D,
Most people have the ability to know that Star Wars was not channeled from a galaxy far far away to Lucas via the force. It’s not a documentary.
Yes. And at one time most people knew that a “sensitive negro” was really “too fantastic” an “as if”, didn’t they? 
Dunamis
Some of the most sensitive people that I know are Negroes and they know that humans have the ability to distinguish fact from fiction.
You missed the argumentative point, but that is not unusual. Cheers.
Dunamis
Of course I get the point. However, I dislike the “there are no facts” argument. I know that we know because that’s why people aren’t running around terrified by movies or thinking that they represent factual happening. Why do you find that hard to admit?
You play the wise-guy and then I do, so we end up with silly posts, not that I don’t enjoy that too.
Oh I see. “I dislike” is the grounds of your arguments. Good to have it into the open. Well my friend why don’t you just post over and over again, “I don’t like that”, and leave it at that? Because that really is the manner in which you argue. Or do you not see that?
Dunamis
Really, so rationality is just about likes and dislikes. I don’t think so. Perhaps I used the word “dislike” but that minimization has little to do with the overall point of my meaning. You, as usual, ignore any comment that does not fit your agenda. You can’t explain your position so you ignore. I have no idea where you learned that from.
As I mentioned, we all know that Stars Wars is a work of fiction, unless something is wrong with the person and they have no reality testing. How this can be effectively disputed I have no clue. Humans create works of fiction all of the time and they aren’t limited to the big screen. It’s a fact. People anthropomorphize, and that’s why some nice person invented that word. It is to represent an “as if†approach to animals that has no evidence.
So, why do you post when you desire to add nothing to the argument? Your ideas simply do not hold up to practical living and you should stop being a troll about it. Not that it hasn’t been fun to watch 
opps I meant 
.
I highly doubt that, aspacia, if the implication is that people didn’t treat humans better than animals before the Bible told them to. I think it originated with humans only having so much food, shelter, and space to go around, and deciding who gets it- the rest of their tribe, or the dogs looking for scraps.
What I have added to the argument is to point out the ludicrous and unfounded nature of your, now charitably described, “reasoning”. Your “fact” of the “too fantastic” nature of an animal being a “sensitive being”, founded upon both your completely unaccounted for “dislike” of certain kinds of arguments which you seem unable to counter (or perhaps even understand), and your rather vague and historically untenable “what-most-people-think-about-something-is-proof” thinking, has been exposed for what it is: “I don’t like that thinking”. Plus I take particular pleasure in revealing your personal inability to make a cogent point in general, thereby undermining the force of the otherwise mean-spirited “therapy” you apply to others.
Dunamis
I thought that it said in the bible that all the creatures of the Earth were for man to use?
Anyway, has there ever been a people on Earth that has thought that they were just the same as animals? I know that some have, and do, see people as another type of animal, but not just the same. The explanation is easy.
Adlerian,
This has been your argument:
- The idea that a horse is a “sensitive being†is “too fantastic†an “as ifâ€.
- The grounds of this “fact†is that “most people" know that “Star Wars is not a documentary.â€
- I “dislike†“there are no-facts†arguments.
Beautifully reasoned. 
Dunamis
Your argument thus far:
------------------------------------------- 
I have not made an argument. I have engaged yours. If you didn’t notice. (It is a long-standing way of conducting philosophy).
Dunamis
So, exactly what is it you are trying to say??? You have lost me too. And please no nasty remarks.
Sorry Ad, not following you, please spell it out. Do we or do we not had dominance over the critters. I will not be upset by your reply.
Smiles,
aspacia
Wow, they are play is some wonderful carols on the classical radio station.
Oh, I was just trying to clarify the religious prespective.
We are superior to animals due to advanced cognitive skills. They give us a complexity that makes even the most advanced animal look like a robot.
There was a time, not so long ago, when non-whites were placed in the same category as animals. The African way of life was "sold"as primitive in order to justify treating Africans like animals. Human beings were once bred and kept like chickens in a coop…disabled ones were killed at birth, sometimes sick ones were “put down”…human raised non-human slaves. The slaveowner heard the Africans sing and speak, saw them relate to their families, create art, dance…how could he not know that his slaves deserved the rights of human beings?
We keep dogs as pets and eat pigs (or the other way around in some cases). A dog and a pig aren’t that much different in terms of their “awareness”,ability to form social bonds,intelligence,sensitivity to pain and distress,etc. Yet there are people who would start a petition if dogs were treated in the same way as industrially-farmed pigs.
First it was white people,now it’s all people,perhaps in the future other animals will be allowed into our special little group.
Do you not think there is a big difference between humans and critters?
This is speciesism ‘in the flesh’ so to speak. It would be interesting to hear an explicit defence of the assumption that our species is any more justifiable a moral boundary than say, our race.
The practice of being ‘speciesist’ I suppose originated long before Christianity. I don’t think the argument that our ability to reflectively or critically think grants us domain over land and animals holds much water when we consider the fact that many humans do not have these abilities and the only consistent position would be to withold such domain from them as long as they are lacking.
Not at all - I am pointing out that if the view in question is to be held, then the logical ramification of that is that certain mentally handicapped humans cannot be given the same rights as non handicapped humans. I am not supportive of this view.
The way in which they receive sense data is entirely similar, they feel obvious distress in slaughter houses (and other stressful situations) and a capacity to experience pain naturally presupposes the capacity to experience forms of pleasure - if only in the lack of pain or distress. The way in which their physiological statistics change during orgasm is identical to ours, interestingly.
There are many differences between human beings and other beings. Because of such differences, it would be meaningless to attempt to argue that other beings should have the same rights as humans. The right to vote, freedom of religion etc. They’re also meaningless to give to my baby son. From these differences it does not naturally follow that we ought to give less weight to the interests of either a non human animal nor my baby son.
If my baby son was brain damaged, and of the equivalent mental ability to a farmyard pig, there is really no reason I can see that makes the killing of either more or less ‘wrong’. After all, many such kids are ‘killed’ in hospitals each week. We tend to agonise over such decisions, unlike the killing of a pig, but it does happen. I’m just not sure there’s much justifiable difference. It certainly isn’t our species, and there is no logic in claiming we have special rights thanks to our ability to reason, lest we comdemn humans without such abilities to the same lack of rights.
So then, what difference, what characteristic, can we identify in human animals that allows us to place such moral significance on how they are treated that cannot apply to other non human animals? Sincerely, I would like to find one - it would make general life easier if I could walk around not feeling guilty all the time about what I wear, (don’t) eat, buy, support and so on.
The biggest reason to support the boundry between humans and non-humans is that it's the only boundry there can be. When we were considering extending rights to blacks, everybody knew what a black person was. There was not a species of ape close enough to an African American to warrant confusion. Extending rights to 'animals' doesn't have this stop-gap. As I mentioned before, there is a seamless grade of development between bacteria, protozoans, jellyfish, all the way up to bonobos. Now, the obvious answer would be to have rights be relative to the development of the creature- say, we treat chimps better than mice, but mice better than barnacles. I would be quick to point out that [i]we already do that[/i], and that anti-speciesism at that point just amounts to haggling over semantics and details, not anything revolutionary. Unless the anti-speciesist can find a clear boundry between what [i]they[/i] would extend rights to, and what they would not, they are being arbitrary and hypocritical.
Also, it's worthwhile to point out that humans didn't invent speciesism. Wolves treat each other better than they treat deer (or humans for that matter), otters give each other more consideration than they do clams or bears. The non-speciesist must argue for why we should treat wolves better than they treat us- perhaps even better than they treat each other. A chicken would eat you in a heartbeat if it was big enough.
One could argue that since we have a greater moral sense than these animals, we are held to a higher responsibility than they are. Fine. But then, if we are held to this higher responsibility because of our higher faculties, it becomes [i]very appealing[/i] to once more treat humans as superior- especially if the anti-speciesist is [i]already[/i] prepared to treat dogs better than mosquitos, and porpoises better than the krill they eat. Once again, there is this built in reason to treat humans better, and the speciesist is left haggling over details like eating meat, wearing leather, deforestation, and owning pets.