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And yet no amount of such "mastery" can help the human acquire the special and often extraordinary capabilities present in dogs. Besides the truth in many claims that sometimes animals seem to have much more "soul" than many humans.
And there have been masters of humans as well. Were those subjected to slavery have no spirit?
I think my debate with you have run its course , your questions and points are becomming more into areas where I think it is not me who can counter them with intrest in them. You must forgive me, my intrests often lacks longevity. That being said, I thank you for the debate. Perhaps you can continue with another.
Speaking of " Continuance", the Spirit continues; and I think continues to live even when it leaves the human; why? because its a part of God, thus a part of Life.
There wasn't anything but an intended course, was there? You didn't come to debate, you came here to... tell.
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your questions and points are becomming more into areas where I think it is not me who can counter them with intrest in them. You must forgive me, my intrests often lacks longevity. That being said, I thank you for the debate. Perhaps you can continue with another.
Questions can be troubling, especially when they challenge firmly held beliefs based entirely on emotions.
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Speaking of " Continuance", the Spirit continues; and I think continues to live even when it leaves the human; why? because its a part of God, thus a part of Life.
And you weren't done. The question you may ask (but don't necessarily want to debate) should be... why must the spirit always leave? Why doesn't it choose to stay even with lack of oxygen?
And you weren't done. The question you may ask (but don't necessarily want to debate) should be... why must the spirit always leave? Why doesn't it choose to stay even with lack of oxygen?
I have debated you for 5 or 6 days running, I am just no longer interested in your points. I don't see how you can say I do not want to debate. Its just that, in my view, when one argues for the consciousness of animals to be greater than that of humans; theres no need for me to debate them. They are beyond me.
You continue to ask questions I have already answered, so its run its course with me. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it, I am just interested in covering more aspects of Spirit.
I have debated you for 5 or 6 days running, I am just no longer interested in your points. I don't see how you can say I do not want to debate. Its just that, in my view, when one argues for the consciousness of animals to be greater than that of humans; theres no need for me to debate them. They are beyond me.
You continue to ask questions I have already answered, so its run its course with me. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it, I am just interested in covering more aspects of Spirit.
The problem with you is that you've a personal definition of consciousness. That isn't debating, that is simply regurgitating one's personal beliefs.
The problem with you is that you've a personal definition of consciousness. That isn't debating, that is simply regurgitating one's personal beliefs.
Well I don't disagree ; its simply the best I can do. I like my personal definitions, and I think by them. What I don't like in my mind, I try and rid myself of it. Not others definitions, those of my own which I discover are in error.
Well I don't disagree ; its simply the best I can do. I like my personal definitions, and I think by them. What I don't like in my mind, I try and rid myself of it. Not others definitions, those of my own which I discover are in error.
A discussion board might not be the best idea if must maintain that idea... unless you're open to being corrected.
It depends on the premise of the debate. In this case, the premise was asking for a correction, for presentation of facts, questioning everything based on emotional ground. Rationality going against the irrational ideas will often result in correction.
It depends on the premise of the debate. In this case, the premise was asking for a correction, for presentation of facts, questioning everything based on emotional ground. Rationality going against the irrational ideas will often result in correction.
I see; well then I stand corrected by you, your mission is accomplished. And I wish you Peace.
Well thats what makes this subject so difficult, we cannot see Spirit, but we can feel it. We cannot see magnetism, but we can see its results. We cannot see Love, but we can see what it causes. We cannot see air, but we can know that we breathe it into ourselves. Seeing would be evidence, but just because we cannot see something, in no way means that it does not exist.
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Originally Posted by rflmn
Oh. I see. Q: so then... uhmmm...... what about all the things we can see, observe and document, that absolutely render some opinions, those absent any rational observational patterns and a repeatable methodology, moot and void? And then, why do you so easily dismiss those actual facts? Because they don't fit with your hoped-for philosophies? Seems that is your modus operandi to be sure!
So we cannot see wind, so we must look to other ways to determine the evidence of its existence, such as leaves being blown, trees shaking, and we can actually feel wind on our skin. So it is with " Spirit", we cannot see it physically, but that does not mean it does not exist, or there is no evidence of it, we must use other means.
We can " Feel Spirit", just like we can feel wind.
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Originally Posted by rflmns_ghost
(I doubt it. Just because you think you can imagine or identify the emotions you're feeling, and that they are therfore () some sort of Spiritual element, but I must respectfully disagree. It can all be rather easily explained by a review of the body's responding hormones and an active nervous system).
We feel Spirit with our consciousness, its the " Spirit bearing witness of itself", because Spirit is Consciousness. We can talk to ourselves within our own minds without even verbally speaking a word, this is " Spirit communication", and confirmation, something is there; within you, and its not physical, and needs no physical communication.
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Originally Posted by stunned_rflmn
I'll assume you do realize and accept that these are all just your personal conclusions, right? Right?
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Originally Posted by Mickiel
Well I have put a lot of thought to this, and its my only conclusion; Because of animals and primordal man, I think God will install a dormant spirit in certain of his creations. I don't know why, but I believe it. I have my own theorys, but their just quesses. I think he gave primordal man a dormant consciousness, and animals. They could and can think, but only on instincts, but they have a spirit of life. Some have very high instincts, which I think can give the illusion of an active intelligent consciousness, can be interpited as a mature mobile working consciousness;
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Originally Posted by rflmn
I'm a graduate biologist who specialized at one time on mammalian animal behavior and responses to various natural and artificial stimuli. You want to bet they don't have documented intelligent responses to those various stimuli? Even when they have never experienced a particular and novel stimulus in their past, they respond in remarkably similar, and often "better" ways, than a human subject does.
Faster, stronger, more agile, more intelligent in so many MANY ways than we are, in their own realms and interpretations, since they also had to evolve, just as we did, in a rather vigorous and cruel wilderness world. Before further demonstrating to us your appalling lack of reading and comprehension on the subject to date, you should try to catch up on the emotional responses of elephants, and of the various whales and dolphins.
You insult them all to impune they are lesser creatures than we. I'll quote the preface to my first graduate biology degree, where by choosing this very preface, it should be clear that I'd spent, obviously, a bit more time on this subject than you have:
FROM Henry Beston's The Outermost House:
"We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves.
And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man.
In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth."
It is the ultimate in human arrogance and hubris to assume we posses some spiritual and ethical superiority over the animals, as Dr. Beston so eloquently and elegantly puts it here. I'd suggest you reconsider your own spiritual hubris and conceit as regards animals. You are simply parrotting the usual senseless and trite Christian viewpoint, drummed into the naivé minds of countless children as they were marshaled through their mandatory "spiritualism" training. How sad.
But I do not interpit
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Originally Posted by rflmn
(??? Interpit? You mean interpret?)
that high level of instinct as a working consciousness with morals, memory, ability to " see into the consciousness of others", the vigor of mind to introduce yourself, introspective psychology, and ability to ponder philosophical solutions; these are Consciousness, animals and primordal man did not, do not have this, not in my view.
Their consciousness is cosmetic.
Oh. Isn't that cute! Cosmetic consciousness. Versus cosmetic intellect and cosmetic understanding, or cosmetic Christianity? They all seem to be about the same to me....
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Originally Posted by Mickiel
You can know by simply examining what is. Look at animals and compare them to humans, its academic. They are nowhere near us in consciousness. Emotion aside, you pick an animal that is more conscious than you. I certainly would like to see that animal. A human child, at any age, is more conscious than any mature animal.
Sigh. What's the use: simply put, you know not of what you speak! This is all unsupported conjecture by someone who has clearly not read even the most basic work on the subject. You interpret it entirely at your own whims and fancy, and then claim it to be factual, and us/I as condescending? Interesting.
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Originally Posted by EinsteinsGhost
No, but if you think walking on two legs and speaking English dictates presence of a spirit...
But it can run faster than me. It can see, feel and hear things I can't. You see, if you're going to make an argument on what humans can do but dog can't, how about things they've been gifted with that humans aren't? Pathetic excuse at best.
But it will never acquire, much less master, many of the special qualities of a dog.
Ahhh EG, but can a dog tithe? There's the REAL issue, don't'cha think?
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Originally Posted by Mickiel
No matter how you argue for your dog, the human child is destined to master it. To rule over it, and the dog is destined to depend on that rule.
God gave humanity mastery over animals, nothing can change that; we master them because our consciousness is the superior.
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Originally Posted by rflmn
I tried to effect some "mastery" over a free-ranging polar bear once. Thank God I got that door closed before he, having detected me from about 1 km away, in the permanent dark of the Arctic night, and @ -60˚ C, and with blowing ground ice fog, was able to sneak up and effect a ≈30mph charge in my direction.
Yup, he's pretty stupit, I'd say. 'Cause then, he fiddled with that door lock, trying, and almost mastering, opening it's complex lever system. (It was a food storage locker).
(Honestly, "mastery over the animals..."???) You have no idea how enraged this makes me about the non-stop hubris of humans. Typical, but still, by now in our intellectual evolution, you'd think the lesser ideas would have perhaps faded away... I suppose the Church works real hard to keep them all intact though, huh?
And thats another thing about " Spirit; its superior", like the being it came from. Thus its further evidence of God. Its a " Fingerprint of God", one which we can identify with him, and track him with. We can see traces of God by guaging our very own consciousness. In every period of man, consciousness has increased, so there is a " Built in periodicity in consciousness", in which civilization was born and continues to expand its narrative.
Thats how Agriculture was invented, as well as science and public education; something the animal kingdom can never accomplish, there will be no planet of the Apes. And I have seen some fairly dense arguements against this. Just as God set the planets in order that cannot be broken, he set humanity as the superior to animals, and consciousness is the source of our rule.
Wow! EPC FAIL! This ISThe Planet of The Apes™, silly! We apes did achieve science and public education, except that we did start out as "those damned dirty apes!". You just can't accept your own humble but non-Godly origins, now can you?
We were (still are, genetically, intellectually and behaviorally) apes. We are They, only we evolved, easily proven now by the simple expedient of DNA genome mapping, all the way back to Lucy and that even further-back ancestor (I can't remember the name they gave him recently).
You REALLY need to catch up, Mickiel, and leave your hubris and assumptive superiority at the door. It's unbecoming of a thoughtful ape-man!
Last edited by rifleman; 08-29-2011 at 02:14 PM..
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You didn't come to debate, you came here to... tell.
Some philosophical corrections.
) some sort of Spiritual element, but I must respectfully disagree. It can all be rather easily explained by a review of the body's responding hormones and an active nervous system).
