depths of their position or not, if we accept reason as a method through which one can learn and test ideas, then by reasoning with an individual it is theoretically possible to influence their thoughts even with imperfect knowledge, just so long as it is sufficient knowledge. In fact, all debate is an attempt to influence the thoughts of others, in many cases it succeeds as unless somebody comes up with an idea so air-tight that no other argument can dare penetrate it in its current conception then thoughts must be re-evaluated or additional thoughts must be created/developed and put into this debate.


I suppose I might have mistyped something, my apologies. But there's a difference between knowing something and actually understanding it. It's true that you can learn things by using fact and reason, but do you truly understand them? And if you don't understand, how can you ever believe? What I meant in what I said was that you cannot truly know something without experiencing it, insofar as you will have no way to understand any information you gain.

For example, take the example of religion. When a religion is spread through force, where the only choice is to conform or die, the people will, of course, conform. However, when the doctrines of the religion reach the person who conformed, they will have no way of understanding it; sure, they'll follow the rules if someone is there to guide them, but for the most part, they'll try to incorporate what they already have experienced into this "new" belief. This happened in Christianity ("What? Christianity isn't perfect? 8O) when the Christians converted Mithraists; those people inducted the Mithraist holiday, what we know as Christmas, because that was what the people knew and understood.



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11 Jan 2007, 4:54 pm

CeallachSolomon wrote:
I suppose I might have mistyped something, my apologies. But there's a difference between knowing something and actually understanding it. It's true that you can learn things by using fact and reason, but do you truly understand them? And if you don't understand, how can you ever believe? What I meant in what I said was that you cannot truly know something without experiencing it, insofar as you will have no way to understand any information you gain.
If you learn something and accept it and its implications then you understand it as well. Let's just look at academics when we do this, the average academic likely studies things that they can never directly experience but they understand their topic and all of the implications of the theories, and data that they look at. Direct experience is often times impossible in many regards so therefore the best tool we have for understanding must then be logic and data.
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For example, take the example of religion. When a religion is spread through force, where the only choice is to conform or die, the people will, of course, conform. However, when the doctrines of the religion reach the person who conformed, they will have no way of understanding it; sure, they'll follow the rules if someone is there to guide them, but for the most part, they'll try to incorporate what they already have experienced into this "new" belief. This happened in Christianity ("What? Christianity isn't perfect? 8O) when the Christians converted Mithraists; those people inducted the Mithraist holiday, what we know as Christmas, because that was what the people knew and understood.

Well the only thing is that your example shows a people who likely neither know nor understand the religion. Like you said, it was merely imposed upon them. They incorporate old things because they don't see reason to forsake them, they seek to conserve them and in a sense don't really accept Christianity fully. There is a difference between knowing and accepting but I don't accept a major difference in knowing and understanding because if you know the facts and theories and how they apply then you understand it all.



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23 Jan 2007, 5:13 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:
Really though, I am not Hindu, but isn't it true that the varying religious books for Hinduism end up with a lot of contradictions? I just remember hearing that somewhere.


yes of course it is true, in much the same way as varying books regarding science and lots of other things contradict each other. and remember that the canon of hindu scripture was written over a very long period of time.


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