Talk:Human/Archive 13

message: * Curiosity and introspection exist in many creatures in addition to humans.
* Other aspects of humans other than curiosity and introspection lead to explanations of existance and conciousness.
* Metaphysics is an important issue; but entirely inappropriate for the INTRODUCTION to "HUMANS". Do not nonhumans have beliefs based on emotions? Oh, so THEY are MORE logical than we? Really????
* "These include ..." Please. Belongs in the body. What possible justification is there for this in the intro?
* "Such self-reflection is the basis of theology and philosophy, and is present in the earliest historical records" I'm now an atheist, but when I was a Christian, we believed it was a REVEALED RELIGION meaning that our theology was NOT based on "self-reflection" but on the word of GOD revealed by  HIMSELF. Not our puny attempts to understand. (After all, the revealed word says he makes fools out of doubters and DECIEVES those he chooses to.) (Now, as an atheist, I point out this means God has planted lies in the DNA of EVERY CELL OF EVERY LIVING THING ON EARTH. 4.250.168.252 02:22, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems by 4.250 

message: :Do you have any ideas how to re-write it, Oh, wise one? ≈ jossi ≈ 02:16, May 26, 2005 (UTC)
I find the paragraph completely without worth HERE IN THE INTRO. I choose not to think about whether it has worth elsewhere. (By the way, refering to Sam as SS is witty and funny. Live by the veiled reference, die by the veiled reference, eh Sam?) 4.250.168.252 02:31, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  rewrite issue

message: #The summary needn't be limited to unique aspects of humans; the summary of Tiger, for example, tells us that tigers "live in forests and grasslands (for which their camouflage is ideally suited)", that they "may often be found bathing in ponds, lakes, and rivers", and that they "hunt alone, and their diet consists primarily of medium-sized herbivores such as deer, wild pigs, and buffalo, but they will also take larger or smaller prey if the circumstances demand it", in none of which are tigers unique.  If the summary said that humans are distinguished by being the only animals who have these properties, then fine — but it doesn't.
#Which aspects of human beings do you think lead to our theories about ourselves? I think that other aspects make such theorising possible, but I think that curiosity and introspection are the causes.
#The god squad insist on mention of what they vaguely call "spirituality".  It seems inappropriate to many of us, as the history of this Talk page will indicate, but when we accept its presence here and attempt to make it NPoV, they kick up an awful stink about including the relevant detail and making the relevant distinctions.  They don't want accuracy and balance, they want their views made prominent.
#As an encyclopædia, we can't assert that religion is revealed by god, we can only say that some people think that it is (and that would be even more inappropriate in this article).
#Thanks — I though that "SS" was appropriate (though not, of course, SS himself). Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 08:25, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Mel's comments

message: #True. But we both know this is simply a stalking horse for talk about our special place in the universe, our soul, etc. Spirit (emotion, motivation, etc --(An aside: spirit=breath, God's sprit moved across the surface of the Earth = wind, the spirit left him = he stopped breathing) ) is adequately introduced by the preceding paragraph and dealt with in depth in the body.
#Most people most places most of the time believe what they heard and understood as a child. Adults will talk of things in an anthropomorphic way (The cold wind is mean out there, I hope the sun chooses to be nice and warm things up) and it is natural for children to take things literally. We humans are wired to see the forces around us as personalities making choices. Children without friends have imaginary friends. Adults often believe in an imaginary daddy in the sky. We believe more according to our pre wiring and early socialisation than later introspection. Few humans change their religion based on introspection. Muslim nations stay so generation to generation. So too with other spiritual beliefs. Introspection obviously does not result in nation wide change in spiritual beliefs.
#Controversy is best handled in the body as much as possible.
#Yes.
#You're welcome. 4.250.198.202 14:03, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  4.250 response to Mel 

message: My concern with this article has been that it is parochial — that the vast majority of people in the world would read it and say "No, that's not right at all." A truly neutral encyclopedia should attempt to say not only how scientists or humanists or atheists define human beings, but also decribe, or at least refer to, how other human beings have done so. This has been the guiding principle of my proposals (1, 2), which have generally been ignored.
The real problem, it seems to me, is that some of the editors would consider any solution that most people could agree with to be inherently flawed. That is, it is only true if it contradicts and implies to be invalid what the vast majority of inhabitants of the world believe. They see those people as objectively incorrect, and see the role of wikipedia to disabuse these benighted souls of their unscientific and incorrect ideas. These users have successfully blocked any neutral introduction to this article since its inception. --goethean ॐ  15:27, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: goethean