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Sorry, but I am fed up of hearing people say that human beings are unnatural, and that we do unnatural things... WE DON'T!!! Everything we do is natural, or we just wouldn't do it... maybe our houses and skyscrapers aren't as beautiful as an anthill, or birds nest, but they are just as natural... farming is natural... ants do it, why is it unnatural for us, but not for them... war is natural.. chimps do it... why shouldn't we... even our polluting of the atmosphere is natural.. it's what we do... it may not be "nice," it may not be "wholesome" but it is natural... we are just as much a part of nature as a chimp, a rat, a sparrow, a cod, a frog or a virus... whatever we do is natural.... sorry, but that's how it is...

natural how?

Humans naturally makes messes. Yup, I'll believe that.

It's natural simply because we do it... if it wasn't natural for us to do it, we wouldn't..... nature does not equal nice.... for instance, hippos pollute water sources by crapping in them... cows farts influence global warming... blue-green algae indiscriminately poisions fish and mammals for no reason at all.... its all natural....

natural enough to make a difference

I'm not!

you're not a human, natural or agreeing?

Natural!
Sounds like a hippie-thing

groovy babey, yeah

Yers> I'm kidding!

The day chimps build rocket-launchers, ants use irrigation and the sea-gulls cruise by with headphones humans will be "natural". Until then... nope...
BGK> I do se what you mean, though. I think the problem lies in the definition of "natural"... the word is often abused to deem, say, homosexuality "wrong" as it is not "natural", etc.

so was I
and do those sea-gulls need to invent those headphones too or can I just place them on them?

Omega pounded it right there.

The next time I see a gorilla building a chemical treatment plant or a nuclear bomb, I'll think humans do natural things.

Of course, humans being alive is natural, but what we do is not.

The origins of humans are natural but the things we do aren't. Destroying our own environment (on which our existence depends) is in no way natural.

Yea i disagree BGK, natural aquires equalibrium with the environment, we do not, we permenantly change it.

Good opinion but half of what you are saying is right and the other half is not. Humans are natural but as loads of people have said, what we do is not.

I kind of agree to a point, certainly our life and to a degree our motivations are natural, but the implementation does not appear to be. I feel humanity has moved beyond natural constraints or nature, the bounds of instinct and so forth. The majority of life out there exists in an essentially symbiotic relationship with the earth, and there is equilibrium. At best we exist as parasites....

To put it another way, humanity has reached the stage where screwing up the ecosystem won't result in our immeadiate extinction.

Yes, which means we are above the natural constraints that bind most of nature, boom and bust, and meluthian cycles and so forth.

Is a delayed extinction better than immediate one? The world can only take so much from us.....

Better from the point of view of the people who, er, get to exist. I'm not sure what the rest of the biosphere thinks about it though.

Still, I imagine the people who are going to inherit the earth will curse our names for what we have done.

Yeah, but they're meek...
Yes, humanity has some problems. I wonder if there is some other kind of species that could take over.

Ah, I believe the logical progression would be the rise of the insects, in my opinion ants are the greatest forms of life, along with the cockroaches. In terms of ability to survive and indeed evolve, the sky is the limit. In fact the only place in the world where one can see a perfect society, a perfectly content society is that of the ants. They deserve this earth.

Yes, the ants deserve the Earth. They're so... chitinous.

Ah, yes. But it is true when you look at it, at an ant colony, it is a perfectly harmonious society, industrious, peaceful and every ant contributes, every ant has a part to play. They don't destroy the earth, they don't rage war with no cause, they don't look to achieve genocide or to enslave, they are driven, united...

Like perfect communists, only with no vertebrae. It seems we have much to learn from our arthropodic allies. We'd all be much happier if we had an Iridomyrmoid work ethic.

it all lies in the definition of Natural

You don't know much about ants, really, do you... ants do wage war on other colonies, they take slave workers as prizes, and it it not unknown for large ant colonies to totally destroy smaller ones... hows that for genocide?? As for being harmonious and united, civil war between rival queens is, while not common, not unheard of....

And as for nature equalling "equilibrium..." and "harmony.." nature is nothing of the sort... it is a collection of chance happenings, influenced in turn by other chance happenings... it is "nature" that causes us to pollute the environment, just as nature makes comets hit the gulf of Mexico.... if we kill everything and destroy ourselves in the process, well, thats just human nature.... foxes won't stop killing rabbits until rabbits are extinct.... and as for the argument about seagulls with headphones... I won't believe seagulls are natural until I see a human with wings and feathers crapping on a caravan....

Well, I love entomology, and I have never heard of rock hard examples of ants taking slaves. And generally they respond in a natural fashion to encroachments on there territory. And genocide is the conscious decision and attempt to totally wipe out another race within ones species, ants don't do that, if they compete for space, food etc they will fight, but they will not go out and say "well, the Harvester ants are our enemy we must destroy them everywhere". And nature is that, equilibrium, balance, the eco system is balance, rises and falls. Boom and bust. Foxes in the proper environment would not be able to kill all the rabbits, merely keep them in check. They have a balance.

But the ant colonies destroying each other are a necessary function for the ant colony to thrive. Having enough food requires that there is no other competition. Humans make war out of personal dislike.

Humans make war out of an instinct for survival... no matter how else we rationalise it... Hitler tried to kill non Aryans so that the Aryan race could have better access to food, resources and "living room..." modern capitalist wars and ancient wars are all about the same thing... grabbing resources of one kind or another to enable one group to survive, at the expense of another... even those based on "personal dislike..." the Serbs and Bosnians fought so hard because the Serbs wanted what the Bosnians had, and thought it would make Serbian survival easier if the Bosnians were removed from the equation... a natural process... having enough food is not enough... humans would always rather have a surplus... as big a surplus as possible... plus there are things other than food we can compete for.... for example, as a heirarchical social animal, humans naturally compete for dominance... instead of using teeth and claws we use guns and WMDs....

Originally posted by big gay kirk
Sorry, but I am fed up of hearing people say that human beings are unnatural, and that we do unnatural things... WE DON'T!!! Everything we do is natural, or we just wouldn't do it... maybe our houses and skyscrapers aren't as beautiful as an anthill, or birds nest, but they are just as natural... farming is natural... ants do it, why is it unnatural for us, but not for them... war is natural.. chimps do it... why shouldn't we... even our polluting of the atmosphere is natural.. it's what we do... it may not be "nice," it may not be "wholesome" but it is natural... we are just as much a part of nature as a chimp, a rat, a sparrow, a cod, a frog or a virus... whatever we do is natural.... sorry, but that's how it is...

No. Our humanity is a symbolic ediface, a fiction. We cobble ourselves together out of reified perceptions, and used-up stories. It's the story-telling that makes us unnaturual. Story-telling is our path out of the ordinary world and our hidden connection to God.

if story telling was unnatural, we would not be able to do it in the first place....

Originally posted by big gay kirk
if story telling was unnatural, we would not be able to do it in the first place....

unnatural as far as the rest of the physical universe is concerned. what else do you know that fashions narratives besides human beings? human beings are the sum of the narratives they construct about themselves.

I do not believe everything we do is natural. It most certainly is not.

A lot of people claim greed and hate are ''in human nature'', and this just is not.

Certian things are imprinted on us through socialisation and numerious ideologies and souroundings we are brought up with.
Nothing natural about it.

So unless we're talking about eating, having sex, sleeping and going to the toilet, other things which we do are arguably (some more, others less) not natural.

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
I do not believe everything we do is natural. It most certainly is not.

A lot of people claim greed and hate are ''in human nature'', and this just is not.

Certian things are imprinted on us through socialisation and numerious ideologies and souroundings we are brought up with.
Nothing natural about it.

So unless we're talking about eating, having sex, sleeping and going to the toilet, other things which we do are arguably (some more, others less) not natural.

I disagree. Greed and hate are not socialized traits. Rather, they are part of the fundamental rancor that lies at the core of human nature. Human beings are morally flawed. If anything, socialization is one of the things that mitigates these intrinsic weaknesses.

The protestation of moral innocence is one of charming narratives we construct about ourselves, revisionist history covering up the shame of compromised origins. None of us are innocent. No one.

The need to construct this image of ourselves as innocent is telling, though. It hearkens back to what I was arguing in my earlier post about humanity primarily being a function of its own narratives. We tell stories to construct identities for ourselves. For good or ill, narratives are the symbolic structures with which we clothe our self-perception. Sometimes these narrative ennoble us. Sometimes they plunge us into self-degradation. Sometimes they lie sweetly and rock us gently to sleep...

I will NEVER say I came from ancestors that were monkeys, though it might be true........I GOT MY PRIDE, ya know..... There are many other theories that haven't been explored.........Kay, I said it.......now I'll leave..........


I WAS NOT A MONKEY, IN ANY WAY AND ANY FORM......Neither was anyone in my family..........noooooooooooOOOO

Oops, wrong thread...........hahahahaha

I think.........

The point is, nothing can happen in the universe that is not natural.... therefore, everything that happens is ....

Originally posted by Dr. Zaius
I disagree. Greed and hate are not socialized traits. Rather, they are part of the fundamental rancor that lies at the core of human nature. Human beings are morally flawed. If anything, socialization is one of the things that mitigates these intrinsic weaknesses.

The protestation of moral innocence is one of charming narratives we construct about ourselves, revisionist history covering up the shame of compromised origins. None of us are innocent. No one.

The need to construct this image of ourselves as innocent is telling, though. It hearkens back to what I was arguing in my earlier post about humanity primarily being a function of its own narratives. We tell stories to construct identities for ourselves. For good or ill, narratives are the symbolic structures with which we clothe our self-perception. Sometimes these narrative ennoble us. Sometimes they plunge us into self-degradation. Sometimes they lie sweetly and rock us gently to sleep...

And you would know that the hate and greed are natural....how?

They are not. They can never be. Greed is forged by the emergance of higherarchy within civilisation, and so is hate.

We didnt evolve with hate and greed. If we did, none of what we have not would be possible to create.

Its a flawed logic. What you know today, is not how it should be. Socialisation is making us act certain ways, and thats all too obvious.

People in a different social soroundings will thing and do different things to those not in their social soroundings.
Some people are brought up to hate a particular group of people, others aren't.

And why do we hate each other? Because of ideology differance, money and power.

Neither of those are the things which are natural in our mind. These are aquired things - through ideology and socialisation.

Originally posted by big gay kirk
The point is, nothing can happen in the universe that is not natural.... therefore, everything that happens is ....

The universe was once a naked singularity of non-space, non-time that exploded inexplicably into existence. Was this natural? The fact that anything exists and not nothing is a subject of wonder.

Originally posted by big gay kirk
Sorry, but I am fed up of hearing people say that human beings are unnatural, and that we do unnatural things... WE DON'T!!! Everything we do is natural, or we just wouldn't do it... maybe our houses and skyscrapers aren't as beautiful as an anthill, or birds nest, but they are just as natural... farming is natural... ants do it, why is it unnatural for us, but not for them... war is natural.. chimps do it... why shouldn't we... even our polluting of the atmosphere is natural.. it's what we do... it may not be "nice," it may not be "wholesome" but it is natural... we are just as much a part of nature as a chimp, a rat, a sparrow, a cod, a frog or a virus... whatever we do is natural.... sorry, but that's how it is... Yep. And here we have people talking about fate... and humans being dead or something.

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
And you would know that the hate and greed are natural....how?

They are not. They can never be. Greed is forged by the emergance of higherarchy within civilisation, and so is hate.

We didnt evolve with hate and greed. If we did, none of what we have not would be possible to create.

Its a flawed logic. What you know today, is not how it should be. Socialisation is making us act certain ways, and thats all too obvious.

People in a different social soroundings will thing and do different things to those not in their social soroundings.
Some people are brought up to hate a particular group of people, others aren't.

And why do we hate each other? Because of ideology differance, money
and power.

Neither of those are the things which are natural in our mind. These are aquired things - through ideology and socialisation.

A debate! Goody!

Well, I'm not really constructing a formal proof for hate and greed's permanent existence in the human Psyche. I don't think such a proof could be made. I guess you could say I'm extrapolating back from the phenomena at hand. What do I have direct experience of? Human nature. Is human nature, as I have seen it, universally tainted by these forces? Yes. Do I have reason to believe that hate and greed would disappear if society dissolved and humanity found itself castaway on a deserted island? No. Maybe I'm too much influenced by "Lord of the Flies." ;-)

Part of what makes me conservative, is my belief that human nature is fairly constant. The experiences--the thoughts and feelings, the aspirations and fears--of our ancestors are not that different from ours. Otherwise, we could not read Homer or Thucydides and understand. Men and women are always themselves. They are always half flesh and blood, half spirit. Half tragic, half comic farce.

The story of Cain and Abel in Genesis is so compelling because of the nugget of human truth it reveals about us. In the beginning, before there were hierarchies or civilization, brother killed brother, and the killer--Cain--became the founder of cities. Civilization rests on a foundation of fratricide and blood.

If you're not partial to the Hebrew scriptures, you can pick from any number of other ur-story materials. Fratricide and the spilling of blood is a common thread in many origin stories. Romulus' killing of Remus in the founding of Rome is a prominent example, as are any number of Greek myths that speak to the cannibalization of children and the like. Most of the early stories agree that civilization is erected on top of an intrinsic human evil.

I think my favorite description of civilization's function occurs in Allan Tate's "The Fathers"--Civilization is the common pact we share with one another not to gaze into the void.

Originally posted by Imperial_Samura
Ah, yes. But it is true when you look at it, at an ant colony, it is a perfectly harmonious society, industrious, peaceful and every ant contributes, every ant has a part to play. They don't destroy the earth, they don't rage war with no cause, they don't look to achieve genocide or to enslave, they are driven, united... But what about...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/75/Mothra_Larva.jpg/407px-Mothra_Larva.jpg
http://www.giantmonstermovies.com/images/mothra-m.jpg

Mosura!!!

Dun dun dunn...

The ants don't stand a chance.

Originally posted by xmarksthespot
But what about...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/75/Mothra_Larva.jpg/407px-Mothra_Larva.jpg
http://www.giantmonstermovies.com/images/mothra-m.jpg

Mosura!!!

Dun dun dunn...

The ants don't stand a chance.

As always, your arguments are unassailable. I defer to your Japanese movie monster proof.

humans drink cows milk thats not natural, human breast milk is natural for humans

Badgers and rats also drink cows milk.... so they must be unnatural too....