’
Humanism is a ideal. 
( If we accept that we are indeed animals I see nothing wrong in embracing the primitive uncontrolled wild. 
)
( I am all up for the chance to roam like a ape amongst the wild landscape.) (who’s with me?) 
Oh heavens no! Don’t ask that question!
Anything but that! 
I’ll believe all that wishy washy cultural humanism nonsense on the event that I can find another animal who can construct a atom bomb.
( Until then I am going to play the part of the crazed skeptic)
Wait hold on, you actually believe that Humans are the only species capable of mass destruction and have wittingly done unnatural massive destruction? Oh please say yes, pretty please…are you thinking yet? 
People get very upset at this. I think it is just like how Copernicus displaced the earth from the center of the universe. People used to literally think the universe revolved around us. They still want mankind to be more special than all other forms of life. In some ways we are ‘special’, but that doesn’t change the brute fact that we are animals.
On a side note: the whole idea of an all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal God giving a shit about mankind is silly. It is the same thing as the universe revolving around us. Why would God, creator of the universe, revolve around us? How arrogant is it to believe that God made the world solely for mankind?
What do you have in mind as a rebuttal?
then go to Africa live with chimpanzees and gorilla’s or orangatangs
whats stopping you ? really , whats stopping you ?
I was joking you twit.
yet that is exactly where you are , don’t you see ?
I don’t care for the concept of all people.
I only worry about myself or those that I selfishly need.
of course and you will be never anything more . and you will mentally regress
Oh so glad you asked my friend,
The human species is not alone in the attempt to destroy environment and other species. From insect on up. The army ant and the leaf ant destroy their environments killing and leaving a wake of death in their paths. thousands of acres every year are destroyed thousands of creatures die because of them. It has been considered they have caused extinction of not only plants but, creatures.
Two beavers can change and destroy hundreds of acres of land killing other animals and making those acres uninhabitable for native creatures.
Herd animals such as elk deer etc… will graze an area until no life can live in that area. Buffalo were masters at this by sheer numbers alone.
Elephants will destroy forested areas, knocking down trees over a few hundred acre area to get at a few leaves, this destroys the environment kills native creatures. They they destroy watering holes. They trample grazing areas. The environment is vastly changed after they go through in a herd.
These are just a couple of examples out of many. They wittingly greedly destroy not caring about anything else in order to survive. Imagine give two beavers an atom bomb, They would see it as an easy way to not have to chew through trees.
As far as other creatures using weapons well the ape species has a few breeds that do that. I have seen film where group of chimps have picked up sticks and beat to death another chimp. Insects and small creatures use poisonous or thorny plants for defensive weapons to keep larger predators away. There is a species of birds that uses rocks to kill.
Now sure these animals are not sentient and sure they are destructive and brutal by instinct and casual living. But, that does not make them unnatural. Can they construct an atom bomb? No, would they if they could? I say that they would. I would say that destruction and violence tends to be inherent in a great many species on this mudball. Creatures kill destroy and war upon themselves and other species or breeds, not just humans.
We are the species that climbed to the top of the hill first. A violent greedy semisentient creature had to do it eventually. I have seen reports that quite possibly a species of dinosaur could have been sentient, but, well you know what happened there.
Humans are just the same as our relatives on this earth be they 8 legged 4 legged or two legged. Ever see what a swarm of locusts do? They kill creatures as well as plants and consume both. Quite a human thing to do.
The difference and the only difference between us and our nonsentient relatives is so slight yet so large that it causes us to not only be constructive and destructive it causes us to be pack animals or loners, it causes us to either be a doctor or a serial killer. Sentience, the knowledge of self. That is the only thing that creates a difference. We were inevitable on a planet of violence and death and life. Our sentience will either save this earth or destroy this earth or it won’t affect it in the long run, we may end up like the dinosaurs. But, either way we are animals and we are as natural as that unfathomable creature, the lemming.
With all the dangerous greedy destructive deadly creatures this earth has produced, one wonders how it has survived for so long…Perhaps symbiotic might prove the answer. …Or luck.
I’m afraid we lack progress in debating wheather humans are animals or not. There are absurd slippery-slope conclusions in either direction. On the “separate from animals” side, we develop religions that make vague, grandiose, supposition and put us in this separate afterlife. On the “just like animals side” it seems to justify that we should abandone any organization at all and perhaps eat each other alive and run around in bushes.
Science has proven that the human being is unique amongst all other animal species, not just unique in terms of “oh, that beaver has a wide slapping tail that no other animal has.” No, it mentions at least two characteristics which revolutionize the human capability more than any other animal has ever been revolutionized with its own changes. (1) the opposable thumb, (2) the cerebral cortex (evolved probably as a result of something as trivial as the opposable thumb).
Kriswest is right in saying the atrocities of humanity are not some completely non-animal construct. But then, mind you, in our current state, we are indeed the only animal that can subvert the automatic selective weeding of nature. Beavers and elephants and locusts - they all devour resources that could go on forever if not checked. But likewise, they operate on simple patterns that can easily be overcome by other simple patterns sooner or later (predators that prey on the predators). It’s not like herbivores are harmless little saints. They just seem that way, when we can’t relate to the hard luck of a plant. (Note: Simple patterns in their progress, certainly not simple in the strategies they employ).
On the whole, we are inseparable. I’m convinced it will not be long before a chimpanzee could be given a cerebral cortex with some human DNA. Or a human be stripped of her human cognition and left with raw animal instinct. Likewise, cybernetic and biological attachments, acting in similar fashion. Animal, machine, human, etc. (I’m betting such sorts of experiments have been secretly successful on some level already). So it’s no longer about what separates us really. But what will we do with our opportunity- the fact that one animal . . . one trend of biological machinery . . . in the almost random gene pool does have an opportunity to create new life, and inhabit new territory that is simply implausible by evolution. We may yet be the culprit that destroys everything on earth . . . but it’s not something a comet isn’t likely to do in the next millennium or so anyway. Might as well take our chances.
Gaia,We are not the only creature with opposable thumbs It is not just the ape and monkey species either closely related yes. but, species of marsupials have this feature. If your look at the skeletal remains of dolphins and whales their flippers have what for all intents and purpose is the same bone structure, opposable thumb and fingers. Cerebrial cortex that one you are right about… But, even as we speak, evolution occurs in most other species, other than just us, through our inadvertant help and through natural progression. Time is not at an end we may have a land comrade yet in the distant future. I believe we already have water comrades in the whale (specifically the Orca) and dolphin. Although the porpoise might be more likely. The Orca , dolphin and porpoise show sentient mental attributes. Just because they don’t have an apparent opposable thumb does not rule them out. It is the mind that is the factor.
Humans are animals, but then if we go back far enough we see that humans are stardust just like everything else. Its not the similarities that make humans special, its their differences from animals, which is that same for every animal, each has something unique that sets them apart.
Assumptions and useless conjecture.
really and yet you seek discussion on thoughts and ideas . do you think you will get any discussion of thinking and ideas in your " instinct alone " society ? NOT
you will regress , mentally
Kriswest,
We did have a land comrade called the neanderthall. We killed them . . . or at least, contributed some while other things helped them die.
I suspect at our stage we will kill (and probably have more recently) absolutely anything which begins to resemble our capability- unless we can breed with them. Before engineering, we would have tried to separate them with eugenics.
The moral being, we’re an extremely selfish species- though scientiffic, still conquerers and destroyers, and I don’t think it’ll change any time soon. Still, we have a unique chance which would be a shame to abandone for the sake of primitivism. If there could be a “speaker” for the animal kingdom, or for other life on earth, I suspect it would want to slap us for raping the ecosystem and then letting it all for nought by saying “we want to be just like you.”
Well, that is possible and you are right in a way, we may mature yet inspite of ourselves. There has been progress over the past few decades, yes, set backs too. But, over all, humans are becoming more aware. Even the Corporations are starting to wake up slowly. If, and its a huge if, time allows us, I think we may see a future with a comrade, not us but, perhaps our children’s children will.