We are animals

I'm really frustrated when it comes to a discussion about animals and feelings. Eventually someone will bring up the argument that humans are 'higher' beings and animals are not and have to be treated differently. Why do people create this clear division between animal and human? I don't understand it. If there is a line at all, it certainly isn't clear. It's either very vague and blurry, or not there at all.

I always make the cave man argument. The hunter-gatherer - is he an animal or a human? If you look at common cave man actions they are very similar to those of any other carnivorous animal. And even in the modern world, certain cultures still possess the same attitudes and actions.

Here is a video of the sand people of the Kalahari.

I don't think that you can make a clear distinction between humans and animals because humans are animals. The argument of God specifically creating humans as greater beings is very weak and has no significant basis what-so-ever. A lot of the latest evidence suggests that certain animals possess the same sorts of feelings and emotions as humans.

I have often been criticized for these statements because I claim to be a humanist, which at first seems to directly contradict the ideas in this journal. However, I tend to find a middle ground. I am humanist in the secular sense. I believe that the human is more important than the divine (which I don't believe in anyway). However, I don't put the human into the center of the universe. The human is just a life form. Surely, just because we have a larger brain with a frontal lobe and a cortex that gives us an illusion of consciousness and intelligence doesn't mean we have any right to treat any other animal as a slave or a useless creature. Life, any life, cannot be treated in the same way that you can treat a stone.

Here's a comedy clip by Armando Iannucci about this particular topic:

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