? where did sacred children come from? i hardly see how what i said can lead to children being sacred? well if you must talk about child sacrilege, id say thats some gay shit to "holify" a child, much like how scientologists "holify" xenu. well, yea.. what else would they be? and from there, they are outlaws of the average social structure then.. yea, i guess so. so for now, i guess we cant say anything about babies then.. uhh yea.. thats pretty much how things usually are.... im not saying profs are know it all... for all i know, profs probably cant kick my ass at starcraft even though i suck. but my point is, they are the best in their fields, so thats why im using their teachings of that specific field.. yea, but lets not look further than the present.. take a look at africa.. although babies dont die as often as in the past, they do die nonetheless, and due to diseases and stuff... take for example in medieval -> renaissance europe.. according to my guides during my stay, they said families had lots of children because a lot of them die young.. so they have to keep up the count to have a small number survive to adulthood.. this is steering off track.. ill see if i can lead it back on track.. so much like the turtles, the fact that they couldnt fight the disease their children have doesnt mean they dont care for them.. they just cant do anything about it, so by increasing the number of babies, just like the turtles, at least a few will make it.. just like idiot and imbecile. why is there two words to describe "a person of subnormal intelligence"? or just like ass, where is there two definitions per one word? lol (words i had at the top of my head, so the words do not imply to anyone.)
The child sacralization argument is how we (Western societies in particular) often socialized to associate children with sacredness and innocence (and in turn "defenselessness" and "can't do evil") Guess it's getting a bit too far off-topic now. But we all are doing it (child sacrilege), we presume them to be defenseless and unknowing, I mean, it's certainly ridiculous to me that a child under 13 should not be left at home alone... Laws like that pushed the enormous burden that is child care onto the parents (also contributing to normalizing parents taking care of children) But that's getting a bit too far off-topic again -sweat You have a point, yet we can only see actions (and not the unspoken intents), a bit later than Renaissance, children are valued as working hands, a mean of production (to put food on the table), that's why parents keep on giving birth... Not to mention the fact that contraception and abortion were not invented/common back in those days. yet idiot and imbecile (and moron and retard) implies different level of "subnormal intelligence"... So you can't really say they are the same... What are we arguing again?
lol i wanna keep going on this idiot and imbecile stuff -lol according to princeton university dictionary, they are pretty much the same level anyways, lets start from scratch.. its getting off topic, and getting nowhere. lol
@dann Human society is what we're discussing, I believe, and this society we live in revolves around us. It's shaped by us. We change things to accommodate our needs and wants. Take, for example, humanities effort to create a cleaner and healthier earth. Why are we doing so? Because ultimately if earth goes down the drain we'll be soon to follow. It's ultimately about survival. Even though we humans are absolutely dependent on earth it's not earths needs that drive us, it's our needs. And if our needs more often than not trumps earths needs then it's clear to me that most every other aspect of our society revolves around our needs and wants, aswell. And the lion isn't the head of the pride. They're codependent but it's always the male(s) that seek to join the lionesses pride. If I were to choose the dominant gender it'd be the lionesses but as far as which gender is the more dominant? There's no definitive answer. But I agree, that is a society. Right, I understand but we're not debating on whether or not other species live in a society or otherwise. It's whether or not society created this 'caring instinct' that we humans have or was it this natural caring instinct that shaped our society? Or some of our society, as I've tried to stress in my previous response cause I find it hard to believe that 'caring instinct' alone is what shaped our society. I agree but then again I don't see much of a difference. Built according to this need, around this need, or influenced by this need. The point is our society was built around us for us and that includes children and their needs are fulfilled by who? The adults. And the adults are the ones building society so obviously certain aspects of society is going to be built, changed, or "influenced" with a baby's need(s) in mind. There's straight forward thinking without much decision making or any other contemplation of the factors and consequences involved, etc etc, and then there's the latter. I believe that a baby's only capable of straight forward thinking. There are degrees of good and evil just like there are degrees of emotion. Cheating in a test is bad. Being a serial killer is evil. It gets cold in the fall but it's feezing in the winter. I dislike a person that called me out of my name but I don't automatically hate him. See where I'm going with this? Bad and evil are similar but they aren't on the same level. Evil is the extreme which should only be used to label a person in extreme circumstances. Bad, not so much. @hiake If even ants and seemingly vicious crocodiles have the natural instinct to care for their young then why not humans which are the most evolved species on earth? We're most genetically related to primates and they have this natural ability. Why not humans? I'm not familiar with every mammal on earth but every mammal on earth that I know of has this trait. So why not us? Keep in mind the social standards thousands of years ago arn't the same as the ones we have now. Yes, that is possible. It's also possible that these parents with this mantality can change the genetic instructions responsible for the developement of this caring instinct by resorting or relying on these resources that you mentioned availible to them and may inadvertently pass on this behavior to the child and the chain goes on and on. It's been observed in foxes that selective breeding can create certain characteristics that the breeder aimed for and this process only take 2-4 generations to accomplish. But I'm just talking. But did the child understand why it's bad to lie? I think the child used a tool it learnt in order to get what it wanted. I don't think a four year old would understand why it's bad to lie. The child may hear its parents say that lying is bad and that he/she'll probably get in trouble for lying but does the child really understand why lying is bad? It depends on the circumstances. No it's not ok. It's selfsih and it's bad as I've said. But it's not evil unless the guy had only malicious thoughts and goals behind the act.
^ well. i did not realize the topic was human society, i was thinking of society as a whole, including the animal kingdom. anyways, back to the topic of whether caring instincts are developed by human society or naturally created, well, if caring was developed by human society, then how could animals be able to care, as they are not human? i guess its safe to say where caring comes from..
First of all, human isn't necessarily the most evolved species on Earth, we just keep telling ourselves that so that we will believe it eventually. Many birds and marine species do not have such (child-rearing) trait, it can only be correlate to the physical investment the species has in reproduction (the more one has to invest, the more likely one is to take care of the young post-partum). But I am sure this is going WAY off-topic by now. Yet there's still the social control of expectation for child-rearing... We can use the same excuse for every last lie we tell ("tool" to get what we wanted), but we later acquire more intricate excuses (calling it a "white lie") to justify our questionable moral. Do we understand why lying is bad? We ourselves don't even know, not dissimilar to a child, then does that mean lying as a tool to get what one wants is an okay behaviour that we should all be engaging in and not considered bad or even evil? But if evil and bad are but degree of the same thing (as dann has proposed), does that make said guy evil?
I think in reality, there are a lot of people who do not agree with the laws of physics if they believe in God. There are people out there who claim science is just a lie, and the work of the devil. Maybe it is true that there might not be a God, but the concept of religion has started the idea of morality and rightousness since the dawn of time. I believe that God was created by humans during the earlier periods of our history in order to define the existence of things and how they work. Later on, it became an idea, and it became our basis for morality. Nowadays, some people claim that laws are these morality basis, but that's not true. Laws only provide things that we cannot do, such as steal, kill and so forth. Religion gives us a basis of what we SHOULD do, such as turning the other cheek, or caring for others even if we aren't obligated to. It doesn't really matter if God exists in my opinion, because we still need that basis of morality, and there are people who need "God" to give them that reason to act good. Not to say there is no God to many believers out there, because I'm merely one person, and I could be wrong.
@dann I agree. @hiake We are. We're the only species in earth that's able to manipulate our surroundings to the degree we see today and that's just to name one. Other species may have more enhanced senses but we humans have been able to create artificial devices that gives us the same advantages if not better. But how does an animal know that it needs to take care of its newborn? Why does it care? How do birds know to build nests for their eggs? Why do birds feel like they need to fend off potential predators that come too close to the nest and not just flee for their own safety? The ability or inability of a person to understand the rules and morality of our society is the factor here. I know why lying is bad. The reasons why lying is bad has grown, expanded, and evolved throughout the evolution of our society to what we have today. It's ultimately up to the individual to accept and or understand the reasons but regardless of his/her acceptance to the reasons the reality is those reasons are the social standards and those standards are what we generally base our judgement by. Lying is bad because it's dishonest and dishonesty is bad because one should always be truthful to their fellow humans. A very short explanation but it's not empty. It's up to the individual to figure out and understand the reasons for him/herself in order for the individual to truely understand why lying is bad. Do I think a newborn, baby, toddler, or four year old is able to fully process, nevermind comprehend, the 'why'? No. I don't think dann propose that bad and evil are different degrees of the same word. He said, "well, bad is antonymous to good, and so is evil. if both are antonymous to good, therefore both must be the same. therefore bad = evil." To which I responded: For example, if I used his method of reasoning then I would say that if cold is the opposite of hot and freezing is, aswell, than that'd mean that cold = freezing, basically. What I tried to explain is that each word represents a degree. They're the same yet they're not. Just trying to clarify things. To answer your question, no. The circumstances that leads one to label a person as evil is more extreme and should only be used if the circumstances warrant it. They're not on the same level for a reason.
^ obviously we cant prove or disprove God. all we did was show evidence for one side or the other. thats basically what the thread is about <_<
^ the OP had different intentions, he thought he could prove God doesn't exist.... ironically; only God knows were he is now cus i think we all scared him off.
that doesn't make sense. how do you prove something that "has not yet been found"? unless we have found all living creatures -- that conjecture is an illogical statement.
@Mikey Look into Cryptozoology. Anyone that's familiar with the declassifications of species that have thought to have been extinct and the registration of new species would not be so bold as to say once and for all that bigfoot absolutely doesn't exist just because there's arguably no proof or evidence that points towards the existence of bigfoot. The legend or talks of bigfoot goes further back than our life time and our parents life time and not only in America but all around the world. Bigfoot is not a 20th century invention. My grandmother told me this legend of a bigfoot like creature that she heard from her parents and so on and years later I remembered the similarities between my grandmothers story and the bigfoot of today. From the teeth to the howls to the hairyness to the height of this animal. It's all very similar. Native American Indian myths even acknowledged the existence of a bigfoot like animal. Below are some of the names. And it's funny how you could be undecided about Nessie but absolute about Bigfoot.
Good point, as expected of apollon -clapclap That's why Atheists are agnostic but i ain't getting into all that >.<
