And again we would be poor guardians in our pride. Who would decide which species should be 're-created'? What dangers would we create Which species would we only doom to die out again? Would they be allowed to live as they were meant? Hundreds of similar questions. Who is to play Creator?

One thing that you have forgotten with your numbers. The rate of species loss has increased with the interference of man. That is that we lose species faster that were not in danger of becoming extinct before man interfered. Case in point ..... where are the massive herds of bison? The American bison was almost lost. Large scale commercial whaling has almost destroyed a sentient species.

It is time to care for the planet and it's life. We do not own it. We are guardians and not very good ones.

Blue Juice???

Setting the Record Straight About Native Peoples: American Indian Cannibals
Q: Were Native Americans cannibals?
A: Not for the most part, no, but there were some groups who were. The Aztecs were notorious for ritual cannibalism (warriors would eat a strip of flesh from enemies they had slain in combat). Some people dispute this, but the Aztecs' own written and oral histories seem to support it as the truth. The Karankawa tribe of southeast Texas was also said to practice ritual cannibalism on defeated enemies. There were a few Amazonian tribes who practiced funerary cannibalism (family and friends would eat part of a dead tribal member's body as a religious ceremony at the funeral). Finally, the Carib people of South America were said to kill and eat prisoners of war, though it's been pointed out that the Spaniards who made this claim were lining their own pockets by doing so (Queen Isabella had forbidden her subjects from selling Africans, or Indians, as slaves unless they were cannibals).

None of the other 1200 Native American cultures engaged in culturally sanctioned cannibalism at the time of European contact. That doesn't mean cannibalism never happened--there were certainly stories in the American Indian oral history about cannibalistic incidents (a hunting party trapped in a snowstorm who fell to eating each other, a war chief who taunted captives by striking them in the face with their leader's heart and then taking a bite out of it.) Such incidents also occurred in American and European history under similar starving-in-the-wilderness and war-atrocity circumstances (a company of Crusaders, for example, bragged of having grilled and eaten a Saracen; a Jamestown settler was executed for cannibalizing his wife during a famine). Cannibalism should not be considered part of American Indian culture on this account any more than it would be considered part of European or American culture--it was culturally unacceptable behavior. The Sioux considered cannibalism a sin, the Cree considered it a mental illness, the Algonquin and Ojibwe considered it a sign of possession by an evil spirit. In almost all cases, American Indian cannibals--just like European or American cannibals--were put to death as soon as they were discovered.

Q: But weren't they cannibals before that--in ancient times, before European contact?
A: Most of them definitely were not. It's been suggested that the pre-Iroquois Mohawk and the ancient Anasazi may have practiced group cannibalism. This is possible, though it has not been proven. The Mohawk were called "man-eaters" by their Algonquian enemies on account of this belief about their lurid past. Some Mohawks think it was probably true, others that you shouldn't give too much credence to slurs people's enemies cast at their ancestors. The claim about the ancient Anasazi came more recently, when anthropologists found a burial site with skeletons whose flesh had apparently been hacked off the bones after their death. Personally, I'm not too impressed by that evidence. Even if those bodies were cut up for cannibalistic purposes, we're talking about one anomalous site with only seven bodies in it. Of the hundreds of ancient Indian burial sites exhumed by archaeologists--including dozens of Anasazi ones--this was the only one with this strange appearance. For all we know it was the work of some Anasazi psychopath. We can't assume ancient Anasazi culture included cannibalism from this one unusual case any more than we could say American culture includes cannibalism because of Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer

http://www.native-languages.org/iaq13.htm



Regarding your statement about women. Many of the First People had matriarchal societies. Women owned the land, home and other properties. Heritage and clan lineage was from the mother. To the Europeans it may have seemed that the women were cattle but such was not the case.


http://www.native-languages.org/iaq13.htm

Soldiers are NOT murderers. Though it happens in conflict that civilians / innocents get hurt I doubt that there is a soldier who rejoices in the killing of an innocent (not any who has retained his sanity at least). A soldier is a professional, trained to do a job that is required and do it to the best of his ability. Yes he is trained to kill.........kill an enemy, an armed enemy.

I served in infantry and am proud of it. I am NOT a murder. I am a trained soldier.

I think they may have forgotten about me now.

Thank you again Purplecat for the hiding spot.

Thank you. Would you poke my tail inside please.

Can I come hide here? I think I may have angered some people in Current Events.

"acknowledge the possibility"

Create a concept, an idea opposed to your own. For the benefit of learning to think. Not deny that there is no god. Not declare that there is no god. But to look at the possibility of it. To explore that concept without ever endorsing it, without ever having to embrace it. Explore the idea, explore that man is a completely free agent. To think, as an individual. To formulate a concept. To think and explore a thought. NEVER HAVING TO ACCEPT, EMBRACE OR ENDORSE THAT THOUGHT, CONCEPT OR IDEA. Simply to explore it.

Yes I see this as a devious form of conversion. Indeed to think that a person may learn to formulate an idea without it ever having to bear fruit of any kind.

If this method is so effective perhaps it should have been used rather than extermination, diseased blankets, starvation, forced move from homelands and beatings in Residential schools. Surely such a devious method would have given better results.

No. Extra credit is always a student choice. Whether the student can or cannot has nothing to do with it. Especially at that level of education where they are supposed to think for themselves. The student refused the extra credit it was not denied her. She used free thought to refuse it.

Again Sir. Look at the definition of philosophy please. It has nothing to do with religion. It has to do with thinking, ideas. I have posted the definition and repeated it. Yet you refuse to see it. Locked in your own concept without opening your mind to the fact that your argument is based on false information. There are no religions in philosophy. There is only ideas, thoughts, concepts. How to see them, use them. How to think. You Sir refuse to think even when the definitions proving that your concept is wrong is placed before you.

Philosophy is not religious it is teaching to think.

There was no attempted conversion. There was no persecution. A young lady in a course of study which teaches an individual to think was asked to respond to a question. To think and respond for extra credit not anything that would affect earned credit.

Again there is no converting of any kind in philosophy. It is a course of study to encourage an individual to think, see ideas and concepts. Adapt them to daily usage if they are deemed good concepts and refuse them if not.
Study of free thinking, going outside the box, the use of logic in ideas and concepts, how to present and look at ideas. HOW TO THINK!! There is no religion to the free flow of ideas and concepts. Man accepts or refuses ideas as they come to him and are compared with his own base line.

That would entail the use of Psychology (Behavior Studies) not philosophy.

Differences in religion would be covered by a course of study in Theology.
Again philosophy teaches to think, to look at ideas and concepts.

Perhaps you should read the definitions from the Oxford Dictionary that I posted. You are in the wrong about the meaning.

Education. A process where knowledge is passed on, discussed and studied. Where a person enters with an open mind ready to accept and learn of other possibilities, things not yet known. It requires a teacher willing to pass on knowledge and a student with an open mind. The student requires the open mind to see all facets of the matter being discussed. If a student has a closed mind for whatever reason then there is no passing of knowledge. A teacher it would seem is bound by their very calling to push a student as much as possible to study, discuss, opinionate and then make a decision as to whether this knowledge may harm their own code of ethics, honor and morals.
The teacher in this case gave a question which specified no religion, no honor code, no ethical code. Requesting only to fulfill a statement for extra credit in the course of study. There is no denial of earned credit in the course of study. The student alone decides whether to accept the extra question or refuse, based on their own sense of honor, ethics and morals and knowledge.
There is no discrimination. No prejudice. A simple question to be answered according to each their own mind, knowledge and heart.
I apologize for the length of this.