nd don't forget to thank whichever deity you happen to worship that animals are not like humans because we are the most violent, destructive species on this planet.

I'm sorry, but that is a ridiculous statement. Almost as bad as "we are all sinners".

It's a statement relative to the observer. Violent, how? Because we kill each other? Every type of organism on the planet does this, be it animal, insect, plant, bacteria, etc. Wolves kill wolves; spiders eat each other; ants devour about anything in their path; most creatures of the deep aren't too picky on what they kill to satisfy their need for food or to protect their territory; and even a tree will kill every plant around i...

nd don't forget to thank whichever deity you happen to worship that animals are not like humans because we are the most violent, destructive species on this planet.

I'm sorry, but that is a ridiculous statement. Almost as bad as "we are all sinners".

It's a statement relative to the observer. Violent, how? Because we kill each other? Every type of organism on the planet does this, be it animal, insect, plant, bacteria, etc. Wolves kill wolves; spiders eat each other; ants devour about anything in their path; most creatures of the deep aren't too picky on what they kill to satisfy their need for food or to protect their territory; and even a tree will kill every plant around it with no concern when it blocks the sun or churns the ground with its roots.

Destructive how? Every creature, under the right circumstances, can destroy hectares of land. Rabbits in Australia, mice in England, ants in Africa, algae blooms in oceans and seas, borer beetles in the trees, moles in the ground.

Some animals kill and destroy with no compunction, such as cats, dogs, bears, lions, and primates.

It's not our savagery that distinguishes us from the animals. It is our ability to act and plan beyond it. What species invented technology to help its fellows and other species? What species has worked to save endangered species? What species has banded together in order to protect strangers? What species has healed the sick and repaired the damaged? What species has worked to end savagery between 2 entities?

No, I cannot accept that statement of self flagellation.

And why are we at war? For resources, space, to protect territory, etc. Animals do the same thing. We do it on a larger scale than most, but certainly we are not the only that do it.

If a deer herd is too large they ruin the landscape in their feeding, combat often for dominance, and attack others that wander into their territory.

Rabbits do the same, as do rats, sharks, lions, ants, bacteria, etc.

That is a natural reaction to threat of space, food supply, and group instinct.

Even the argument that man does it for none of the above fails when you look closely at species that kill for fun (felines, primates, whales, etc) or simply to attack anything close by for no reason other than to s...

And why are we at war? For resources, space, to protect territory, etc. Animals do the same thing. We do it on a larger scale than most, but certainly we are not the only that do it.

If a deer herd is too large they ruin the landscape in their feeding, combat often for dominance, and attack others that wander into their territory.

Rabbits do the same, as do rats, sharks, lions, ants, bacteria, etc.

That is a natural reaction to threat of space, food supply, and group instinct.

Even the argument that man does it for none of the above fails when you look closely at species that kill for fun (felines, primates, whales, etc) or simply to attack anything close by for no reason other than to show dominance (nearly any animal, insect, aquatic, or avian).

I never said anything about excusing what mankind does. Just that the original statement is false. It tries to set mankind aside as some nasty uncontrollable beast that goes out of its way to cause death and destruction. That's patently false. Littered through the animal kingdom are various species that do destructive things based on nothing more than there entertainment.

Mostly animals do not kill for pleasure

A very spurious statement. There are thousands of species documented to kill for pleasure and it has nothing to do with survival.

As I pointed out earlier, felines often kill for pleasure, hunting down a prey, playing with it, killing it, and then leaving the carcass....

I never said anything about excusing what mankind does. Just that the original statement is false. It tries to set mankind aside as some nasty uncontrollable beast that goes out of its way to cause death and destruction. That's patently false. Littered through the animal kingdom are various species that do destructive things based on nothing more than there entertainment.

Mostly animals do not kill for pleasure

A very spurious statement. There are thousands of species documented to kill for pleasure and it has nothing to do with survival.

As I pointed out earlier, felines often kill for pleasure, hunting down a prey, playing with it, killing it, and then leaving the carcass.

Dogs often kill rabbits, moles, birds, rabbits and other small mammals simply to wrestle them about. They don't consume the food nor do they store it for later use.

Killer whales play a game of tennis with live seals, batting seals around for fun until they're dead. And then they bat them up in the air some more

Chimps kill other chimps, not for food, but for social status, in anger, jealousy. Murder, by our standards

There's even a video floating around that shows a chimp forcing a frog to perform fellatio on him.

And while mankind does do large amounts of damage to other living creatures on the planet, we are the only species that go out of our way to preserve species and their habitats.

Your clip argument was not "mankind sometimes does terrible things" it was "mankind is the most violent and destructive species". That is simply false.

. It tries to set mankind aside as some nasty uncontrollable beast that goes out of its way to cause death and destruction. That's patently false.

False?! Try telling that to millions of dogs, cats and foxes who are skinned alive for their fur:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia8ySklXyfI

or the millions of cats who are boiled alive each year to create health elixirs for humans...

or to the bears who spend decades in tiny cages suffering intense pain from having their gall bladders milked...
http://tiny.cc/T5182

or the majestic elephants whose numbers have been decimated for their tusks and habitat destruction....

or the bulls about to be tarred and burned alive for huma...

. It tries to set mankind aside as some nasty uncontrollable beast that goes out of its way to cause death and destruction. That's patently false.

False?! Try telling that to millions of dogs, cats and foxes who are skinned alive for their fur:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia8ySklXyfI

or the millions of cats who are boiled alive each year to create health elixirs for humans...

or to the bears who spend decades in tiny cages suffering intense pain from having their gall bladders milked...
http://tiny.cc/T5182

or the majestic elephants whose numbers have been decimated for their tusks and habitat destruction....

or the bulls about to be tarred and burned alive for human entertainment:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/firebull---stop-the-burning-of-live-bulls (sign the petition while you are there)

or baby primates stolen from the wild and sold as pets: http://www.savethechimps.org/about-us.aspx

or to the millions of animals in research facilities who are isolated, starved, burned, blinded, poisoned and irradiated so that we humans can have the latest floor cleaner, cosmetics, medicines....

or..well the list is endless. Do you still insist that human animals and non-human animals are evenly matched in their ability to cause suffering?

I do not believe in the religious concept that humans are innately cruel. The majority of people are disgusted and outraged by what we are doing to the planet and other animals. However, instead of defending our species we must collectively bear responsibility for what is happening, only then can we move toward a new understanding and appreciation of animals.

Try telling that to millions of dogs, cats and foxes who are skinned alive for their fur:

I'm sorry to hear that you would involve yourself in such things. I, on the other hand, have never skinned an animals and nearly everyone I know has abstained from such ventures as well.

or the millions of cats who are boiled alive each year to create health elixirs for humans

An argument against mysticism, religions, and ignorance, perhaps, but not something that one would find in the majority of the human species.

bears who spend decades in tiny cages suffering intense pain from having their gall bladders milked

Ever heard of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/w...

Try telling that to millions of dogs, cats and foxes who are skinned alive for their fur:

I'm sorry to hear that you would involve yourself in such things. I, on the other hand, have never skinned an animals and nearly everyone I know has abstained from such ventures as well.

or the millions of cats who are boiled alive each year to create health elixirs for humans

An argument against mysticism, religions, and ignorance, perhaps, but not something that one would find in the majority of the human species.

bears who spend decades in tiny cages suffering intense pain from having their gall bladders milked

Ever heard of ants and aphids? or wasps and caterpillars? Not even getting into the plethora of various parasites that inflict the world.

or baby primates stolen from the wild and sold as pets:

Guess tigresses just don't do that eh?

Do you still insist that human animals and non-human animals are evenly matched in their ability to cause suffering?

You've provided no example that is not mimicked in non-human nature.

The majority of people are disgusted and outraged by what we are doing to the planet and other animals

You disabuse your own argument right here. The examples you quote are specific cases in human history, not the acts of the species as a whole.

we must collectively bear responsibility

Which I pointed out earlier is the only REAL difference that humanity has over the wild. We do actually do that. Perhaps not enough, but we are the only species that does.

destroy most other species on the planet.

Bacteria and virus have wiped out many species. Recall that today exists only about 1% of the ENTIRETY of all living things that once walked the Earth. Humanity, giving into its most destructive urges cannot hold a candle to the death and destruction of living things as nature has done itself.

No other species has stockpiled enough nuclear weapons to destroy us all many times over

As noted in previous points, there are those species that do kill for no reason other than self preservation, even when that very act is detrimental to themselves. We stockpile as a deterrent to others using them. Fox's, to name a single speci...

destroy most other species on the planet.

Bacteria and virus have wiped out many species. Recall that today exists only about 1% of the ENTIRETY of all living things that once walked the Earth. Humanity, giving into its most destructive urges cannot hold a candle to the death and destruction of living things as nature has done itself.

No other species has stockpiled enough nuclear weapons to destroy us all many times over

As noted in previous points, there are those species that do kill for no reason other than self preservation, even when that very act is detrimental to themselves. We stockpile as a deterrent to others using them. Fox's, to name a single species, kill anything they find even when full simply to hoard food that quite often goes uneaten.

No other species has such love of material things

Not true. Many animals, such as bear, primates, dogs, etc have a large capacity to protect what it deems as its own, be it food, territory, or some small play thing that it has found to amuse itself with.

Many species even go so far as to find objects in which to use as a means of attracting mates or to line their nests/dens with such as birds or raccoons. Your idea of what is construed as a 'material thing' may differ from what an animal does but the concept is still the same.

I guess that animals are just too dumb to do all this!

Are people are just too dumb to recognize the simularities - no personal offense meant, just a play on your own words.

Humanity, giving into its most destructive urges cannot hold a candle to the death and destruction of living things as nature has done itself.

True, all the great extinctions were caused by massive natural events. But since when has Nature, in the 'Grand' sense, been an animal?

there are those species that do kill for no reason other than self preservation,

That is a good reason to kill, we however, kill for 'reasons' other than self preservation.

We stockpile as a deterrent to others using them. Fox's, to name a single species, kill anything they find even when full simply to hoard food that quite often goes uneaten.

...

Humanity, giving into its most destructive urges cannot hold a candle to the death and destruction of living things as nature has done itself.

True, all the great extinctions were caused by massive natural events. But since when has Nature, in the 'Grand' sense, been an animal?

there are those species that do kill for no reason other than self preservation,

That is a good reason to kill, we however, kill for 'reasons' other than self preservation.

We stockpile as a deterrent to others using them. Fox's, to name a single species, kill anything they find even when full simply to hoard food that quite often goes uneaten.

Show me a Fox, whose stockpile of food, eaten or uneaten, can destroy just about everything.

No other species has such love of material thingsNot true. Many animals, such as bear, primates, dogs, etc have a large capacity to protect what it deems as its own, be it food, territory, or some small play thing that it has found to amuse itself with.

It would be nice if you would quote the full text, including the bit about...such love of money and power,... "that it will destroy what Nature has evolved over many thousands of years just to attain them, and in so doing, destroy the future for our own children."
Pulling a bit out and quoting it out of context just shows you don't have an answer for my argument.

Are people are just too dumb to recognize the simularities - no personal offense meant, just a play on your own words.

You would need to be a lot more erudite to offend me!

But since when has Nature, in the 'Grand' sense, been an animal?

Ah, but you are thinking only in terms of asteroids, volcanoes, and earthquakes. Disease, over crowding, loss of resources (food and water overly consumed), predation, and simple species competition has ended the existence of millions of species. All at the root cause of specific organism in their own self interest. Humanity has the capacity to recognize this and avoid it.

That is a good reason to kill, we however, kill for 'reasons' other than self preservation.

My intent was not to limit the reasons to that sole example. Other reasons animals kill without any need to do so is simple aggression, ...

But since when has Nature, in the 'Grand' sense, been an animal?

Ah, but you are thinking only in terms of asteroids, volcanoes, and earthquakes. Disease, over crowding, loss of resources (food and water overly consumed), predation, and simple species competition has ended the existence of millions of species. All at the root cause of specific organism in their own self interest. Humanity has the capacity to recognize this and avoid it.

That is a good reason to kill, we however, kill for 'reasons' other than self preservation.

My intent was not to limit the reasons to that sole example. Other reasons animals kill without any need to do so is simple aggression, dominance, entertainment, territorial, and in some cases even revenge. I've exampled this earlier. Anyone that has watched any Planet Earth or Animal Planet shows has seen examples of this. Heck, there have even been a few examples posted in clipmarks on occasion.

Show me a Fox, whose stockpile of food, eaten or uneaten, can destroy just about everything.

You are stuck on the whole war and nuclear devastation thing. Yes. Humans have weapons capable of doing in days or hours what nature usually takes months or years. But the end result is the same. The difference is that humanity IS NOT using those weapons today on the massive scale you keep alluding to while nature constantly does. Either through predation, starvation, competition, natural selection, etc nature is constantly killing itself. Mankind, while having the capability CHOOSES not to.

It would be nice if you would quote the full text

I cut text for room constraint consideration. As I pointed out, your idea of materialism, love, money, or power, is your own. Nature has its own variants of these (mating rituals, food gorging/harvesting, and dominance) even if you don't recognize them as such.

You would need to be a lot more erudite to offend me!

Or a lot more erudite to be offended?

Look. I'm not saying mankind is perfect. I'm not even saying mankind is beneficial to the planet. Just like the other creatures of this world we tend pursue more self interested venues that sacrifice nature. But we certainly are not 'born bad' as was earlier suggested. That's just patently ridiculous.

The one thing that humanity DOES have over the animals and other life forms on the planet is the capacity to understand what it is doing and choose to not do it. We have the capacity to CHOOSE not to dam a specific spot along a river to avoid killing a species. We have the capacity to ...

You would need to be a lot more erudite to offend me!

Or a lot more erudite to be offended?

Look. I'm not saying mankind is perfect. I'm not even saying mankind is beneficial to the planet. Just like the other creatures of this world we tend pursue more self interested venues that sacrifice nature. But we certainly are not 'born bad' as was earlier suggested. That's just patently ridiculous.

The one thing that humanity DOES have over the animals and other life forms on the planet is the capacity to understand what it is doing and choose to not do it. We have the capacity to CHOOSE not to dam a specific spot along a river to avoid killing a species. We have the capacity to CHOOSE to not hunt a species into oblivion. We have the capacity to CHOOSE not to pollute the planet until all drinking water is non-potable. We CHOOSE not to use our nuclear arsenals because of Mutually Assured Destruction.

Name me ONE creature that has an offensive or defensive characteristic that they CHOOSE not to use because they know it will harm their environment, themselves or those other creatures around them.

[Look. I'm not saying mankind is perfect. I'm not even saying mankind is beneficial to the planet. Just like the other creatures of this world we tend pursue more self interested venues that sacrifice nature. But we certainly are not 'born bad' as was earlier suggested. That's just patently ridiculous.]

Only you, Oortcloud, mentioned anything about the religious concept of original sin.

Why does the term 'apologist' spring to mind when reading your comments about human behaviour towards other species?

May I suggest you cogitate on Edmund Burke's saying: "Evil flourishes when good men do nothing"? Then, instead of spending time and efort defending the indefensible, trying taking an activ...

[Look. I'm not saying mankind is perfect. I'm not even saying mankind is beneficial to the planet. Just like the other creatures of this world we tend pursue more self interested venues that sacrifice nature. But we certainly are not 'born bad' as was earlier suggested. That's just patently ridiculous.]

Only you, Oortcloud, mentioned anything about the religious concept of original sin.

Why does the term 'apologist' spring to mind when reading your comments about human behaviour towards other species?

May I suggest you cogitate on Edmund Burke's saying: "Evil flourishes when good men do nothing"? Then, instead of spending time and efort defending the indefensible, trying taking an active role in righting some of the wrongs of humanity. Perhaps then we can all have a break from your obtuse opinion pieces.

Only you, Oortcloud, mentioned anything about the religious concept of original sin

I guess you need a refresher :

JackieDel said:

don't forget to thank whichever deity you happen to worship that animals are not like humans because we are the most violent, destructive species on this planet.

I pointed out that that particular comment was as brainless as the concept of original sin. It's a statement made out of complete ignorance or utter stupidity. Take your pick.

Why does the term 'apologist' spring to mind when reading your comments about human behaviour towards other species?

I dunno, does the term "complete fracking moron" come to mind when reading...

Only you, Oortcloud, mentioned anything about the religious concept of original sin

I guess you need a refresher :

JackieDel said:

don't forget to thank whichever deity you happen to worship that animals are not like humans because we are the most violent, destructive species on this planet.

I pointed out that that particular comment was as brainless as the concept of original sin. It's a statement made out of complete ignorance or utter stupidity. Take your pick.

Why does the term 'apologist' spring to mind when reading your comments about human behaviour towards other species?

I dunno, does the term "complete fracking moron" come to mind when reading your arguments? It's like lining up a bunch of empty headed idiots talking to you people. One of you tries an empty argument, which is easily answered, and then the rest of you follow suit making basically the same stupid statement.

trying taking an active role in righting some of the wrongs of humanity

You know what. Kiss my ass you sanctimonious prick. You and your fellows postulated a point born from the prostate and when its exposed for the turd it is you have no defense but saying the same brainless statements, using ad hominem, and playing snarky insult games to sooth your bloated egos.

I'd suggest you go back through and re-read to try and learn something but I've dealt with enough of you slack jawed dunderheads to know it would be a waste of a suggestion.

Piss off.