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Cerberus III
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Cerberus commented on the article |Sarah, your comment makes the assumption, an arrogant and ignorant one, I believe, and one that mankind makes constantly: that animal are less important than humans, 'second-class citizens of the planet, if you will, and that their needs are secondary to those of humans.
It is ignorant because we have no way of knowing whether that is objectively true. We have mistaken 'being Top of the Food Chain' for 'being The Reason Why Existence Exists', and that everything is subjugated to that Reason, including the animals (the environment has already spoken on this issue)
Whether one has secular or religious reasons for making the above assumption, it is unjustifiable on any ground unless you are willing to invoke the "Might is Right" mode of value, in which case you invite anarchy and immorality in any scenario where there are ethical considerations.
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Cerberus commented on the article |Stephanie
I do think it is important to arm the vegan who has been indicted with the logical fallacy 'practice what you preach' contained in the statement, "You support animal rights and yet you wear leather". The argument for animal rights is in no way affected by someone being hypocritical if such was the case, which in many cases it is not - I have no problem with seeing through the use of my leather shoes until they are done, in respect to the animal that gave it's life for them, much like the old American Indian ways. I would not buy another pair, but merely because I am wearing shoes that contradict what I preach, I do not invalidate the animal rights argument. Otherwise, a paedophile could not argue for listing of paedophiles, or an alcoholic for the banning of the drug that holds him captive. The ethical position stands irrespective of the behaviour of the person stating it. The indictment is always irrelevent to the issue.
Micky, where exactly in this thread do you see anything even remotely suggesting that animal rights are placed above human rights? And how exactly is a human not an animal? -
Cerberus commented on the article |
All agreed.
My opposition is to the argument. "Animals should have rights because they're psychic", one that is simply indefensible, since there are absolutely no grounds for it.
I have to say I have some problems with what I beleive to be the false dilemma of rights vs welfare, since I see them operating in different time-frames and with different constraints. Many people who rescue animals and regard themselves as 'welfare' and those who campaign for better treatment of animals in factory farms would be indignant if accused of not caring about animals, yet we accuse them of being part of the problem? Should they abandon those animals living under the yoke of human bondage today? I think not - AR is a long way off, and instead of division, we should recognise the reality of the current situation and act together on two fronts. While I am opposed to those who advocate welfarist policies as if 'meat-eating will always be with us', I have no problem with those trying to make the lives of those in industry less horrendous than they are.
I am reminded of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "If only one life has breathed a little easier because you have lived..."
I have plenty of firsthand experience with the Rights vs Welfare conflict, and I am tired of it. It is intellectually arrogant and 'superior' on the one hand, and emotional and naive on the other. Many Rightists have never saved a life other than their abstinence (effectively 1 animal a year!!!?) , and many Welfarists defeat the object by employing a double standard. Nobody's perfect. We can do a lot more together than apart. -
Cerberus commented on the article |
Kathryn
No matter how emotional you may feel about the subject and no matter how irritated you may be by both Ward and my arguments, it will benefit nobody to attack us personally. That is not argument , as I often explain to my students, it is merely insult. Instead of producing a counter to the arguments presented, you have resorted to adolescent invective. How old are you, fifteen? You will note that Ward and I disagreed on a point, but instead of resorting to 'handbags at will", we presented our cases in a rational manner - that's what adults who can reason do.
I agree Ward the AR movement does NOT need MORE irrational claims, it needs more carefully considered discussion off a rational base. As for your other point regarding religion, point taken, not all religionists are useless and I know many who do sterling work - I look up to them, noy because of their commitment to their beliefs, but because of what they DO.
'Nuff said... -
Cerberus commented on the article |
I agree with you Ward on the exploitation issue, and would like to add that it's a mindset that in many cases people take for granted, as if it's beyond argument, and then invoke it's premises in everyday life without thinking.
I am opposed, however, to the 'religious tolerance' ethic I see so commonly expressed in 'pop' new age philosophies. Holding a belief DOES do harm, since we act (nor do not act) with our beliefs as underlying motivations. A case we had recently will illustrate the point: A man had his car hijacked and his dog was still inside. He appealed to the animal welfare network to help him locate the dog, and several people brought their 'animal communicators' into the picture. All sorts of locations were offered for the dog (the psychic dogs could not agree, it seemed), others prayed... The bottom line is that the dog was never found. My problem with spiritualists and the like is that what they are doing is passive - in effect, it is debatable whether they are doing anything at all, and in fact are harming the process by firstly giving the dog's custodian hope where there is none, and secondly adding a whole lot of 'noise' to the system - they are merely a distraction.
Of course these people will quote instances where animals or people have been found, and these are use as 'evidence' that psychic phenomena 'work'. For every one that 'worked', there are thousands that did not, and if you had to examine the ones that 'worked' I have no doubt you would find that people have attributed the success to the psychic rather then proved it...
Because of what people believe, buildings are built, money is spent, resources are directed, and all of these have an opportunity cost. The money spent on propagating religion could easily feed the world...
...hopefully on vegetables... -
Cerberus commented on the article |
Thanks Ward for bringing a level of sanity to the discussion.
Amber, suppose I claimed, in the tradition of the Toltec belief system, that the reason why humans behaved the way they did was that they were stuck in 'ordinary reality', and if they could just move their 'assemblage point', they could see and experience the world 'as it really is', which is energy, and see that we are all the same, and that perception really is reality?
Any person with even just a modicum of common sense would ask me how I knew that - what was the basis for my statement. I could not say that someone else told me, or that I had watched a video, or read a book - these would all be 'hearsay' evidence and would be inadmissible, since the fact that someone SAYS something happened does not make it so. I could claim to have personal experience of this other 'reality state', but then I should be able to tell you how to get into it too, otherwise it's merely a claim.
I have spent 25 years exhaustively researching 'spiritual' points of departure, not as an intellectual, but in most cases experientially, partly because I desperately wanted there to be something beyond this hopelessly contradictory realm, and partly because I wanted the Universe to be meaningful. I discovered that outside of the words thay use, all religions are incredibly similar, and their followers even more so - they accept without question the 'articles of faith' of their point of departure, use all the language that identifies them as part of their new comfort zone, and will readily defend it, in many cases to the death.
My own experience was that I ran into an incomfortable problem every time - how to validate the experience so that I could separate it from imagination and wishful thinking? I found that I could not, and was forced to conclude that there is no rational base for the belief that such a thing as 'spirit' exists. And without a rational base, we cannot argue for the existence of anything, since language is a logical construct, and must necessarily be, otherwise we could not use it for communication.
Now if I cannot establish the existence of this ethereal quality in myself, how in the world can I do it for another being?
We have enough problems to deal with in the real world, which we can solve rationally if only people will engage on that level, without introducing entities that merely muddy the waters. The Earl of Ockham is turning in his grave, I am sure... -
Cerberus commented on the article |
Alex, you will note that I did not state that animals are 'sentient according to human standards'. This was John's 'straw man' version of my statement. It is, however, true that no matter how you view any phenomenon (see phenomenology) you are seeing it, even in science, through the filter of human-designed hypothesis. So in a sense everything is a projection from the human perspective and any claim about 'knowing' something about anything is tainted by that prejudice.
As for 'spirituality', we have yet to prove that there is a referent for the concept in humans, so how we could have 'proven' it scientifically is beyond me. You will not mind if I ask you where I can locate the scientific studies, using control groups and replicated by others, where this has been done? As far as I know, it's very much a ghost in the machine, and I cannot see how science can either prove or disprove spirituality. It is always beyond the realm of scientific investigation, since it exists beyond the natural (i.e.the supernatural) , and science can only examine the natural world... -
Cerberus commented on the article |
Thanks John but once again we are stuck with the 'humans as the measure of all things" problem, since invariably there is a human who acts as 'medium' who says that the enimal is saying this or that...
Outside of the human's say-so, how do we know any of this is real and not the product of a fertile imagination or a desperate need to be somebody?
I have come across this before with people who purport to have psychic dogs, who perform no better than their human counterparts at finding things, which is at a dismal rate...
I just don't buy it. I think it's wishful thinking to attribute to animals a set of abilities that we cannot even prove in humans. Let's stay in the real world - there are enough challenges there without adding the further complication of supra-consciousness... -
Cerberus commented on the article |
Another great post, Alex, and yet again, you have attracted the simplistic arguments of thse who would rather be subject to rules set by an immoral god than simple logic.
Why do I say an immoral god? Because any god who would KNOWINGLY subject sentient beings to the domination and cruelty of the human species AND in addition NOT have a plan of redemption for those sentient beings, is by definition immoral.
The notion that these sentient beings are subject to humans and less important than them is a human idea, and an extension of of the arrogant assumption that reality was devised for humans, that they are the raison d'etre for existence itself...
It's also a particularly stupid assumption since we only have the words of other humans for this - I for one would like a second opinion... -
Cerberus commented on the article |
It's clear which side you have taken, Starchild, judging by your selective quoting. A balanced discussion would deal with arguments from both sides on the issue, and allow the reader to make up their own mind.You post fallaciously uses the appeal to authority, since you quote only those authorities who reinforce what you already believe. Since I prefer to think for myself, amd since I have studied the theory quite comprehensively, I believe there is a propensity of probabilities in favour of GW as a fact, but quite honestly it actually does not matter to me whether or not GW is true. The purported causes of GW are so destructive in other ways that we need to remove or replace them. Only an idiot would deny that.
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