OK..

Kingdaddy you make me wonder.

You call Africans "animals" because of what? Because they are better prepared to face strong sunshine? Or because tribal obligations are still strong in many regions? Huh?

If thats the case I may ask if only 2000 years ago all humans were "animals"? And if you have strong solidarity to your own family which is in fact nothing else than a small tribe, are you in danger of becoming an animal as well?

Questions over questions....

__________________
When the Nazis came for the communists I remained silent, I was no communist.
When the Nazis came for the Unionists I remained silent, I was no Unionist.
When the Nazis came for the Social Democrats I remained silent, I was no Social Democrat.
When the Nazis came for the Jews I remained silent, I was no Jew.
When the Nazis came for me, there was no one left who could protest.

If you and others can read without being so emotional and angry you might have seen that I used key words to clarify my position, I said things like "in general" and "majority" to show that I am talking about Africa as a whole and am talking about the common problems that pelage this entire land.

They are in general Animals because the majority of the vast population lives and acts like animals and this is different then many other cultures from the beginning of recorded history. Many tribes observe or show no moral values of other life, they live in huts made of dung, but dress in colorful expensive clothing and jewelry, they drink blood and have many barbaric customs, they trade people like possessions, they mutilate their bodies and have irrational superstitious beliefs that they act violently upon. They show no interest in having a governing body or leader that will help them develop a working relationship with their surroundings, they show no ability to manage the land and population. They exhibit in vast numbers no control over their selfish urges and do not seem to be able to see cause and affect of these actions that have clearly caused much death and strife. This is not the only place or group on earth that has shown this so don’t think I’m singling them out as being unique. Many individuals show this in society and are separated for these acts, but is seems to me that the majority of the native inhabitants in Africa show this as a group. This is just a brief summery of much observation and reading of tribal lifestyles in Africa, I do not have the time to show proof for everything, so if your going to attack, take one thing at a time.

All of these things are animalistic traits that much of the earths population has learned to control and many have never dipped this close to the animal like activity, that is unless you believe in the preposterous improvable idea of origin of species coming from a single common animal, in that case I cant help you to understand my POV. What sets humans apart from animals is Choice and awareness of life, then, the next step is how you learn from those choices. I am not saying that Africans are Animals, I’m saying the majority act like it mainly because of the apparent inability to change and learn.

Well, to be honest, the way I see it, that Africans are not acting like animals, they are aninmals.

Its because humans are nothing else than animals. So in fact, Europeans Americans Asians etc all humans are nothing else than animals, clever ones but still. Humanity is just an artificial categorisation we are neither the top of evolution nor will we be the the most successfull animal or being that evolution has and will come up with.

Both, self awareness and choice are things you can also find at other animals than humans. Even using tools is nothing that is completely limited to humans.

And concerning Africans in special. You point out that many individuals and tribes tend to be very lets say "egoistic" and could not care less about others, tend to be lazy etc... in case thats true, (I dont really know Africans that well so I will hav no chance to prove your suppositions) than a hell lot of white people I have allready seen in my life, must be in fact Africans

WRT making houses out of dung is in how far animalistic? Its I would say smart under the climatical circumstances and given the other factors. Thats not a thing of being animalistic but of not being industrialized, which I would like to remember is something we were not too just 200 years ago. And also where I live there are houses made out of loam, the alternative in pre industrialized regions to dung.

All in all, I just can see in the best case some unfortunate habits that are common in Africa, such a thing has to do with education and social norms, not with being animal like or not.

__________________
When the Nazis came for the communists I remained silent, I was no communist.
When the Nazis came for the Unionists I remained silent, I was no Unionist.
When the Nazis came for the Social Democrats I remained silent, I was no Social Democrat.
When the Nazis came for the Jews I remained silent, I was no Jew.
When the Nazis came for me, there was no one left who could protest.

Then they are subject to the cruel laws of nature and the famine and pestilences and high death rate is a natural occurrence or cycle and our intervention is futile and ignorant as I stated.


As I stated, I don’t believe this to be true, nor have I seen any evidence to support the idea that we are merely animals; if we are then morality is a farce and survival of the fittest should not be repressed.

I would gladly entertain any circumstantial evidence that supports this, as of now I see absolutely none. From my observation I see animals acting purely on instinct and none seem to show signs of knowing they exist nor worry about the future, or show any signs of worry outside of survival instinct that we all have.

I’m talking about societies in general, your talking about individuals or smaller groups in society.


My point was to show priorities, again another sign of how we humans differ from animals. What animals show this illogical trait of putting monitory or aesthetic value above survival? This is where unique human stupidity and vanity comes to play in our lives, much different then other animals don’t you think?

Learning from your mistakes is a built in survival trait, if you don’t learn then you are extinct, and thus by the laws of nature you deserve it, as I stated before.

Social darwinism is a concept that tries to describe nature. It has no ethics, and ethics should be an important thing for every being that has brought self awareness and social interaction up to such a high level as humans have. Of course in this way humans are special, but those skills also bring with them responsability. Well lets use the artificial classification of human and animals. Those who obey social darwinism are in fact acting like animals. Those who do not and try to base their decissions on a more complex thing than just surviving, something like moral, ethics etc is on a higher level, something unprecedent in the world of the animals.

And in fact thats what makes us perhaps the superior animal in the world. If you apply social darwinism you have to accept that humans are in fact inferior to other races like some insects who happen to be more successfull in conquering the earth on the basis of collective intelligence as much as they need to succeed.

The survival instinct is by far not the sole thing one can oberve btw in the world of animals. For example elephants who mourn about ceased partners. What sense does mourning make to survive? Or shimpansees are known to commit crimes that are not to their advantage nor disadvantage, as they are known in some cases to produce primitive tools to open eg nuts. etc

__________________
When the Nazis came for the communists I remained silent, I was no communist.
When the Nazis came for the Unionists I remained silent, I was no Unionist.
When the Nazis came for the Social Democrats I remained silent, I was no Social Democrat.
When the Nazis came for the Jews I remained silent, I was no Jew.
When the Nazis came for me, there was no one left who could protest.

IMO, simply poor observations by some humans, I have seen these so called incidents that claim crime and mourning and simply don’t see it that way, nor do many others. One claim by some respected observer hardly makes a case for the truth in my eyes, especially since many don’t know the Truth, so it is impossible for them to recognize it.


However, we should be in agreement that the laws of lower animal nature will simply dominate and punish those who submit to it as their God, again, Africa is right where the majority of people led it to be. No need for sorrow for the things you or I cannot control, compassion for the suffering is a different matter however, and so is Love, another strictly human capability.

Read without emotion. Nah, I don't do that sort of thing, sorry. Without emotion, we are robots. I am human.
It's not that I endeavor to put everyone in a box with a label, it's that I am trying to figure out what it's all about. Previously to this, I read some of your posts and thought, wow, a real Christian with real Christian thinking and goodness. But this thread has ruined that impression I had of you. Sorry about that. I didn't do it, you did. I will continue my journey and quest for truth without looking to your knowledge for guidance. It's cool. Carry on.

I met some South African girls once. White girls. They thought black people were animals. They thought whites shouldn't breed with blacks because it would be like elephants trying to breed with rhinos. I told them I was disgusted by that bigotry.

I dont think that love is something strictly human, nor suffering. How can you say that a higher animal that cares for its clan or its children is not caring for them or even loving them? I mean its proven that eg Shimpansees have the ability of self awareness.

Of course one can interpret all those studies that have been made in the way that it fits again in once world view as it is incredibly hard to find the real motivations behind some acts, or to exclude other causes etc. Its allready impossible to say why humans are really doing the things they do, how can we believe we really know why animals are doing what they do. After all we just can try to understand.


But apart from that. I ask you, do you think that Africans are "animal-like" because of the way they act, or because of the genes?

__________________
When the Nazis came for the communists I remained silent, I was no communist.
When the Nazis came for the Unionists I remained silent, I was no Unionist.
When the Nazis came for the Social Democrats I remained silent, I was no Social Democrat.
When the Nazis came for the Jews I remained silent, I was no Jew.
When the Nazis came for me, there was no one left who could protest.

Thats really disgusting. Really.

__________________
When the Nazis came for the communists I remained silent, I was no communist.
When the Nazis came for the Unionists I remained silent, I was no Unionist.
When the Nazis came for the Social Democrats I remained silent, I was no Social Democrat.
When the Nazis came for the Jews I remained silent, I was no Jew.
When the Nazis came for me, there was no one left who could protest.

The most ignorant and least developed mind is the mind that thinks his race is somehow superior to another race in the human race. Kingdaddy, maybe your God can lead you to enlightenment on this subject. You have a lot to learn.

@Kingdaddy,

The "nation of Africa"?

Jaysus!

I'm stunned, I mean totally gobsmacked at your ignorance... so much so that I am embarrassed for you.

Go study a map of the continent then read up on Thomas Malthus. Don't come back here with a list but take a second and see how many different country names you can come up with without Googling.

There is a huge fucking continent with a giant and growing desert in the middle.

@WEB,
I'm surprised at your suggestion.
1. In the regions with the most problems, these folks are too disparate idealogically within close proximity.
2. Elitist rule has had REALLY, REALLY, horrendous results in these areas. The only elitists in these countries got there nefariously. Who would you suggest?

3. like BEGLIUM!???? You suggest they follow Belgium?! My apologies to my belgian friends on the board but this is a very politically incorrect association. It would be laughable if it weren't so serious. I'm not all bent on political correctness usually but holy shit!

And on that note, I would have to also agree with you in a weird kinda way. Some of these countries literally beg for someone to lead them - like Great Britian specifically. I have heard folks from Liberia and the Gambia come right out and say that only white men can rule. I don't believe it is true. I believe that THEY believe it.

__________________
...the government...is caving in...with their specious arguments couched in the...language of civil rights law, and that the churches ... likewise crumbling to...rhetoric which is nothing but heretical sophistry -- ~F Phelps
Platitudes like the one you offer are no different - and no less incorrect - than the jackass part-time Christian who says, "I'm going to heaven because I'm nice to people." It so misses the point.~Impugn

Where does one start?

1. We're all Africans. Africa is the cradle of mankind.

2. It seems to have escaped you that Egypt is in Africa. Those "African animals" built the freaking pyramids, at a time our white ancestors were dabbling in their excrements in the woods of present day Europe.

3. Carthage is in Africa:
http://www.tourismtunisia.com/togo/c.../carthage.html

3. But I suppose you're specifically referring to black Africans, which incidentally makes you a racist. Now, here are some of the precolonial African cultures:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Aksum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songhai_Empire (including Timbuktu, a scholarly and cultural capital of the world in precolonial times)
http://www.timbuktufoundation.org/scholars.html
BTW, an example of a "mud house" built in 1327 AD:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:A...C_a_Kasbah.JPG
And there are hundreds more of these cultures.

4. Africa got fucked up due to two reasons: slave trade and colonialism. Guess who's responsible for that.
One example : Belgian King Leopold II :
http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/leopold.html
Read up on this dude. He's exemplary for how Africa was treated in the 19th century.

5. Africa remained fucked after the large independency wave of the 1960's through the support of dictators by European, Soviet and American interests (Mobutu, Idi Amin, ....)

6. Today it's the Western corporations that keep screwing up Africa. The best examples are De Beers in south Africa and Namibia and Shell in Nigeria
http://www.essentialaction.org/shell/issues.html

7. So-called 'free trade' enforced by the WTO, combined with the vile practices of companies like Unilever, suck all potential and surpluses away from Africa into greedy corporate pockets.

8. The inhuman conditions re the repayments of "loans" (actually hidden subsidies to Western corporations and payoffs for the aforementioned dictators) put on the African nations by the World Bank are directly responsible for famines, mass starvation, and disease.

9. The detrimental role of the Vatican in the struggle against AIDS (refusal to allow contraceptives and sexual education) is directly reponsible for millions of deaths and can be quite adequatly called The Catholic Genocide of Africans.

10. Thousands of books could be and were/are written on this subject. Enlighten thyself.

__________________
"Say not, 'When I have free time I shall study'; for you may perhaps never have any free time"
Hillel the Elder

I'm no expert on Africa, however I don't see what your disagreement is with me. I'm calling for a political system that could provide quotas for those different groups of people and perhaps more local autonomy. I think that works better than the current system, although admittedly my impression of Africa's current system is dictatorship calling itself democracy.

But I don't think those elites were elected. Given that there would be several elected elites in a congress, that would be different than one unelected despot.

Yeah, laughable to someone who can only say that my idea sucks but cannot explain why. That is what is truly laughable.