Is this it?
I assume I loved my mother. I automatically emulated a lot of things, facial expressions, movements, words eventually. I didn’t worship her. Unless you are using a very loose metaphor, but it wouldn’t be a good one in the context of a thread dealing with God.
But maybe it was some other question.
And she wasn’t anything like me. She was enormous, a woman, could move unlike me, had vast powers beyond mine. Had language, lots of hair. She smelled differently, not that I knew exactly what I was like. If she had been a kind gorilla mother, I would have loved and imitated her.
In fact in many ways the child is relating to an adult across boundaries of knowledge and abilities that are magical to the child.
And animals will imprint on other species.
If your argument is that we worhip our likeness and animals do this, this is countered by animals being raised by mothers and even fathers from other species. Dogs mothering large felines. Even predatory animals raising prey animals. And, of course, many baby animals will imprint on humans.
I don’t think this is worship. But if bonding with an adult as a baby is worship well animals in many circumstances will worship what is not their likeness.
They want love and instruction and safety and will take it as it comes.
And just imagine how godlike a human parent is to a duckling.
I pretty much come close to worshipping a gosling’s webbed feet. They are awesome.
I think that if a human being had “adopted”, for instance, rescued a gosling, cared for and loved it, protected it, that gosling would pretty much worship that human being. That human being would, in the eyes of the gosling, be Everything to it, be so far above what the gosling experienced of it’s own self.
I think that is what worship means. It is a “beyond the world” transcendent attachment to another, whether that other deserve it or not.
When my uncle in-law died he owned a farm. While there attending to his estate, I stumbled upon an abandoned kitten. My father in law who lived on that farm said kittens born that time of year (early November in Iowa) rarely lived through the winter, and without anyone left there to attend to the animals he believed the kittens chances for survival were slim to none. It was so young it’s eyes hadn’t even opened yet. We adopted the kitten, took it to a vet and found out it was less then a week old, with a serious infection. My wife told me if I wanted the kitten I would have to take care of it.
So we got the medicine and for over two weeks I fed that kitten from a bottle, 7 times a day 24 hours a day. We named him Bandit. The infection cleared, he put on weight and when his eyes opened for the first time I was what he saw with those beautiful kitten blue eyes. I didn’t know anything about raising a cat. For instance I didn’t know they had to be stimulated to release their waste, so in addition to feeding I cleaned and cared for that cute little critter. He grew up to be a fairly large cat and I can say from experience he certainly doesn’t worship the ground on which I walk. I dare say that I think it is he who thinks he trained me well.
Sure, personal experience is only anecdotal, but I am fairly certain that cat doesn’t worship me either; regardless that for eighteen years I am the one that has cared for it. It is quite fond of my wife, who spoils it rotten. So lest we draw too sweeping of generalizations… Every life seems rather unique, and worship doesn’t appear a requirement of life. Mankind seems the only animal that evidences a penchant for worship or being worshiped. Lets not forget royalty was thought to be ordained by the gods. I don’t see any other animals fashioning idols.
I found our cat, Yoda, out on the street 11 years ago when he was even too young for the vet to know if he was a he or she or so the vet said. Go figure. His ears were larger than the rest of his body…just a bit of hyperbole there but not much. There are times I believe he worships me, the way he follows me and watches me, cries when he wants my undivided attention… and then again at other times I know differently.
I would agree with you here. lol Chances are, he probably did, just as Yoda did me. If we pay close attention, we can learn well from animals and not just about how they need to be treated.
That’s fine. His idea is that animals will only worship their likeness and so should we. But he’s wrong, if the love babies have for their parents is worshipping, well animals will do that with animals that do not look like them, including us.
I don’t think that is quite what is happening. I think its a poor word choice. There is something differnt to me in what an adult human does when their worship a deity. But either way, you are disagreeing with his thesis, since many, many animals have been raised by humans only.
Cats don’t have the lovebond hormones to the degree that, for example, humans and dogs do. So, I am sure you are right. And I don’t like the word worship for what baby humans have in relation to their mothers for example. But Greatest I am is saying we worship those who are like us, which must mean our love bonds to other humans. If that is true, well, many animals lovebond with humans when they are found and raised by them. They utterly bond to them, just as they would to their same species mothers. They will also bond to other species if one of them parents them. Greatest is wrong either way.
Further he is wrong because my mother was not my likeness. She had so many different qualities, a very different body, different skills, and different emotional reactions, and she was much, much bigger. Heck she had breasts and language and songs and a lot of past pain baggage and a husband and long hair and she could carry me and did.
If I was walking down the street and a creature that much bigger than me appeared and was different is as many ways as that, I would be stunned and wonder what the heck it was.
And conversely , some albeit rare, feral babies occurred. I can vouch for that, in part.
Perhaps the reason for the historically worshipped demigod, consisting of sphinx like, or elephant like, beetle, monkey, fu-dog, cow, snake. and other.
Filling in manifold symbolism. On different levels.
Some of my Am. Native friends believe we each have a spirit animal that connects us to the divine in Nature. Be it Eagle, Buffalo, Bear, Coyote. etc, the spirit animal is our link to the belonging that Nature offers to all. The animal is a part of us and we are apart of it. Being domesticated, my cat Thai obviously sees me as one who makes sure he is fed and comfortable. I have noted some times of genuine affection from him, but I suspect that has to do with my being his provider. I would not rule out the possibility that my cat and I are united as separate eyes on Nature, on the whole of which our diversity is only one aspect. Maybe he knows what most of us have forgotten–our inclusion in ecosystems.
The fact that we all emulate as babies show our desire to mimic who we mimic for endearment and protection.
You are right that we will try to smile/cooperate with everything as that is our default position, given that we are born the weakest and most insecure animal on the planet.
If I smile at something, I am worshipping it? I have seen babies smile at dogs, cats, balls, snow…
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mimicing something for endearment and protection is not worship.
If you think babies coorperate with everything you msut not have had a close relationship with a baby. They can be cranky, complain, not be satified and they make their complaints and upsettness quite clear. You keep using terms that are not the same as ‘worship’ to justify the idea that babies worship.
here you say that babies smile/cooperate with everything, which means that it is not merely their likeness they do this with.
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Here you acknowledge that imprinting (not worship) will take place between species. So it is not the likeness that is important. Even if the creature is really quite fantasitically different from the baby, the baby will monitor and imitate (if it can) the behavior of the other. It will feel comfort in the presence of that creature, regardless of the fur, feathers, baldness, intelligence, language, power, number of hands, species, of the other.
You say All X are Y.
He demonstrates that this is not the case and you acknowledge that there are exceptions.
But you do not concede that your use of ‘all’ was incorrect.
His example with the black swan is exactly what you are doing.
It’s a small thing for you to concede that, alright, not all, but most.
And if it is so important to your argument that you must deny that your use of ‘all’ was incorrect, then the honorable thing is to concede and see what the truth is.
Otherwise this is just another preacher who cannot admit mistakes, and we’ve sure had a lot of that in the history of Abrahamism.
mimicing something for endearment and protection is not worship.
If you think babies coorperate with everything you msut not have had a close relationship with a baby. They can be cranky, complain, not be satified and they make their complaints and upsettness quite clear. You keep using terms that are not the same as ‘worship’ to justify the idea that babies worship.
here you say that babies smile/cooperate with everything, which means that it is not merely their likeness they do this with.
[/quote]
Here you acknowledge that imprinting (not worship) will take place between species. So it is not the likeness that is important. Even if the creature is really quite fantasitically different from the baby, the baby will monitor and imitate (if it can) the behavior of the other. It will feel comfort in the presence of that creature, regardless of the fur, feathers, baldness, intelligence, language, power, number of hands, species, of the other.
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Your language is too narrow and if you cannot open it up we may as well forget this talk.
I am not interested in debating the definition of words.
Try to think the way this poem does, in a broad spectrum. If you cannot, I don’t know where you wish to go from here.
