Bible prophecy coming true - A One World Religious/ Economic/ Government System

[sapphi_snake]

Final-Fan said:

Your objection to the comparison between plants and animals is quite ridiculous.  Humans and dogs are totally different lifeforms, and they evolved simultaneously, humans did not evolve from dogs.  When you compare the two, you cannot judge dogs based on the criteria that would make a human "superior". 

I most certainly can use a single vertical hierarchy to describe the level of their intelligence.  It's not their fault that they don't need intelligence and therefore never evolved much of it, but that doesn't change the fact that animals are much much smarter, to the point that they are on a whole other level of intelligence.  I could understand if you wanted to put them on different graphs because of how much smarter animals are, but you could easily put them on the same graph if you wanted to. 

Why wouldn't natural radar be more special?  Well, a significant part of my post was devoted to trying to explain what made intelligence more remarkable than (for instance) natural radar, but apparently you just ignored it or something because you certainly didn't respond to it.  And in point of fact the rest of your paragraph is completely off topic as far as I'm concerned. 

Regarding different cultures, I assumed you meant cultures today, that have one way or another been evolving in a sense from earlier cultures.  I would suppose that cultures today are much, much more developed than, say, cultures from 50kya, even the cultures that are still hunter-gatherer-type.  I would argue that although individuals from different cultures will argue that their culture is better (and many people say better means more advanced) they will also agree that other cultures have things theirs does not.  For instance many would agree that the culture of medieval Japan had very very advanced protocol in the ruling class, but I would argue that it was not a good thing, that it was stultifying -- but special. 

He is judging our value (I believe) by how special we are, specifically our special intellience.  And your argument that plants are more valuable is crap because you have no justification for talking about wiping out all humans vs. all plants, and if it was us vs. a single species of plant then you have no argument.  Also WTF is this about the top of the food chain being the most disposable.  Oh right your baseless combining of all the species in the bottom into one unit. 

Humans and dogs are both animals and humans and dogs are both mammals. They certainly are not totally different lifeforms, and they cetrainly have more in common than plants (the plantae kingdom) and animals (the animalia kingdom). The main thing that plants and animals have in common is that they're all part of the eukaryote domain (meaning that they're both organisms made up of cells with complex structures that are enclosed in membranes).

You cannot use a vertical hierarchy to describe "the level of their intelligence", because you could only include in such an heirarchy being for which "intelligence" is an actual characteristic. Including plants in a "hierarchy of intelligence" is like including humans in a "hierarchy of being able to perform photosythesis", which is simply nonsensical.

Why people from all cultures would agree that people of other cultures have "things" that their culture does not, they'll typically also view those "things" as being negative (note, I'm referring to uneducated individuals here, which sadly makes up most of the population). Also, the strict social hierarchization, rituals, and protocols present in Japanese culture (both then and to some extent now), come from Canfucianism where such elements are considered necessary to assure the proper functioning of society. You may consider them negative, but that's viewing it from the POV of your own culture, and not taking into consideration that what you view to be "good" is also something your culture has taught you. A person from medieval Japan (and from current-day Japan also) would find the lack of a proper protocol to be outrageous, confusing, and a sign of not being "civilized".

Arguing that a species is "valuable" based on its "specialness" is definately not gonna lead to any objective ideeas, because "specialness" is itself a subjective criteria. My arguments were based on very objective criteria, this being the importance in the ecosystem that is Earth. Not to mentiom that you're being a hypocrite. You said that due to their intelligence, humans are essentially a kindgom in their own right, so it would be quite adecquate to compare humanity to the entire plantae kindgom. Even disregarding that nonsense, in the food chain you have to compare life-forms on the different levels, and humans are alone at the very tope of the food chain, so they can essentially be compared to entire inferior levels - in other words, it is still apprppriate to compare humanity to the entire plantae kingdom.

First of all, plants are the chief producers of oxygen, element without which practically every other lifeform would die (including humans). Second of all, plants are located at the very bottom of the food chain. They are the chief producers of Earth (they sythesize anorganic materials into orgnic nutrients which other lifeforms eat, plus they themselves are eaten).  The food chain is like a pyramid. Take away it's foundation and it crumbles. In the food chain every animal is dependent on the animals below it in order to survuve. Humans are at the very top of the food chain. We're almost exclsively "takers", meaning we eat other lifeforms, but other lifeforms don't eat us (heck, nowadays even decomposing a dead human can prove to be a challenge). No lifeofrms need us in order to survive. However, every lifeform needs plants to survive (includign humans). Going back to the pyramid analogy, if you take away the top, the rest of the structure will still stand. If this isn't objective way to determine the "value" of a lifeform, I don't know what is.