Religion, weaponized religion, and the separation of church and state

[hookemATL 11724]

1 hour ago, HamsterHookah said:

Ultimate reality is God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit; 3 Gods yet 1 God.

so sayeth the chode.

everything you write about this topic is assumptive, condescending bullshit.  Just like every other evangelizing, cross on their sleeve Christian that fucks it up for everyone else, including the Christians that actually try and "walk the path" without being hateful cunts with a boner for theocracy.

[DigglerontheHoof 21195]

1 hour ago, HamsterHookah said:

Ultimate reality is God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit; 3 Gods yet 1 God.

Everything that you and I know waterfalls from this community of Gods in the Godhead loving one another, dancing like 3 particles in an infinite dance where they have for all time glorified and loved one another, before our creation.

Think about what I just said now and try to process it. We will never fully understand it, the nature of the Triune God.

If you were going to simply invent a story for a religion-- you wouldn't have chosen this framework. You'd figure something else that's easier to sell.

[HamsterHookah 112]

6 minutes ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

Just sharing what I believe, man. It’s really amazing the hostility of some of you, and it’s really sad to me.

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

Lulz. My condescending tone is cool but y’all are so mean.

[DaysOff 7947]

You can't use the Bible to prove the Bible.

We. Don't. Give. A. Fuck.

Stop trying to pass laws and discriminate against marginalized groups using a piece of apocalyptic literature as a source.

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

You can't use the Bible to prove the Bible.

We. Don't. Give. A. Fuck.

Stop trying to pass laws and discriminate against marginalized groups using a piece of apocalyptic literature as a source.

This times infinity. It’s not hard.

[DigglerontheHoof 21195]

5 minutes ago, HamsterHookah said:

Just sharing what I believe, man. It’s really amazing the hostility of some of you, and it’s really sad to me.

I'd show the same amount of "hostility" to someone coming on here and trying to sell me Zeus, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, and Xenu as gods.  

[hookemATL 11724]

34 minutes ago, HamsterHookah said:

Just sharing what I believe, man. It’s really amazing the hostility of some of you, and it’s really sad to me.

Quote

everything that you and I know waterfalls from this community of Gods in the Godhead loving one another, dancing like 3 particles in an infinite dance where they have for all time glorified and loved one another, before our creation

yet here you are prescribing beliefs to others.  keep up with your own bullshit.  if you cant understand where the hostility is coming from overall from secular folks, then you havent been paying attention to the push of therocratic fascists using religion to hurt others in the name of god.

and if you cant understand where the hostility is coming from toward you in particular, maybe look at the scribbled piece of paper where your previous eleventy billion usernames are crossed out with several more waiting to be crossed out.

[Captainant 27660]

1 hour ago, HamsterHookah said:

Just sharing what I believe, man. It’s really amazing the hostility of some of you, and it’s really sad to me.

Stop supporting the use of your faith and your god as a sword against my fellow citizens. It's fucking reprehensible.

[Satchel 6938]

4 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Stop supporting the use of your faith and your god as a sword against my fellow citizens. It's fucking reprehensible.

This^ I would urge other posters of faith in the forum to consider that the message received is the message.

[Brian Fantana 6685]

1 hour ago, HamsterHookah said:

Just sharing what I believe, man. It’s really amazing the hostility of some of you, and it’s really sad to me.

Fuck off Chrispy

[Brian Fantana 6685]

Man, the Steven Crowder shit really took a turn from some fun Schadenfreud to a really dark peek into how psycho evangelicals view and treat women.

https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1651645370898989057?t=mVwObwtoo48J67LUx4vvcw&s=19

[Captainant 27660]

1 minute ago, Brian Fantana said:

Man, the Steven Crowder shit really took a turn from some fun Schadenfreud to a really dark peek into how psycho evangelicals view and treat women.

https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1651645370898989057?t=mVwObwtoo48J67LUx4vvcw&s=19

Having a fundamentally hierarchial world view will do that to ya. Tends to make you receptive to fascist ideology and methodology as well, which we can see a potential outcome of in Florida and here in Texas, and across the evangelical body of christ. 

[Captainant 27660]

4 hours ago, HamsterHookah said:

Anti-theists aren't gonna like it.

Shit like this is the sort of oppositional, implicitly hierarchical speech that lends itself to fascist bullshit like we're seeing legislatively in bible belt states. Be better. 

[atomheartbevo 89657]

7 hours ago, Hermanator said:

Some animals do show examples of behaviors that could possibly denote an ability to reason and grieve, and we can't conclude there isn't some ability to worship in their own way.

[SKJ 1311]

I've said this a few times, but we need to start a PAC called GROOP...

Get Religion Out Of Politics

 

 

[TheRealRonWeaver? 1258]

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/samuel-bateman-used-jail-phone-inappropriately-communicate-kids-court-rcna73940

"Yeah, well, that happens in 'atheist' communities, too!" - Sawbonz, probably.

[Sawbonz 27548]

23 minutes ago, TheRealRonWeaver? said:

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/samuel-bateman-used-jail-phone-inappropriately-communicate-kids-court-rcna73940

"Yeah, well, that happens in 'atheist' communities, too!" - Sawbonz, probably.

Are you retarded?

[Bama Chick 28596]

Using that word sure is Christian.

[Pato del Muerto 52492]

On 4/27/2023 at 3:19 PM, HamsterHookah said:

Just sharing what I believe, man. It’s really amazing the hostility of some of you, and it’s really sad to me.

“The ultimate reality is…” is not how you begin a post where you are just sharing what you believe. 
 

it also ties into a previous post you made about how anti-theists aren’t going to like the fact that more young people believe in god. 
 

they don’t care. What they don’t want to hear is how you are right and they are wrong, or what the ultimate reality really is- from a poster who also said it’s unknowable or can’t be fully understood (whatever your actual words were). 
 

why can’t it just be this is what I believe, but you are welcome to believe differently?

what if most of the 18-25 year olds polled about their belief in god that answered affirmatively also say being LGBTQ is fine?  Are they believing in god the wrong way?  Believing but not following?  Muslims believe in god. As do Jews.  But not Jesus and therefore not the trinity. 
 

 

[Sawbonz 27548]

53 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

Using that word sure is Christian.

Did I say I was a Christian?

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

“The ultimate reality is…” is not how you begin a post where you are just sharing what you believe. 
 
it also ties into a previous post you made about how anti-theists aren’t going to like the fact that more young people believe in god. 
 
they don’t care. What they don’t want to hear is how you are right and they are wrong, or what the ultimate reality really is- from a poster who also said it’s unknowable or can’t be fully understood (whatever your actual words were). 
 
why can’t it just be this is what I believe, but you are welcome to believe differently?
what if most of the 18-25 year olds polled about their belief in god that answered affirmatively also say being LGBTQ is fine?  Are they believing in god the wrong way?  Believing but not following?  Muslims believe in god. As do Jews.  But not Jesus and therefore not the trinity. 
 
 

Well said. But these assholes can’t help themselves. They think their belief is absolute and therefore it’s their right to impose their bullshit beliefs on everyone.

Fuck that.

[TheRealRonWeaver? 1258]

Are you retarded?

[troph 24787]

On 4/27/2023 at 3:19 PM, HamsterHookah said:

Just sharing what I believe, man. It’s really amazing the hostility of some of you, and it’s really sad to me.

It’s amazing, really? 

On 4/27/2023 at 3:24 PM, DaysOff said:

You can't use the Bible to prove the Bible.

We. Don't. Give. A. Fuck.

Stop trying to pass laws and discriminate against marginalized groups using a piece of apocalyptic literature as a source.

This, you mother fuckers are trying to kill me and people like me by making it hard to get basic healthcare  and you wonder why we are hostile? 
 

I can’t even. 

[Willfully Horn 8014]

Crow funerals. Remind me of a folk tale I’ve heard about cattle. I’ve never witnessed it, despite living in a rural setting where cows were ubiquitous. But I do love the imagery. The rale goes that cows gather to. Inclement the place where another cow has died, and that the circle grows larger, meaning increased radius/diameter, with each passing day.

Like I said, I should have seen such, but I did not. Still, I like the thought.

[hpslugga 4058]

10 hours ago, Patricio Swayze said:

Well said. But these assholes can’t help themselves. They think their belief is absolute and therefore it’s their right to impose their bullshit beliefs on everyone.

Fuck that.

It’s really not even that. It really isn’t.

It’s that these wanna-believers are so damn fragile and insecure in their beliefs in superstitious and ridiculous nonsense that, to them, it can only be validated if enough of their peers believe like they do. 

I saw up the thread the old “atheist atrocities” trope, but one in particular does bear mentioning: Pol Pot.

Pol Pot didn’t murder people in the name of atheism. Pol Pot murdered people because he was a rocket surgeon that acted purely out of fear. One of his fears, for example, was that people who wore eyeglasses were smarter than him. He probably was right in that they probably were. 

The wanna-believers are of the same general inferiority complex. Just substitute “wore eyeglasses” with “do not believe in a deity” and see how well that fits on them.

[HamsterHookah 112]

11 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

“The ultimate reality is…” is not how you begin a post where you are just sharing what you believe. 
 

it also ties into a previous post you made about how anti-theists aren’t going to like the fact that more young people believe in god. 
 

they don’t care. What they don’t want to hear is how you are right and they are wrong, or what the ultimate reality really is- from a poster who also said it’s unknowable or can’t be fully understood (whatever your actual words were). 
 

why can’t it just be this is what I believe, but you are welcome to believe differently?

what if most of the 18-25 year olds polled about their belief in god that answered affirmatively also say being LGBTQ is fine?  Are they believing in god the wrong way?  Believing but not following?  Muslims believe in god. As do Jews.  But not Jesus and therefore not the trinity. 
 

 

I should have prefaced it with, “I believe…” and then laid out the premise, instead of just launching into the premise. I thought it was implied and understood.

And I stand by the comment that anti-theists won’t like hearing the surge in faith among todays youth. When I say anti-theist I mean those who are outwardly hostile to faith and faith followers and are visibly and audibly aggrieved and make it known their contempt. Not just atheists or others who have respectful disagreements on matters of faith and philosophies.

[BevoAbyss 2058]

On 4/27/2023 at 4:19 PM, HamsterHookah said:

Just sharing what I believe, man. It’s really amazing the hostility of some of you, and it’s really sad to me.

What's really sad is the little belief system of religion still exists, in the 21st century universe of NASA, Hubble, evolution, and a vast, awe-inspiring cosmology. 

What's really sad is the failure of secular education to convey on a wide-scale the scientific universe as a source of wonder, meaning, existential truth, our origins, and the ultimate ground for universal human rights. 

What's really sad is these fact-free fables and commandments are being shoved down the throats of many Americans.

That's the real hostility at play—creating a violent 21st century fascist theocracy.

What's really sad is Texas is ground zero for all this madness. 

[HamsterHookah 112]

21 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

It’s really not even that. It really isn’t.

It’s that these wanna-believers are so damn fragile and insecure in their beliefs in superstitious and ridiculous nonsense that, to them, it can only be validated if enough of their peers believe like they do. 

I saw up the thread the old “atheist atrocities” trope, but one in particular does bear mentioning: Pol Pot.

Pol Pot didn’t murder people in the name of atheism. Pol Pot murdered people because he was a rocket surgeon that acted purely out of fear. One of his fears, for example, was that people who wore eyeglasses were smarter than him. He probably was right in that they probably were. 

The wanna-believers are of the same general inferiority complex. Just substitute “wore eyeglasses” with “do not believe in a deity” and see how well that fits on them.

Just speaking for myself and absolutely not in a condescending way, others hostility or contempt and derision for my spiritual belief doesn’t affect my faith walk. I don’t even get mad or upset; I just feel a bit sad for them, but know ultimately I cannot give anyone eyes to see and ears to hear.

And it’s ironic because in my experience the more snowflakey sensitive bunch are the agitated anti-theists.

Exhibit A is this thread where if I am even a little bit outside of the mainstream thought of this thread (even willful horn was catching strays for having a spiritual life) and I forget to couch my language with softer implied words such as “in my belief” and “in my experience” you upset people just by sharing your beliefs and entering the discussion for which this thread was created for.

 

[troph 24787]

29 minutes ago, HamsterHookah said:

Just speaking for myself and absolutely not in a condescending way, others hostility or contempt and derision for my spiritual belief doesn’t affect my faith walk. I don’t even get mad or upset; I just feel a bit sad for them, but know ultimately I cannot give anyone eyes to see and ears to hear.

And it’s ironic because in my experience the more snowflakey sensitive bunch are the agitated anti-theists.

Exhibit A is this thread where if I am even a little bit outside of the mainstream thought of this thread (even willful horn was catching strays for having a spiritual life) and I forget to couch my language with softer implied words such as “in my belief” and “in my experience” you upset people just by sharing your beliefs and entering the discussion for which this thread was created for.

 

You don’t get it, it’s not semantics, Christian politics have intentionally and actively made much of America an enemy. When you actively create enemies, you bred hostility. I’m hostile, but you know what? It’s not offense it’s defense. I don’t have an issue with you being religious or having a faith or wanting to pray on Sunday or pray on Tuesday. I have a problem with your people saying they want to make it more difficult for me to be me Monday through Friday, Saturday and twice on Sunday.  Christians are adept at claiming we are persecuting them but it’s textbook gaslighting, I don’t  know a single queer person that wants to stop your personal right to be you, we just want the attacks to stop and they won’t and we are fucking angry and Christian’s are like, “why you mad bro?”

fuck that noise. 
 

Edited April 29, 2023 by troph

[Captainant 27660]

22 minutes ago, HamsterHookah said:

Exhibit A is this thread where if I am even a little bit outside of the mainstream thought of this thread (even willful horn was catching strays for having a spiritual life) and I forget to couch my language with softer implied words such as “in my belief” and “in my experience” you upset people just by sharing your beliefs and entering the discussion for which this thread was created for.

This is because your faith, and other evangelical christians like yourself are using gods love as a sword against those who your pastor tells you to think are icky. You got jumped on because you're using the same weasel word rich framing that our legislators do as they pass laws to make wonderful people like Troph literally illegal to exist. 

It's not a discussion of faith, but of acts taken in the name of faith, and you don't seem to give a single fuck about what your brothers in Christ are doing in His name. 

You aren't some poor persecuted christian like your Sunday school teacher would have you believe. But you are doing the CLASSIC fascist projection where you are part of a group doing evils to another group, but claiming to be a victim yourself. 

[troph 24787]

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

1 hour ago, HamsterHookah said:

... but know ultimately I cannot give anyone eyes to see and ears to hear.

To see and hear what, exactly? In some respects, the silence is deafening and in others I'd say the cacophony is loud and clear and smacking everyone in the face.

The first rule of parenting is to never use love as a weapon. That is only masquerading as love.

The man crucified for loving others made that quite clear. So clear that one need only look to see it.

 

I'm out, y'all have a good day.

[Fastbreak 3985]

Ultimate reality is God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit; 3 Gods yet 1 God.
Everything that you and I know waterfalls from this community of Gods in the Godhead loving one another, dancing like 3 particles in an infinite dance where they have for all time glorified and loved one another, before our creation.
Think about what I just said now and try to process it. We will never fully understand it, the nature of the Triune God.
If you were going to simply invent a story for a religion-- you wouldn't have chosen this framework. You'd figure something else that's easier to sell.

That is some good gibberish.

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

Chrispy is too dumb for words.

If you get offended by your religion, a faith, is referred to as a fairytale, YOU are the snowflake.

Here is the funny part:

Everyone of us in this thread, from the believers, to the agnostics and atheists want you to be able to practice your faith. What we don’t want is your faith dictating laws that affect people’s lives. How fucking dumb do you have to be to not get that through your thick skull?

[troph 24787]

Oh let’s play let him who has ears to hear let him hear…

note: these passages are hidden by the quote feature but they are so on point PLEASE READ THEM. Especially the second one, you want to hear a refreshing gospel message the beatitudes have long been forgotten but are central to Jesus’ message. Please read them.

Quote

Woe to the Scribes and Pharisees

23 Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, 2 saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3 Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do.4 For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. 5 But all their works they do to be seen by men.
 

 6 They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, 7 greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, ‘Rabbi, Rabbi.’
 

But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. 14 [g]Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation.

23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, andhave neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. 24 Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!

25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence.26 Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.

27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

 

 

As you know the Pharisees and the scribes were the religious leaders and Jesus had the strongest rebukes of his time on Earth for them. 
 

these word apply to the legislators, the pastors, and those that follow and repeat their words. These rebukes are for those that are killing trans people by governmental fiat, by spreading lies, by preaching and following the gospel of hate and war. Jesus will not be kind to you. 

 

long gone is the gospel of the Beatitudes and in is the gospel of the Pharisees.  I know more “homos, fags and queers” that check the “blessed are” box than many Christians and they don’t profess to be followers of Christ.

Quote

Matthew 5:1-12 NKJV

And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, For they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, For they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

You actively rebuke today’s Pharisees in the open public square with your vote, your money, your attendance (or refusals to attend) and your words, and you embrace, preach and you live the gospel of the beatitudes and we can be friends. 

Fucking A - walk the fucking walk and lay off the bullshit semantics and gibberish. 
 

Edited April 29, 2023 by troph

[hobbes2702 13033]

[hpslugga 4058]

1 hour ago, HamsterHookah said:

Just speaking for myself and absolutely not in a condescending way, others hostility or contempt and derision for my spiritual belief doesn’t affect my faith walk.

So let’s just start with “others hostility or contempt and derision.” That’s just a persecution complex that wanna-believers are well known to create.

Person A says “I don’t believe there is a God”

Person B says “person A is persecuting me and my faith!”

So it’s not so much that it affects your “faith walk,” it’s that your “faith walk” affects your judgment. You see persecution where there is none and persecutors where there are none.

1 hour ago, HamsterHookah said:

I don’t even get mad or upset; I just feel a bit sad for them,

For what? That they don’t believe what you believe? Again spare us the “hostility and derision” schtick because that’s all an act. It’s pure make believe.

1 hour ago, HamsterHookah said:

And it’s ironic because in my experience the more snowflakey sensitive bunch are the agitated anti-theists.

That’s just you projecting. You’ve been told repeatedly where they (we) stand on all this:

You want to believe in all that stuff? That’s one thing.

You want to force the state to teach my child that it’s all literally true? That’s a whole other ballgame.

And yeah, we don’t play that ballgame nicely, and we’re right not to.

The one thing religious adherents won’t say about that out loud in public is that “you have an obligation to just lay down and passively allow us to indoctrinate your kids,” but that’s what they want to do. That’s why this state, for example, is trying to ram the Bible down children’s throats. You will never see a secular humanist/atheist equivalent of that, at least not if you’re honest.

What you will see, to repeat, is the common refrain “separation of church and state,” and sans a handful of extremist barking lunatics, that’s as far as it goes. It’s pure theatrics to assert otherwise. 

There are some religious adherents that are at least honest when they both acknowledge the existence of a separation of church and state and admit to being offended by it. But here is my response to it: thank you for your refreshing honesty; I’m offended that you’re offended.

Edited April 29, 2023 by hpslugga

[nbmishoid 949]

19 hours ago, Sawbonz said:

Did I say I was a Christian?

She likely meant a person who considers themselves decent, polite,  that kind of thing.  You surely pass for that person on the whole.   It is jarring for many to see that word used, as you well know the reason why. 

[Restless Native 315]

8 hours ago, HamsterHookah said:

Just speaking for myself and absolutely not in a condescending way, others hostility or contempt and derision for my spiritual belief doesn’t affect my faith walk. I don’t even get mad or upset; I just feel a bit sad for them, but know ultimately I cannot give anyone eyes to see and ears to hear.

And it’s ironic because in my experience the more snowflakey sensitive bunch are the agitated anti-theists.

Exhibit A is this thread where if I am even a little bit outside of the mainstream thought of this thread (even willful horn was catching strays for having a spiritual life) and I forget to couch my language with softer implied words such as “in my belief” and “in my experience” you upset people just by sharing your beliefs and entering the discussion for which this thread was created for.

 

Nobody is upset because you don't use "softer implied words". We all get agitated because you use words like the bolded. You can see and hear things that the rest of us can't, huh? Well, maybe we should all get together on Sundays and sit in a circle around you, you condescending ass.

 

The truth is, nobody has any idea what happens to us after we die. Most of us are okay with admitting that, but it seems like you aren't.

 

I can tell you this: If there really is a vengeful and jealous god up there, he/she/it is going to be plenty pissed when he/she/it finds out you have been claiming to know what he/she/it has been up to all this time.

 

I don't post much, and I rarely ever get into internet squabbles, but the bolded in your post hits a little close to home. I grew up surrounded by that arrogance, and I got the hell out of it as soon as I could.

[safe sex 11720]

I'm sorry you spent some emotional energy into responding to Chrispy. It means nothing to him and he will take nothing from your words. 

[nbmishoid 949]

It is known, Safe.  The habit of arguing against absurd wrongs runs fairly deep hereabouts.  

[Brian Fantana 6685]

1 hour ago, safe sex said:

I'm sorry you spent some emotional energy into responding to Chrispy. It means nothing to him and he will take nothing from your words. 

He's a disgusting loser that I will forever enjoy mocking.

[troph 24787]

When it’s those that … well … don’t have ears to hear, then I respond to concepts not people. Someone else is reading. 

[Pods 7552]

On 4/22/2023 at 11:34 PM, 956 Worldwide said:

Like I said, this is “science-y,” not science. As even Jane Goodall would tell you, apes are capable of responding to aggressive instincts, but incapable of experiencing motives or motions that we could recognize as “evil” or “bad.” 

Jane Goodall is a wonderful anthropologist and her work is foundational for a lot of current primate studies. You can cite her for almost anything chimp related, but she bonded with the chimps in Gombe. She helped us see that chimps are far more complex than we'd thought, but had/has a really hard time seeing them for the violent, shitty creatures they actually are. It's a huge blind spot for her when it comes to aggression and violence. 

Among other things, Goodall was resistant to the idea that chimps routinely hunt smaller animals and eat the meat they kill all the way to the end of the 1990s, when the evidence became utterly overwhelming. In the mid-70's, she observed a war now called the Gombe War between a chimp troop that had splintered into 2 groups. The chimps had all known each other and gotten along before the split, but the split left one group with very few females, so they systematically killed every male in the other group and forcibly kidnapped the females. This included at least one instance where the chimps killed an older chimp that had previously been friendly with and mentored the younger ones. Barbaric shit. She had spent almost a decade watching this troop and was convinced they were peaceful, so she was not comfortable with the implications, which is certainly understandable. Most of what Goodall has said about the Gombe War has come out in the 2000's, after other evidence clearly showed chimp on chimp hyper violence is common. 

https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/a-brief-history-of-the-gombe-chimpanzee-war

Every modern anthropologist I've met that works on chimps is respectfully afraid of them. Chimps are hyper-violent, malevolent, manipulative and flip aggression on a dime. Chimps can go years knowing people, or an other chimp, then suddenly attack, ripping the victim's lips, ears, nose, other skin on the face, hands, feet, and/or genitals off. 

Evil is a human construct, so we can't test for it. Hate is really hard to test for, so it's really hard to say conclusively that chimps experience either one.

That said, we know that chimps form groups to seek out and hunt other chimps (usually an individual separated from their own group) intending to kill them. We know they have wars and raiding parties, where they capture females and kill all the males. They celebrate the kill afterwards hooting, shaking branches and desecrating the corpse. We know that they sometimes cannibalize each other, something that is nearly universally considered evil in humans. In the Nat Geo example below, the former alpha was displaced. He remained on the periphery of their group for several years. When he tried to return, the other male chimps killed him, desecrated his corpse and ate part of it. Murder and cannibalism are usually things we associate in humans with hate and evil. Desecration of corpses is usually associated with hate between groups, or at a minimum, significant animosity. 

Paleontologists have a principle we call Extant Phylogenetic bracketing. In a nutshell it says if the living relatives of a group all have the same traits, you can assume that the common ancestor of those groups did as well. This strongly implies that the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans was a hyper-violent animal that attacked things it considered "other", killed the males and kidnapped the females. We both inherited these traits from a common ancestor. 

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/chimpanzees-murder-cannibalism-senegal

 There is also recent evidence of at least 2 unprovoked chimpanzee group attacks on smaller troops of gorillas. Both ended with the chimps isolating and then beating a baby gorilla to death. 

https://www.livescience.com/chimpanzees-kill-gorillas-first-ever.html

Robert Sepolsky has done some fascinating work on the subject. He was looking at stress and hormonal responses of a troop in the wild. The troop he was watching had high levels of intra-troop violence for years where the hierarchy was clearly enforced by casual brutality. The hormonal data he collected showed that it's beneficial for the aggressive and competitive ones under normal conditions. The aggressive members had lower stress hormones and health complications. 

After years of him observing them, a virus swept through and nearly wiped out the troop. The individualistic, violent and competitive chimps died off at a much higher rate, while the ones that had previously been observed to be more cooperative with the others lived much more frequently. When the members of that group fell sick, the other cooperative chimps helped them. They ignored the asshole chimps and let them fend for themselves. Following this event, the chimps that had cooperated and survived the disease were the dominant group and began to enforce cooperation rather than competition. From then on, if a new chimp tried to join the troop, they would only accept ones who cooperated and cooperatively drove off the competitive and violent ones. 

FYI, Sepolsky has some awesome videos on Youtube. He puts up lectures from his classes at Stanford. 

I've mostly focused on violence and this is a long post already so I won't go into empathy too much, but it's very important too, though likely less common. Given the extant data, it's conclusive that the typical common ancestor of humans and chimps was hyper-violent, but there were still members of the species that had empathy that some of us have also inherited. That combination of many hyper violent individuals and some empathetic ones is likely key to our evolutionary success. 

 

On 4/27/2023 at 12:48 PM, Hermanator said:

We have absolutely no way to know that. Especially with the certainty of speaking it as fact. There are behaviors in the animal kingdom, including with non human primates, that we cannot explain with current technology. 

Some animals do show examples of behaviors that could possibly denote an ability to reason and grieve, and we can't conclude there isn't some ability to worship in their own way. 

One example is a "crow funeral". We observe behaviors of crows similar to the human reaction to death. They gather around the corpse, vocalize in groups, and ward off scavengers from the corpse. So are they able to comprehend death and grieve similar to humans? Or is it purely a biologically evolved instinct to recognize potential dangers in their environment. 

Elephants also do similar, along with a few other species. It's hard to say why, but some things like the last possibility can be eliminated. Biological instinct and natural selection should drive them to avoid the dead, because whatever killed it is likely still nearby. That's the response of the vast majority of animal species on Earth. Something is overriding that, but it's impossible to test what unfortunately. Studies of corvids (crows, ravens and jays) show they are very intelligent. It's certainly plausible that they are marking the deceased crows passing in some way that is meaningful to them.

An aside before I end. There's an awesome study on crow intelligence and how they teach the next generation. Researchers had people wear masks and interact with crows on the University of Washington campus. The initial study had a person wearing the "caveman" mask be mean to them. A person wearing a Dick Cheney mask ignored the crows. The crows started to scold the caveman mask no matter who wore it. They also taught this behavior to hatchlings and to other crows who had not interacted with the mask themselves. The researchers stopped wearing the mask for 2 years. When the caveman mask reappeared, considerably more crows scolded it than had before. The researchers mixed in some other masks and got the same results. Crows remember, they carry grudges and they teach those grudges to other crows. 

My own take on all the above is that animals are FAR more complex, and similar to us, than we had previously thought, it's just really damn hard to test it. Humans often act like our common ancestor with chimps would have, by being violent, but both chimps and humans have the choice to chose to be better. Violence has likely played a key role in the evolution of both chimps and humans and was likely selected for pretty heavily by natural selection, but is now counter-productive for humanity as a whole. Hopefully we get better at recognizing empathy and selecting leaders that embody it. 

[Pods 7552]

dp

Edited April 30, 2023 by Pods
dp

[WhatTheBuck 28779]

On 4/28/2023 at 7:17 PM, TheRealRonWeaver? said:

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/samuel-bateman-used-jail-phone-inappropriately-communicate-kids-court-rcna73940

https://news.yahoo.com/maricopa-pastor-68-charged-lewd-035900308.html

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vincent-delorenzo-michigan-priest-pleads-guilty-sexually-assaulting-5-year-old-boy/

https://www.bishop-accountability.org/2023/04/fired-stm-teacher-arrested-facing-charges-of-enticing-a-minor-to-produce-porn/

https://www.snapnetwork.org/trial_vs_priest_for_sex_trafficking_starts_monday

Those are just today’s entries at https://www.reddit.com/r/pastorarrested/.

It’s rare that a day goes by without multiple new entries.

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

I’m guessing chrispy won’t have the stones to show up in this thread until his next screen name.

[HamsterHookah 112]

10 hours ago, Patricio Swayze said:

I’m guessing chrispy won’t have the stones to show up in this thread until his next screen name.

I’ve said my piece and even where I would like to respectfully respond, the snowflake heathens who will neg a post telling someone the time to someone who asked it, makes it not worth the effort anymore on these types of threads.

Other than that, not sure what your quote is saying and what it is you want from me to respond or why you think I’m scared in defense of my beliefs and POV.

[cactusflinthead 27598]

It could be cross posted on the LGBTQ thread, but it certainly applies here.