Humans ARE Animals

Rebuttals: "..but we have evolved past animals.." Exactly HOW?! Again, how can we still use tissues and organs from other animals in life saving procedures then? How can we still contract infectious diseases in our tissues and bodies of organs that come from other animals? We have already established that: Its not intelligence. Its not moral behavior. Its not tool use or technologies. Its not religious behavior. Its not language. Its not the ability to create great works of art. Its not the ability to murder. Its not the ability to farm. Its not the ability to rape or have sex. It's not the ability to get high and do drugs. These are ALL observed by other animals or occur naturally in nature. So, again, Con exactly what makes us human?! In the last round you offered the additional ideas that: Animals lack beliefs They do not comprehend good and evil Humans are the only creatures who go against their instincts empathy contemplation of the future and life after death is what makes us human and not animals BUT Con - when was the last time you investigated any of these claims and notions?! For instance, how do you know animals contemplate an after life? Exactly how do you know animals lack beliefs? In my opinion you are now claiming to know things that you don't really know. I could give counter examples for each of these additional ideas you have offered as I've done for all the previous ideas put forward. Its been said that to plant a garden is to plan for the future. We have examples of ants farming. Relegating these perfectly natural examples to pure instinct would be a mistake in my opinion, and, again, a claim on your part that you don't know. It's tantamount to a kind of "evolutionary chauvinism." We observe altruism in nature - which is very part of empathy. And I would argue that to sheep a wolf is very evil - as is the lion to the gazelle. Contention III What people believe matters. What people believe will direct and influence how they act in the world. Being "disconnected" from the rest of the world is disastrous for obvious reasons. If people hold a belief in which their lives here on earth are separate from all other life, they will live without a sense of respect for the world, nature, the environment, other people. The truth is that we are deeply connected to the world and all life - and understanding how we are connected and being aware of how we are connected to the world will help us live in the correct equilibrium. Native Americans knew about their deep connection to the cosmos and that they were not separate from nature but absolutely part of it. They had a healthy respect for the world and nature on a very deep spiritual level and understood that their survival was intrinsic to/part of nature. They valued life and saw how delicate and fragile life is. 99% of all life that has ever existed on earth is now extinct. We are connected to the earth chemically. We are connected to each other and all life biologically. And we are connected to the rest of the cosmos atomically. This is scientifically true, but more importantly, the implications of this are deeply spiritual. This is where we need to derive our sense of spirituality and oneness. We will not survive if we go around thinking that we are somehow specially distinct from the rest of the world and spiritually superior to everything else. It's not healthy. And it's just not true. The only time I have ever been able to separate humans from the rest of the world has been NEVER! We are EXACTLY like other living animals. We are conceived in the same way as a horse, dog, aardvark, whale.. etc. ..we are made up of the exact same pieces and parts, our bodies even have the same organs and organ systems, blood chemistry, etc. What separates humans from the rest of the world besides a slightly larger pre-frontal cortex? Because it"s clear we eat, defecate, vomit, have primal sexual urges and do all of the things that other physical systems are doing.. Yes, we create art, music, write books, have linguistic communications conveying complex concepts and ideas, and yet were are still animals doing these things (which is even more amazing to me). That"s what is hard about all of this. It"s not as dignified as we might have liked, hope or want it to be. And though there are certain aspects to all of this that might be short on joy, we are still here! We share DNA with even vegetative life, plants and trees (one can get very detailed with this: the enzymes that separate and "unzip" the molecule is the same enzyme for an oak tree as it is in human genetic replications). The mitochondrial part of an animal cell was it"s own single cell at one point but somehow became fused inside animal cells; was parasitic at first but then was assembled into the inner workings and functions of the Animal cell as a kind of symbiosis. These cells make up our bodies. What conclusions should we draw about ourselves from these inferences? That we are separate from the world? Considering these, and many other ideas that are safely under the shelter of well established knowledge, how does it make any sense to deduce we are "separate" or somehow "superior" from the rest of life? It doesn't. Humans ARE Animals!