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wanabe
Joined: 24 Nov 2008
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Location: EVERYWHERE
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Post: #31  Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 2:17 am Post subject: |
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| Nick_A wrote: |
| Of course I don't believe it but I was hoping someone would be able to refute it. |
That's a great way to lie about a mistake. There is no need to lie to our selves, people do it out of laziness. Not lying for 3 days would cause utter chaos if we were to revert to lying again, however if continued, only good would come in the long run. The truth shall set you free... We would be closer to gaining true freedom.
but by request...
_________________
The Secret To Eternal Life: Live Life To The Fullest, And Help All Others To Do So. Fear is weakness leaving the mind. |
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athena
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Joined: 11 Jun 2009
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| Post: #32 Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 9:42 am Post subject: |
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I don't think telling the truth or telling a lie is as important as our present test of our intelligence. Can we live wisely with our technology and the success of our species that is now threatening environments, or is mass destruction unavoidable? We pride ourselves in our intelligence, but should we?
wanabe, Thanks for that picture! Can I copy it and use it. I am thinking of sending it to my printer and putting it on my car. Is that okay with you? I have used it as my desk top background. |
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Kasper
Joined: 01 Dec 2009
Posts: 5
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| Post: #33 Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 9:57 am Post subject: |
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Well, I think you should look at it the other way around.
That we are talking about lying, in ask the question if it is bad or wrong, that is what defines human. Thinking about our own behavior and trying to change it. Other animals are just doing what their emotions tells them what to do. |
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athena
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| Post: #34 Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 11:55 am Post subject: |
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I wonder to what extent my dog thinks? He loves to chase squirrels and knows I get very upset if he crosses the street, so he will stand at the curb and watch the squirrel, and may or may not run across the street. Sometimes he will run despite me yelling "no". I would swear he is considering the animal that gets his attention is more important than I am. And if I am eating, he will turn away rather then watch me eat and get in trouble for begging. To me this looks like my behavior when I hide the bag of chips, so I can resist them. Dogs have a hierarchy and when we are their masters, we become as the alpha dog, and this requires judgment. How one dog treats another depends on their positions in the hierarchy.
On the other had, I don't think animals have a sense of time. This morning I was trying to remember if I took my pill last night. I have a clear memory of opening the pill bottle and pouring a pill in my hand, but was that last night or the night before? How do we know if something happened last night or the night before? A person with Alzhiemer's disease can't do this. I don't think an animal can do that either.
Nor would an animal think of the future. Some humans don't think of the future and their judgment is awful. Our judgment depends very much on our sense of time and ability to sequence events. |
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Nick_A
Joined: 19 Apr 2009
Posts: 1461
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| Post: #35 Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 3:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Kasper wrote: |
Well, I think you should look at it the other way around.
That we are talking about lying, in ask the question if it is bad or wrong, that is what defines human. Thinking about our own behavior and trying to change it. Other animals are just doing what their emotions tells them what to do. |
It is true that animals can be deceptive and this is rudimentary lying but Man is unique in the acquired need to lie to himself. We are so used to it that we no longer know what is the truth and what a lie is in ourselves.
This addiction to self deception is the cause of most of our slavery. A person may lie to another just to make them happy. But when we lie to ourselves it is for two of what are considered deadly sins: pride and vanity. Self esteem is an opinion of ourselves based on societal psychological dependence. This opinion is a lie.
Can you imagine the inner freedom a person could have if they were not a slave to this opinion of themselves but could receive the impressions of life as they are?
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Man would like to be an egoist and cannot. This is the most striking characteristic of his wretchedness and the source of his greatness." Simone Weil....Gravity and Grace |
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Kasper
Joined: 01 Dec 2009
Posts: 5
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| Post: #36 Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 6:27 pm Post subject: |
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sorry, english is not my mother language...
@Nick_A
A personal question to you, and be honest to yourself:
Are you trying to answer the question: What defines human? Or are you trying to answer the question what makes human not able to live a pure life and stuff like that.
Because are you really trying to say that the only difference between us and animals is that we are able to lie to ourselves?
I think that being able to lie to yourself might be a feature of human kind, but a more important feature that really distinguish us from animals is the ability to think about our own behavior and questioning if our behaviour is good or bad.
You know, if an animal is attacked by another animal, he will always choose for himself: trying to run away, or defend. But if you look at Ghandi, he was able to think beyond himself, thinking about a better world without violence. And so he didn't fight back when he was attacked and he didn't run away, because he believed that a better world could only start by his own behaviour.
I don't think that there is any animal who can control his emotion in such a way as the human kind. |
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wanabe
Joined: 24 Nov 2008
Posts: 2139
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| Post: #37 Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 7:19 pm Post subject: |
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Nick_A, how do you know animals don't lie to them selves?
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As I said before there are a lot of assertions being made about animals, that simply can not be shown as standard or fact.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Athena, do what ever you want with the picture.
_________________
The Secret To Eternal Life: Live Life To The Fullest, And Help All Others To Do So. Fear is weakness leaving the mind. |
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Nick_A
Joined: 19 Apr 2009
Posts: 1461
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| Post: #38 Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 8:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Kasper wrote: |
sorry, english is not my mother language...
@Nick_A
A personal question to you, and be honest to yourself:
Are you trying to answer the question: What defines human? Or are you trying to answer the question what makes human not able to live a pure life and stuff like that.
Because are you really trying to say that the only difference between us and animals is that we are able to lie to ourselves?
I think that being able to lie to yourself might be a feature of human kind, but a more important feature that really distinguish us from animals is the ability to think about our own behavior and questioning if our behaviour is good or bad.
You know, if an animal is attacked by another animal, he will always choose for himself: trying to run away, or defend. But if you look at Ghandi, he was able to think beyond himself, thinking about a better world without violence. And so he didn't fight back when he was attacked and he didn't run away, because he believed that a better world could only start by his own behaviour.
I don't think that there is any animal who can control his emotion in such a way as the human kind. |
Hi Kaspar
Your English is fine. I do appreciate your meaningful questions and your love of art.
My interest isn't in subjective morality because it differs in cultures. Subjective morality is conditioned so it seems naive to philosophically take it seriously and rather be concerned if objective morality exists.
As I initially said what defines Man is that Man is in the image of God. Obviously this is a tough pill to swallow especially in this day and age but superficially it means that man like God has an inner trinity. It just is not unified.
A clam for example has a body. A dog has a body along with emotion. This is why Buddhism values higher mammals as sentient beings.
Man not only has a body and emotions but also the capacity for reason. What is normally not understood is that man has animal emotion but also the potential for the experience of higher emotions that exist in us now in a rudimentary form like faith, hope, and love. Faith for example as a higher inner quality is completely different from the faith we know of as faith IN someone or something
Thought is the same way. We usually define though as use of a highly developed form of associative thought. We draw associations that allow us to better deal with our environment.
Conscious reason is unique to man on earth. Animals do not have the potential for conscious reason.
Man as a trinity has the potential unity of mind, body, and feelings no other animal has.
Animals evolved from the earth but man is dual natured. He not only has the animal part but also the seed of something higher which is conscious evolution into higher life. Conscious reason is a step above associative thought. It connects our conscious potential with the reality of our existence on earth. The ancients knew it as contemplation without a goal but just to experience the conscious quality of a moment.
God is a Trinity. Man is a Trinity. Being is relative. Consequently the trinity of man is lower in scale. The same idea is in music for example where High C is the same as Low C. They differ in their relativity of vibration and in scale.
I'm trying to express a very deep idea in a superficial manner but what else is possible in a post?
The problem is the human condition which denies man on earth to experience his conscious potential. The fallen human condition is supported by our inner lies. So inner lies are just the obvious manifestation of the slavery of man on earth to the human condition.
Where all other animals have completed their evolution on earth, Man as a Trinity has the potential for something much higher which is denied through the human condition.
So where it is more correct to say that man is defined as a Trinity in the image of God, it is often easier to experience how we deny it for ourselves through inner lies. We believe we are chickens confined to the earth but don't know that we have the potential to be eagles and a quality of being worthy of the name "Man."
| Quote: |
| A man found an eagle's egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them. All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air.Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat on his strong golden wings. The old eagle looked up in awe. "Who's that?" he asked. "That's the eagle, the king of the birds," said his neighbor. "He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth - we're chickens." So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that's what he thought he was."Anthony de Mello(1931-1987) Jesuit Priest |
Man on earth is a trinity but connected through imagination so a trinity in name only. Conscious humanity is not something we can know since at that level Man is a manifesting unified trinity and beyond our conception
| Quote: |
| The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face? - Thoreau, Walden |
Thoreau is defining a "Man." If we are honest we can see we are far from this.
How then do you define "human?" Is it by the reactive life of what we see and experience around us or by a conscious potential we cannot comprehend? This is why it is so hard to appreciate what man in the image of God means. It is something the human condition denies the conscious experience of.
_________________
Man would like to be an egoist and cannot. This is the most striking characteristic of his wretchedness and the source of his greatness." Simone Weil....Gravity and Grace |
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athena
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Joined: 11 Jun 2009
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| Post: #39 Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 11:26 am Post subject: |
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| Kasper wrote: |
sorry, english is not my mother language...
@Nick_A
A personal question to you, and be honest to yourself:
Are you trying to answer the question: What defines human? Or are you trying to answer the question what makes human not able to live a pure life and stuff like that.
Because are you really trying to say that the only difference between us and animals is that we are able to lie to ourselves?
I think that being able to lie to yourself might be a feature of human kind, but a more important feature that really distinguish us from animals is the ability to think about our own behavior and questioning if our behaviour is good or bad.
You know, if an animal is attacked by another animal, he will always choose for himself: trying to run away, or defend. But if you look at Ghandi, he was able to think beyond himself, thinking about a better world without violence. And so he didn't fight back when he was attacked and he didn't run away, because he believed that a better world could only start by his own behaviour.
I don't think that there is any animal who can control his emotion in such a way as the human kind. |
How about our ability to perceive time as past, present, future? This seems very important to what makes us human.
My dog will not run across the street and chase squirrels, if I am paying attention to him and use my voice to express disapproval. I know he is choosing between pleasing me or chasing the squirrel.
Not all dogs bark, and dogs react differently to a person being upset. My dog will simply leave if I seem upset, while other dogs will repeatedly nudge an unset person. I am not sure how much of our behavior is born into us, or hormonal, or learned, or decision. Like other animals, we have different dispositions, and react differently. |
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Cato
Joined: 09 Dec 2009
Posts: 17
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| Post: #40 Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 12:44 pm Post subject: |
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| A human is just a name given to animals. That is all, at least to the belief I have. |
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Yanet
Joined: 10 Dec 2009
Posts: 1
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| Post: #41 Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 4:19 pm Post subject: |
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Human Being, well, some people say we are just flesh and soul, others define Human Being as a result of evolucion, i mean, that we are like any other animal, with the different that we use the reason. I agree with all of them as i think that human being is all that and more than that. We are emotional person, i could define human being as a bounce of emotions, emotions that take the control of our flesh, soul and animal instint. Emotions take us to do things that we never thought we could have done, emotions take you to hell and heaven at the same time.
We are flesh, flesh that is connecting with this material world, flesh that dont allow us to see the truth, the reality around us. We have a soul, soul that is a presioner in our body. We touch but dont feel, we walk but cant go where we really want to go, we see, but we just see what is it allow to us. We say we love, but we even know what this word really mean.
What is human being?, we only will be able to answer this question when we learn to see the world with our heart and when we learn to look within us before to look outside. |
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