[Letum]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

Simple - past logic dictates that humans are from a divine nature.

eh?
What does logic have to do with the divine?

Some past reasoning dictates that humans are from a divine nature, but logic does
not deal with that kind of thing.

Logic is the syntax of good reasoning, but logic can not be based on prepositions
outside of its own structure and therefore can not make conclusions on its own.

This has been this way through the ages.

This has only been the way in certain cultures, not all, and only for the last 10,000
years or so as far as we know.

Darwinism however removes this logic and puts humans on an equal plane as all other species who are simply vying for survival

This is the same logic leap rephrased yet again.

how are you getting from "humans are simply vying for survival as all other species" to "humans on an equal plane as all other species"?

Where is the connection between the preposition and the conclusion here?
What is it about adapting to survive that makes humans equal?

What does genetic history have to do with equality.




Secondly, what makes you think that animals or humans are "vying for survival"?

[you don't have to read this bit as on reflection is is a little obscure]

Vying implies it is something done with purpose i.e. "the evolutionary purpose of
animals is to survive/reproduce". This is a flawed use of language and meaning.
"purpose" is often talked about in evolution because it helps us understand the
process. On the face of it the purpose of fish's gills is to breathe and the ultimate
purpose of breathing is to live and reproduce. It is helpful to think of gills, breathing
and fish in this way, but it is also false and misleading because it confuses what
happens with why happens. Even worse, it implies design i.e. if something has
purpose, then it must have been designed by evolution for that purpose (for
example gills have evolved for breathing / evolution designed gills for breathing).

The truth is that gills, fish, breathing or humans do not have purpose, they are just
what happens when you have certain starting conditions. There is no why
happens.
The purpose of a human is no more to pass on DNA than the purpose of water is to
rain, condense and evaporate.

A object (even living ones) can have the properties of mass, size, heat etc. but no
object can possess a property of "purpose". Mass, size, etc. are properties
determined by the atoms/matter that make a object. Atoms/matter can not hold
"purpose" as a property.

"purpose" is a false property like "beauty" that humans and (perhaps) other animals
give objects. That does not necessarily mean that "purpose" is nor real, it just mean
we individually choice what the purpose of a object is. The purpose of a watch
might be to tell the time, or it might be to bang nails into a bit of wood, depending
on what purpose you give the watch.

We also do something more complex with purpose which leads to confusion. We try
to guess what the purpose of one object is to another object or non-object. For
example, we might suppose that a chair leg has a purpose for the chair; to keep it
up.

In reality, the chair has not given the leg a purpose because chairs can not think.
We also might suppose that evolution (a non-object) has a purpose for a fish; to
spread fish DNA. Of course, abstract theories can not give something purpose.

So, the only objects that truly have purpose are the objects of praxis that we use. I
use the sun, so it has purpose for me. I use this keyboard, so it to has purpose.

Back to the original statement: "humans are vying for survival". No! evolution is a
abstract theory and abstract theories can not think and give things purposes like
"survival". A machine with no purpose is not a machine, it is just a thing that
happens. The purpose of a river is not to take water to the sea, water just flows
down hill without purpose.

it [Darwinism] fails to answer some key questions.

It isn't meant to answer questions, it's just want to explain biological processes.

So what you have done is lower several notches the standing of the human element in peoples minds

.

Is that really all it takes to lower the standing of humans in your mind?
It is a good thing that most peoples ideas about how to treat people stand on firmer
ground.

Darwinism stops short of actually saying that humans and animals are equal, but it doesn't need to since it implies it.

All it implies is the workings of a biological process.

Physics books don't imply that murder is wrong, even if they explain how a gun works.

Chemistry books don't imply that we are equal to rocks because both humans and rocks have roughly the same chemical composition.

Biology books don't imply that humans are better, worse or equal to animals because both adapt to their environment over a series of generations.

A group like Peta comes along then (it was inevitable) and follows and unfinished theory to its one and only logical conclusion, which raises animals and lowers humans into an equal category. Matter of fact, Darwin goes so far as to put humans in the animal category so Peta didn't even need to do this.

If you think animals and humans must be equal because they are in a equal category,
then surely humans and cars must be equal because they are both in the categories
of animate objects and also the category of things made of matter.

End conclusion - Peta sees animals and humans as equals. Peta then starts their mad campaign to stop people from eating animal protein or harming animals in any way shape or form based on this logic.

That is ridiculous.

Long before Darwin and long before the study of biology at all PETA's far less imposing Eastern cousin, Jainism was practicing Ahimsa towards animals
to such an extent that the Jain monks sweep everywhere they walk to avoid
stepping on ants and wear masks to avoid breathing in amoeba and killing them.

PETA's ideology shares much more in common with this than it does with
evolutionary theory, the theory of gravity or any other work of modern science.



My own thaughts on the matter.

From the scientific perspective humans are not better, worse, or equal. Science just
does not make subjective judgements like that. humans, and everything else just are. Science does not tell us what is good, bad or equal. Logic tells us nothing other
than it's own structure and reason is constrained by our solipsistic lack of direct
access to the world, our rational limitations and the subjective nature of experience.

Humans are clearly special when we look at them from the human perspective. This
is the human perspective and it is the only perspective we have on the world.
It is not changed by the redundancy of a deity in our explanations of the world
firstly because the fact that humans are special and above the animals is not a
fact about the world, it is a fact about our prospective; the only perspective there
is in the world for man to have, and secondly because the things that make us
special are not things like our genetic history or means of physical existence.

Humans are special because we are humans. Sheep are not special, because we are
not sheep.
Or in other words: "What we are is special because we are it"

If we where sheep, the sheep would be special because sheep would be what we
where, but they are not what we are and so are not special.



*edit*
Also: wall of text hits you for +447 damage.