April1663 & katyanne #fundie

April1663 & katyanne #fundie teens-4-christ.org

[Man IS an animal]

April1663: Man is not an animal! Man is a living soul! A dog does not know right or wrong. Dogs merely exist. Man has a purpose! Jesus didn't come and die on the cross to save the whales! He died to save Mankind! Man might have the same characteristics as a mammal, but we are not animals! That kind of thinking and teaching is exactly why most of todays young people and teenagers are acting like animals. One cannot be expected to perform over what they have been taught! You teach a child that he is fat and he will think he is fat for the rest of his life! You teach a child that he is nothing more than a common animal and that is what he will become!

katyanne: Yes good point Laura! I still struggle with how my parents used to tell me how stupid I was and I still a lot of times think I'm stupid. If you are taught something that much you do end up believing it. I think you hit the nail on the head!

47 comments

old comment by Papabear

April1663: "Man is not an animal!"
I'm sorry, but just because it offends your delicate sensibilities does not mean it isn't true. Even your exclamation point does not make your assertion true. Man IS an animal. "Man is a living soul!" Man is alive, but you have not shown that he has a soul. "A dog does not know right or wrong." Wild canine know what is right and wrong for themselves and their packs in the settings in which they evolved. Domesticated dogs need training to know what is right and wrong in the settings in which we have them live. My dogs are trained and they know quite a bit about what is right and wrong. "Dogs merely exist." To a dog, his existence is very important and YOU merely exist. "Man has a purpose!" You have not shown that to be true. What is man's purpose? I contend that each person develops his/her own purpose, it is not bestowed by a deity. "Jesus didn't come and die on the cross to save the whales!" You cannot prove that Jesus was divine nor that he came to save anything. Heck, you can't really show that the Jesus of the Bible actually even existed. "He died to save Mankind!" If he DID exist, I'll grant that he died. Died to save mankind? Again, you can't show that to be true. "Man might have the same characteristics as a mammal, but we are not animals!" Beings which have the characteristics of mammals are, by definition, mammals. "That kind of thinking and teaching is exactly why most of todays young people and teenagers are acting like animals." Don't be so obtuse. Just because my dog is a dog doesn't mean he has to behave like his ancestor the wolf. Just because people are animals doesn't mean that human society must behave like some other animal society. All animal species, including humans, have their own sets of behaviors. "One cannot be expected to perform over what they have been taught!" Learning that one is an animal doesn't mean one has to behave as any other animal but a human. "You teach a child that he is fat and he will think he is fat for the rest of his life!" Or, in your case, you teach a child to think like a fathead, and he may think like a fathead for the rest of his/her life. "You teach a child that he is nothing more than a common animal and that is what he will become!" We do not teach children that they are "nothing more than a common animal," we teach them that they are humans and that humans are a type of animal. You're an idiot. Did someone teach you that? katyanne: "Yes good point Laura!" No, bad points all around, Laura. "I still struggle with how my parents used to tell me how stupid I was" That was bad parenting. "and I still a lot of times think I'm stupid. If you are taught something that much you do end up believing it." Well, yes, that's why a lot of people end up believing the Xian myths. "I think you hit the nail on the head!" I think that as infants you both may have been dropped on your heads.

old comment by Redhunter

The bottom line is that you need to figure things out for yourself. Your parents were wrong to call you stupid. Even if you are, and the jury is still out on that one by the way, it is wrong to tell someone that. At the very least you need to educate yourself about the things of which you speak, including whether or not you are stupid. You seem to take everything everyone says as some sort of truth, as if people don't lie or distort the truth. You can overcome what you have been taught since you were a child, myself and many others here are proof of that. If you blindly accept what is thrown at you as if you somehow deserve abuse and lies, then you won't ever get it, and you will remain stupid. Take on each problem individually and sort them out. Life is not always as it seems.

old comment by Vinnie

Papabear: Wild canine know what is right and wrong for themselves and their packs in the settings in which they evolved. Domesticated dogs need training to know what is right and wrong in the settings in which we have them live. My dogs are trained and they know quite a bit about what is right and wrong.
I don't agree, dogs don't need training to know what's wrong or right for themselves. You're watching it from a human point of view (what's right for a dog is not right for u, like scavaging in the bin). You teach a child that he is fat and he will think he is fat for the rest of his life! Oh really? let's try it this way: You teach a child that god is true and he will think he it's true for the rest of his life! Any contraddiction?

old comment by Maronan

April1663: Man is not an animal!

Well, I'd be willing to believe that you are not an animal. I'd guess you're a cross between a slime mold and a doorknob. Humans, however, are animals.

Man is a living soul!

If "living soul" simply means "living being," then yes, duh. If "living soul" means the religious supernatural immortal being some people think lives inside us, then you're an idiot.

A dog does not know right or wrong.

My dog certainly knows right from wrong. She knows she's not supposed to eat from the garbage. If she does, I can tell by her guilty look. Oh, she knows, all right.

Dogs merely exist.

You could say everyone "merely" exists, but it still wouldn't really mean anything.

Man has a purpose!

Most people choose a purpose for themselves, but that doesn't mean our species in general serves some objective "purpose" in the grand scheme of the universe. No one has any purpose except in the eyes of other people and that's all we need anyway.

Jesus didn't come and die on the cross to save the whales!

Jesus didn't come and die on the cross.

He died to save Mankind!

No he didn't.

Man might have the same characteristics as a mammal, but we are not animals!

We are identical to animals but we aren't animals? Sorry, I can't deal with this. Go see Special Pleading in Room 203.

That kind of thinking and teaching is exactly why most of todays young people and teenagers are acting like animals.

What do you mean, "acting like animals?" Humans are animals, so whatever we do is "acting like animals" by definition, but you seem to imply some other meaning. Here's a question: What does "acting like animals" mean? If you act "like an animal," how do you act? You seem to be reducing the natural world to a simplified Us vs. Them idea like you do with society; We are conservative semi-masochistic Christians, anyone else is Them, and anyone who isn't Us is all the same. Similarly, We are humans, anyone else is Them, and anyone who isn't Us is all the same. To you, I suppose, non-human animals (Them) all act in the same manner. The fact is, Aprilonesixsixthree, all animals are different. Acting "like an animal" is a meaningless term because different animals act in different ways. Of course, the term "acting like an animal" is often used to describe acting nasty. This is highly ironic, given that humans are the most violent and savage animals on the planet.

One cannot be expected to perform over what they have been taught!

People are limited by their ignorance, yes, but it is possible to learn something without being taught by someone else. You were never taught how to walk; you learned it yourself.

You teach a child that he is fat and he will think he is fat for the rest of his life!

Au contraire! Little kids are "programmed" to believe whatever their elders tell them to believe; after all, if a kid was skeptical when his mother said not to walk off a cliff, he'd be dead. Older kids, teens, and adults, however, can think for themselves and part of growing up is questioning and possibly rejecting the things their parents told them. A little kid who is told that he is fat will believe it for awhile, but as he grows up, he will start to question and reject this. Several people here on FSTDT were told that magic fairies exist, believed it, then questioned it, and rejected it. Even Christian kids who fail to "grow out of" their sky fairy do the same with Santa Claus. Of course, the more work the parents do to indoctrinate their kids with an idea, the more likely they are to keep it. A kid who is told that he is fat will likely grow out of it. A kid told that an elf in red clothes gives him presents in December will grow out of it. A kid who is told that a magic sky fairy named God rewards people after they die, but you HAVE TO DO WHATEVER HE SAYS OR HE'LL TORTURE YOU FOREVER!!1!one! and who is forced to ask questions to this sky fairy, beg to this sky fairy, thank him, perform rituals he allegedly wants, and who is punished severly for questioning may not grow out of it.

You teach a child that he is nothing more than a common animal and that is what he will become!

No, that's what he is. Humans are "common animals" whether we like it or not.

katyanne: Yes good point Laura!

Bad point, katyanne.

I still struggle with how my parents used to tell me how stupid I was...

Gee, fancy that.

...and I still a lot of times think I'm stupid.

What a coincidence! I think you're stupid too!

If you are taught something that much you do end up believing it. I think you hit the nail on the head!

Quite true. If you are told something repeatedly, promised rewards (after you die) for believing it, and punished (by your parents) for questioning it, you probably will believe it. That's why so many people are still religious they've been indoctrinated by their parents and by society in general.

old comment by Felix Wilde

Jesus didn't come and die on the cross to save the whales!
No, he didn't. He didn't do any of that.

Man might have the same characteristics as a mammal, but we are not animals!
And cypress might have the characteristics of a tree, but they are not plants!

That kind of thinking and teaching is exactly why most of todays young people and teenagers are acting like animals.
You mean eating, drinking, moving independently, having sex, respiring, excreting waste, growing and so forth? This may shock you, but I don't think that's anything new.

You teach a child that he is nothing more than a common animal and that is what he will become!
No one is teaching that; biology teaches us that we are extraordinary, exceptional animals. I'm curious though, what happens if you teach a child they are nothing more than an evil, worthless sinner?

If you are taught something that much you do end up believing it.
People believe what they will, regardless of how much you teach them otherwise. Your ilk are proof of that. I am sorry your parents were emotionally abusive though; there's no excuse for such behavior.

(Kinda like how there's no excuse for failing to grasp basic biology when you're living in a rich country and have access to an unprecedented resource of information you could use to educate yourself but simply refuse.)

April1663 & katyanne #fundie teens-4-christ.org

47 comments

Confused?