RE: Do I believe Atheists are going to hell?
February 1, 2018 at 8:39 pm
(This post was last modified: February 1, 2018 at 8:40 pm by Whateverist.)
(February 1, 2018 at 7:56 pm)pocaracas Wrote:(February 1, 2018 at 6:03 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: But seriously. You know I love you Poca but I think you're being obtuse.
Beautiful woman says "I love you"
Followed by "you're being obtuse"
(February 1, 2018 at 6:03 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: Anyway, I wrote: "We have the ability to rationalize, to love, and to experience joy in a way that the other creatures do not"
...Not to say they don't at all (I have 7 cats, I know lol), but not nearly to our extent.
Biochemically, I'd say emotions register the same way, but the rationalizing part should be different indeed... But I'd like to leave it clear that they do all those things in their own way. And some facial expressions are remarkably similar to our own, hinting at a similarity of the underlying mechanism.
I think a lot of people underestimate the subjective experience of other creatures. It isn't that other creatures actually have the same particular qualities which humans have, but rather that every creature has qualities which make it distinctive. An octopus is less human than we are, we are less cephalopodian than them. I'm not sure if we are any more speciesist than any other animal, but we may be the only one able to conceptualize such things.