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The irony of being human: deep down we re still animals
The Daily Anthenaeum ^ | Thursday March 14, 2002 | Joshua Greene

Posted on 03/14/2002 6:08:40 AM PST by the_devils_advocate_666

The irony of being human: deep down we're still animals
Joshua Greene
Syndicated Columnist

What would it be like to strap on explosives and pull the ripcord? Explosives are different than parachutes. Sky jumpers say that a minute of free fall, that bit of pure acceleration, that sheer sensory overload, is a whole lot longer than a minute. 

Think about how fast you'd be moving and how slow it would feel if you donned a dozen sticks of TNT, walked into a night club and exploded. To be honest with you, I don't like this fad. There are  too many people doing it these days.

You know, humans really aren't that smart. We think we are. We think because we have nitrous balloons and silicone implants and 40 horse-power lawn tractors and the know-how to explode ourselves that we've advanced from our wayward ways as troglodytes, cave men. Go ahead, pound on your chest, be proud.

Yo man, stop trimming your beards and walking upright for a sec. Eat a banana. You ain't fooling no one. Ugga booga.

Are things really different than they were say, 1,000 years ago? Sure it's nice to have lights at night and travel at magic carpet speeds and live to be 78.5 and not have a feudal lord's henchmen knocking on the door at night for a piece of your wife. But I mean really, aren't we still the same? Won't we look back on this era as slow, thoughtless, morbid and hopeless?

Outside of Denver last year some city folk cut the heads off some of the homeless and stuck them on stakes at the city limits. Nah, we're not barbarians. Civil. Yah.

We found some dude in Georgia with 300 bodies thrown out behind his crematory. Rotting humans out back.

A few years back, about 800,000 people in Rwanda were killed with hatchets and machetes. We only said, "Enough," because the river started stinking downstream.

We're stupid animals. On top of the food chain, sure, but the king is rarely wise. In fact it's amazing the world works as well as it does considering who's in charge. 

We're definitely in charge. I mean, what other species has the keys to the zoo? We pretend we're carnivorous. We wear other animals. We put fish in swimming tanks, 15 floors up. We fly faster than birds into buildings. We cut the grass twice a week. I'm not saying we don't rule the earth, but I am saying we, plural we, aren't as smart as you think.

Here it is 2002 years after Christ was supposedly born (we're not supposed to mention him in this technologically advanced era, but he's still the basis for our calendar) and we're still fighting over his hometown. Those that believe in him say he came offering peace. We killed him.

Yeah, we're real advanced. Instead of crosses and rope we've got Nazi-Jews and nail-packed, exploding Palestinians. Oh, wait, it's politically incorrect to talk about the Nazi-Jews. They aren't really Nazis, they're more like Huns. Currently, this very evening in fact, Israeli soldiers will smash into (with bulldozers and tanks) and search Palestinians' homes. The Israeli soldiers are looking for terrorists. They're rounding up all the male Palestinians and killing quite a few.

But see, the Palestinians are like yellow jackets. You really don't want to enrage a hive. I stepped into a swarm once when I was 6. My old man started beating me, trying to kill the bees. The more he killed, the more they attacked. All we could do was run. 

So Palestinians get a strap-on brick of explosives and a pound of screws, walk into a nightclub and explode themselves. Eleven dead and 40 injured. Injured, like screw-stuck-in-head injured.

If anything, humans have just become more gruesome with age, and we lie about it and pretend that things are actually more ethical, purposeful and sanitized.

When it comes to exploding people, things are definitely not cleaner. Heart parts.

The dark ages weren't dark because we lacked light. The dark was when all we did was fight. We were asinine animals who failed in every endeavor except killing. Priests abstained from killing, they just raped little boys.

A la Peanut Butter Sandwiches: Dark Days 2, the sequel. History repeating itself before your very eyes. Priests still rape little boys; wild, stinky, furry men in foreign lands will kidnap and kill you; kids kill each other and parents kill kids and those that survive we teach "high tech" torture techniques at our finest military institutions; our air ships are sometimes captured by pirates and sunk, and momma still cries when her boys don't come home from war.

Make no mistake, those exploding Palestinians and the Attila-the-Jews, that's our war. When those Apache gunships blaze into the night in Dheisheh, the refugee ghetto-camp outside of Bethlehem, it's really like we're the ones mowing them down, rounding up their men. Those are our helicopters, our tanks, our bullets, paid for out of our budget. Remember, the terrorists don't have helicopters.

We aren't exactly a big-brained peaceful clan. In fact, it could be argued that we're kind of like the chain-swinging pro-wrestlers of the international mat. Barbarians.

News flash: Yasser Arafat, our enemy, he has a Nobel Peace Prize. Ariel Sharon, our friend, he's wanted by the Hague for war crimes. And in the meantime we pretend we don't understand why they're selling strap-on explosives on street corners.

"We got your shrooms and booms, pills and kills, GHB, LSD, ecstasy and TNT, barbituates and ammonium nitrates. Come get your ticket to God."


Joshua Greene can be reached at:
DAPerspectives@mail.wvu.edu


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: christ; explosives; humans; israeli; jews; nazi; palestinans; peanutbutter; rape; rawanda; sasu; technology
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I know that there are plenty of individual sentences or points made here that are great sources of individual flame wars. But what I'm more intested in are views on the overall thought of human "advancement" over the centuries...
1 posted on 03/14/2002 6:08:40 AM PST by the_devils_advocate_666
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To: the_devils_advocate_666
Never will anyone searching for peanut butter at FR ever miss this extremely important piece.

Oops?

2 posted on 03/14/2002 6:17:09 AM PST by Harp
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To: the_devils_advocate_666
To be honest with you, I don't like this fad. There are too many people doing it these days.

Every single person who has every done it has been a muslim as far as I can recall. Is this a clue to those who say "Islam is peace"? What a lie that is.

3 posted on 03/14/2002 6:17:52 AM PST by exmarine
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To: the_devils_advocate_666
This should be an interesting thread, if it doesn't get pulled.
4 posted on 03/14/2002 6:25:08 AM PST by ScreamingFist
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To: the_devils_advocate_666
Oh, his veiws on human lack of cultural advancement are right on the money. Really, he's understating.

Greene just lost me with the part about the Nazi-Jews and the bit implying that exploding Palestinians would be a thing of the past, if the Israeli's would just stop bombing empty buildings. Oh, he tells us that the Jews are rounding up all the young Palestinian men, which is not true. It's hard to round them up when you phone ahead and warn them you're coming.

Yasser winning a Nobel Peace prize simply shows that ANYONE can win one...except for Bill Clinton, who I remind you was a major factor in the latest intifada.

Sharon IS wanted by the Hague. His accusors are, of course, Arabs, who are being aided by the traditionally anti-Semitic Europeans, who apparently still depend on The Merchant of Venice as their main source of information on the character of Jews.

5 posted on 03/14/2002 6:26:50 AM PST by cake_crumb
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To: the_devils_advocate_666
That’s a fairly pessimistic assessment of mankind. I think the author was having a really bad day when he wrote that....
6 posted on 03/14/2002 6:27:19 AM PST by Colosis
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To: the_devils_advocate_666
It is easy to become overwhelmed with the human condition the way it is. Apparently the author is an atheist and from that point on, it is not hard to understand the hopelessness of the article. Without God there is no hope. Man was not meant to be this way but he chose sin and so he is. I am sure other atheists will read and respond to this article and "flame" away because that's all they can do. By definition there is no hope for them either. "I am the truth, the way and the life no one comes unto the Father except by me." There is a greater life to come with Jesus. A life which leaves all this behind. However, there is another life after this which makes this situation to which you refer seem like paradise. It is the continuation of sin and it's called hell. The choice is simple: choose life and you have hope, choose death and you continue in this morass. For me the answer is life.
7 posted on 03/14/2002 6:34:05 AM PST by elephantlips
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To: the_devils_advocate_666
This guy is no philosopher and could join the chorus of that top 40 song a couple years ago "you and me baby ain't nothing but mammals, let's do it like they do it on Discovery channel." The fruit of naturalism. What mere animals build hospitals, spend their life endeavoring to help others, will die in the place of another, write poetry, love the arts, spend time rescueing other species, ect. Sure humans are animals but, there is also the potential for nobility.
8 posted on 03/14/2002 6:44:19 AM PST by week 71
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Comment #9 Removed by Moderator

To: the_devils_advocate_666;*SASU
Without God, without Morality, then we are just animals. You animals know who you are and I'm talking about you.
10 posted on 03/14/2002 6:49:39 AM PST by Khepera
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To: week 71
Sure humans are animals but, there is also the potential for nobility.

You are talking about individuals. I think the author was trying to make a point on how much more (or not) civilized we have become.

Are things really different than they were say, 1,000 years ago?

11 posted on 03/14/2002 6:50:58 AM PST by the_devils_advocate_666
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To: Pinlighter
Could't agree more. It is good to aspire toward divinity, but the reason that we need to aspire to it is that we are not...
12 posted on 03/14/2002 6:51:45 AM PST by gorush
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To: Pinlighter
If we honestly admitted we were beasts, we might behave better than those who invoke god to justify their lust and hate.

Or invoke atheism like China, Russia, and Germany and kill tens of millions more people in the name of atheism last century then all religious wars combined.

13 posted on 03/14/2002 6:53:30 AM PST by week 71
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To: gorush
"It is good to aspire toward divinity, but the reason that we need to aspire to it is that we are not..."

Well said.

14 posted on 03/14/2002 6:56:26 AM PST by cake_crumb
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To: the_devils_advocate_666
Are things really different than they were say, 1,000 years ago?

Not much, there is nothing new under the sun. Do I think human are progressing towards utopia.. no. That is humanistic philosophy which I don't buy. There are Theological reasons, however I get the feeling that may not be where you want this thread to go. cheers

15 posted on 03/14/2002 6:58:34 AM PST by week 71
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To: Pinlighter
"What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so."

--From Hamlet (II, ii, 115-117)

16 posted on 03/14/2002 7:01:53 AM PST by Alas Babylon!
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To: Khepera
Ah, Khepera I expected YOU to come along and make your judgments here. Why not let God judge for a change?

Every where you post the stench of unmericfulness remains. You must be a babe in the Word, and not been through the fires of suffering yourself to always come off so haughty. Pain will take the shallowness out of you. The true footsteps of Jesus lead to a cross, not self-exaltation - pray for wisdom and God will show you the meaning of mercy.

17 posted on 03/14/2002 7:10:27 AM PST by dr gene scott
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To: the_devils_advocate_666
News flash: Yasser Arafat, our enemy, he has a Nobel Peace Prize. Ariel Sharon, our friend, he's wanted by the Hague for war crimes.

News flash: The law's an ass. International Law's an international ass.

18 posted on 03/14/2002 7:16:32 AM PST by VadeRetro
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To: dr gene scott
You know God does Judge but he also commands us to use judgment as well. He is not the only judge as you would like for us to believe but is the final judge. He is the last court of appeal not the first. I understand you would like for me to be silenced so that you can pursue your selfish desires in peace but you will not silence me or any other Christian who uses their judgment as God commands.
19 posted on 03/14/2002 7:24:28 AM PST by Khepera
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To: Khepera
I had hoped this wouldn't turn into a bible war. So for you, Khepera, I created this little ditty so that you can go away (oh, that's right, you said you won't) and be useful:
Church vandals create an unholy mess
20 posted on 03/14/2002 7:39:11 AM PST by the_devils_advocate_666
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