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View Full Version : human monkeys, queer bonobos and identiy politcs



ichneumon
14th March 2007, 03:57
this is intended to light-hearted, though it may engender some resentment. feel free.

in my mind, the root cause of fundamentalist rejection of evolution lies in the idea of humans and apes being related. they hate this idea. when rev. haggard (mr. rentboy) threw dawkins out of his ranch, he said "you called my children animals." this is inane, of course, humans are animals, i would never find that insulting.

BUT...it seems that most people still do. humans don't like being called "monkeys" (i'm aware that monkeys are technically tailed primates that are not prosimians, get past it). "you animal" is stil an insult. yet, paradoxically, we says things are "inhuman" to describe acts such as serial murder, torture and child prostitution, which animals simply do not do.

to me, this comes down to identity politics, via the gay rights movement. i learned it in Queer Nation, and it serves me well. i'm a human, a monkey, an animal and an ape and I LIKE IT. apes are cool as shit and i love the fact that i share most of my DNA with them. can you read this link on bonobos (http://www.geocities.com/willc7/bonobos.html) and not love them? what do you want to be, a chicken? a computer? bluck. and frankly "you're acting like a faggot" doesn't insult me either - what the hell am i supposed to act like?

i'm suggesting that you come out of the evolutionary closet and embrace your simian-hood. get naked, look in the mirror and look at a picture of a chimp. see the family resemblence. pick your nose and scratch your ass. LAUGH about it. woo-woo-HOO YEEK! now go have a banana - good monkey!

RASHskins
21st March 2007, 07:01
Funny post man. Yea its pretty awesome that those monkeys and probably others have homosexual behaviour. here's a link to some more animals that participate in homosexual behavior.

http://www.livescience.com/bestimg/result....&cat=gayanimals (http://www.livescience.com/bestimg/result.php?back=&cat=gayanimals)

Zero
21st March 2007, 07:37
The main arguement most religions (be it fundamental or not) have against Evolutionary theory is the timeline incongruance (or perhaps "timeline" is more accurate), and the leveling of the Animal kingdom (including us.) The Bible will go on and on about bequeathing man this, and man that, that man will be lifted to the sky... on and on about the destiny of Humanity. If the Animal kingdom can be leveled to common ancestors, what special place does that leave us? Does that mean theres some great 'Monkey Heaven', on top of the 'Great Banana Tree' where there are swings a-plenty? :D

Past these two disagreements, the arguement grows. Homo/Hetero relations as natural or un-natural, Macro/micro evolution, geological evidence, astrological evidence... You name it, god and his supporters have an opinion. -.-'

Eleutherios
21st March 2007, 13:40
Originally posted by [email protected] 14, 2007 02:57 am
i'm a human, a monkey, an animal and an ape and I LIKE IT.
Well, technically, you're not a monkey. Like the gibbons, gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans, we are apes, and apes are not monkeys.

I would agree with you though that it's silly to be afraid of the fact that we're apes. Fundamentalists have no problem calling us mammals, because we share all the common features that mammals have, so why don't they want to call us primates? Even if the world is only 6,000 years old and God just zapped humans into existence with his noodly appendages, it's clear he made a primate species when he did so.

Idola Mentis
23rd March 2007, 13:31
Originally posted by [email protected] 21, 2007 01:40 pm
Fundamentalists have no problem calling us mammals, because we share all the common features that mammals have, so why don't they want to call us primates?
You assume that they are examining the consistency of their own assumptions and adjusting their beliefs accordingly. I don't know why they do not do it - after all, the practice was invented by religious thinkers, from the apollonian Socrates to catholic Thomas Aquinas and protestant Calvin. Their soaring castles of hot air and imagination are sights for sore eyes, they are :)

I remember Alan Moore (a modern day glauconian, no less) mentioning the history of fundamentalism in an interview clip on youtube. It goes back less than a hundred years, and its attitudes has saturated modern christianity. Maybe that's the source of this unfashonableness of thinking straight?