Health and Religion - page 4. | Bitcointalksearch.org

CoinCube

legendary

Activity: 1946

Merit: 1055

Yes that is a chicken embryo. This one was killed probably for this photo but had it not been killed and had it been kept warm between 99 and 102 degrees Fahrenheit it would have grown into a baby chick in less then 21 days.

For those who don't know. Chicken eggs purchased at stores are eggs not embryos. They lack the small embryonic tissue highlighted in af_newbies photo.

Quote from: af_newbie on December 06, 2019, 10:23:16 AM

I am talking about fertilized chicken eggs. Focus, doctor, focus. Is this a chicken, doctor?

It was the very beginning of a new chicken life. It is a dead chicken.

af_newbie

legendary

Activity: 2702

Merit: 1468

Quote from: CoinCube on December 06, 2019, 10:22:26 AM

Quote from: af_newbie on December 06, 2019, 10:10:23 AM

A chicken is not a fertilized egg, right?
A fertilized egg is not a chicken, right?

PS. I don't buy eggs at the store. LOL. I get them from my chicken house.

A chicken embryo is a very young chicken at the start of its life.

I mean seriously use your eyes and look at the picture of the embryo I posted immediately above. You can call it a "fertilized egg" all you want. Its obviously very young chicken about to come out of its shell.

You can go find pictures of chicken embryo younger then 14 days old that are clearly not ready to leave their shells. They will look less and less recognizable the younger they are until you get back to the single cell stage once more. That does not change anything those are still a chickens. They are chickens in their very earliest stages of development and unrecognizable visually for what they are but they are chickens nevertheless.

I am talking about fertilized chicken eggs. Focus, doctor, focus. Is this a chicken, doctor?

CoinCube

legendary

Activity: 1946

Merit: 1055

Quote from: af_newbie on December 06, 2019, 10:10:23 AM

A chicken is not a fertilized egg, right?
A fertilized egg is not a chicken, right?

PS. I don't buy eggs at the store. LOL. I get them from my chicken house.

A chicken embryo is a very young chicken at the start of its life.

I mean seriously use your eyes and look at the picture of the embryo I posted immediately above. You can call it a "fertilized egg" all you want. Its obviously very young chicken about to come out of its shell.

You can go find pictures of chicken embryo younger then 14 days old that are clearly not ready to leave their shells. They will look less and less recognizable the younger they are until you get back to the single cell stage once more. That does not change anything those are still chickens. They are chickens in their very earliest stages of development and unrecognizable visually for what they are but they are chickens nevertheless.

af_newbie

legendary

Activity: 2702

Merit: 1468

Quote from: CoinCube on December 06, 2019, 10:07:46 AM

Quote from: af_newbie on December 06, 2019, 09:52:20 AM

You forgot to add a chicken egg. An egg is not chicken, it will turn into an embryo, then into a chick, right?

No eggs do not spontaneously transform into embryos. The kind of eggs you buy at the store are not embryos they are just eggs. They never had any chance of becoming a chicken.

You are confusing yourself and attempting to mislead anyone reading this thread with your constant use of disingenuous and misleading language. An egg is not an embryo. The egg will not spontaneously do anything other then sit there. The embryo is the first stage of a new living organism and it will will spontaneously develop into a living adult.

A chicken is not a fertilized egg, right?
A fertilized egg is not a chicken, right?

Here is what a fertilized egg looks like (just in case you have never seen one):

PS. I don't buy eggs at the store. LOL. I get them from my chicken house. Yes, we have a rooster.

CoinCube

legendary

Activity: 1946

Merit: 1055

Quote from: af_newbie on December 06, 2019, 09:52:20 AM

You forgot to add a chicken egg. An egg is not chicken, it will turn into an embryo, then into a chick, right?

No eggs do not spontaneously transform into embryos. The kind of eggs you buy at the store are not embryos they are just eggs. They never had any chance of becoming a chicken.

You are confusing yourself and attempting to mislead anyone reading this thread with your constant use of disingenuous and misleading language. An egg is not an embryo. The egg will not spontaneously do anything other then sit there. The embryo is the first stage of a new living organism and it will will spontaneously develop into a living adult.

af_newbie

legendary

Activity: 2702

Merit: 1468

Quote from: CoinCube on December 06, 2019, 09:37:24 AM

Quote from: af_newbie on December 06, 2019, 07:35:17 AM

But physically your 'chickens in process' are not chickens, they are eggs, right?

If I asked you to draw an egg, what would you draw?
If I asked you to draw a chicken, what would you draw?

You are too tied up in superficial and transient external characteristics.

If I asked you to draw a newborn baby chick what would you draw?
If I asked you to draw an adult rooster what would you draw?

These look nothing like each other but they are just stages of development of the same creation. The same is true of the embryo.

Embryo:

Chick:

Adult:

You forgot to add a chicken egg.

An egg is not chicken, it will turn into an embryo, then into a chick, right?

A chicken is not an egg, right?

CoinCube

legendary

Activity: 1946

Merit: 1055

Quote from: af_newbie on December 06, 2019, 07:35:17 AM

But physically your 'chickens in process' are not chickens, they are eggs, right?

If I asked you to draw an egg, what would you draw?
If I asked you to draw a chicken, what would you draw?

You are too tied up in superficial and transient external characteristics.

If I asked you to draw a newborn baby chick what would you draw?
If I asked you to draw an adult rooster what would you draw?

These look nothing like each other but they are just stages of development of the same creation. The same is true of the embryo.

Embryo:

Chick:

Adult:

af_newbie

legendary

Activity: 2702

Merit: 1468

Quote from: BADecker on December 06, 2019, 04:44:01 AM

Quote from: af_newbie on December 06, 2019, 03:44:03 AM

Quote from: BADecker on December 05, 2019, 09:03:42 PM

You continue to like killing humans because they do not have fully developed organs like some other humans have. Is a 30-y-o human without arms and legs still a human? You like to pick on certain aspects, but you don't do it with equality. Humans are humans, from the instant of fertilization to the moment of death.

Think about this. If unfertilized eggs, or sperm that didn't do any fertilizing, developed into humans, then they would be humans, as well. Since they don't, they aren't humans.

Cool

I will make it really simple for you and your sidekick CoinCube.

You just picked up a fresh, fertilized chicken egg.
Are you holding an egg or a chicken?

Now, a researcher handed you a petri dish with
a fertilized human egg.

Are you holding a petri dish with a fertilized human
egg or a human being?

Hint: We make omelets from eggs not chickens.

Thank you for making it doubly simple for me to make it simple for you.

Fertilized chicken eggs are chickens in process. Just because we don't think or talk of them that way, doesn't mean they aren't that way.

How do we know? Like we cook and eat the chicken, so we cook and eat the egg. Like we cook and eat the egg, so we cook and eat the chicken. Simple, right? They are in process up until the time we cook and eat them, or until they die of old age.

Now, considering people. Fertilized human eggs are people in process. Just because some judges or wacky scientists don't think of them that way, doesn't mean they aren't that way.

How do we know? Like we kill people in war, so we kill fertilized-egg, unborn people in abortion. Like we kill fertilized-egg, unborn people in abortion, so we kill people in war.

The petri dish holds a human being in early stages of life... except if you kill the human.

Cool

But physically your 'chickens in process' are not chickens, they are eggs, right?

If I asked you to draw an egg, what would you draw?
If I asked you to draw a chicken, what would you draw?

IadixDev

full member

Activity: 322

Merit: 151

They're tactical

Quote from: CoinCube on December 05, 2019, 04:15:03 PM

Quote from: af_newbie on December 05, 2019, 03:08:17 PM

Why are you making an exception for a bunch of cells on a petri dish? Because a fertilized egg has the potential of becoming a human being?

I don't care what the Bible says. This is the vilest book I have ever read. You can safely dismiss EVERYTHING the Bible says.

A fertilized egg is not a human being. If you think it is, show me? Does it have a brain and liver? How about the lungs?

There is no exception. A skin cell is not a unique human with the potential for independent life. With a little time and support the human embryo will not only unfold into all of the secondary characteristics you so value it will also eventually learn to stand on its own and support itself.

Clearly you should care about what the Bible says perhaps then you would not be so keen to sacrifice the most vulnerable human lives upon the alter of science.

Even without going into the bible what i find worrying is how medical science is straying away from hypocrathes oath. I can understand practice can evolve and we dont have To stick To 2000 years old practice and ethics, but on the general principle of what the role of a physician is supposed to be about, which is protecting life, not doing any action that will harm life, and the only practice he is allowed to do is to cure a disease or ailment, which also exclude abortion from medical practice.

Now it seems its going all corporate, even with organ traffic, and all kind of things that make it look more like bio industry than the original principles in which pharmaceutics and physicians are supposed To be grounded.

https://youtu.be/dYtqtwfJviI :p

BADecker

legendary

Activity: 3906

Merit: 1373

Quote from: af_newbie on December 06, 2019, 03:44:03 AM

Quote from: BADecker on December 05, 2019, 09:03:42 PM

You continue to like killing humans because they do not have fully developed organs like some other humans have. Is a 30-y-o human without arms and legs still a human? You like to pick on certain aspects, but you don't do it with equality. Humans are humans, from the instant of fertilization to the moment of death.

Think about this. If unfertilized eggs, or sperm that didn't do any fertilizing, developed into humans, then they would be humans, as well. Since they don't, they aren't humans.

Cool

I will make it really simple for you and your sidekick CoinCube.

You just picked up a fresh, fertilized chicken egg.
Are you holding an egg or a chicken?

Now, a researcher handed you a petri dish with
a fertilized human egg.

Are you holding a petri dish with a fertilized human
egg or a human being?

Hint: We make omelets from eggs not chickens.

Thank you for making it doubly simple for me to make it simple for you.

Fertilized chicken eggs are chickens in process. Just because we don't think or talk of them that way, doesn't mean they aren't that way.

How do we know? Like we cook and eat the chicken, so we cook and eat the egg. Like we cook and eat the egg, so we cook and eat the chicken. Simple, right? They are in process up until the time we cook and eat them, or until they die of old age.

Now, considering people. Fertilized human eggs are people in process. Just because some judges or wacky scientists don't think of them that way, doesn't mean they aren't that way.

How do we know? Like we kill people in war, so we kill fertilized-egg, unborn people in abortion. Like we kill fertilized-egg, unborn people in abortion, so we kill people in war.

The petri dish holds a human being in early stages of life... except if you kill the human.

Cool

af_newbie

legendary

Activity: 2702

Merit: 1468

Quote from: BADecker on December 05, 2019, 09:03:42 PM

Quote from: af_newbie on December 05, 2019, 08:55:59 PM

Quote from: BADecker on December 05, 2019, 08:44:02 PM

Quote from: af_newbie on December 05, 2019, 08:19:36 PM

Spit is just an example of cells that have a full human genome, and yet they are not a human being. You can substitute your pubic hair follicles if you like. You guys started talking about how human fertilized eggs are human beings because they have a human genome.

I said over and over again that I am against the killing of viable babies. You perverted your religious 'soul injection at conception' into something that it is not.

At fertilization, a human egg is not a human being.

Why is it hard for you to understand this? I don't get it, you cannot be that stupid or ignorant.

Please, please... Stop humiliating yourself like this.

Don't you realize that some hair-folical-cell, even though it has the complete genome of the particular human, is not a cell that can develop into a fully grown adult human? How in the world self degrading are you trying to be? You know this, yet you make believe that somebody is saying that any old cell in a person is the full human.

But the fertilized egg is a full human being... simply at a certain stage of its development for the moment.

If a man/woman is 20-years-old, and lives 30 more years, isn't he/she still a human being at any of these ages? Why are you trying to take away the humanity of people because they are not as fully developed at one stage as another? You are probably in favor of euthanasia, right?, because a 90-y-o is not a human being any longer, right?

You talk like you want to see people live, but you neglect recognizing what people are. How in the world dense are you? Just because a human isn't as developed at some stage of its life, doesn't make it any less of a human.

If you like killing off humans so much, stop condemning the Bible when there is righteous talk of killing humans to get rid of the killing. You are acting like a complete hypocrite.

Cool

Does your 'fertilized egg' have medulla oblongata, or any other specialized organ that human beings have?

Why are you calling it a 'human being'?

Who said I like killing humans? I am not your Biblical God.

You continue to like killing humans because they do not have fully developed organs like some other humans have. Is a 30-y-o human without arms and legs still a human? You like to pick on certain aspects, but you don't do it with equality. Humans are humans, from the instant of fertilization to the moment of death.

Think about this. If unfertilized eggs, or sperm that didn't do any fertilizing, developed into humans, then they would be humans, as well. Since they don't, they aren't humans.

Cool

I will make it really simple for you and your sidekick CoinCube.

You just picked up a fresh, fertilized chicken egg.
Are you holding an egg or a chicken?

Now, a researcher handed you a petri dish with
a fertilized human egg.

Are you holding a petri dish with a fertilized human
egg or a human being?

Hint: We make omelets from eggs not chickens.

BADecker

legendary

Activity: 3906

Merit: 1373

Quote from: af_newbie on December 05, 2019, 08:55:59 PM

Quote from: BADecker on December 05, 2019, 08:44:02 PM

Quote from: af_newbie on December 05, 2019, 08:19:36 PM

Spit is just an example of cells that have a full human genome, and yet they are not a human being. You can substitute your pubic hair follicles if you like. You guys started talking about how human fertilized eggs are human beings because they have a human genome.

I said over and over again that I am against the killing of viable babies. You perverted your religious 'soul injection at conception' into something that it is not.

At fertilization, a human egg is not a human being.

Why is it hard for you to understand this? I don't get it, you cannot be that stupid or ignorant.

Please, please... Stop humiliating yourself like this.

Don't you realize that some hair-folical-cell, even though it has the complete genome of the particular human, is not a cell that can develop into a fully grown adult human? How in the world self degrading are you trying to be? You know this, yet you make believe that somebody is saying that any old cell in a person is the full human.

But the fertilized egg is a full human being... simply at a certain stage of its development for the moment.

If a man/woman is 20-years-old, and lives 30 more years, isn't he/she still a human being at any of these ages? Why are you trying to take away the humanity of people because they are not as fully developed at one stage as another? You are probably in favor of euthanasia, right?, because a 90-y-o is not a human being any longer, right?

You talk like you want to see people live, but you neglect recognizing what people are. How in the world dense are you? Just because a human isn't as developed at some stage of its life, doesn't make it any less of a human.

If you like killing off humans so much, stop condemning the Bible when there is righteous talk of killing humans to get rid of the killing. You are acting like a complete hypocrite.

Cool

Does your 'fertilized egg' have medulla oblongata, or any other specialized organ that human beings have?

Why are you calling it a 'human being'?

Who said I like killing humans? I am not your Biblical God.

You continue to like killing humans because they do not have fully developed organs like some other humans have. Is a 30-y-o human without arms and legs still a human? You like to pick on certain aspects, but you don't do it with equality. Humans are humans, from the instant of fertilization to the moment of death.

Think about this. If unfertilized eggs, or sperm that didn't do any fertilizing, developed into humans, then they would be humans, as well. Since they don't, they aren't humans.

Cool

af_newbie

legendary

Activity: 2702

Merit: 1468

Quote from: BADecker on December 05, 2019, 08:44:02 PM

Quote from: af_newbie on December 05, 2019, 08:19:36 PM

Spit is just an example of cells that have a full human genome, and yet they are not a human being. You can substitute your pubic hair follicles if you like. You guys started talking about how human fertilized eggs are human beings because they have a human genome.

I said over and over again that I am against the killing of viable babies. You perverted your religious 'soul injection at conception' into something that it is not.

At fertilization, a human egg is not a human being.

Why is it hard for you to understand this? I don't get it, you cannot be that stupid or ignorant.

Please, please... Stop humiliating yourself like this.

Don't you realize that some hair-folical-cell, even though it has the complete genome of the particular human, is not a cell that can develop into a fully grown adult human? How in the world self degrading are you trying to be? You know this, yet you make believe that somebody is saying that any old cell in a person is the full human.

But the fertilized egg is a full human being... simply at a certain stage of its development for the moment.

If a man/woman is 20-years-old, and lives 30 more years, isn't he/she still a human being at any of these ages? Why are you trying to take away the humanity of people because they are not as fully developed at one stage as another? You are probably in favor of euthanasia, right?, because a 90-y-o is not a human being any longer, right?

You talk like you want to see people live, but you neglect recognizing what people are. How in the world dense are you? Just because a human isn't as developed at some stage of its life, doesn't make it any less of a human.

If you like killing off humans so much, stop condemning the Bible when there is righteous talk of killing humans to get rid of the killing. You are acting like a complete hypocrite.

Cool

Does your 'fertilized egg' have medulla oblongata, or any other specialized organ that human beings have?

Why are you calling it a 'human being'?

Who said I like killing humans? I am not your Biblical God.

BADecker

legendary

Activity: 3906

Merit: 1373

Quote from: af_newbie on December 05, 2019, 08:19:36 PM

Spit is just an example of cells that have a full human genome, and yet they are not a human being. You can substitute your pubic hair follicles if you like. You guys started talking about how human fertilized eggs are human beings because they have a human genome.

I said over and over again that I am against the killing of viable babies. You perverted your religious 'soul injection at conception' into something that it is not.

At fertilization, a human egg is not a human being.

Why is it hard for you to understand this? I don't get it, you cannot be that stupid or ignorant.

Please, please... Stop humiliating yourself like this.

Don't you realize that some hair-folical-cell, even though it has the complete genome of the particular human, is not a cell that can develop into a fully grown adult human? How in the world self degrading are you trying to be? You know this, yet you make believe that somebody is saying that any old cell in a person is the full human.

But the fertilized egg is a full human being... simply at a certain stage of its development for the moment.

If a man/woman is 20-years-old, and lives 30 more years, isn't he/she still a human being at any of these ages? Why are you trying to take away the humanity of people because they are not as fully developed at one stage as another? You are probably in favor of euthanasia, right?, because a 90-y-o is not a human being any longer, right?

You talk like you want to see people live, but you neglect recognizing what people are. How in the world dense are you? Just because a human isn't as developed at some stage of its life, doesn't make it any less of a human.

If you like killing off humans so much, stop condemning the Bible when there is righteous talk of killing humans to get rid of the killing. You are acting like a complete hypocrite.

Cool

af_newbie

legendary

Activity: 2702

Merit: 1468

Quote from: CoinCube on December 05, 2019, 06:44:32 PM

Quote from: af_newbie on December 05, 2019, 05:48:29 PM

I am not dehumanizing anyone. WTF are you talking about?

....

Quote from: af_newbie on December 05, 2019, 05:42:58 PM

When you throw away ~~fertilized eggs~~ human embryos you are not killing humans like you are suggesting. Those are just human cells like some spit on the side of the road.

You are dehumanizing new human life at its earliest stages comparing it to spit on the side of the road.

You think this is justified and that the new human life really is just spit on the side of the road and should be treated like spit. In this you fall into the same tired pattern as the Tutsis, the Nazis, and the slavers highlighted above.

But this is different you say. These humans really are just spit they are not conscious, they are helpless, undeveloped, weak, and dependent on tremendous outside intervention to even stay alive. Without a mother they will quickly wither and die. That is all true but they are nevertheless human.

We are highly unlikely to agree on this topic.

Spit is just an example of cells that have a full human genome, and yet they are not a human being. You can substitute your pubic hair follicles if you like. You guys started talking about how fertilized human eggs are human beings because they have a human genome.

I said over and over again that I am against the killing of viable babies. You perverted your religious 'soul injection at conception' into something that it is not.

At fertilization, a human egg is not a human being.

Why is it hard for you to understand this? I don't get it, you cannot be that stupid or ignorant.

CoinCube

legendary

Activity: 1946

Merit: 1055

Quote from: af_newbie on December 05, 2019, 05:48:29 PM

I am not dehumanizing anyone. WTF are you talking about?

....

Quote from: af_newbie on December 05, 2019, 05:42:58 PM

When you throw away ~~fertilized eggs~~ human embryos you are not killing humans like you are suggesting. Those are just human cells like some spit on the side of the road.

You are dehumanizing new human life at its earliest stages comparing it to spit on the side of the road.

You think this is justified and that the new human life really is just spit on the side of the road and should be treated like spit. In this you fall into the same tired pattern as the Tutsis, the Nazis, and the slavers highlighted above.

But this is different you say. These humans really are just spit they are not conscious, they are helpless, undeveloped, weak, and dependent on tremendous outside intervention to even stay alive. Without a mother they will quickly wither and die. That is all true but they are nevertheless human.

We are highly unlikely to agree on this topic.

af_newbie

legendary

Activity: 2702

Merit: 1468

Quote from: CoinCube on December 05, 2019, 03:51:29 PM

Quote from: af_newbie on December 05, 2019, 03:08:17 PM

Some human beings will never be human. LOL.
...
A fertilized egg...

Ah more dehumanizing language despite having been shown that it is not the most scientifically accurate language to use. Once again the proper term for what you are describing is a single celled embryo or zygote.

'Less Than Human': The Psychology Of Cruelty
https://www.npr.org/2011/03/29/134956180/criminals-see-their-victims-as-less-than-human

Quote from: David Livingstone Smith

During the Holocaust, Nazis referred to Jews as rats. Hutus involved in the Rwanda genocide called Tutsis cockroaches. Slave owners throughout history considered slaves subhuman animals. In Less Than Human, David Livingstone Smith argues that it's important to define and describe dehumanization, because it's what opens the door for cruelty and genocide.
...
This is just the latest iteration in a pattern that has unfolded time and again over the course of history. In ancient Chinese, Egyptian and Mesopotamian literature, Smith found repeated references to enemies as subhuman creatures. But it's not as simple as a comparison. "When people dehumanize others, they actually conceive of them as subhuman creatures," says Smith. Only then can the process "liberate aggression and exclude the target of aggression from the moral community."

When the Nazis described Jews as Untermenschen, or subhumans, they didn't mean it metaphorically, says Smith. "They didn't mean they were like subhumans. They meant they were literally subhuman."
...
A rough answer isn't hard to come by. Thinking sets the agenda for action, and thinking of humans as less than human paves the way for atrocity.

I was paraphrasing Steve Jobs. I am not dehumanizing anyone. WTF are you talking about?

"There is a big difference between a human being and being human" - Steve Jobs.

You never heard of religious fanatics going out and shooting people at random?

Did you actually read the Bible? Fuck man, you cannot be serious.

Psalm 137:9 "Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks."

af_newbie

legendary

Activity: 2702

Merit: 1468

Quote from: CoinCube on December 05, 2019, 04:15:03 PM

Quote from: af_newbie on December 05, 2019, 03:08:17 PM

Why are you making an exception for a bunch of cells on a petri dish? Because a fertilized egg has the potential of becoming a human being?

I don't care what the Bible says. This is the vilest book I have ever read. You can safely dismiss EVERYTHING the Bible says.

A fertilized egg is not a human being. If you think it is, show me? Does it have a brain and liver? How about the lungs?

There is no exception. A skin cell is not a unique human with the potential for independent life. With a little time and support the human embryo will not only unfold into all of the secondary characteristics you so value it will also eventually learn to stand on its own and support itself.

Clearly you should care about what the Bible says perhaps then you would not be so keen to sacrifice the most vulnerable human lives upon the alter of science.

You can play with words all you want.

The bottom line is that fertilized eggs will not become a human being without a human female host and a long gestation period.

When you throw away fertilized eggs you are not killing humans like you are suggesting. Those are just human cells like some spit on the side of the road.

Grow up. You live in some carefully constructed bubble. Even if you play with hundreds, thousands or even millions of human cells, you are still way short of the 37.2 trillion that the average human being has.

Check your math 'doctor'.

CoinCube

legendary

Activity: 1946

Merit: 1055

Quote from: af_newbie on December 05, 2019, 03:08:17 PM

Why are you making an exception for a bunch of cells on a petri dish? Because a fertilized egg has the potential of becoming a human being?

I don't care what the Bible says. This is the vilest book I have ever read. You can safely dismiss EVERYTHING the Bible says.

A fertilized egg is not a human being. If you think it is, show me? Does it have a brain and liver? How about the lungs?

There is no exception. A skin cell is not a unique human with the potential for independent life. With a little time and support the human embryo will not only unfold into all of the secondary characteristics you so value it will also eventually learn to stand on its own and support itself.

Clearly you should care about what the Bible says perhaps then you would not be so keen to sacrifice the most vulnerable human lives upon the alter of science.

CoinCube

legendary

Activity: 1946

Merit: 1055

Quote from: af_newbie on December 05, 2019, 03:08:17 PM

Some human beings will never be human. LOL.
...
A fertilized egg...

Ah more dehumanizing language despite having been shown that it is not the most scientifically accurate language to use. Once again the proper term for what you are describing is a single celled embryo or zygote.

'Less Than Human': The Psychology Of Cruelty
https://www.npr.org/2011/03/29/134956180/criminals-see-their-victims-as-less-than-human

Quote from: David Livingstone Smith

During the Holocaust, Nazis referred to Jews as rats. Hutus involved in the Rwanda genocide called Tutsis cockroaches. Slave owners throughout history considered slaves subhuman animals. In Less Than Human, David Livingstone Smith argues that it's important to define and describe dehumanization, because it's what opens the door for cruelty and genocide.
...
This is just the latest iteration in a pattern that has unfolded time and again over the course of history. In ancient Chinese, Egyptian and Mesopotamian literature, Smith found repeated references to enemies as subhuman creatures. But it's not as simple as a comparison. "When people dehumanize others, they actually conceive of them as subhuman creatures," says Smith. Only then can the process "liberate aggression and exclude the target of aggression from the moral community."

When the Nazis described Jews as Untermenschen, or subhumans, they didn't mean it metaphorically, says Smith. "They didn't mean they were like subhumans. They meant they were literally subhuman."
...
A rough answer isn't hard to come by. Thinking sets the agenda for action, and thinking of humans as less than human paves the way for atrocity.

Topic: Health and Religion - page 4. (Read 210900 times)