I have no clue why you keep going away from a simple story that describes the birth process, of people growing up and facing the world into destroying the environment!
When did this topic become about caring for the environment? The title and the what I posted clearly is about religious story set so long ago before anyone even cared about the environment
The story of Adam & Eve has nothing to do with the degradation of the environment and everything to do with life - that we can’t stay helpless children forever that we must grow up and face the life as Adults
Fools think they can run back to heaven - remain pure and innocent children forever with a Nanny God happy to keep billions in blind ignorance for eternity!
I didn’t get this - what is the “natural world”??? Are we supposed to live like animals? not progress? not move forward?
I have a different take - Free will is about having the freedom to do whatever we want and must bear the consequences of them also - a kid can choose to drop out of school but in later years he ends up in dead-end low-paying jobs because of his lack of education, that is what he chose to be
Similarly people have free will to choose whatever religion they like
Christians and Muslims have chosen a Dictator-style Master/Slave religion - “Get down on our knees, swear loyalty & obedience to this Master & only to this Master, beg for his mercy & hope for a reward(Heaven)”
This in spite of the fact that we don’t live under Kings/Dictators now - yes it is easier to get the good life by begging a rich powerful man - the Oligarchs live the good life thanks to their support of Putin, many prostitutes, gigolos, leeches have adopted this method to get the easy good life
It is a shameful way to get to the good life promised but that is their choice
You have heard of Hinduism saying people come back as lower life forms, bugs, Dogs etc
What it is saying if such a life is what you want then such a life is what you WILL get and so Christians and Muslims will come back like say Dogs - they get the life they want - free food, shelter(a house looks like a Mansion to a dog), protection and care - no work, no worries - just lay about all day, every day of their lives! Heaven!
This is the Free will - of their own free will Christians and Muslims are choosing to be lower life forms - people think it must be some sort of punishment to be born as lower life forms, it is not, it is what they chose to be
Yes and I’m saying we only have an extra layer of brain than chimps, making our brains slightly bigger, but intelligence isn’t that much greater. We have a common ancestor and from that our brains developed almost similarly, with very little difference, given that we are 99% similar.
Yes, scientifically backed ideas. My story would have more scientifically back ideas than that of Adam and Eve.
You assume very wrong. I’m a naturalistic humanist or a chimp’s aunt. Take your pick.
Does this mean you are a Xian?
What we call “invasive species” have destroyed the original inhabitants of many small islands - these islands were isolated and so their life forms grew up in a different environment
Sadly, a ship stops by and the rats on it get off - no natural predators - they are more than happy to kill off all the helpless and defenceless animals on the island
Fact it is it is WE humans who worry about what we are doing to this planet & I guess until our future is threatened we are not going to do much about it
Animals don’t - they couldn’t care less if they destroyed this planet, they have no clue what they are doing
They have tested chimps and it is not my idea that their intelligence stops at a 5 year-old’s level
These are Scientists saying this
Elephants, chimps, octopus, some birds are quite intelligent but there is a level where they stop & that is at a 5 year-old human level
“Yes, scientifically backed ideas” These are stories - you obviously have heard of the ant and grasshopper story & you know what it is about. Is that scientific? There is a message in these stories & I am saying it is about giving birth, childhood, growing up & leaving the nest
This idea of leaving a “pure Heaven” is BS, IMHO - of course as children we are Innocent and as Adults not so innocent but that does not mean we are evil, it is simply growing up and discovering Adult pleasures, that’s all
Foolish Christians and Muslims think they can reverse time, go back to being helpless infants to be kept in comfort for eternity by a Nanny God
How do you leap to these bizarre conclusions?
Life started as a single cell and even if we ignore humans, natural evolutionary processes have created billions of species from insects, to dinosaurs, to whales and dolphins, to apes and elephants.
And you talk about not moving forward? There is no problem with natural processes. There is a big problem with human processes.
Humans are what is called an “invasive species” . I’ll let you figure out what that means.
The rest of your missive is incomprehensible.
I gather you are also atheist, but our arguments follow completely different paths and I must disagree with your logic.
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Well I do understand what an invasive species is all about - if you saw my previous post today you would have seen that. But no species other than us thinks of themselves this way. When Rats colonize a small island and wipe out all the indigenous animals, they are not being an “invasive species” they are simply being who they are, trying to survive
We are doing the same - sure we made some mistakes - we have wiped out a few species
But I see you using a computer, internet - I am sure you drive a car, flown in a plane, use modern technology, have gone to the hospital and used modern medicines, covid19 shots etc - are these all “natural processes”???
Religions preach running away & hiding - it appeals to a lot of people - some magic man will run the show and keep them in cozy comfort for eternity
These are fantasies - they are not real
We face a problem of how we can keep moving forward without destroying our environment & that is not found in Religious ideas
It’s pretty normal for people to insert their own ideas into a thread and take the conversation in different directions. Here, or any forum.
I would say people have always worried about the environment. It’s integrated into indigenous cultures. The Bible talks of a connection to the land. Everyone knows you can’t poop in your own water.
I never stated anything about a level of intelligence. All I said was how much brain mass they have compared to ours. That states nothing about intelligence . You’re the one hung up on intelligence.
However, I did make the off-handed remark that many people who are shopping have the intelligence of a 5 year old and act like the apes they are. Still, I never stated the level of intelligence of an ape, elephant, or dolphin.
You are talking to a writer, though I haven’t written much late nor am I well known except maybe in Star Trek circles.
Humans are invasive species.
No, they are an invasive species at a local level and have no impact on the rest of life on earth.
OTOH man is making life impossible for all species on earth , except perhaps the insect…difference.
Man is a global invasive species. We destroy all life .
The irony is that man professes to respect life, rats don’t.
As you say they are just trying to survive.
This little conundrum was addressed by George Carlin in his “lecture” on "sanctity of life "
(warning, crude language)
You seem to lose track of the discussion - you asked for a scientific explanation of my original post - and I said these are just stories with messages - the ant and the grasshopper story has a message and I was saying that Adam & Eve story is about being born & then leaving the nest as one grows up
“Humans are invasive species” we have a right to live and prosper - no different from any other life form - no other animal thinks the way we do, for sure when dinosaurs were dominating the planet and eating everything in sight they weren’t worried about being an invasive species
But it is our larger brain that gives us pause and ask ourselves whether we can do a better job co-existing with our fellow creatures
The Bison was almost wiped out of North America - most large animals have been wiped out of industrialized countries - no room for them.
We can do better, no one is saying otherwise but let’s not call for the extermination of the human race
There is no set area where a species is supposed to live & should be confined to
What you see as a local species might have been an invasive species at one time and had wiped out a previous species that was there - you are coming in late to the party and assuming this is a local species
Species die out as they cannot compete with the changed world - it may happen to us also
well lol when I posted the previous topic about the reason why Rushdie was attacked, they moved it to another topic discussing Rushdie, because they thought it was similar
I wish they would do something similar - if someone is going off topic move their post to some topic discussing what they wrote, environmental issues in this case
Nope. I haven’t, but you said if I thought I could do better…
No I didn’t ask for a scientific explanation of Adam and Eve.
Glad you interpret it that way. I really don’t care how you interpret it.
So do other animals.
Are you sure about that? I’m not so sure after observing them for so many years. Animals mourn their dead, so that means they have some similarity there. They show happiness/joy. Chimps can solve math problems even. They have even been known to learn sign language and taken back to their group and taught them.
Have you observed the human species lately? They don’t pause and ask that question.
Thanks to Teddy Roosevelt and other white men.
That’s not the reason. Teddy and white hunters attempted to wipe them out in order to commit genocide against the Natives. Please read your history. It had nothing to do with industrialization. If you believe that it did, you’re gullible.
Yes, we can do better with each other and not attempt to commit genocide. The U.S. was worse than the Nazis during the Holocaust.
Yes, it was mostly the humans who did it and we are doing it to ourselves now.
yes you did - you claimed my post was BS and that it was not Scientific & I responded with saying it is just a story about growing up & leaving the nest. you have a right to disagree of course with my original post but asking for a Scientific explanation was odd, IMHO
" [quote=“vanamali, post:31, topic:9795”]
o other animal thinks the way we do
[/quote]
Are you sure about that? I’m not so sure after observing them for so many years. Animals mourn their dead, so that means they have some similarity there"
I am not saying animals don’t have intelligence - I am saying animals don’t worry about climate change, invasive species, what happens when we cut down all the trees, overfish the oceans etc
“Yes, it was mostly the humans who did it and we are doing it to ourselves now” not so sure about that - a quick google search says 99.9% of species that ever lived have gone extinct & that’s not us - the dinosaurs have to go before we could gain a foothold & we may have been wiped out until we discovered how to control fire and use it to our advantage. Once we learned to control every other animal became afraid of us
To sum this up, I think i will stop responding to this line of discussion - my original post was about a religious story that somehow has morphed into blaming humanity for the earth’s problems - i think such a discussion can be better done elsewhere
No I said the story of Adam and Eve was not scientific and was BS. Write4u said almost as much with the George Carlin video. I reread the thread and it was not I who called BS in the thread about what you said. I suggest you also reread this page.
I said, in reference to Adam and Eve:
I guess George Carlin is less personally offensive to you, than someone calling the story of Adam and Eve BS.
I think we have kicked this around for a while and I hope that any discussion can be done without getting upset - then the environment to post becomes less appealing
My original post was about looking for Rational down-to-earth explanations for religious stories or any stories for that matter. The story of the ant and the grasshopper, very obviously was not about ants and grasshoppers. That was my take on the Adam & Eve story - I saw it as a child becoming an Adult & leaving the nest story
So you think that your morphing the story into kids growing up is more to the point?
Why do you persist in that simplistic interpretation?
All kids grow up in a demanding world.
Being banished from paradise is not punishment for growing up, it is punishment for exceeding the laws of nature in allowed behavior.
Nature will always win.
As Carlin said the earth isn’t going anywhere, people are!
Is this beginning to make sense now?
Your interpretation is wrong and you were corrected as to the real and concensus interpretation of acquiring the ability of free will and the resulting divorce from the natural balance.
We kicked ourselves out of paradise.
Scripture just laid the blame of disobedience on humans and the resulting punishment was/is being banished from paradise.
Human activity is the main cause of climate change. People burn fossil fuels and convert land from forests to agriculture. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, people have burned more and more fossil fuels and changed vast areas of land from forests to farmland. Mar 28, 2019
Causes of climate change - Canada.ca
https://www.canada.ca › services › climate-change › causes
(https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/causes.html)
Our efforts are not in pursuit of survival. Our efforts are in pursuit of greed and gratification, the physical pleasures.
Allegorical interpretations of Genesis - Wikipedia
What is the allegorical interpretation of Adam and Eve?
The main point of Maimonides and Gersonides is that Fall of Man is not a story about one man, but about the human nature. Adam is the pure intellect, Eve is a body, and the Serpent is a fantasy that tries to trap intellect through the body.
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Allegorical_interpretatio…
(Allegorical interpretations of Genesis - Wikipedia)
We are ruining paradise and will reap the natural punishment for disobeying natural laws. And that human flaw is accurately represented in the allegorical story of Adam and Eve eating the “fruit from the tree of knowledge” and thereby caused being banished from Paradise.
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Maybe he’s a Xian who can’t take being contradicted and is easily offended by the truth or he’s one of those people who think that no one should say anything offensive (in his opinion) about religion, even if he maybe wrong about the interpretation. He doesn’t want to see what we are saying about it to be true nor can we have an opinion different from his… humm… that sounds like a religious person. OK so he’s more than likely religious. 
Yeah. I’m part of “they” by the way. I can’t guarantee every decision will be perfectly logical. I appreciate your patience and good natured participation.