Are human beings animals?

[Buddha Dharma]

But if we really consider ourselves equal to animals, why does society prohibit eating human meat but allow animal meat?

Not all societies have. For all we know, there's some unchartered little corner of the world where people still do it. There used to be cultures where the children devoured the corpse of the parents in a ritual fashion after their demise. You're still thinking with a colonial mindset of- this so-called humane culture here is the correct default of human beings.

 

[sayak83]

There are many species that cannibalize other same-species members, probably even more during colony conflicts!

But if we really consider ourselves equal to animals, why does society prohibit eating human meat but allow animal meat?

That's the issue.

But if you think otherwise, then you should have no qualms eating a human. "Animal meat is animal meat', right?

If a building caught on fire, and you could only save one life, your beloved pet dog or a human baby you didn't know...... which one would you save?

Are you proposing animals have no ethical codes and only we do?

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/05/rats-forsake-chocolate-save-drowning-companion

In our current world, many of us are brought up to consider all humans as a single community. This makes sense in the era globalization. This makes empathic response, like that of rats above, applicable to all humans. But this was not the case for most of history. There were human societies till very recently where other humans were held as properties. In such cases, an animal may get priority over a slave human depending on valuation and may get saved first.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Are you proposing animals have no ethical codes and only we do?

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/05/rats-forsake-chocolate-save-drowning-companion

In our current world, many of us are brought up to consider all humans as a single community. This makes sense in the era globalization. This makes empathic response, like that of rats above, applicable to all humans. But this was not the case for most of history. There were human societies till very recently where other humans were held as properties. In such cases, an animal may get priority over a slave human depending on valuation and may get saved first.

You didn't answer my question.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Are you proposing animals have no ethical codes and only we do?

Animals follow instinct, nothing more.

 

[Buddha Dharma]

Animals follow instinct, nothing more.

What do you base that on? Certainly not any kind of Christian precedent. Descartes was the first thinker in human history to clearly verbalize a notion that animals are just automatons. Even the Church doesn't believe that.

 

[sayak83]

You didn't answer my question.

Will a rat save a drowning squirrel instead of a fellow rat? Never. Members of the same species gets priority...in general for all animals.

 

[sayak83]

Animals follow instinct, nothing more.

False.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Are you proposing animals have no ethical codes and only we do?

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/05/rats-forsake-chocolate-save-drowning-companion

"50 to 80% of the time".

Now, let the rats get hungry...see what they do!

 

[Buddha Dharma]

"50 to 80% of the time".

Now, let the rats get hungry...see what they do!

Now, let the humans get hungry...see what we do!

 

[sayak83]

"50 to 80% of the time".

Now, let the rats get hungry...see what they do!

This shows rats have different personalities, and some care more than others, luke humans. Not all humans run to save a fellow from drowning do they? Also, starving human also in general won't save other people if they can get food instead. Famines show that.

 

[sayak83]

Animals follow instinct, nothing more.

It took a rat merely 7 hours to learn and entirely new sensory mode. Explain that with instinct only view!
Rats learn to sense infrared in hours thanks to brain implants

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Now, let the humans get hungry...see what we do!

Yeah, most would die first. Then they'd be eaten. Would you kill a human to eat him? I seriously doubt it.

If to save them was as easy as 'opening a door', there's no question what a sane human would do! Starving or not!

 

[sayak83]

Yeah, most would die first. Then they'd be eaten. Would you kill a human to eat him? I seriously doubt it.

If to save them was as easy as 'opening a door', there's no question what a sane human would do! Starving or not!

It's not easy for a rat to open doors which are alien contraptions for them. They are like prison inmates inmates living in cells made by alien beings and being subjected to terrifyingly unfathomable experiments. I don't expect people to behave more decently than these brave rats under such situations, as the Stanford Prison experiments show.

 

[Buddha Dharma]

Yeah, most would die first. Then they'd be eaten. Would you kill a human to eat him? I seriously doubt it.

Not being in the situation, I don't know what I'd do, but I'd like to think not eat someone else. You seem to have disregarded my other points though, that humans and cultures have had things as common you attribute to being animal behavior. You're thinking with a colonial mindset.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

It took a rat merely 7 hours to learn and entirely new sensory mode. Explain that with instinct only view!
Rats learn to sense infrared in hours thanks to brain implants

Are you kidding?! Almost all animals can learn!

Excerpt:
"Miguel Nicolelis of Duke University School of Medicine is leading the experiment. His team implanted four clusters of electrodes in the rats’ barrel cortex."
Those poor rats, being subjected to these invasive, involuntary tests! Does society do the same to humans??
Indiscriminately hurting animals to benefit humans. Posting these articles really defeats your own argument, that we know "we're only animals."

You don't need to answer my question, you unwittingly have.

But now you're implying a brain implant equals natural selection?
Lol.

 

[sayak83]

Are you kidding?! Almost all animals can learn!

Excerpt:
"Miguel Nicolelis of Duke University School of Medicine is leading the experiment. His team implanted four clusters of electrodes in the rats’ barrel cortex."
Those poor rats, being subjected to these invasive, involuntary tests! Does society do the same to humans??
Indiscriminately hurting animals to benefit humans. Posting these articles really defeats your own argument, that we know "we're only animals."

You don't need to answer my question, you unwittingly have.

But now you're implying a brain implant equals natural selection?
Lol.

Now you are making zero sense.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

Scientifically, humans are considered animals, but many religions and faiths would disagree. What's your opinion?

What else would we be, fungi?

But are we only animals?

But are other animals only animals?

So...you eat human flesh?

Our bodies become the grass, and the cows eat the grass, and so, Hockey, we are all connected in the great circle of life.

Very few animals eat their own species. Tigers don't eat other tigers. Nor do dogs eat other dogs.

Coyotes will eat dogs. My Labs are super sweet but even my brother and I had to tackle them in a dog park once because they were playing chase with a tiny dog and you could see in the glint in their eyes it went from play to hunt real quick.

But if we really consider ourselves equal to animals, why does society prohibit eating human meat but allow animal meat?

While the ancients wouldn't have known about it, eating other humans or primates puts us at risk for certain diseases that only "our kind" can catch.

If a building caught on fire, and you could only save one life, your beloved pet dog or a human baby you didn't know...... which one would you save?

Unless the dog was disabled, it could follow me and the baby out.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

What do you base that on? Certainly not any kind of Christian precedent. Descartes was the first thinker in human history to clearly verbalize a notion that animals are just automatons. Even the Church doesn't believe that.

First of all, I couldn't care less what "the Church" believe! (They, and almost all the rest of Christendom, support their respective national brothers over their spiritual brothers, in times of conflict....they're disobedient, so are not blessed with any accurate understanding of God's Word.)

The Bible does comment briefly on this subject @ 2 Peter 2:12


2 Peter 2:12 NASB: But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed,

 

[columbus]

But are other animals only animals?

"Only" ?
Animals (and plants and. ..) are quite wonderful and mysterious.
Living things are all amazing. I try not to take them for granted, although I don't claim to be especially mindful like I should be.
Tom

 

[Buddha Dharma]

2 Peter 2:12 NASB: But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed,

It is nice, I'm sure, to just be able to quote a Biblical passage with no accompanying context- but I'm about to show why that is problematic. It first of all, does not show that the Biblical authors believed this was true of animals across a spectrum, as you view it. It also doesn't show they thought humans are not animals.

The word animal is derived from the Latin animus in origin, which refers to an animated creature or form- one that moves. Taken in that way, humans are absolutely animals.

The Church wouldn't have been unaware of the passage you quoted, and so far you've only told me why you think they are no authority on the book they preserved for centuries. Again- no human being in history that I am aware of prior to Descartes, put forth that animals are just automatons devoid of personality or feeling.