Can I just say, and it's my blog so I can, that I am not always trying to start a row. When I quoted that line from the West Wing it wasn't a political statement about the New Labour Government (I think they have done reasonably well) but a well crafted line from a great dialogue writer - Aaron Sorkin and his team are fantastic.
I like to post something most days and as I'm working quite hard on a couple of deadlines and also trying to write a detailed 'What's scientific about my faith?' essay.
Don't take me too seriously. Read for the twinkle. You haven't seen it for a bit. Or ever.
By the way I don't mind the discussions and comments; I'm just amazed how trivial a matter seems to have started a serious one.
2 comments:
I think you need to create a forum. The comments are threatening to overspill!
By the way, reading over your original post, you say animals mostly act selfishly.
Ther are those that don't. I was reading about it yesterday. For example, the spider who lets her babies consume her body (perhaps a little bit of Jesus-style sacrifice - eating the body of Christ and all that). Dogs and wolves bring food back for other dogs who were not part of the hunt. There's some animal that makes a noise to warn of a nearing predator, which of course is likely to attract the predator to itself. Dolphins swim underneath the sick or injured to carry them and push them to the surface to breathe.
"other species can manage family or group loyalty but otherwise act selfishly"
I don't see how that differs all that much from humans. Our strongest loyalty is to our family. Then friends. Then, possibly, to our nation.
"many are charitable, hospitable, kind and thoughtful"
Really, these are just more sophisticated versions of what certain animals do, as you would expect from such an advanced species as ourselves.
This is probably at least partly my fault. I kind of knew I was taking it a bit seriously on my first comment on that posting. I guess I was using the comment to put forward some of my thoughts rather than criticise your posting - which may well not have been entirely fair (perhaps I should have made a posting on my own blog for this purpose). And changed the mood of the subsequent comments. So sorry if I made your posting look like a daft serious comment rather than the (evidently intended) playful, toungue-in-cheek one that is was. It was not my intention to make your comment look more serious than it was.
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