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Author | Topic: Do Animals Believe In Supernatural Beings? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Fair point.
Although I haven't found anything aside from the links in the OP (originally posted by RAZD here Message 609) that relates to ape death rituals. certainly nothing comparable to elephants. Everytime I search I get the name "Jane Goodall" and a link to an article about "Rain Dances" that doesn't work.
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Phage writes: Who said anything about supernatural? I thought we agreed we weren't talking about that. What we have agreed is to not split hairs about that. And to instead look for signs of animal behaviour that are comparable to human behaviour in the context of religious or supernatural beliefs in the widest sense.
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Jon writes: If this doesn't make me supernatural to my cat, what would? Do you think the capacity to question the causes of things and invent answers requires a degree of intelligence? A degree of inventive intelligence which cats (to my knowledge) have not demonstrated. Which humans indisputably have demonstrated (e.g. Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter) and which apes, elephants and other relatively intelligent creatures may or may not have displayed? The latter cases being the main focus of this thread.
Jon writes: She doesn't have to respect me to believe that I am supernatural. And you don't have to respect her - But if you don't respect her in terms of feeding and suchlike expect that shit on your pillow. Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Jon writes: Straggler writes: And to instead look for signs of animal behaviour that are comparable to human behaviour in the context of religious or supernatural beliefs in the widest sense. If this is how you plan to evidence supernatural beliefs in animals, then you will fail at the task for the simple reason that animals are not humans. A) But humans are animals. B) What alternative method do you suggest?
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Jon writes: I cannot propose a method for investigating something until you tell me what you want it to investigate. I want to investigate animal behaviour that is equivalent to, or comparable to, human behaviour that is known to be religious or spiritual. If you want to go down the "define supernatural" route please do it elsewhere.
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Jon writes: Straggler writes: I want to investigate animal behaviour that is equivalent to, or comparable to, human behaviour that is known to be religious or spiritual. What does that have to do with the thread title? Everything. Obviously. Now please go away.
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Phage writes: Heck if I know, it sounds like he is trying to investigate if animals believe in something he is unwilling to discuss. Y'know those entities of the sort that lot's of people believe exist but for which there is no objective evidence? The ones that we endlessly talk about here at EvC? The ones that this entire forum was setup largely to discuss? The type of entities that includes such things as gods, deities, ghosts, zombies, vampires, fairies, pixies, spirits, demons etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. Those things in which someone who could be accurately described as a "supernaturalist" might believe. Those are the sort of entities we are discussing. Hopefully this makes things clear enough for you to contribute to this thread without further clarification on this issue. But if you want to discuss the detailed meaning of the term "supernatural" further I suggest you do it here What is Supernatural? or one of the other numerous threads that explicitly discusses that issue specifically.
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Why don't you an Jon get together and come up with a definition of "supernatural" that you both agree upon and then let me know?
Phage writes: I don't want to debate over it, I want you to just spit it out! TELL ME! And for goodness sake stick to it, because so far you have been providing more exceptions than rules. If you have any examples of animals exhibiting behaviour that could suggest belief in supernatural beings using whatever definition of "supernatural" you think is reasonable then I would love to hear them. If you are going to further persist in demanding that I provide you with complete definitions of words that people spend years debating the meaning of here then - Don't bother. If you are going to supply a stupid exmaple to make some sort of point about the lack of an utterly watertight definition - Don't bother. But if you actually have something to say about animals beliefs relevant to this thread then please for the love of god let's just hear it!!!!
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Examining animal behaviour and comparing it to the behaviour of humans is the other possible method.
Is it thought that Neanderthals believed in supernatural beings? On what basis have any such (albeit speculative) conclusions been based?
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Jon writes: Who wants to go 500 posts debating something back and forth to find out what they meant by something wasn't what someone else meant by something and so every contribution they've made has been, essentially, off-topic? Any definition of "supernatural" from any mainstream dictionary source will suffice. Do you have any actual examples of animals displaying such behaviour or are you just here to talk about definitions as per your usual pointless presence?
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Jon writes: The existence of those threads should make painfully obvious the need for you to lay out what you mean when you use the term 'supernatural' to avoid the mismatch of uses that would otherwise result from everyone coming to the debate with their own meaning in mind. given the more speculative natire of this thread - Any definition of "supernatural" from any mainstream dictionary source will suffice. Are you happy now?
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
When anthropologists discover remnants of ancient cultures and conclude that those cultures held supernatural beliefs how do they do this?
We cannot know what they thought either can we?
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Jon do you know how the solid state physics on which your computer functions works? Are those who create such things "mysterious miracle workers"?
Jon writes: There are so many things that I do that my cat simply could not understand. I suspect that there so many things that solid state physicists do that you could not understand. What is your point exactly?
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Given the conjectural nature of this thread feel free to apply any common definition of "supernatural" you can find in any reputable dictionary, encyclopedia or similar source.
If you cannot find any examples that meet even that widest of criteria then I have to ask why you bothered to contribute to this thread at all? Aside from taking the opportunity to be complete pedantic arse about definitions that is.
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
A highly speculative example:
Link writes: The most recent research confirms that chimpanzees possess a sense of self, a theory of mind, strong memory, empathy, politics, and culture. One further question to ask is whether our fellow apes also possess religion. Jane Goodall has posed this question. She observed long ago that, during the rainy season, male chimpanzees display before the storm’s thunder, lightning, wind, and rain by beating their chests, pulling down branches, and shaking the limbs and trunks of trees while hooting and screaming. Such displays usually mean to convey strength to rivals. Goodall speculates that this rain dance behavior might be an attempt to get the storm to stop. Chimpanzees in different communities exhibit behaviors that are unique to their time and place, for example, fishing for termites with sticks or using stones to break branches. Ethological observations of such cultural behavior have been corroborated by laboratory experiments. The rain dance behavior has since been observed in other, though not all, wild chimpanzee groups, and so is properly considered cultural. Might it also be religious? Link Potential signs of religiosity in apes? Or wild speculation on the part of humans?
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