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From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.religion,net.flame
Subject: Re: A Question!
Message-ID: <501@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 1-Mar-85 11:16:55 EST
Article-I.D.: whuxl.501
Posted: Fri Mar  1 11:16:55 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 2-Mar-85 04:46:59 EST
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> > A person who, not so long ago was the idol of millions poised a question
> > that I would like someone to answer please.
> > 
> > "Why shouldn't human beings be as cruel as nature is?"
> > 
> >                               - Adolf Hitler
> > 
> > Anyone want to try and explain it.  Of course we know religion is bosh and
> > unscientific and unrational so can the Uzibsmo says stuff.  I mean just
> > why should humans be DIFFERENT than other things in nature?  [ARNDT]
> 
 
This question already presumes certain things that may not be true.
One is that nature is *crueler* than human beings. Actually there have never
been any species (to my knowledge, anybody know differently?) that went
about systematically murdering other members of their own species.
Other members of their species may wind up starving to death, being hunted
by predators and so forth but the members of the species do not dispatch
their fellows to the gas chamber or such themselves.
 
Other species also do not have the peculiar institution of war: as ethologists
have pointed out, while most species have established forms of agression
for mating and so forth, a part of these forms is to *stop before murder*.
It would not do the species much good if fighting over mates led to the
decimation of the protagonists.
 
There is also benevolence in nature.  I just saw a "Nature" segment on
the Osprey falcon: it was very touching to see both mother and father
build the nest and bring food back to their young.
 
Love is a *part* of nature!
         tim sevener  whuxl!orb