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If I had to choose between saving the life of a good dog or a bad man, the man would die, and the same would be true if I had to choose between the endangered mountain gorilla and all 37-million humans of metropolitan Tokyo.
“You don’t know anyone in Tokyo, and might not racism play into how breezily you would render them dead? What would you say if you had to choose between a species of blind fish that only lives in a single isolated cave versus yourself and the 4-million other humans in Oregon?”
Whether my decision involved Tokyo or Oregon, it would be based upon my belief that the value of an entire species outweighs that of millions of humans. It is also true that cave fish only harm their prey whereas we humans harm everything but the germs, rodents, and insects that prey on us, and so it is that the earth would be better off if several million of us were suddenly dead.
“How many humans would you trade for the Anopheles Mosquito, the Norway Rat, or a staph-causing bacteria?”
While it’s hard to imagine the harm of killing-off a flesh-eating microbe, destroying the Anopheles Mosquito is another matter because of the species that feed upon them and are themselves fed upon by other species. Even so, if I were a caribou whose breathing passages were being clogged by clouds of mosquitoes, my choice would be easy. My point is that immediate suffering could inspire me to adopt a remedy that would make the overall problem worse, yet the absence of immediate suffering gives my species an excuse for rationalizing problems out of existence; for example, greed, global warming and habitat destruction.
As I see it, my species relates to the earth like staph germs relate to their host. What I mean to say is that while staph germs might become fat and sassy from feasting on human flesh today, it never occurs to them to cut back in order to keep their host alive for tomorrow, although when it dies, they die. How, then, are we superior to staph? Given our wasted potential for good, how are we even the moral equals of staph?
Irrelevant Endnote: Peggy is sitting beside me (on her own desktop computer) with Harvey purring loudly in her lap. A new universe was born when he entered the world, its reality being so all-encompassing that I can scarcely remember the old universe despite the fact that it occupied 69/70ths of my life. We came very near not applying to keep Harvey (for many months, we had been his foster parents), and when we finally did apply, we came very near being forced to give him up due to our age (I’m 70, and Peggy—the poor old thing—is 69). How nightmarish the image of being forced to surrender him to the young woman who wanted him, and how unimaginable the possibility of someday losing him to death (his or ours). What would I not give for him? How much trouble, how much money, even how many lives? Some people love humans. I love cats. The five that I have aren’t nearly enough, but if I had more, I would be spread too thin for intimacy (a recognition that causes me to question the values of cat-laden households).
It is said that the Abrahamic deity created humans in his likeness (as if that’s a good thing), but I’m much more invested in the beautiful and virtuous cat goddess, Bastet, who so admired cats that she molded herself in their likeness. I have a statue of Bastet on the window shelf overlooking my bed, and I often open my eyes in the wee hours to see her outlined against the semi-darkness of the city sky.
22 comments:
You are perversions on this front are also mine.
I kind of agree....I think the survival of all species is much more important than the survival of a handful (or even a lot) of humans but I sure wouldn't want to be making that choice in real life
Why is it always the other guy who needs to get the ;( off the planet?
But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death. Proverbs 9:36
Oopps, that Proverbs 8:36
"Your perversions on this front are also mine."
Happily, I anticipated as much.
"I think the survival of all species is much more important than the survival of a handful (or even a lot) of humans but I sure wouldn't want to be making that choice in real life."
You are the second person to agree with me. I had imagined that my thoughts would offend most people, and maybe they will, but your words meant a lot.
"all they that hate me love death."
Awkward wording, isn't it? If I understand you correctly, you take no interest in species destruction, nor do you have a problem with killing off 37-million people, but my contempt for the Biblical deity bothers you enough that you relayed one of Jehovah's hundreds of threats. Doesn't it strike you as odd that the "God of love, compassion, mercy, and forth." is so consistently angry and bloodthirsty? For example, in Ezekiel 30:17, he threatened to bring down his wrath on Bastet's holy city of Bubastis: "The young men of Heliopolis and Bubastis will fall by the sword, and the cities themselves will go into captivity." Cranky old Jehovah either forgot his threat, or he's been busy destroying other peoples. If someone who believes that God's promises never fail, how do you explain these failures, and to what do you attribute the fact that atheists know more about the Bible than do Christians? (See https://www.pewforum.org/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey/)
"Why is it always the other guy who needs to get the ;( off the planet?"
Sounds like a non sequitur to me.
Re your reply to Sue, I can only say, “There he goes again, putting up straw-men arguments and then daring anyone to knock them down.” I counted at least five or six. From what you wrote in your post, though, it is clear that it is not Sue but you who don’t have a problem with killing off 37 million people under the guise of being humane. (Come to think of it, and speaking of Japan, President Harry Truman did something similar though on a much smaller scale to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.)
I do not want to get in a sparring match with you, Snow. Tits-for-tats tend to get ugly and never solve anything. Let’s continue to be arms-length friends and try not to provoke one another unnecessarily.
I’m so happy you get to keep Harvey.
We do not deserve animals. They love us unconditionally and only ask
Food and shelter.
The love they give us is priceless
You stirred up a hornets nest. Good. Took me too many years to leave the bullshit of religion behind. We ought to be much more careful of the other animals we coexist with, though I am sure there will be plenty left when we have managed to destroy ourselves. The earth will recover in time and time is limitless.
I’d zap everyone in Oregon to save the Bees, Birds & Dragonflies...except y’all, of course.
Merry Christmas, you old atheist, from your Louisiana follower whose sense of humor & use of irony you just don’t get. But I love you anyway because you’re from Mississippi and we could be related..plus you love cats. Ha! xo
"Re your reply to Sue, I can only say, 'There he goes again, putting up straw-men arguments and then daring anyone to knock them down.; I counted at least five or six...Let’s continue to be arms-length friends and try not to provoke one another unnecessarily"
I only count being accused of violating the rules of logic as an unnecessary provocation when you don't define what it is that you're talking about. I won't even respond to what you have to say if you don't want me to (just say, "No response desired"), but if you're going to communicate at all--which I very much hope you will--please believe that I'm not violating the rules of logic intentionally, and therefore I'm unable to learn from your accusation unless you spell-out what I'm doing wrong.
"They love us unconditionally and only ask Food and shelter."
In my view... even fish need more than food and shelter as is evidenced by the fact that they swim over to people they recognize but not to people they don't. What I've found in regard to dogs and cats is that the love of a cat is highly conditional upon good treatment, while dogs, like children, need love so desperately that they will do this utmost to trust the very people who beat them and then blame themselves when the beatings continue."Took me too many years to leave the bullshit of religion behind."I still feel scarred by my fundamentalist childhood because, unlike my younger sister, I took our church's teachings seriously. I thought I was dealing well with the past until Trump came along and I discovered that his most ardent support is from Christians. That discovery led me to hate Christianity more than I ever hated it before, and much of that hatred has spilled onto my blog. Of course, the hatred I feel is shared by many whom, though not religious, had previously shown a live-and-let-live attitude toward religion, it now being clear that America's dominant form of religion--White Christian Nationalism--is destroying all hope of toleration, its goal being to win God's favor by silencing other voices.
"We ought to be much more careful of the other animals we coexist with..."
Coexist being the operative word, our current Biblically-inspired view (Genesis 1:26-28) being that they're only here for our benefit, and therefore have no rights which we are bound to honor.
"...I am sure there will be plenty left when we have managed to destroy ourselves. The earth will recover in time and time is limitless."Perhaps, but to think that we--who regard ourselves as the most advanced species in existence--are responsible for an ongoing mass extinction that is bringing misery and death to billions suggests to me that we have voided our right to exist.
"I’d zap everyone in Oregon to save the Bees, Birds & Dragonflies..."
Maybe you would zap everyone in Oregon anyway, what with it being overrun by "Left Coast" socialists. That aside, what do you have against opossums that enables you to kill opossums and laugh about it. "HA, HA, HA," you say, but here in Oregon, we have a saying that goes: "Love Possums, Don't Put Them in Jambalaya," and we most certainly don't laugh when we say it, although we say it constantly despite the fact that no one seems to know what Jambalaya is.
"Merry Christmas, you old atheist."
And merry Atheistmas to you too. God doesn't believe in me, so why should I believe in God (isn't it enough that I believe in opossums)? Now, God doesn't believe in opossums either because if he did, he wouldn't have given opossum females too few nipples to feed all their babies (because opossum babies latch onto a nipple and stay there, the extra babies starve). Did you know that a opossum has lived under my deck for months, and I plan to let him or her stay there, although s/he craps all over my backyard? Here's something else that you might not know. Opossums aren't native to Oregon, which means that they're always "in season" and that a person can keep them as pets. I read a book by a man who kept an opossum as a pet, but it wasn't a good experience because the opossum wanted out, and was willing to tear the house apart to get out.
News flash: God certainly does believe in you. The Incarnation (that whole Immanuel thing, remember?) and Crucifixion and Resurrection prove it. “No response desired” in my direction, but His may be a different matter.
Some one said. . If life is a hamster wheel, then the goal isn’t to actually get anywhere, it’s to find a way to enjoy running.Just wanted to say Merry Christmas
If you leave a comment on someone's post it seems quite strange to ask them to be non-provoking in their answer. Especially here, hahahahaha. I would certainly save a good dog over a bad human, that means choosing what good or bad is, but I'm pretty sure we know how that works. I wouldn't kill everyone in Tokyo to save a species because it might be a bad pair of gorillas. It's less likely, but we don't actually know and some creatures are certainly meaner than others, but I also think it wrong to wipe out one set of life for another in such a casual way. If an animal becomes extinct it happens, it's nice to try and help, and people should be stopped from causing extinctions but that's very different to choosing to murder a country of people. The basic point is that animals are all in all better than humans and for the most part I agree, one of the reasons is that no dog would choose to kill a whole country of people rather than keep a colony of ants, or the white tigers. Hahahahahaha. They wouldn't. They might eat them all given the chance, but that's survival and I think intent is key too.
I'm signing as this to avoid any passing crazies following me (falls about)
"If you leave a comment on someone's post it seems quite strange to ask them to be non-provoking in their answer. Especially here."
The reader in question grew up with his mother's admonishment that making his Jewish identity known would lead to discrimination if not worse. He later became a Christian who, for decades, hid his Jewish identity from his fellow Christians. So, while I can parrot the apparent reasons for his seeming timidity, I don't pretend to understand it, and can only make things as comfortable for him as possible, in the hope that it will better enable him to state his truth. Now... in my view, it is morally reprehensible to withhold one's truth when 70,000,000 of one's fellow citizens are attempting to overturn a democratically elected government, the outcome of which would be the very environment that his mother caused him to fear, and so it behooves each of us to make things as safe for one another as possible because few of us have the courage to speak our truth regardless of the consequences--I know I don't. However, I suspect that he would claim that no one is obligated to speak for or against anything. Thus does silence acquiesce to evil in what is the moral equivalent of allowing an injured person on the side of the road bleed to death by refusing to get involved.
cont.
"I would certainly save a good dog over a bad human, that means choosing what good or bad is."
As Thoreau put it, "Our every action is startlingly moral." Would it be true, do you think, that vegans are more likely than meat eaters to view all sentient beings (at least) as having equal value? Were it otherwise, I should think it would be very hard indeed to say no to killing lambs, cows, fishes, and birds simply in order to have a certain taste in one's mouth and to win acceptance by one's fellows. I also wonder how many Christians are vegans. I've never known one, although I have been awfully respectful of the fact that Peggy's Christian niece--who married a small town North Carolina preacher--has been a vegetarian for decades.
"some creatures are certainly meaner than others, but I also think it wrong to wipe out one set of life for another in such a casual way."
What's "casual" about valuing an entire species above a limited number of members of our own species? "Certainly meaner"? Do you mean to suggest that we all--or nearly all--agree that some species are simply mean and therefore less deserving of compassion and respect? How do you know that what you interpret as meanness in another species really is meanness from that species' perspective (or does it matter)? Who among us do you consider qualified to make "meanness" judgments? Our own species is the only one that we know from the inside, and can you even conceive of a species that is "meaner"?
I doubt that any other species is more hated (on account of its perceived meanness) than Felis domestica, so would it serve as your foremost example of a mean species? Regardless, I can better address your point if I use a specific example... While no one knows what is going on in the mind of a cat that appears to be purposefully torturing its prey, such activities have survival value to cats in that capturing the same prey again and again sharpens their hunting skills; and even if cats are capable of making moral judgments, it is certainly possible that they--like yourself and all other humans--act on the belief that some lives are more deserving than others, which is why we kill mice with slow-acting poisons, use them for vivisection, and turn them over to children to dissect.
cont.
"They [dogs] might eat them all given the chance, but that's survival and I think intent is key too."
No, they would kill them and leave them to rot, but more about that momentarily...
The seemingly callous behavior that cats exhibit in regard to their prey is less about being a cat than about being a predator. For example, I once had a dog that got into my family's chicken yard and single-handedly killed an entire flock of chickens, and packs of dogs--including wolves--often kill many cows or sheep at a time despite the fact that they could not possibly eat more than one or two of their victims. Here in Oregon, I've seen hunting photos from pioneer days in which a small group of hunters would be happily sitting amidst the corpses of SCORES of animals that they killed in a daylong orgy of violence, this during an era in which the community-wide beating to death of hundreds--or more--of jackrabbits constituted family-friendly affairs that was followed by a picnic, sac-races, etc. Ourselves aside, if "mean" species were tallied, every last pack-centered mammalian predator would have to be included, yet as recent research has conclusively proven, it is upon mammalian predators that the welfare of entire ecosystems prey animals themselves depend. For example, kill all the predators, and the herbivores will so overbreed that they will strip the land bare of vegetation, and when this happens, the result will be a lifeless desert--the rapidly expanding Sahara being an example. The point is that for our species to denounce various other species as morally reprehensible--and thus less worthy of consideration--er creatures represents an exercise in arrogance that isn't fueled by knowledge but ignorance.
Thank you for making things as comfortable for me as possible, particularly the part where you call me morally reprehensible. White man (if I may use that term) speaks with forked tongue. It must be wonderful to feel oneself to be superior to others in every way while also deluding oneself into thinking one occupies the moral high ground while simultaneously boasting about being willing to kill the 37,000,000 inhabitants of Tokyo. Wonderful and very lonely.
"you call me morally reprehensible."
I was afterwards shocked by my tackless and patronizing response to both you and Sunshine, and to you both I apologize.
By way of clarity, I didn't call you morally reprehensible, I referred to a specific behavior (on your part) as morally reprehensible, but if I was in error, I would gratefully acknowledge a reasoned correction. While I fully believe that you would never lie, steal, take unfair advantage, or commit other "morally reprehensible" sins or crimes, these are known in Christian circles as "sins of commission." When it comes to remaining silent in the face of overwhelming evil (that is, committing the "sin of omission") I don't know what it would take to spur you to action because I've yet to see it.
But is it even your responsibility to do speak-out especially when it would do so little good anyway? Are you not a Republican; is Trump not wildly popular among your fellow Republicans; and do you not agree that Trump and many millions of his followers are presently behaving in ways that, if successful, would so drastically alter the character of our nation that it would bear no likeness to what its founders created; and, finally, is it not your understanding that the more people who speak out, the more diffuse the attacks on them by Republican terrorists will become? If you believe these things, do you not have a moral responsiblity to speak-out regardless of whether you think it would help--and how would you know anyway? But if it's not your place to speak-out, then whose place is it?
cont.
Last week, Trump and Juliana told many thousands of their followers to march to the capitol and "fight like hell", and so they did. Some of the capitol terrorists were Oregonians who had previously attempted a violent occupation of the Oregon capitol--an attempt that was aided by a Republican legislator who obligingly opened a side door for them. Then there was the successful occupation of the Michigan capitol followed by an attempt to kidnap and murder Michigan's governor. Trump's response--Trump being a politician who is favored by over 90% of your party? He called the violent Michigan occupiers patriots, and said the governor should "make a deal" with them. He called the DC terrorists "very special" and told them he loves them, and while he had trashed my state's left-wing mobs, he said nothing about the crimes of own followers. What if the DC terrorist had found the lawmakers whom they had wanted to bind with those zip ties and killed them, would that be enough to make you think it's time you objected to the actions of Trumpians criminals? What if they had found no one but Pence and lynched him as they had threatened to do, would you speak out then. Your fellow "law and order" Republicans did beat a policeman to death with a fire extinguisher, so do you simply view that mans' murder as having nothing to do with you? How about Trump's attempt to browbeat your state's Secretary of State into "finding" 11,780 votes? Honest Georgia election officials--YOUR election officials--have been deluged with death threats against themselves and their families, and at least one of them--Ruby Freeman--is in hiding due to the many "credible" death threats she has received, yet it would appear that you view the troubles of members of your own party who find the courage to speak-out against the misdeeds of your party's president, as irrelevant to your ownj life, and requiring no response from you. Your party is turning our democracy into a nightmare, and you say nothing. I don't get it.
"It must be wonderful to feel oneself to be superior to others in every way while also deluding oneself into thinking one occupies the moral high ground while simultaneously boasting about being willing to kill the 37,000,000 inhabitants of Tokyo."
"Boasting"? Even if I had the power to make such a choice as I outlined, I would anticipate killing myself in order to escape the images of all those little children that, because of me, were denied many decades of life, but even if I had been boasting, it wouldn't absolve you in the least of your responsibility to speak out in the current crises. Admittedly, neither of us has the power to make much if any difference, but this doesn't mean that we can justify fiddling as Rome burns, and the truth is that people can dismiss anything I say simply because my hatred of Trump is well known, but yours is not, and, as I said, you are a Republican and a white Georgian, factors that would give power to your words...
I just this minute heard that another policeman had died. You have often and easily criticized Antifa for its assaults on cops (although I very much doubt that you know a single anarchist), so why this unwillingness to speak out against the Republicans by whom you're surrounded, and in whose lives your words might have influence?
P.S. My English blog buddy, Philip, sent me the following (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_P-0I6sAck), and so I watched it despite having a low opinion of "Arnie." I was glad I did. As you probably know, the last time our capitol was overrun was by the British in 1814. Last Wednesday, it was overrun by members of your own, ever more criminally violent, political party, which is why I should think that you, of all people, need to stand up for decency and democracy.
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