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"Animal Rights"

It may seem quite controversial to argue against animal rights but I have a raging feminist girl in my college class who argues about absolutely everything and she has pushed me to the psychological limit and provoked a bit of deep thinking on my part.

Since the dinosaurs perished and mankind became the dominant species on Earth, we have remained unchallenged. Well over 2000 years have gone by and we haven’t had a challenge to our power, a single species (namely us) has pretty much unlimited power. People talk about how intelligent dolphins and dogs are and how they are almost as clever as humans and even show human traits so should be treated equally. A few hundred years ago before the slave trade was abolished, black people were treated worse than animals despite the fact that they were in fact human.

Before the world decides to give animals all these special rights I think we need to sort out human rights before. Racial hatred is at an all time high and before animals start getting treated the same as humans, other humans need to start respecting each other and treat each other as equals.

If animals are smart enough to understand they aren’t treated equally then why don’t they go ahead and do something about it? Why, because they aren’t that smart. I am against animal cruelty for sure, I love animals and hate so see battery farming, fox hunting and animal testing going ahead but we need to develop a perspective. Our fellow man is more important than any animals. No matter how much you love your little pet hamster, a human life is more valuable.

I’m interested to listen to your views on the matter, so go on, discuss.

cookie monster wrote:
> I should hope not, but i felt like being pedantic.
>
> You would say that animals that cannot make their own weapons and
> tools are more evolved than us?

Yes with regards to adapting physically, bearing in mind they aren't able to make weapons. For example the salamander can live inside and out of water, which I think is pretty amazing. I'm not saying we're not, its pretty amazing that i'm on a pc now, that mankind has created, talking to loads of people on the net, I guess I was being bit pedantic too. I still don't understand why some people think there has to be a priority list. Why can't all ou planets problems be addressed? There are enuf people who care strongly to try and tackle problems simultaneously. Anyway, if people can't treat others with respect, then they are pretty spineless and would probally be cruel to animals too, and vice versa.

Well, yes.

The humans are an intelligent race, but, unlike dolphins, we actually have the ability to help ourselves thorugh evolution, that's why we have fingers etc, because of evolution, we now require to wear clothes to stay warm.

Because of our ancenstors who decided to start covering up, oarts of the human body no longer required hair to keep warm, so, through (d)evolution , we now require other animals to keep ourselves warm. How many other animals do this?

Had our ancestors no used weapons to attac anmials for food, we would have a lot more upper body strength and hands more suited to attacking rather than typing.

And finally, through evolution, in the future, humans will no longer have the lower body strength to walk as we are getting so lazy. This is what evolution is going to do to the humans.

So, are we REALLY so much more evolved than animals that we are willing to make ourselves weaker because we can't be bothered using our body to do things rather than weapons? I know I sound hypocritical here, considering the fact that I'm using a computer (A tool of evil) to type all of this, but, it's through evolution that this has happened. ANd there's nothing that any of us can do to stop it.

I should hope not, but i felt like being pedantic.

You would say that animals that cannot make their own weapons and tools are more evolved than us?

cookie monster wrote:
> kitkat wrote:
> they have their own
> weapons (teeth,venom,spikes etc) apart from our ability to design,
> make weapons, we naturally have none.
>
> We dont have teeth?
>
> Oh.

yours are sharp like a great whites are they?

kitkat wrote:
> they have their own
> weapons (teeth,venom,spikes etc) apart from our ability to design,
> make weapons, we naturally have none.

We dont have teeth?

Oh.

Belldandy wrote:
> *waits for the cliched "mankind is a virus" type references
> courtesy of whatever Hollywood junk the poster has seen*

Think about what he says though in that part of the film.
Are you denying that the human race is like that? Because, every word of it is true.

Belldandy wrote:
> And the weapons are not destorying the earth you fool, people yes,
> earth no.

*Thinks about Hiroshima and Nagasaki*

And on a non-weapons related matter...

*Chernobyl*

cookie monster wrote:
> It depends on how you define better really.
>
> If by better you mean more evolved, more technologically advanced
> etc.. then yes we are better than other animals.
>
> However as you pointed out human actions are having an adverse affect
> on the planet, in that sense we are probably the worst thing to
> populate earth.

we are actually not more evolved, apart from our capabilities of making things. Animals are more evolved as they have their own weapons (teeth,venom,spikes etc) apart from our ability to design, make weapons, we naturally have none.

Belldandy wrote:
> *waits for the cliched "mankind is a virus" type references
> courtesy of whatever Hollywood junk the poster has seen*

Like The Matrix per chance?

It depends what weapons your are talking about.

If you said that atomic bombs dont destroy the earth i would probably begin to chuckle.