Anthropophagian
Offline I will start this piece with a caveat stating that I have not and do not intend upon acting on the writings in this piece. I recognize that this is a taboo subject and that most will find my arguments here to be distasteful (pardon the pun) in the extreme. I will, however, argue that cannibalism is an acceptable act in some instances. Since I was very young (three or four), I have had a recurring dream in which I sit at a table with a variety of people and am eating a delicious meal. The centerpiece of the table is surrounded by blanched fruits and artichokes. The centerpiece is the carcass of a young child. It has been roasted until its skin is crispy and its flesh tender.
In the dream, I think to myself that the baby is delectable. The haunches are missing, presumably eaten; and I wonder what the etiquette for requesting seconds is. While I am wondering how to ask for more, the hostess kindly reads my facial expressions and offers me a generous portion of the short ribs. I gladly accept and muse to myself that the child must have been kept very still for the meat to be so tender and that the meat is like pork but not so oily. That's where the dream ends.
What is unsettling is that I do not wake up terrified or upset. Generally, I wake up thinking about bacon or sausage. Clearly, my reptilian mind does not blanche at the prospect of human as a dish. I am left to wonder whether we are not cannibals by nature and are forced to give it up for the sake of civilization. To whit, Jane Goodall has shown us that our nearest living cousins, the chimpanzee, will eat the meat of a vanquished adversary or of an infant from a pariah of the group. I think that this says a lot. They eat what they do not recognize as being equal to them.
So, I am in a society that recognizes everyone as an equal. Thus, I cannot consume any people who also happen to be pariahs as in chimpanzee behavior. There are those in our society who see animals as their equal and do not eat them. It seems to revolve around who is equal to whom. When there is adequate food, we do not see cannibalism in action. Similarly, when food is plentiful, the Hindus of India do not eat cows either; however, their religion permits the consumption of cattle in times of starvation.
Is equality based on the contents of our stomachs? I suspect that if starving we would all eat meat without question if it were already butchered. Similarly, we don't want to see the cow before we eat the filet mignon. Meat is meat, and we are not expert in tasting the difference between one omnivore and another. Perhaps, the consumption of flesh, regardless of its source is more human than we would prefer to suggest. I am willing to discuss the view that we are natural cannibals. I will not respond to any psychological analysis of my childhood dreams and will erase such attempts from my thread.
"Tis better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven." -Lucifer
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Cannibalism is not particularly uncommon in history. Though it has pained many Native Americans, and is often seen as adding insult to injury, recent archeological discoveries have pretty much established that several Native American tribes regularly practiced cannibalism, and there's no reason to believe that they did not always do so.
I'm not an expert on this -- frankly, I don't care very much. Nevertheless, everything I've read seems to indicate that while cannabilism cannot be described as the norm for humans, it's definitely been a persistent phenomenon.
Furthermore, the baby being eaten does have many parallels in the animal kingdom. Many animals eat their own offspring. Some do it as a choice -- the weaker offspring are eaten, and the strongest get all of the resources. Others are simply hungry. Natural selection favors newborns who get the hell out of dodge the fastest.
Infanticide has been virtually ubiquitous in human history. While it is not always accomplished the same way, it's pretty much always been around. It's not always condoned, but sometimes it has been.
I guess the bottom line is that it seems that there is nothing physically or emotionally harmful about cannibalism at a primal level. Culture would be the variable that would make it a taboo.
(Note: The facts presented are accurate to the best of my knowledge. The conclusions are simply my musings. I don't have anything to back them up.)
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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Actually it does do harm - not sure how exactly, but it spreads the prions that cause brain diseases (such as koro or mad cow disease.)
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
Hamby is correct. It would seem that a large amount of animals either consume their mates, or consume their young. Ironically, in relationships like this, it seems to be the female who is dominant. Physiologically speaking, humans are an odd species, because the males tend towards dominance. This is not true in most of the animal kingdom. The Black Widow Spider is so-called because she consumes her husband. Certain types of marine animals actually have the gametes existing in a bizarre symbiosis, where the male organism and hence the gamete sort of exists as a parasitic attachment to the female. Actually, this does sound alot like us...
Anyway
Yes. As a method of population control mostly. From Greek and Roman Times to long before Antiquity, to proto-civilizations, all the way up to the Industrial Revolution. Fascinatingly, you know that nature has similar mechanisms? After the first son is born, there are physiological and ontogenic mechanisms that make alterations such that the next male child in line is successively more likely to be homosexual. Now, you can imagine how this will affect the struggle for resources, and hence the number of offspring the mother has.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
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Interesting. I had read that the more children a woman had the more likely that the latter children may be homosexual. However, is it really more likely for a male with older male siblings to be more inclined to be homosexual rather than one with older female siblings?
That sounds incredibly complex. How would the mother's body record in some way what gender previous children were?
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
I want to see the research that produced that theory. If you have access to a resource and can share it, please do. If you know where I can get the resource, I want to know.
I'm not convinced of this order of birth theory. Does the research show conclusively what is occurring in the womb that affects the male foetus? Is this the mother's immune system responding to the male foetus? Does the mother need to have an immune reaction to male foetuses? In very large families where there is no instance of homosexuality how can this birth order theory maintain if the logical end is that eventually a male child should have a 100% chance of being homosexual? Is the evidence used to assert this birth order theory reproducible? Has it been corroborated by other studies? Does the study show how the mechanisms function in order to increase the likelihood of homosexuality and exactly what the mechanisms are?
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
It sure is not a theory, not even close. It's a tentative hypothesis, and a problematic one. It was plastered across science columns in the news for a while. A friend joked to me that if scientific research was done in proportionality to what got reported on, the only things in existence would be evolutionary psychology and space travel. Now, when I said problematic, I mean there is an obvious hole in it. If we take the formula and impute it, we come out with that the 12th sucessive male child should have a 100% chance of homosexuality, and this is obviously not the case. It's a fascinating insight, but we have standards of proof in science.
There was an article a while back by someone out of LSE who said that within 1,000 years there would be an Ayn-Rand style break off in human cladistics, with a small group of intelligent, tall, good-looking people and a large group of squat, unintelligent ugly people. And of course it was all over the news. And, honestly, I just wanted to kick the guy in the balls. This is the reason I am always very suspicious of evolutionary psychology as a field. It operates on standards of proof that are significantly lower than in real science like evolutionary biology. I regard Steven Pinker and Jared Daimond in very high esteem, Pinker as basically the smartest Canadian on the planet, but I was very suspicious of the conclusions they drew regarding our actions and our drive. Granted, I do not believe in the tabula rasa, but I think they've blown the nature/nurture thing orders of magnitude out of proportion.
I suspect if we ever do prove this mechanism, it will be from an evolutionary developmental biology standpoing, not an evolutionary psychology one.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
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Sorry if this derails the thread, but it's my opinion that Evo Psych should be treated as a promising field with a lot of potential. Until there's a significant body of work, though, it's kind of hard to even subject it to peer review, since there's not much to review it against.
With most things I read about Evo Psych theories, I take them as interesting ideas, and suspend judgment.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
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Thanks! I knew this was barking mad. The only information I've been able to find on it from searches are journals that point out how bogus birth order stuff is. I too beleive the nature/nurture thing is blown out of proportion. Sorry for calling it a theory, I had no idea what else to call it from what I knew.
In response to the OP, I don't think equality has anything to do with food. Necessity usually does and humans have evolved the ability to digest many things. People eat insects and a whole manner of things that 'we' don't. I don't eat insects (often) and I guess that you don't either. It's not because we have a concept of their being our equal. We don't eat insects because they were never considered a part of our diet. Our ancestors and us have had other food. Other cultures eat insects in order to fulfil their dietary needs. There's no reason to or not to eat insects other than availability and need. The same for dogs and cats. Other cultures do consume dog and cat and they even keep them as pets. I really think that puts a gapping hole in this idea of not eating what we consider equal.
Also, I don't think that cannibalism is innate to humans. I rather believe that it's manufactured in a society. Perhaps if there was historical evidence of humans being cannibalistic in the way that Jane Goodall observed of her chimps I'd buy the notion that we don't do it because of our sensibilities. Cannibalism isn't a part of every culture and I'd expect it to have been if it was a characteristic innate to humans that is suppressed. All human cannibalism that I can think of is ritualistic and that doesn't seem to support an idea that cannibalism is innate. Also, cannibalism has been observed in cultures at times when there isn't starvation. There's no precedent for cannibalism when there is food and I don't think any culture has been observed resorting to cannibalism in times of starvation.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
I think it's in the Selfish Gene that Dawkins demonstrates how cannibalism as a main source for calories is maladaptive for social mammals. I might be mixing it up with a Gould book. But the idea is that if your species is cannibalistic, then every time you see another member of your species you have to decide whether you will fight, mate, or eat each other. It's not a problem for species that reproduce very quickly like some invertebrates. But mammals don't reproduce quickly enough and have enough trouble finding a viable mate and reproducing as it is, so routine cannibalism is not an evolutionarily stable strategy. So an instinctive aversion to cannibalism would work better than a socially-conditioned one for social primates.
But cannibalism outside the group or of ostracized inferiors--that wouldn't necessarily be maladaptive.
"After Jesus was born, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up." -Stephen Colbert
Textom, I think you might be making a bit of an anthropomorphic fallacy. Though cannibalism has never (apparently) been ubiquitous in humans, there has always (apparently) been some percentage of humans who have practiced it. Cannibalism need not be done in the way chimps do it for it to be innate to the species.
Humans, like chimps, are animals -- nothing more. We are extraordinarily smart, but that does not raise us "above" the animals any more than belief in the spirit world makes spirits real. Strictly speaking, anything humans do is part of human behavior. Culture can redefine behavior, but it does not address whether or not it is intrinsic or "natural."
Like all discussions of morality, we must place an action in a context. In America today, we can say that cannibalism is agreed to be morally wrong because of our opinions on the rights of the individual. These opinions have been around for a very short time compared to cannibalism.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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But, we don't have to look far to realize that not all strategies are stable. We are not at an endpoint of evolution, and it's impossible to know all the permutations that result from a particular action that may seem counterintuitive.
For instance, being gay is not particularly good for reproduction, which is the only "goal" of life. Yet, many animals have a stable population of gay individuals. In a broader algorithmic sense, "illogical" deviance might actually serve a purpose we don't yet understand.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
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I think maybe my conclusion didn't come across as clear, Hamby.
I believe that cannibalism is the default position. It's clearly adaptive to get energy from wherever you can, and members of your own species tend to inhabit the same environment as yourself, so they're handy.
I believe Dawkins or Gould or maybe my Intro Anthro teacher (give me a break, this was 1986) put forward the idea that an instinctive aversion to cannibalism is an adaptation that many mammals, including social primates, evolved because it was evolutionarily advantageous and stable given the context of lower reproductive rates.
This accounts for why most mammals are not cannibalistic as a general rule (with the inevitable exeptions). A notable exeption is the example of Tasmanian Devils, who eat the dead bodies of their own species as a matter of routine, and who are currently going extinct as the result of the spread of a tumor-causing disease of unknown origin (but possibly vectored via cannibalism). So they might be an example of an end-point of evolution.
So such cannibalism as there is probably represents some of the variational "noise" that allows individuals and groups to depart from the most evolutionarily stable strategy without necessarily endangering their survival.
And I don't think it's anthropomorphizing to say that chimpanzee cannibalism that's restricted to infants and outsiders is deliberate. Even non-primate social mammals like prarie dogs and lions recognize individual identity, internal group heirarchy and inside/outside group members.
"After Jesus was born, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up." -Stephen Colbert
Note that in a pure survival situation most people are willing to accept that people resorted to cannibalism. They may react badly, but few would want them legally punished - assuming they ate someone who was dead already and didn't kill them for food - see the stories of the Donner Party and the "Alive" story/movie.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
That's much more clear, and I think that we have no disagreement.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
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some cultures ate their dead out of respect, the thought of burying them in the ground was out of the question .... eat the dead they did, ....now thats love , problem was they got mad cow disease, ....
so it's not recommended .....
Atheism Books.
Drinking hard liquor isn't recommended either. People still do it. Mad cow is only transmitted when the brain is eaten. I think I would prefer the liver and muscles.
"Tis better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven." -Lucifer
Isn't canibalism a mental condition that can be treated? Obviously to eat a person out of necessity is the right thing to do, but to crave human flesh is a rather... unwanted state to be in, due to the fundamental lack of available human flesh to consume.
To put it bluntly, many people simply do not want to be eaten when they die.
Also, I don't think canibalism is naturally engrained into most of us. In fact, I think the opposite (although it could be engrained into some).
I also don't see why this is in the atheist vs. theist forum. I understand the bible speaks out against cannibalism... but this is not a common argument against the bible, and really isn't an argument against any form of "theism" except fundamentalism at all. Are you just telling us this because you wanted other people to know?
Kuru, as somebody mentioned above, is a human disease caused by a prion and transmitted via cannibalism. The prion is easiest to pick up by eating brain tissue, but can also be contracted by eating other parts of the infected person or by food contaminated by someone who was handling infected tissues.
The vectoring of prions and viruses could actually represent a selection pressure in favor of an instinctive aversion to cannibalism.
"After Jesus was born, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up." -Stephen Colbert
I will answer your question on the forum choice first. I initially had this in Freethinkers Anonymous because I didn't think theists would handle the issue maturely. Then, I decided that I should give the theists as swing at the ball even if they would express a myopic view.
I will now deal with your myopic view. I am not surprised to find that you consider anything outside you experience base as psychologically unsound. Your argument against consuming humans is that: people don't want to be eaten, and you don't want to eat human flesh; therefore, cannibalism is outside the realm of natural human behavior.
First, I doubt anything *wants* to be eaten. This argument has to do with the civilization of man. I have already agreed that civilization stops the predation of humans for sustenance. There is little surprise there. So, I am going to discount the psychological state of the "prey" being consumed.
Second, you don't want to eat human. Ok. I accept that as well. You may not like McDonald's either. The rest of us don't give a shit and are going to continue to do as we please.
So, with both of your concerns in the toilet, I restate that our closest living relative, chimps, cannibalize those who are not in their troop. I suspect humans, with the enormous protein requirements of our brains, would look on another person as a source for that. In conclusion, there is little room for the practice in modern times, but our reptilian brains probably still have a taste for bipedal pork.
"Tis better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven." -Lucifer
Understood. Disease would also explain why a desert people would outlaw eating pork and seafood that cannot be safely dried. So, we would avoid people who die of disease as a food source. A cannibal would eat a healthy teenager. That would be the proper size but not too tough from running around for years and years.
I know I for one do not go to the butcher and ask for a steak from a cow that died of old age or disease.
"Tis better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven." -Lucifer
Well the difference is that the examples of not eating pork & so forth are human examples where the aversion is at least partly cultural.
Communication of prions by cannibalism would also explain why non-human mammals are generally not cannibalistic. If our primate ancestors were already instinctively disinclined toward cannibalism, then we'd get it from them even before the advent of language and culture.
"After Jesus was born, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up." -Stephen Colbert
What about the possibility that cannibalism is not particularly good (from an evolutionary standpoint) for gregarious animals? When chimps do it, my understanding is that they only do it with chimps that are not in their social group; eating your neighbours is a good way to aversely affect your survivability when you live in a cooperative environment.
Does anyone know how many carnivores are gregarious? I know new alpha male lions will often kill the cubs of the previous alpha, but do they eat them? What about other great cats?
It's a bit of a hazier situation for omnivores. I know rats will eat each other, but I don't know if that's scavenging or predation.
--
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Meat's meat at that level
We're spoiled now... I've seen people absolutely freak out when they learn they've eaten (and enjoyed) things like rabbit, squid, frog legs, alligator and other game.
I'd imagine most modern people would only knowingly eat another human being in the direst of circumstances. However, I'm fairly confident that if they didn't know what it was beforehand, most of those who are fans of pork would find "long pig" quite yummy as well.
But yeah... they'd also most likely puke up their guts after hearing the truth.
Invisible friends are for children and psychopaths.
apologies, I wrote that too hastily. By "mental condition" I simply meant "condition of the mind." For instance, some people have the "mental condition" of being absolutely disguisted with meat, feel like throwing up whenever they smell it. If this is not the right use of the term, then I appologize. I did not intent "mental condition" to specifically mean "mental impairement" like a phobia or anything (although this could also be classified as such).
I don't have any argument against consuming humans, and I said that it is against the natural behavior of most, as far as I can tell.
My argument was that it is not good to want to consume humans, since there isn't very much human meat to consmue. Craving it would be unpleasant, due to the lack of available meat. If I craved a burger at every moment and was a Hindu, that would not be fun!
Again, I was not arguing that such tendencies were sins. There is no reason to restate your justification to eat humans, foreign as it may sound. I myself often wondered why it is not human practice to eat those killed in ancient wartime during war. It would have saved the cost of shipping food into enemy lands, and would have done much to help the war machine.
I appologize if you took this as some kind of attack on your lifestyle, I assure you, I am not that kind of Theist.
Have you guys ever noticed a story where some captive is terrified by their captors saying something like, "We will hang you. Then we will shred your bodies and eat it." or something like that?
Anything that mentions what they will do to your body after you're dead. It keeps getting added in certain stories like it should make your fate so much more terrible.
I've always shrugged and thought, "Ok, you're going to hang the bastard. I seriously doubt being eaten afterwards is going to fucking hurt him."
I was forced to eat a friend once. Tasted like pork. Which was really freaking odd because he was jewish.
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
I'm often puzzled by people's distress over what happens to their carcass. If I'm young enough, and my meat's still tender, braise me with some red wine and call me an ossobuco. Put my head on a stake and wave it around to scare away the barbarian invaders, if it makes you happy.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but we need to be certain that we have a couple of things straight:
* Humans are and apparently always have been mildly cannabilistic. History and archaeology support this.
* An individual's reaction to it appears to be primarily cultural. As a point of comparison, visit Argentina sometime and notice that there are parts of cattle country down there where they don't even know what a vegetarian is.
* Any normative statement about cannabilism and human behavior exists above the baseline. In other words, people can and sometimes do eat other people, but we can make logical decisions about the practicality of it, or the potential health hazards.
In summary, it's indisputable that humans are mildly cannibalistic. Of that, I don't see how there can be a debate. Any discussion of cannibalism beyond that, I believe, becomes normative.
Also, I'm really interested to know that because Nero dreams about cannibalism, it has become his lifestyle. Though I'm baffled as to how this transformation occurs, it has brought a gigantic smile to my face. I've just realized that I live a polyamorous lifestyle. I've been having this recurring threesome dream for years, after all.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
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I can attest to the argentina part, and if you ever go to buenos aires...and are a vegetarian....you will starve, aww lets admit it if you go anywhere in argentina you will starve unless you eat meat. Both my grandfathers, uncles, aunts and cousins on both sides eat meat at least once a day, usually no less than 8 oz of it.
"Tis better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven." -Lucifer
Lucky bastards!! There is nothing better than meat. It should be rare and warmed only to body temperature. Mmmmm, meat.
"Tis better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven." -Lucifer
Nero, you're starting to disturb me bro.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/weird/sagawa/1.html
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
I'm entirely too civilized to kill anything. Plus, I would make a terrible serial killer. You should see how sloppy I am. I have to have someone clean my house twice a week. So, no, you'll have to look elsewhere for a true cannibal.
"Tis better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven." -Lucifer
I notice you don't go out of your way to dissuade people from their misconceptions.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Damn, dude. I have my house cleaned once every two weeks, and I thought I was messy.
I recognize that it might completely derail the thread, but I'm curious how you make the leap from civilized to having an aversion to killing. The Romans were quite civilized, from what I've read.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Well, I suppose that "civilized" in relative here. Romans also worshipped an array of gods, and I consider myself more civilized than that as well.
"Tis better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven." -Lucifer
I've often wondered, was it more civilized to believe in a pantheon of gods who didn't necessarily send you off to hell if you had the wrong patron god in your garden, or the psychopath god the Christians believe in? Also, is it more civilized to kill criminals in the arena, or to spend 40 years engaging in "syphilis experiments" with four hundred blacks who thought they were getting cured?
Civilization is indeed very hard to quantify.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I'm going to go with the syphilis experiments. First, there is a raw, ironic humor that is attached to that entire story. It is the sort of thing that highlights Existential absurdity. Second, a civilization that drags out a criminal's life is so much more civilized than one just throwing them to lions.
It takes real commitment to fully actualizing human suffering to house and feed people society would sooner see dead. Throwing people to wild animals may seem crueller because of all the screaming and gore. I think it much worse to be put somewhere and tested upon or worse yet, forgotten. Yes, I think the sign of a truly civilized society is the penchant for committing the most devious crimes against the individual while claiming to be assisting the individual.
Under that definition, we live in a most civilized culture. If an individual is drowning, we are experts in looking like we are diving in to save that person; while we actually are just attaching weights to the legs and recording how long the struggle lasts.
"Tis better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven." -Lucifer