mentalblog.com comments:
shred *this* http://www.chabad.org/142803
I guess we don't need to worry so much about intermarriage. There IS hyphenated identity.
Tzemach,
I followed the link you kindly provided.
The observation is interesting, but the theorizing is absurd.
First of all, I am in fact suprised that scientists attach so much importance to the observation that chimpanzees or bonobos can learn something, and then teach that learning to others. It shows to what degree the mechanistic, soul-less, in fact life-less view of biology has prevailed. We know from the first chapter of Bereishis that the animals have a nefesh chaya, and within their limits, they certainly think -- but more importantly, they certainly emote. They feel. They have after their fashion authentic emotions, and we know that they are aware of their Creator and that they sing their song to their Creator every day.
So far so good.
But the conclusions the authors draw from their simple observations are ludicrous:
"The study, available in today’s online edition of Current Biology, confirms captive chimpanzees have the capacity to sustain the same kind of multiple-tradition cultures many researchers believe exist in the wild, providing further evidence chimpanzees and humans shared a common ancestor five to six million years ago who had a similar level of cultural complexity."
Of course that's just the journalist's version, but it absurd. "...a similar level of cultural complexity..." -- similar to what? The common ancestor was similar to what? If he was the common ancestor, he can only have been similar to ... himself. There are many similarities between the great apes and human beings . . . but these similarities do not prove ancestry.
Of course, in his own words, the lead scientist offers a more judicious interpretation:
“This study nicely summarizes our collaborative work of the last five years, showing we can artificially introduce cultures in chimpanzees, which supports the idea cultural variation observed in the wild is learned,” says Dr. de Waal. “We are the first to show cultures potentially can jump from group to group if you offer chimpanzees the opportunity to watch other groups. It’s a bit like Westerners learning to eat with chopsticks."
Notice also the way this typical post-modernist cultural-relativist introduces a gratuitous slap at Western culture, while he worships at the altar of the inscrutable Orient.
The ultimate purpose of the research being, as with most post-modernist biology, not to elevate the animal to the status of the human being, or even to the status of nefesh chaya which he deserves, but to degrade the human being to the status of a mechanistically determined animal, devoid of nefesh, let alone neshomo, so that all of his ethical and esthetic impulses can be disparaged and discounted in the brave new world of socialist shariah.
Related - watch Yuri Bezmenov describe how the KGB has already defeated America by demoralizing an entire generation, in our own colleges and universities:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p...Fdemorali%
2Ephp
was this some cloaked criticism of chabad or judaism. the one chimp's eyes were so wise, so piercing, i felt as if he'd known me my whole life.
shitalphin, neuz tehilosoi be soifo:
bereshit
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