Stephen T-B

Geo Theo: the doctrine that Man is made in God’s image and has dominion over every living thing validates behaviour which has been extremely damaging.
It has allowed Mankind to regard all of Nature as his plaything, to use, exploit, harm and exhaust as he pleases. It has given him a notion of intrinsic superiority and of disengagement from natural processes.
In Western European culture this has had especially dire consequences because it has been married to technological advances which have enhanced his ability to damage the eco-system on which all living things depend.
Of all the Judeo-Christian doctrines, it is, I believe, the most wicked because of its evil consequences. And I am afraid to say that it is evident in the disregard for the Earth’s environment which is demonstrated by to-day's Christian-led US government.

Jamie_L

All things considered, humans should exploit whatever we can to make our lives better, as long as in the process, we don't do something stupid that we'll regret. Unfortunately, we haven't quite gotten our feeble brains around that second part yet. Morally speaking, improving the lives of human beings should be more important to us than preserving some arbitrary status quo. We just have to be very careful so that short-term imporvements don't create long term problems that are worse than what we started with.

In that respect, convervation is kind of like morality. It's a framework to make help keep us doing things that are detrimental to us.

Jamie

vixstile

What ever happened to to the popularly held view the it was a good thing for humans to put mother nature on a leash, to make our lives better. This is the view that I still hold.

Subversive environmentalism

Kharakov

We are superior because we have the greatest chance of spreading life from our home planet to another. Hopefully we can pay back our plant and animal (and bacterial) cousins for the damage we cause them by spreading them throughout the universe.

We have the opportunity to design a new form of life with nanotechnology, possibly life that can live in space. One day we will be able to transplant consciousness to an artificial medium that can search the stars for more viable planets and resources.

The spread of life is the goal of life. Humanity is a big gamble- but it could pay off BIGTIME.

vixstile

I'm going to disagree with this. Life has no goal, purpose, or meaning. Life just is.

Doubting Didymus

Ba-baouuuw. Wrong.

You are confusing is with should. Sure, that's how evolution works, but I see no reason to bow down in worship to the mindless process that birthed me.

This line of thought has dangerous implications. We got here because the 'goal' of a species is to spread, therefore we should continue that process. We triumphed over other homonid lineages by wiping them out, therefore we should continue that process. I personally got here because my mother was build to make babies, therefore my goal in life is to continue that process.

Complete Don Burke's Backyard Bollocks. Evolution wants my species to spread? Up yours, evolution, I don't feel like it today. Thanks for my life and concious mind, evolution, but they are mine now, and you can take your species beneficial instincts and screw them into the ground.

HaysooChreesto!

Wow, U.S. Christians are responsible for the horrific damage supposedly done to the environment? I have to admit, that's one I've not heard before.

Anyway, nature is not some static thing that held itself in some kind of perfect harmonious balance until evil western Christians came along. Most species have been killed off by nature herself without us "wicked" humans.

Humans are superior animals. Unless the dolphins invented modern medicine, technology, education, travel, complex philosophies, and In n' Out Double Doubles, I believe I'm right. But if the dolphins (and possibly some whales) are indeed responsible for what heretofore humanity has been credited with, then I duly apologize for my ignorance.

Doubting Didymus

What if the Dolphins consider themselves superior to us for the exact same reasons? (credit to Douglas Adams).

So we are good at improving life for ourselves. I suppose from our perspective that makes us pretty good. But what about from a bacteria's perspective? Modern Medicine is genocidal tragedy.

Technology, education, travel (travel?) are all very nice, but exactly how does that make us superior? Because we like what we do? Are you implying that some poor sap from the third world who has no technology greater than the bucket, has never been educated and never left his villiage is an inferior being?

All you have done is defined superiority in terms of thing we are good at, and suprise suprise, we fit the criteria. Unfortunetely for us, other species might include flying by ones own power, being able to live under very high water pressure, and having the capacity to survive a nuclear blast under the 'superior' definition.

We are smarter, that's all.

Whoopie frigerry doo.

Viti

Just to lighten things up...this is pretty funny

<a href="http://www.theonion.com/onion3630/dolphins_evolve_thumbs.html" target="_blank">Dolphins and opposable thumbs</a>

ksagnostic

DD and V, Kharakov makes a good point. We humans and our hypothetical decendents are probably the only hope for life, particularly conscious life, to survive our planet and solar system. Certainly, the "behavior" of life, in the broad sense, is to propogate itself and continue the genome, and it is easy for one (almost as a sloppy shorthand) to express this behavior as a purpose.