Animals do many things that are similar to humans. There is always the joke about how chimpanzees are so similar in actions and expressions to human beings.
However, there are major differences between human beings and chimpanzees. For examples, aside from the obvious fact such as that the two are different species regardless of how closely related by “genetics” the two may be, chimps are much stronger, and tend to engage in highly socially deviant behavior. This can include fighting, murder, eating feces, and cannibalism.
Chimps are interesting, but they are also scary, because in the actions of the chimp one can often times see mirrored the worst- the most animal-like -of man’s actions.
A chimp may murder and eat another chimp. However, does this mean that a human should do this? Certainly not, for to equivocate a human being with a chimp is to lower man to the level of an animal as well as, in the hands of a skilled propagandist, to being the process of relegating certain individuals and groups to this status for usually a political or economic purpose which ends in part with the death of the one being called an “animal”. Likewise, animals can provide interesting ideas or inspirations for men to follow, but one does NOT have to follow them, because man, being created in the image and likeness of God, can make choices.
However, a recent story from Newsweek magazine has declared that cannibalism may not be a bad thing because animals do it too:
Vulnerable spadefoot tadpoles eat their smaller competitors to speed towards toadhood as quickly as possible. Gulls and pelicans are among bird species that eat hatchlings for food or to prevent the spread of disease. In insect species such as the praying mantis or the Australian redback spider, males offer their bodies as a final gift to females after mating.
It’s more common than you’d think in mammals too. Many rodent mothers may eat some of their young if they’re sick, dead, or too numerous to feed. Bears and lions kill and eat the offspring of adult females to make them more receptive to mating. Chimpanzees sometimes cannibalize unlucky rivals, usually infants, seemingly for the mere opportunity of some extra protein.
For humans though, cannibalism is the ultimate taboo. In fact, our aversion to cannibalism is so strong that consent and ethics count for little.
In one of our own experiments, participants were asked to consider the hypothetical case of a man who gave permission to his friend to eat parts of him once he died of natural causes.
Participants read that this occurred in a culture that permitted the act, that the act was meant to honour the deceased, and that the flesh was cooked so that there was no chance of disease. Despite this careful description, about half of the participants still insisted that the act was invariably wrong.
Even in the starkest of situations, the act of eating another human’s flesh remains almost beyond contemplation. Survivors of the famous 1972 Andes plane crash waited until near starvation before succumbing to reason and eating those who had already died.
One survivor, Roberto Canessa, felt that to eat his fellow passengers would be “stealing their souls” and descending towards “ultimate indignity”—despite recalling that in the aftermath of the crash, he like many others had declared that he would be glad for his body to aid the communal survival mission.
Categorical disgust
The tragic anecdote above illuminates why humans are the exception to the animal cannibal rule. Our capacity to represent the personalities of the living and the departed is unparalleled. This deep connection between personhood and flesh can mean that careful reasoning in certain situations over the merits of cannibalism is overridden by our feelings of repulsion and disgust.So why our disgust for human flesh but not that of other animals? Philosopher William Irvine has us imagine a ranch that raises plump babies for human consumption, much like we fatten and slaughter cattle for beef. Irvine suggests that the same arguments we apply to justify the killing of cows also apply to babies. For example, they wouldn’t protest, and they’re not capable of rational thought.
Although Irvine is not seriously advocating eating babies, the scenario is useful for illuminating our bias when considering the ethics of cannibalism. From a young age, we tend to think about categories, such as humans or cows, as having an underlying reality or “essence” that cannot be observed directly but that gives a thing its fundamental identity. For example, humans are intelligent and rational thinkers, we have personalities and a desire to live, and we form bonds with each other.
This psychological essentialism is a useful shortcut to guide our expectations and judgements about members of the category—but it doesn’t work so well when the typical qualities of that category don’t apply, for example upon death. This is why consensual post-mortem cannibalism is still met with such disgust. Even if we can bring ourselves to deem it morally acceptable, we can’t silence our thoughts about the person it came from.
The way we interact with animals shapes the way we categorize them. Research shows that the more we think of animals as having human properties—that is, as being “like us”—the more we tend to think they’re gross to eat.
Adapting to the unfamiliar
Though accusations of cannibalism have often been falsely made to demonize groups, it isn’t absent from human history. The Fore people of Papua New Guinea were reported to have participated in funerary cannibalism, believing it better that the body was eaten by people who loved the deceased than by worms and maggots. Parts of mummies were eaten for medicinal purposes in post-Renaissance Europe.We suspect that we could adapt to human flesh if need be. Many people develop disgust for all kinds of meat, while morticians and surgeons quickly adapt to the initially difficult experience of handling dead bodies. Our ongoing research with butchers in England suggests that they easily adapt to working with animal parts that the average consumer finds quite disgusting.
Thankfully for most of us, there is no need to overcome our repulsion for the foreseeable future. Some philosophers have argued that burying the dead could be wasteful in the context of the fight against world hunger—but there are much more palatable alternatives on the table than a haunch of human. We can shift to eating more plants and less meat to conserve resources lost by feeding plants directly to livestock. Insects can meet our protein needs, and there is the prospect of cultured meat technology.
For now, we’re as happy as you are to continue accepting the “wisdom of repugnance”: human flesh, despite its biochemical similarities to that of other mammals, shall remain firmly off limits. (source, source)
Today, there are many people who say that the “never expected” that homosexuality would be legalized. Yet today it is commonplace, and so common that if one opposes it one is considered socially disconnected.
But what about cannibalism? Or pedophilia- in the truest sense of the abuse of pre-pubescent children? Could these abhorrent things not become legalized?
You are witnessing in real-time the progressive legalization of these two horrible things. The trends on the Internet, which I covered in 2018, show a growth that is unmistakably towards these things.
Great changes do not take place in an instant, nor do revolutions happen overnight. Rather, as according to the economic writer Chris Martenson, it is the “hockey stick” effect. He argues that change in life is not linear, but resembles an “exponential growth” pattern that can be mapped on a chart with the formula y = x^2:
Change starts small, and then one day after it reached a certain inflexion point, grows exponentially. This is easily measured by human experience in all areas of life. Fore example, a student studies, studies, and studies a concept but does not understand it and feels like he is “getting nowhere.” Then after a few days or even weeks of study, he wakes up, goes to read his books like he always does, and he just “gets it.” This is the effect of such growth.
Likewise, the same can be said about decline. Decline likewise is not linear, but takes the form of inverse exponential decline mapped in a similar way but the reverse. The decline will start slowly, but after it reaches an inflexion point it just continues quickly:
Now one must say that there are many factors which can influence the rise or fall of anything. Namely, the pattern itself does not change but rather the point at which the rise or fall stops before having to begin again. The idea here would be to create a “staircase” effect that does not stop increase or decrease, but cuts the period of growth such as below:
While this chart shows a “death” at the end, human social systems are often more complex than a simple end with decline. Often times, growth or decline, if it cannot be stopped, can be slowed dramatically or even reversed depending upon the conditions afterwards.
There is also a final step here, which is the presence of God, for as God is the author of all knowledge, He can certainly intervene miraculously and change the course of these patterns. What is important to remember is that these patterns mimic natural stages of rise and fall charted to a graph without accounting for miracles or other forms of intervention.
Having said this, we can look at the decline of Christianity in the West in a similar fashion. It is never the “major events” such as the Protestant Revolution, the World Wars of the 20th century, or even the Avignon Papacy that are actually the important events in so far as they are agents of change. Rather, the events are the fruits of a series of processes began and which reached a point at which the effects are visible and manifest in the form of major events. This is not to discount the importance of the events, but to note that it is the process by which the events were able to happen that must be focused on since they form, in a mathematical sense, the functional base that leads to an inflexion point after which change takes place.
This is how sodomite behavior was legitimized in society. It took a certain amount of time, pressure, and change, but eventually there was enough support built up to bring about a larger change.
This is happening with cannibalism and the sexual abuse of children.
To those who are not paying attention, if one is around in forty to fifty years, don’t be surprised if there are people eating each other- presented in a socially and culturally accepted way clearly -or people having relations with very young children in a like form, and those who criticize them will be called, just as are those who oppose the Sodomite agenda today, every kind of name that one can think of.
Christians have lost the culture war. They need to accept this, and by doing this they can help themselves push through what is coming in the future. There will not be a “future” for Christianity in the world, especially the Western world, save for a return to the Faith as it has always been practiced. The Church will become much smaller, and many changes will happen, but there will be hope in the midst of what is coming.
Awareness and opposing is a first step, but one must take more than one step. The most action that one can take is with the self and those near to one, because that is the most that a man can reasonably influence for the better in any effective way.
Following this, it is time for one to shut his door, to pray, to fast, and to prepare for what is coming.