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Re: [Re: feeling cranky]

Alfred B Johnson <hoopyfrood at juno_com> wrote:

>>Forget the monkeys.  

I can't (keep reading).

>>If you don't believe that the human soul has nothing good to offer, how,
I have to ask, did you end up on the Over the Rhine list.  B/c if OtR
doesn't make beauty, then what's the point?

ahhh . . . good point

>>Why do we apply the category of evil only to humans.  If a wolf steals a
baby out of a crib and eats its brain, why is that something other than
evil?

Not everyone does.  Chimps will war with other chimps to gain territroy or
just for the fun of it -- sounds pretty evil to me.  Bottlenose dolphins also
attack other mammals just for "fun" and don't always eat them.  Seems evil to
me.  

>>A monkey will not paint if the monkey is not given the notion by humans. 

Yikes, Fred!  Be careful with this one!  Are you an anthropologist?  Very
learned people spend their entire lives trying to disprove or prove what you
so confidently state.  If you have a study on this, I'd love to read it
because it is something that I have always been curious about.  I'm not
flaming you, I'm just genuinely curious.  We have many missionaries and
religious scholars on this list who defend their opinions well.  As an
anthropology scholar, I am just giving some facts.


>>I really wanted to get at the topic of creativity and creative acts in
humans, and the WHY of that, since that seems pretty appropriate to the
list. 

Alright, let's do it.  I ask you, though, how do we know where the creativity
starts?  The thing is, while many animals are not artistically expressive,
they are creative in other ways -- especially primates.  I think chimps using
tools and lions using particular plans to snag gazelle is pretty creative.

Human artistic expression is wonderful.  I don't deny that and I don't deny
that I would like to think that life goes beyond this earth.  However, I see
beauty in the animals and thier similiarites to humans.  I see beauty in human
emotions and creativity and everything that humans are involved with -- but I
also see it all as circular.  Nothing is beautiful without the earth and life
and, as was stated, life is sacred.

>>Today, I
want to know what people believe, not what they feel they can be glibly
dismissive about.

Well, you asked and I rambled.

>>I apologize.

You've done that twice, and I think that is one of the things that we, as
humans, have over other creatures -- the ability to regret our actions
(whether the regret is necessary or not) and the ability to judge when to take
some action based on the regret -- like apologizing.





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