Rick Warren has just weighed in on the Aurora shooting, and of course it is predictable inanity.
When students are taught they are no different from animals, they act like it.
Right. Because it’s only the lies of Jesus that keep people from waking up to reality and going on shooting sprees.
It’s simply a fact that Rick Warren is an animal, like all the rest of us. And what’s with the bum rap on animals? Puppy dogs don’t go on a murderous rampage, you know.
Truth is the enemy!
Glen Davidson
the swine rick warren is planning to hold a “presidential forum” with obama and romney. i think we should try to get as many people as possible to contact both of the candidates and entreat them not to legitimize this human garbage with their presence.
Perhaps his god given purpose is driving him to be a tasteless asshole?
I dunno. I’ve had a pitbull kill everyone at work with kisses and leans and requests for tummy rubs. We’re all dead, I swear.
Rick Warren is a ghoul and a liar.
James Holmes, the shooter, is known as a christian and in fact as “very active in the church”. (Just like Rick Warren!)
So we should start spreading the true message: “When students are taught that other humans are worthless ungodly sinners, they act like it”.
Instead of worrying about the effect of atheism, or Darwinism, or whatever Rick Warren is blathering on about, we need to worry about the effect of christianity and Warrenism. That’s a lot more likely correlation with murderous rampages, based on the evidence so far.
Besides, you dare doubt the obvious murderous intent in the visage of this 6 week old puppy?
http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/9783/jennyec.jpg
If you have a gold ticket to “heaven” regardless of your actions, then morality doesn’t count for much. Perhaps the religious should get their message straight. The cults that would allow John Wayne Gacy, Richard Speck or Ted Bundy redemption somehow do not make me feel that their members are trustworthy. If absolution is part of what a religion is selling (for a good profit), where are the limits. Forgiveness on the deathbed is a horrendous scam, allowing anything up to that point.
Piranhas never attack or eat each other.
That makes them more moral…than Rick Warren.
i put up a quick change.org petition to ask the candidates not to take part in this “forum”. Do not take part in this forum.
“When students are taught that other humans are worthless ungodly sinners, they act like it”.
This.
And Jeffrey Dahmer repented and blamed evilution, so he’s in heaven now.
Yeah, those Presbyterian kids from nice well-to-do suburban California families just aren’t true Christians. A former friend says he’s praying for him.
BTW…dogs aren’t saints. Three great danes attacked and nearly killed our dog. But then, you can’t blame dog behavior on religion or the lack thereof.
I fucking hate this country so hard lately.
Source
Clearly churchgoing causes mass murder.
More evidence for that rush to judgment than for Warren’s spew.
Glen Davidson
Wouldn’t it be great if Obama refused to go, citing the no religious test entry in the Constitution? Yeah, I know… dream on.
Presbyterian, not obviously an evil science-believing church
You’re an idiot, Warren.
Glen Davidson
The classification of humans as animals is an idea that goes back to Aristotle and those guys. It’s literally older than Christianity itself.
Aristotle wrote plenty on ethics and didn’t appear to think there was any contradiction between this and viewing man as an animal.
But there I go, talking about the facts again.
[meta]
Randomfactor, Dahmer is in heaven because he repented, or so claimed some Calvinist pressup on whose blog I once commented back in the day:
While the people he ate are in hell.
What a loving system.
Jesus can have him.
Animals with guns, apparently. And advanced planning and decision-making faculties.
Oh, for the love of ceiling cat! These people really are ghouls, and they should be booed off the tv/public forum as soon as they’ve finished spewing their filth.
Why doesn’t anybody with solid education/scientific credentials and – maybe – a bit of clout/popularity speak against them?
Why can’t we expose them for the frauds they are? Not only that, but every time some tragedy strikes, they are always there, chasing the cameras, to use that tragedy to prop themselves up.
Really angry right now…
Also, how is Warren sure that this wasn’t god’s plan for Holmes to take these people’s lives?
[OT]
F,
Duh.
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” — Epicurus
And every so often, for all eternity, he sneaks up on Jesus and tries to drill a little hole in his forehead.
Gah. Sorry. My humor is dark today. I think I’ll leave it alone.
Rick Warren is an ass. Since the shooter was apparently a regular and active churchgoer, reading a holy book full of genocides ordered by god, I would be more careful in assigning the blame to his “teaching.” You may be standing on the edge of a crater of your own making and confusing it with the moral high ground.
This morning, after dropping my son off for a playdate, I passed a vehicle containing two assholes in the process of throwing two young cats out of their vehicle. Both cats were panting and suffering from heat exhaustion, and had been cooped up/frightened enough that they were soaked in their own urine.*
Fuck people.
*kitties seem to have recovered fully and if we don’t rehome them this weekend we may just offer them both jobs dealing with the mouse problem in the barn.
@25 Aaaaand that would be why I hate people. Working as a tech has led me many times to hope that certain individuals will not only never own an animal again, but also fail to reproduce.
[OT]
WithinThisMind, thank you, thank you!
(People like you—the anti-assholes—balance out the assholes)
Goddamnit. AAARRRRGH. How can one be so wicked? How. . I just don’t.
Rick Warren is arguably the most unpleasant character in all non-fiction.
What truly pissed me off is within 2 FUCKING miles of where they dumped the cats, there is a no-kill animal shelter and a humane society.
People are assholes. They have been assholes for centuries. They were assholes during the hey-day 50s paradise these wingnuts fap too. They will still be assholes 500 years from now.
Humanity’s inhumanity to both their own kind and to everything else on this fucking planet, plant, animal, and inanimate object, is well known and has been around since humans first crawled from the ooze.
Do these ghouls really think everyone on the entire fucking planet was born yesterday and has never picked up a history book in their entire life?
I know, I know. It just makes me cry.
My beloved Mink Kitteh was dumped off in the woods as a kitten and only found her way to me because my boss rescued her. Naturally, as she’s the most affectionate chirruping little thing that runs right over to humans and jumps on their laps.
Drugs involved?
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/31290793/detail.html
Of course the dosage seems wrong, but the report raises the question, at least.
Glen Davidson
Un-apologetically I read this as Rick Warren eating people.
This is nothing more than sacrificial behavior. The same kind that killed christ, allegedly. Been going on for thousands of years! Bad memes!
Has anyone done a demographic study of the religious beliefs / lack thereof of spree killers? It would likely not make Warren recant his vulturous statements, but it would be good to be able to point to the evidence.
A whole article ranting about how evolution causes these things
Dahmer’s mentioned, too. Gee, I wonder how Dahmer achieved such credibility (repression of homosexuality, thanks in part to religion, seems a more likely cause in Dahmer’s case). Must have been a particularly astute and honest fellow…
I wonder if the article is connected to Warren’s idiotic statement.
Glen Davidson
Oh, sweet Force, do we have to do the “drugs did it” bullshit?
Vicodin is mostly acetametaphen (Tylenol ) with a kick of hydrocodone. It is a great pain killer for short term use because of the relatively few side effects. Long term use, however can have some detrimental effects, not limited to addiction. A couple of years ago I was on the stronger version (Norco) for several months while I awaited surgery (long, story). Among other things, my hand-eye coordination went slowly but completely into the trash can. It took me 3 fairly uncomfortable days to get me off it when the time came.
And guess what? I DIDN’T KILL ANYBODY.
When were you-all taught that we are no different from animals?
I missed that day, or something.
Oh fuck off, otrame, drugs can contribute, you stupid moron. And quit lying, a-hole, no one said “drugs did it” any more than people typically say “alcohol did it” when it contributes.
You’re a ranting idiot on the order of Rick Warren.
Glen Davidson
What the hell, Glenn? Calm the fuck down.
Rick Warren, standing up for morality. If I remember correctly, he had to be shamed into condemning Uganda’s bill. Was he silent at first because he was taught evolution?
Cho Seung the Virginia Tech killer of 20 or so was raised as a fundie xian.
Some congress kook in Texas already blamed it on atheists, Gohermt. I was wondering when they would get around to blaming it on evolution, evolutionary biology, and biologists.
It is probably true. The xian ghouls always try to convert mass murderers in prison for their propaganda.
The fact is, Jeffrey Dahmer was also raised in a hardcore fundie xian home.
Are we seeing a pattern here yet, Dahmer, Cho Seung, Timothy McVeigh, Anders Breivik, James Holmes.
It’s a matter of time until the xians blame it on abortion, gays, or Moslems. Wait until someone wakes Pat Roberton up and gets him dressed and rambling.
They’ve already blamed it on atheists and of course, Obama.
I haven’t followed this too closely. I already knew the ghouls would be all over it. But one thing I read was sort of puzzling. He was supposedly in a Ph.D. program at the med school. Which means of course, that medicine and higher education will get blamed somewhere by someone.
@anatman #9: I don’t know if you can, but you might want to tweak the Twitter description for your petition — it comes in at 3 characters too long. (I shortened it by taking out “Barack” when I tweeted it.)
And I here I thought Rick Warren was one of the sensible idiots, as opposed to the idiotic idiots.
On the subject of rampages, their own bible inerrantly and literally says it’s OK to stone people who gather sticks on the sabbath. We’re just lucky judeo-christians aren’t going on constant shooting rampages on saturday and sunday (respectively).
In today’s news there were stories about a muslim convicted of trying to blow up the Pentagon, a UK muslim couple who wanted to wage war on English Jews & the bus carrying Jewish tourists blown up by a suicide bomber in Bulgaria.
And yet Rick Warren thinks it’s atheists that are the problem?
I have to say, I put vicodin on my ‘don’t take’ list after having sleep paralysis while on it. Rather unpleasant, as I’m normally a lucid dreamer.
Since the opiate component is usually below 100mg, that was what they were referring to, not the total dose in combination with Tylenol. You couldn’t trigger something like this without a serious underlying issue with that medication, however.
Public service announcement :
This thread is about Rick Warren blaming a mass shooting on the fact that we share genes with sea sponges and that people are being informed of this.
It’s really not about whether Vicodin, Budweiser or Swiss cheese can cause mental breakdowns.
You are welcome.
Also, Vicodin.
Well I think the guy has a fair point because as we all know, until Darwin ruined everything by pointing out reality, there were no murders.
[OT]
rorschach, everything I know about Vicodin, I got from House, MD.
(That said, I’m still grateful to a friend who was on Methadone around 25 years ago who gave me a few millilitres when one of my testicles was crushed*; I was young and stupid though, and it took me a few days to go the hospital.
(That said, thank Cthulhu that Australia has medicare; I didn’t have to pay anything for the week or so I spent in hospital. And I pity the nurses that had to inspect the drain every hour on the hour for the first few days — fucking heroes, they were)
—
* Stupid full-contact Karate (Uechi-Ryu)
[OT]
When I was about 12 or 13, I was second goalkeeper for my handball team, when one Saturday arvo keeper number one copped one in the nuts and sustained what in German is somewhat poetically called Hodenbruch. I am very grateful that I have been spared that particular experience. And judging from the poor sod’s reaction at the time, it doesn’t seem likely that Vicodin would have made any difference.
We’ll see, Rick. Different from you I won’t blame anyone before we know what drove James Holmes to do that. But seriously, would it be a surprise if his motives were not too far from Breivik’s crusader phantasies?
There was also a story about a Christian American man who walked into a cinema and opened fire on the crowd, killing 12 people, for no discernible reason.
Yet you seem to think it’s Muslims that are the problem?
I’ve always had my suspicions about Swiss cheese. No decent, self-respecting cheese should come pre-drilled.
Its not just Rick, have a look at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/20/louie-gohmert-aurora-shootings_n_1689099.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003
Of course, dogs will also go on murderous rampages if, like these politicians, they are rabid.
I can’t tell you how comments like Warren’s piss me off.
Please tell me about how turning to a murderous sociopathic god is remotely logical when confronted by violence and cruelty? Religion can’t help. Instead it obscures and fans the flames of fear in order to generate a sense of purpose. Heavens no, let’s not spend money on researching behavior. Keep science of out of it. Let’s not do anything that might be productive. Instead get on your knees and maybe wish upon a star or throw a penny in a well for all the good it’s going to do. And put lots of money in the collection basket, give it to your church instead of the victims. Because otherwise how would all these stakeholders who are making a living off of contributions of their followers survive? Warren is a parasite who blurs the line between pray and prey. He feeds off the fears of the general population. He is repellent.
WithinThisMind @ #30
QFFT. Also, why on Earth do people use these tragedies to promote their moral superiority? Why can’t they for once just be compassionate. If you have nothing decent to say, just shut the fuck up, instead of wandering into WBC levels of utter arseholery.
And please refrain from using words like ‘swine’ or ‘ass’ to describe those shitstains. 100% of animals (humans excluded) are morally superior to Rick Warren.
So far we have the Religious Right telling us the shooting was caused by the removal of school-sponsored prayer, access to abortion, and now the teaching of evolution. And, they do this while demanding respect for their beliefs with a straight face.
Maybe we haven’t evolved.
That’s it. I want a new rule: no moralizing, self-aggrandizing pundits are allowed to weigh in on any tragedy until the last deceased person has been interred and any live victims are undergoing treatment. Just – no. Noone gets to jump all over the corpses before they are cold. I’m tired of it.
Manu of Deche at 5 has it right – utter lack of compassion. This gem of a statement from Warren should emphasize how horrible he really is, capitalizing on the deaths of innocent people when it’s barely 2 days old. Words like his *should* leave a stain on the character and lead to social censure. (Also, right on that swine and asses are nice creatures, and shouldn’t be associated with this Warren business.)
Rick Warren: clergyperson. I’m only 68, but I’ve never met a clergyperson who was not a pervert, a con-artist, or a social misfit.
Fluffy:
FTFY.
WithinThisMind, you are an excellent human being. I agree with you and RowanVT entirely about people in general.
Fiction and reality.
Fiction:
A few links that were posted in previous comments:
http://www.examiner.com/article/the-aurora-shooting-and-evolution?cid=rss
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/20/louie-gohmert-aurora-shootings_n_1689099.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003
Reality:
A neighbor described Holmes as a very shy, well-mannered young man who was heavily involved in the local Presbyterian church.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-0721-colorado-shooter-20120721,0,3806745.story
Yeah they do. In captivity, at least, they’ll eat each others’ eyeballs.
Probably in the wild too.
Oh for fuck’s sake.
The fact that Rick Warren is alive proves that there is no loving god.
Scooter, PZ and Chas already did.
(I’m kidding, mostly.)
No. I’d expect any president to know this, but Obama is a constitutional scholar too, so it’d be very disappointing if he didn’t know that that’s a limitation on the government, not private individuals or organizations.
If the Scientologists or The Ancient Mystic Society of No Homers demand that a candidate join their cult, or else only Preclears and Homers will be allowed to vote for that candidate, that’s perfectly constitutional.
Tangentially topical: The prime minister of foreign affairs in Norway talks about openess in the Breivik trial: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/20/opinion/jonas-gahr-store-learning-from-norways-tragedy.html?_r=2&ref=global
lemian #68
Thank you for the link to Jonas Gahr Store’s remarks. I was particularly taken by this:
Fuck!
I often wonder when the moral majority bemoan that children are taught that we come from animals are they denying that very fact or they saying that such evil knowlege should be kept from our children? As a young child my father broke the news to me that an animal gave birth to me and yet it did not result in my going out and killing anyone other than god.
Not sure if it’s completely accurate but allegedly James Holmes believed he was the Joker. Now, obviously I’d rather not be ableist and blame his actions on mental illness… but seriously, this sounds like mental illness.
Please explain to me why I’m wrong so I can be a better person (and I mean that with all sincerity).
Rip:
I’ve heard the “thought he was the Joker” theory and until we get reliable information from non-anonymous sources, I’m taking that with a huge grain of salt*.
However, this:
clears up a big ol’ question for me. The earliest reports indicated that he entered through a fire door (which are one way doors), but didn’t say anything about Holmes purchasing a ticket beforehand. It didn’t make any sense to me that he entered the theater that way.
*Based on reports that Holmes had dyed his hair red? Seriously?
Based on what Holmes told the police.
Rip Steakface
I think you answered your own question.
Even if he has a mental illness, it is insufficient to explain his actions.
According to an anonymous source that the article acknowledges didn’t have the authority to release that kind of detail. (And repeated by the head of the NYPD, but that doesn’t make the statement any more true.)
It’s pointless speculation at best and only serves to muddy the waters.
I mean, come on. Yesterday, there were reports that Holmes was involved in the local Tea Party movement and look at how true that turned out to be*. For now, I’ll trust official statements, but like I said, there’s not point in speculating further.
*Answer: Not at all.
A lying ghoul indeed. Trust a cretin like Warren to blame the simple teaching of the reality of our existence for a horror such as the theatre shooting. Apparently, he thinks the lies written in the bible would prevent such atrocities, conveniently ignoring the fact that this particular book of fairy tales repeatedly and explicitly endorses and even demands the most heinous acts of barbarism and bloodshed, up to and including outright genocide, rape as a weapon of war, and mass child murder.
Not exactly what I would call a go-to source of functional social ethics.
And of course, the fact that Holmes appears to have been raised in a fundamentalist household and seems to have been a highly active church-goer somehow isn’t mentioned by Warren at all while he attempts to lay the blame fort this tragedy on the teaching of evolutionaty theory.
Bottom-feeding creatures like Warren, who gleefully rush out to scavenge on terrible events such as this, are prime reasons for my growing disdain for segments of our species.
[blockquote]WithinThisMind, you are an excellent human being. I agree with you and RowanVT entirely about people in general.[/blockquote]
No, I’m not. I took an action that demonstrated I met a basic level of decency.
Honestly, I think our standards of human behavior are waaaaaaaaaay too fucking low.
Helping a suffering animal, not laughing at a rape joke, interceding when witnessing somebody getting bullied, donating to a shelter or soup kitchen, these shouldn’t be worthy of praise because they should be ordinary activities. They should be things decent people just do and totally expected behavior.
Simply ‘not being a scumbag’ shouldn’t make someone an excellent human being.
Walking with someone like Warren and tazing him every time he opens his stupid mouth, that makes someone an excellent human being.
Rick Warren: An unfeathered, two-legged argument for atheism. Or a good place to apply a roll of ducttape and a rubber ball for a few hours. It was shitheads like him that started me down the path led me into atheism. What makes comments like his truly scary isn’t just the words, it’s the shitstains that eat this garbage up.
Based on what Holmes [is alleged to have] told the police.
Unless that came from an official police department press release, or as a question during a press conference, take it with a large grain of NaCl. The information that filters out during the first 24 to 72 hours of an investigation tend to be all over the place even when coming from an official source. This is an anonymous source without release authority and is highly suspect.
I do not trust the government (though I work for the government). That said, official releases and official press conferences are more likely to come close to reality than unsourced and evidenceless unauthorized releases.
Warren needs to study up on his own book. I reminded him.
Oggie:
Yes! That is exactly the point I was trying to get across.
Need moar coffee.
Audley:
I was not trying to step on you. You stated it very clearly. I did not refresh before posting my comment else I would have noted that I was merely repeating what had already been more than adequately stated.
Oggie:
It’s okay! I’m just glad I’m not the only person that’s taking every little piece of speculation as truth.
Like I said, need moar coffee.
Countdown to the Phelps deciding to picket the funerals here… Seriously, I can feel them sniffing out potential money-making lawsuits all over this. It just seems like the religious fringes are attracted to fringe events like this to make a bigger name of themselves. And how long until Mr. Robertson belts out a bit of mental vomit? This is the publicity-worst (as opposed to the reality of the victims and their families-reality) part of tragedies the world over.
No such thing has been alleged.
Allegedly, James Holmes said he was the Joker.
I say I’m a jaguar goddess.
Ask a cosplayer at a movie theater and they may claim to be Batman.
sadulap:
Tribbles.
Tribbles never kill or eat each other.
Other than that, hmm. Neon Tetras? Rugose Corals? Clams?
ixchel:
And I’m more apt to believe you than the Joker claim, since you’re not some anonymous source with no authority to speak on your behalf.
Janine @41, I bow in honor of your excellent memory.
Yes, it was Pastor Rick Warren that had to be shamed and pressured for days before he finally decided that he should say something against the Ugandan Kill the Gays bill. And even then he equivocated in the weasel-like manner we have come to expect. It was something like, “How could you even accuse me, the great christian white man, of having anything to do with the bill in Uganda, though the evidence is that I and my fellow christian white men did have one helluva lot to do with it. And there are several Ugandan’s thanking me for bringing to them biblical reasons to dislike the homosexual agenda.”
http://www.towleroad.com/2009/12/rachel-maddow-exposes-rick-warrens-uganda-hypocrisy.html
Randomfactor @ 10
Not only that, his victims, homosexual “perverts” or those who otherwise not saved, are being tortured in Hell.
It’s so nice to know “God” is so just.
@hotshoe #5
Just want to add my late-to-the-party two-thumbs-up for ^this.^
And it’s even worse than that: kids are taught that they are unworthy sinners who deserve to burn in hell for all eternity, just by virtue of existing and without regard to their own actions. How, exactly, would one expect them to act?
Pronouncements like Warren’s are exactly the kind of statement that made me question the religion in which I was indoctrinated as a child, and helped propel me inexorably down the road to atheism. It’s kind of a corollary to this: wait a minute — how come this god fellow always gets all the credit for good outcomes and none of the blame for senseless tragedies?
@ #32 Glen Davidson:
Vicodin is a combination of two drugs: hydrocodone (synthetic opioid) and acetaminophen (Tylenol). The amount of hydrocodone in a Vicodin tablet is either 5 or 10 mg. The acetaminophen is usually 500 mg, but 660 mg is also available.
If the source meant 100 mg of hydrocodone, that’s a massive dose. (When I was on it I took only 10 mg twice a day.)
Dear Dr. Myers,
It the claim of your title, that Warren is lying, supposed to have been demonstrated in your brief article? If so, you have failed to support any such claim. Even if you think his statement “predictable inanity” and wrong how does that make him a liar?
And you might note that you have made a logical error in supposing that Rick Warren doesn’t think people are animals. You say, “It’s simply a fact that Rick Warren is an animal, like all the rest of us.” So? And I doubt Warren would disagree. What he said was “no different from animals.” Now you might disagree that people are more than animals or no different from animals, but your analysis of Warren’s statement is logically faulty as something could be an animal and yet not only an animal.
Furthermore, why would you have a problem with what Warren said? Given that you might view people as “just” animals how could you disagree with his statement, “When students are taught they are no different from animals, they act like it.” If people are just animals they will always acts like animals in every instance. It would be impossible to do otherwise. So, where is your disagreement?
And, oh, by the way, yes, some puppy dogs do go on murderous rampages. They are perfectly happy to kill other animals sometimes. But that’s not a problem for you is it? Wouldn’t you agree that that is just their nature? They need to eat to survive, do they not? What about humans? If it’s OK for a puppy to kill indiscriminately then why not people? What is the qualitative difference between puppies and people?
Show people are not animals, and do so without reference to your book of mythology/fiction. Or show your imaginary deity exists with conclusive physical evidence. Evidence that isn’t there. So humans are animals.
Fuck, are you serious?
He’s clearly referring to the teaching of evolution and common descent. And blaming this tragedy on that, without waiting for real information and ignoring or being ignorant of the shooter’s church membership.
It’s also the crap strawman version of evolution, made up by creationists as a convenient target. Which is a fundamentally dishonest way to argue.
And using a tragedy like this to further your own agenda, without reference to real information, is despicable. And anti-science.
And what does “acting like animals” even mean? There’s a fair amount of variability in animal behavior, after all.
It’s a stupid, shitty, dishonest, self-serving and wrong thing to say. And while fitting all that in a 140-character tweet is impressive in its own way, any thinking, feeling person should have a problem with this.
@Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls, I think you completely missed the point of what I said. I said people ARE animals and I don’t think Warren would disagree. My point was to demonstrate a logical error; namely, that just because something is an X doesn’t mean that it isn’t also a Y.
@feralboy12 – I have no problem with someone being criticized for being too quick to speak about this tragedy in CO. It would be best for everyone to hold their tongue when it comes to assigning motives and I am not defending Warren on that account. However, that wasn’t the element Dr. Myers specifically criticized spoke; neither am I speaking of that.
You commented, “And what does ‘acting like animals’ even mean? There’s a fair amount of variability in animal behavior, after all.” Exactly. Which further makes my point. What is Dr. Myers disagreeing with? If people are just animals they will always acts like animals in every instance, though there is a significant range in that behavior. It would be impossible to do otherwise; that is, it would be impossible to act in a way different from one’s animalness. I’m not defining what that behavior is, just saying that something can’t be different from what it is. So, where is your disagreement with that?
No, you missed my point. Warren only gets where he does via the twin fallacies of an imaginary deity and believing inerrant a book of mythology/fiction giving humans special significance. That is his logical error, since, he can neither prove his babble is inerrant or his deity exists. So all he has is bullshit.
What does “only an animal” even mean? All animals fit other categories besides animal. It’s true that humans aren’t only animals, they are humans with all that entails. It’s also true that cats aren’t only animals, they are cats with all that entails.
We are animals, therefore everything we do is part of what it means to act like an animal. The “just” is unnecessary. What is it doing there?
My disagreement is that killing is no more “acting like an animal” than behaving altruistically is, for example. Warren seems to be implying otherwise.
Also, people are animals (like I said, the “just” is unnecessary here) whether they know it or not, so teaching them that is not going to change the fact that their behaviour is part of what it means to act like an animal in the sense you’re using here.
On a related noted, I’m tired of this tendency some people have of attributing all the good stuff people do to our “humanness”, and all the horrible stuff people do to our evolutionary relationship with nonhuman animals. As if cruelty wasn’t a very human attribute indeed. As if the kind of altruistic behaviour we praise was unique to our species. As if we didn’t inherit both and became exceptional at being incredibly kind and incredibly cruel.
I don’t think denying the worst of humanity does us any favours.
As far as I can tell, humans are still the only animals who go on shooting rampages. Or as Rick Warren might say, God made humans to hold guns so they can do his dirty work.
Huge sprawling prolonged bloody conflicts are also unique to humans. And ants.
Like I’d have given half a feck what this hollow man says (seeing as he cannot “think”) about anything.
Of course he is just another animal, like the rest of us mere humans. But Rick Warren is, as WSBurroughs often said, a “BAD animal.”
There’s nothing more irritatingly contemptible, like finding a leech that has dropped onto your arm from above, than a fecking “conservative” ‘Mer’kin Xian*.
If I meet him, I’ll deal with him in a personal way, hopefully with a brutal compassion that revitilizes that fossilized bit of humanity he was almost certainly born with. Or squirt him in the face with my setzer bottle when he opens his mouth to opine.
*Except their replicas in all other known societies.
Nightjar
Laughing out loud at your takedown, the statement is more nonsensical than I had thought, now that you mention it.
Also: We raise a lot of animals and have yet to run into any murderous goats. When it comes to senseless murder the goats have the high moral ground far above humans, dogs, cats, ferrets, etc.
The christian goats behave so much like the atheist goats, I can hardly tell them apart.
They are all very chill.
I wonder what the equivalent of a humanist is for goats.
A Goatanist?
I’m sure we have a lot to learn from them, too bad they can’t talk.
Wait..
if they learned to talk, they’d probably all start arguing and murdering each other over made-up labels. Hmmm, maybe I’m onto something here.
So, blake, are we to ignore everything we already know about Rick Warrens beliefs, and pretend this tweet exists in a vacuum somehow? We all understand what he means by “acting like animals”, yet you insist we cannot know. We know this man is a creationist, and “taught they are no different from animals” is barely even a dog whistle for “taught evolution”. Your ‘questions’ reek of someone who is JaQing off to derail.
scooterskutre
To tell the truth, I hadn’t realised how nonsensical it was before blake tried to defend it. So, well done, blake.
Actually yes, he would disgree. That is my point. His religion and babble make humans “special” and better than animals. Obviously you haven’t read the babble. There is no logic error because of that.
Whilst it is true that no goat, so far as I am aware, has ever committed murder, they can be feisty sods, with horns just the right height to inflict pain on a bloke. I should know, I’ve been that bloke.
blake your comments are a wonderful example of ignoring the obvious to try and make some self serving point.