That’s because he left ME in charge.
Soo Sorry there begbert2. I hadn’t realised that people here have such a short attintion span.
Let me quote myself … and point out my foundation is not based on scriptures. It is however in agreement with scripture.
What I stated was → "…show me an animal that has built anything with two or more moving parts… a static item like a birds nest… shur, but to design and build objects with moving parts, for futuristic goals… only man does that. Only man does that becase… man is not an animal.
Man kind has the ability to think in the abstract. Man can see trends and think in terms of futuristic outcomes. We plan a lot of our choices today on what we expect the future to be."
Now is that too difficult to understand?
What rational or proof do you have to refute this obvious distiction between mankind and animals?
Just to further the point.
What animal has a written language. Mankind has many…
What animal has artistic expresion? Paintings, carvings, sculptures or musical compositions?
What animal has math? Can they add 2+3 or divide 15 by 3?
What animal has a god? Built a figure of it, worshipped it, sang songs to it, and left a record of the religious practices… such as the Myans or numerous other anchient civilizasions, hmmm?
What animal has designed and built a wheel, lever or other basic mechanical device, and if they did something simple, how does that compare to building a rocket and flying to the moon? Or construction of a thermonuclear intercontanental balistic missile?
Mankind does things no animal can. Yet inspite of these obvious differences, you think you are just a dumb animal… well perhapps you are right. You win!
I think what we’re really having here is a debate over how one defines “animal”. One could just as easily (in your apparent worldview) say we’re animals with souls as trying to claim a totally distinct category for us.
As for anything else–chimps can utilize simple mechanical devices (by which I mean, they understand the concepts of levers and pulleys when faced with needing to use them to obtain food) and group up into societies and tribes–and go to war. It’s also been proven (by anthropologists attempting to mimic chimps) that things like termite-fishing sticks are surprisingly difficult to construct and use without a lot of practice and skill–it’s a more sophisticated tool than it looks like.
Also, the purpose of saying “we are animals” is often an acknowledgement of the fact the biological system that carries us around is prone to doing its own thing. Do you accept the idea that brain biochemistry changes can cause changes in mental states, moods, etc? If so, then you’re getting hung up on the terminology but not really disagreeing with the important reason of why he characterizes us as “animals”.
You might want to dial down the insulting tone, ‘Pastor’, if you expect me to bother listening to your line.
As for your definition(s) of “animal” - How would we know half of these things? What is “artistic”, and how would you know what an animal thinks is or not? Perhaps a honeycomb is artistic. Perhaps a spiderweb is. Perhaps a cow finds their cowpats beautiful, for all we know (I doubt it, but I can’t prove otherwise).
How would you know if an animal can do math? Honeycombs are awfully geometric…
How would you know if an animal believes in a god? Ask them? Not all religion requires the creation of artifacts. Perhaps they think their instincts are god. (Perhaps you do the same.)
And speaking of artifacts - what kind of an artifacts to you expect a porpise to craft, using its fingerless flippers? Most animals are physically limited with their ability to manipulate things at the fine level. Your average paraplegic isn’t much of a toolmaker either; is he subhuman? And what tools they do make are well-suited to their purposes, including in some cases hinged doors (trapdoor spiders, I believe).
I also like how you specifically specified written language - probably since you know that various animals have spoken language and meaningful non-verbal communication (sometimes at the level of language, as with bees).
Also I will point out that lots of things animals do relate to futuristic goals. Those nests you mention, for example. Spider webs. Beaver dams too. (No moving parts, yeah yeah. Lets see you make one with just your teeth.)
Suffice to say, it’s pretty clear to me that rather than starting with the facts and working toward your conclusion, you started with your conclusion and then tried to cherry-pick things that you thought would help support it. Unimpressive.
I’m gonna define “animal” as anything that doesn’t have a positionable tail. Congratulations, you’re not an animal - but you have company.
There is a significant flaw in the OP that has yet to be addressed.
Where in the English-speaking world is a promiscuous man called a pimp? I’ve heard of players, playboys, lotharios, good-time Charlies, rakes, (hound) dogs, goats, horny toads, and just plain old guys who have a lot of sex. Pimps, so far as I know, are men who derive their income (at least in part) from the labor of prostitutes, or are men who imitate the sort of behavior or dress commonly thought of as being typical of ‘real’ pimps.
Is the use of pimp, in the sense given in the OP, current anywhere?
Exactly. You think God exists, but there is no evidence to support that hypothesis. Your beliefs have no effect on reality.
An excellent critique of Christianity. Thank you!
Yes, fairly closely in fact! Although hamsters are desert animals and lemmings live in the arctic. The Hamster King approves of lemmings!
What animal has a written language.
-Me.
What animal has artistic expresion? Paintings, carvings, sculptures or musical compositions?
-Me
What animal has math? Can they add 2+3 or divide 15 by 3?
-I can.
What animal has a god? Built a figure of it, worshipped it, sang songs to it, and left a record of the religious practices… such as the Myans or numerous other anchient civilizasions, hmmm?
-You, presumably.
What animal has designed and built a wheel, lever or other basic mechanical device, and if they did something simple, how does that compare to building a rocket and flying to the moon? Me, and given sufficient time I could go moon or build an ICBM Or construction of a thermonuclear intercontanental balistic missile?
-Me, and given sufficient time I could go to the moon or build an ICBM.
Mankind does things no animal can.
-Everything mankind does can be done by an animal.
Presuming immortallity, maybe?
Even then, doing those things all by yourself would be pretty impressive. In my animalistic opinion.
Well it depends. If I have to mine and smelt the metal that might add a couple of months. And do I have to come back? 
We’ve got company, actually. I don’t remember which particular “smart” animals were studied (apes, corvids, parrots, elephants, dolphins- take your pick), but some animals have been shown to have rudimentaty mathematical skills. This gets scientists very excited, and they write long articles about how “Charlie Chimp can tell that five bananas are less than six!!!”
So even after all the hype, you’re making my point…
When you consider the difference between mankind and animal, you see animals do the same thing generation after generation because they are biologicly hardwired to do it.
Birds build nests, bee’s build a hive. Beez don’t learn from birds nor do birds learn from bee’s. They just do what thier biology directs. And as impressive as some antho-what-ever-you-call-him wants to believe that is… it pales horrificaly in the face of human achievement.
Why? This is the crux of the entire thing. Why are humans so much more advanced… because they have intelligence… they have abstract thinking… they have a creative spark… and they have reason. We have emotions too but I’m not sure that helps make this point.
So when you look at the historic cultures, euopean, american, egyption, tropical or arctik… they all have some things in common…
People figured out that sex causes children and rearing children requires both parents to finish the job… ergo marriage in one form or another has been practiced in culture after culture after culture, and not just the ones that were predominatly influence by christian morality.
If you think like an animal… constantly in the ‘now’ and can not seam to comprehend the abstract ideas of past, or future, then sex of the moment is no big deal. But mankind is not limited to ‘now’ thinking. Men from ages ago thru the present recognise that the momentary pleasures of sex do not out-weigh the long-term consequinces. It’s not just about you. Your choices affect everyone around you too!
And that is the truth of the matter.
(Please pardon any spelling errors, I was taught spelling in California Public Schools) <- everything else I learned elsewhere.
There is no such thing as “truth” when we talk about what words mean. Words are tools that we use to grapple with reality, and we can define them in whatever way is the most useful for the task at hand.
“Animal” is typically used as a general term that encompasses a large range of different entities that all share some basic characteristics: Alive, multicellular, mobile. It’s a useful way to distinguish things like squids and giraffes from things like pond scum and palm trees. Or rocks and cheese doodles. It’s a good tool for helping us organize the universe into understandable chunks.
Now … you can certainly add a bunch of additional qualifiers to the definition of “animal” in order to carve out a special exemption for human beings. But you have to ask yourself … what’s the point? How does that make the word a more useful tool for understanding the universe? All it does it muddy the waters.
It would make as much sense to say “Animals are alive, multicellar and mobile … and they don’t have trunks!” We can certainly make a special exemption to keep elephants out of our definition of “animal”, but is that in any way useful? All it does is make the definition more complicated and arbitrary.
Usually when people go to a lot of trouble to carve out a special exemption for humans like this it’s because they don’t believe in evolution. Is that the case with you, Pastor Torch?
It’s ironic that you chose this of all things as your example of superior human emotion/spark/whichever. Animals most certainly have a wide variety of child-rearing strategies between the different species, including among them lifelong pair bonding, and harems as well (to model the other kind of marriage prevalent among human cultures).
So even after all the hype, you’re making our point.
0ff topic - Hey Pastor if you right click your mouse on the misspelled word a box should pop up with a choice of correct spellings/other words.