Author Topic: Humanity: Good News, Bad News  (Read 112471 times)

ZaichikArky

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Re: Humanity: Good News, Bad News
« Reply #435 on: August 03, 2009, 08:49:40 pm »
Good News: Neanderthals may not have been subject to (as much) sexism in their societies as our ancestors may have been.

Bad News: ...and contrary to what that article suggests about evolutionary advantages to a division of labor among the sexes, the Neanderthals may have survived just fine if our ancestors didn't kill them with projectile weapons.

I missed this somehow.  This has got to be one of the most interesting articles I have read from this thread. I love Neanderthals. I wrote a research paper about them in undergrad... I come from a background of reading the Clan of the Cavebear books, and it's really interesting how this new research seems to make most of the stigma from the book null and void. People are always coming out with new theories as to why the Neanderthals died out, and this adds to the smogasboard of theories. Can't just be one thing that wiped them out, must have been a number of unlucky criteria, and that could very well be one  criterion.

As for the comet crashing into Jupiter, I'm an astronomy nut, so does anyone remember the Shoemaker-Levy comet? That one was pretty awesome. Just shows you how one small comet can effect the planetary conditions of a large planet so significantly...

FaustWolf

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Re: Humanity: Good News, Bad News
« Reply #436 on: August 04, 2009, 05:34:57 pm »
Yeah, human evolution in general is a fantastically interesting subject. Wikipedia has days' and days' worth of material on the subject. It's amazing just how complex the transition from animal to human was. After seeing a Discovery Channel special on Neanderthals back in the day, and furthermore reconstructions like this, I'm beginning to think pop culture has been dehumanizing veritable people to a horrible degree. It'd be truly horrific to think that physical differences between the Neanderthals and the Cro-Magnons led to genocidal episodes.

In good news, Bill Clinton just totally redeemed himself after that whole Monica Lewinsky thing.

Truthordeal

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Re: Humanity: Good News, Bad News
« Reply #437 on: August 04, 2009, 07:25:08 pm »
In good news, Bill Clinton just totally redeemed himself after that whole Monica Lewinsky thing.

Way to go Willy!

ZaichikArky

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Re: Humanity: Good News, Bad News
« Reply #438 on: August 04, 2009, 07:28:58 pm »
Yeah, I just read the news. The ladies are from the Bay Area, so especially my news stations have been covering the story like mad. I'm happy that Mr Clinton went in and negotiated for their release. There had been a lot of talk about Al Gore going down there... considering it's kind of HIS news station, so I wonder why they decided on Clinton instead. Anyway, I am just happy that the two will be back with their families soon and away from that nightmare. Very lucky!

Truthordeal

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Re: Humanity: Good News, Bad News
« Reply #439 on: August 04, 2009, 07:32:21 pm »
Bad News: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg2ZPNsjKO0

A "snuggy" for pets....yeah.

ZaichikArky

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Re: Humanity: Good News, Bad News
« Reply #440 on: August 04, 2009, 07:43:18 pm »
^ SOOOOOO CUTE!! <3 <3. I wouldn't get my dog one of those, but some dogs naturally are colder than others...

Did you guys see College Humor's WTF blanket? XD. They need to make a new one of those for this commercial now! lol, I'll find the reference...

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1897842

Shee

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Re: Humanity: Good News, Bad News
« Reply #441 on: August 05, 2009, 12:42:45 am »
The snuggies seriously look like some cult shit...

Truthordeal

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Re: Humanity: Good News, Bad News
« Reply #442 on: August 05, 2009, 12:54:19 am »
Ok, maybe the snuggy for the pets was a decent idea as opposed to the sweaters. But the original was a dumbass idea if I've ever heard one.

Lord J Esq

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Re: Humanity: Good News, Bad News
« Reply #443 on: August 05, 2009, 05:35:22 pm »
Faust, you beat me to it on the Clinton story. Once again Bill Clinton has saved the day; this isn't the first time he's done it, either. It's really gratifying to see people take their post-presidential lives so seriously; you know we're never going to get that out of Dubya. (And who would want him, anyway? Imagine him trying to negotiate the release of prisoners from North Korea.)

ZaichiArky, I am an astronomy nut to the core and I not only remember that event; I even studied it in college. This is an extremely exciting time to be an astronomer: New planets are being discovered left and right...when I took that course in college, there were less than ten planets that had ever been discovered outside our solar system. And that's a conservative guess...it might have been as few as one or two.

ZeaLitY

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Re: Humanity: Good News, Bad News
« Reply #444 on: August 06, 2009, 12:42:02 am »
Good News

Out campaign continues at full speed:

http://www.examiner.com/x-7312-Miami-Interfaith-Spirituality-Examiner~y2009m8d4-Billboard-reaches-out-to-atheists-in-South-Florida

Bad News

Live in Mississippi? The taxes you paid went to a religion-backed abstinence camp:

http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/royals_god_and_abstinence_061709/

"Who wants to have some fun violating separation of church and state and promoting a failed, anti-human social policy?! Free prayer breakfast!"

Truthordeal

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Re: Humanity: Good News, Bad News
« Reply #445 on: August 06, 2009, 12:44:50 am »
How is promoting abstinence for teenagers anti-human?

ZeaLitY

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Re: Humanity: Good News, Bad News
« Reply #446 on: August 06, 2009, 12:50:28 am »
Sexuality is a basic part of humanity, and they're being told to repress it and feel guilty over its expression (it's tied in to sin, after all). Several things about religion are anti-human; the prevailing attitude in the Dark Ages was that the human body was inherently sinful, and we've still got concepts like original sin and "fallen" man popular even today. Hell, at one point in the history of Ireland, having sex consisted of man and woman, clothed, doing it only to conceive in a dark room, both full of shame.

Money should instead go to responsible sexuality, such as the use of contraceptives, family planning, and relationship education.

Truthordeal

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Re: Humanity: Good News, Bad News
« Reply #447 on: August 06, 2009, 01:54:25 am »
Sexuality is a basic part of humanity, and they're being told to repress it and feel guilty over its expression (it's tied in to sin, after all). Several things about religion are anti-human; the prevailing attitude in the Dark Ages was that the human body was inherently sinful, and we've still got concepts like original sin and "fallen" man popular even today. Hell, at one point in the history of Ireland, having sex consisted of man and woman, clothed, doing it only to conceive in a dark room, both full of shame.

Money should instead go to responsible sexuality, such as the use of contraceptives, family planning, and relationship education.

Agreed for the most part.

But should we really be encouraging kids to have sex? Maybe its just me being a prude, but there seems like there's something wrong with that notion.

Lord J Esq

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Re: Humanity: Good News, Bad News
« Reply #448 on: August 06, 2009, 02:28:47 am »
Very few people would argue for encouraging adolescents to actually have sex, although there is an argument for it. Rather, the major aim is to teach kids about safe sexual practices, so that when most of them inevitably do make the decision to have sex, they won't do so in total ignorance. What ZeaLitY was saying is that "sex is shameful" is a terrible reason to discourage people from sex, because it's not inherently shameful at all.

Thought

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Re: Humanity: Good News, Bad News
« Reply #449 on: August 06, 2009, 12:44:00 pm »
Sexuality is a basic part of humanity, and they're being told to repress it and feel guilty over its expression (it's tied in to sin, after all). Several things about religion are anti-human; the prevailing attitude in the Dark Ages was that the human body was inherently sinful, and we've still got concepts like original sin and "fallen" man popular even today. Hell, at one point in the history of Ireland, having sex consisted of man and woman, clothed, doing it only to conceive in a dark room, both full of shame.

Money should instead go to responsible sexuality, such as the use of contraceptives, family planning, and relationship education.

First, "Dark Ages" is a defunk term. You might as well call the United States "The Colonies" while you are at it.

Second, your anger should be more directed at Puritans (which were post Middle Ages) than Catholics. This is not to say that the Catholic church taught sexual liberty, but sex in the Medieval period was not so repressed as is sometimes perceived. It is true that the Catholics did believe that sin is passed through sex, but it was not the act itself that was at fault sinful. Rather, much like apostolic succession, sin is being traced back to the original sin of Adam. If one knows where to look, sex was almost downright liberal in the Middle Ages.

Some puritans, on the other hand, tended to believe that nudity and sex were indeed inherently sinful and ought to be avoided at all costs. Indeed, some believed that exposing yourself to yourself was a sin. Curiously, most group that were that extreme died out fairly quickly. However, the American uneasiness with sex can be traced back primarily to Puritans (post Middle Ages), not Catholics (Middle Ages).

Of course then there were those crazy Anabaptists at Munster and various Gnostic sects who believed that private anything was sinful, and as such sexual partners were to be communal. Some such groups even believed that sex was worshipping god. Then there's the "Full Quiver" groups now-a-days... such individuals tend to be in need of a good smack upside the head.

Third, while repressing one's sex drive out of shame (a concept that we can find root of in Greek philosophy) is indeed antihumanistic, the concept that humans can't suppress their sexual drives is likewise so. To say that kids having sex is inevitable seems to be akin to saying that men are controlled by sex (see the Fuck Sexism thread).