Atheism
- Thread starter This_person
- Start date
kwillia
n/a
I completely comprehend the meaning of the word and stand by my posts.
This_person
Well-Known Member
Is grass sentient?
kwillia
n/a
Look, dude, if you want to compare your intelligence to that of grass so be it...
I'm not going to stoop to your condescending level. You are obviously not serious about wanting to debate the subject.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
Yes, yes. The force is strong with this one....come to the dark side. ....yes, yes.....
kwillia
n/a
Speaking of sentient grass...Yes, yes. The force is strong with this one....come to the dark side. ....yes, yes.....
Toxick
Splat
Larry Gude
Strung Out
This_person
Well-Known Member
I am not arguing sentience based on demonstrating what could be construed as feelings or self-protective acts. You are.
I don't think grass is sentient. I don't think dogs are sentient. I don't think flies are sentient. They all display self-protective acts, which could be considered self-awareness, but I don't think it is self-awareness.
This_person
Well-Known Member
Well, I'm trying to make the point that the goat is not a sentient being. Yes, reduction ad absurdum to make that point.
Do you really think animals are sentient?
PsyOps
Pixelated
Now that's a paradox.
PsyOps
Pixelated
Depends on the person.
I doubt it. If an avid animal lover runs over a mouse on a crowded highway, they're not going to stop and tend to it. If they run over a human, they will stop and render aid, call for an ambulance, and do everything they can to save that life.
What do you think the word "sentient" means?
And what do you think humans are, if not members of the animal kingdom?
Larry Gude
Strung Out
Sentient; able to perceive or feel things.
Anyone who has spent 5 seconds with a dog knows they are.
We KNOW animals are sentient beings. We simply know this. The only absurdity is to question this. I have no faith in science any more than I have faith in engineering or mathematics. Things are or are not. Animals feel and perceive. There is no argument or debate or opinion there.
We can not say 'there is no god'. We CAN say the evidence of it keeps getting displaced and all the evidence we have, and growing, strongly tends to support the contention that there is no god, BUT does NOT disprove it.
Religion was our first attempts at explaining things and thus our most interesting and, at the same time, worst. Microbiology, geology, astrology, we had no science, no proven out, tested process's of explaining the world around us so, we did the best we could and made stuff up. Humans would rather have a bad explanation than no explanation.
Morality is innate in us. The Samaritan predated Christ. No one had to tell him to care for his fellow man. No one had to tell the Jews that rape and lying and stealing and murder were bad before Moses got his tablets from a burning bush. They'd have never made the trip if they thought otherwise. Atheism finds right and wrong in simple innate human understanding coupled with the ability to reason with one another when the tough choices are to be made.
As for animals, religions have revered animals for as long as we've made them up.
And, yes, grass is sentient. It knows where the sun is. It knows when it is being eaten by a bug. It's not sentient like us, unless you count some posters, but it is aware, provably aware. We are 99% chimpanzee. 80% with cows. 60% with chickens. That grass is related to us. DNA, the genome project, we answer more and more questions all the time and the more we learn, the more we find out how little we know. One answer may reveal 10 more questions we never thought to ask or ponder.
98% of all beings that ever lived are extinct. That's not intelligent design. That's evolution. We live on a harsh planet where much of it is inhabitable. If we were a few million miles one way or the other in relation to the sun, we'd simply not be. Or, no longer be. A galaxy is on it's way to destroy us if some asteroid doesn't do it before it gets here. We're all star dust, all us gods creatures and plants and animals. Human solidarity is at our core, in our DNA. A tree hugger might strike us as a bit nutty but their sense of kinship, of reverence with the tree, or a plant or an animal or a star or the moon all have more scientific basis than religion.
Science does not disprove god. It does make it less and less likely as one biblical explanation after another has a competing explanation that we can prove.
The real miracle, as we learn more and more and know, percentage wise, less and less, the real miracle is, or, would be, that there is no god.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
You honestly don't know humans who will do the same thing for an animal and any humans that would do that for an animal BEFORE a human?
Larry Gude
Strung Out
That, by definition, is not faith.
PsyOps
Pixelated
They are an extreme few and would likely get fined or go to jail for stopping traffic to save a mouse. But, you, as usual, are purposely missing the point.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
Or, as usual, do you miss mine? You are aware of India and their love of cows, their reverence for them? Or the history of monkeys in faith?
Clem72
Well-Known Member
If taken at face value. If that percent meant "I have faith that my cellphone works through science and not magic" they could verify it if they so chose, but they do not because of said faith. I have faith that you will take issue with my logic.