From: RFaussette@aol.com
Date: Sun Dec 22 2002 - 09:47:04 EST
In a message dated 12/21/02 1:10:09 PM Eastern Standard Time,
rjschn39@bellsouth.net writes:
> I'm not so certain that there is "a clean qualitative break between animals
> and humans. One chooses freely and the other doesn't." I can think of many
> instances when my dog Joshua has chosen freely. And I recall a
> presentation many years ago by a colleague of mine in Psychology relating a
> paper
>
Here, you are failing to use Biblical eyes to assess Bibilical text. The
shepherds from which we get our religion were breeders of animals. They knew
nothing about the genetics of selection but they domesticated herding animals
and were in exactly the right occupation to observe instinctive behavior and
in fact use it to their advantage. They could easily see that there was a
marked difference between the behavior of their domesticated animals and
themselves. You, in your reflective consciousness can see the gradient over
many generations of selection. These pastoralists, in their description in
Genesis only describe the products of selection as they observed the
differences between humans and domesticated animals. They did not see the
gradient you see. That is why the eovlution of human consciousness is
collapsed into the lives of two individuals. They could see the differences
but they did not know the processes.
rich
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