Follow Religion Like Cows... Stampede Like Cows

[Da Skinna]

We're not evolved at all still. With all our trappings of culture and imaginary borders and nations and cathedrals and spires and temples we still act like animals.

This week over a hundred people died in a stampede. It's tragic, but moreover, I think it's pathetic.

It reminds me of the Dark Knight, Joker's little philosophy. His theory of society. Take out a block that everybody leans on, and watch it all burn. It's about mass madness.

"Madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups."

Nietzsche said that. Joker tried to prove it.

Religion proves it.

This isn't an attack on religion, this is an attack on humanity, or lack of. It is pathetic we still stampede. Animals stampede. Cows stampede. Calgary Stampede. Drunken soccer fans stampede.

What pathetic behavior. Tragic, but so so pathetic.

[Ex Tenebris Lux]

We're not evolved at all still. With all our trappings of culture and imaginary borders and nations and cathedrals and spires and temples we still act like animals.

This week over a hundred people died in a stampede. It's tragic, but moreover, I think it's pathetic.

It reminds me of the Dark Knight, Joker's little philosophy. His theory of society. Take out a block that everybody leans on, and watch it all burn. It's about mass madness.

"Madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups."

Nietzsche said that. Joker tried to prove it.

Religion proves it.

This isn't an attack on religion, this is an attack on humanity, or lack of. It is pathetic we still stampede. Animals stampede. Cows stampede. Calgary Stampede. Drunken soccer fans stampede.

What pathetic behavior. Tragic, but so so pathetic.

Oh my...

1. We ARE animals... and evolution is ongoing, not just physical evolution. You're b-tching against nature. That's a no win situation.

2. Um... ok? Tragedy happens... You'd be surprised what sort of weird things happen in a mass crowd... but I don't feel like giving a psychology lesson.

3. I like Nietzche too, but hate to shatter your bubble, but he wasn't the hardcore anti-christian atheist everyone likes to think he was. It's sad that all the pseudo-intellectuals out there have misrepresented him.

4. Define "humanity."

5. The Joker is a fictional comic book character... Trying to find some meaning in that is an excercise in misguided thought.

6. Religion proves nothing. Your bias is showing.

7. I don't know what you WANT us to think, but this sounds like another kid picked up and skimmed a few books, or started taking a philosophy class somewhere, and now thinks himself an expert on the human condition. What you're really doing is spewing out pseudo-inellectual babble. That or, despite your protest otherwise, you just want to rail against religion and imply it makes people mindless animals with a herd mentality.

Anyway what IS your point?!


You know it is fairly obvious what your intent is with such a provocative thread title. It's quite clear what kind of responses you're fishing for. You couldn't just go into one of the many existing theological thread? With ones defending religion and ones tearing it apart, there's bound to be one that suits you.

[Serious J]

Gotta give you some rep for the wicked thread title, but I have to disagree with you that we stopped evolving.

Carl Sagan put it in a far better example than I can, so I'll just adopt what I recall of it.

In our DNA is stored the combined evolutionary knowledge of our species, from how to breathe, move, survive etc... Once we needed to develop new skills beyond those, we evolved a brain to store additional knowledge and that eventually evolved into our greatest asset, the cerebral cortex which gave us high thought and reasoning. But even our brains can't store an infinite amount of knowledge, so we invented writing to store more, and to share the knowledge with others of our species. Then came the printing press which made it easier, and now we have the Internet.

We still evolve, we just do so in a different way. But, those basic instincts such as running from danger (stampeding when in large groups) will always remain within our DNA and our brain stems.

Also remember that Evolution comes from necessity. Since we can now evolve to our needs within a very short period of time thanks to our ingenuity and curiousity, we no longer have need of basic evolution which takes a vast amount of time to accomplish. We have essentially evolved past basic evolution itself.

[Ex Tenebris Lux]

Gotta give you some rep for the wicked thread title, but I have to disagree with you that we stopped evolving.

Carl Sagan put it in a far better example than I can, so I'll just adopt what I recall of it.

In our DNA is stored the combined evolutionary knowledge of our species, from how to breathe, move, survive etc... Once we needed to develop new skills beyond those, we evolved a brain to store additional knowledge and that eventually evolved into our greatest asset, the cerebral cortex which gave us high thought and reasoning. But even our brains can't store an infinite amount of knowledge, so we invented writing to store more, and to share the knowledge with others of our species. Then came the printing press which made it easier, and now we have the Internet.

We still evolve, we just do so in a different way. But, those basic instincts such as running from danger (stampeding when in large groups) will always remain within our DNA and our brain stems.

Also remember that Evolution comes from necessity. Since we can now evolve to our needs within a very short period of time thanks to our ingenuity and curiousity, we no longer have need of basic evolution which takes a vast amount of time to accomplish.

dead on.

[Zenith Darksea]

I kind of agree with the first post actually, though you needn't necessarily point at religion as being an obvious exemplar. It's just one that we hear a lot about in the news. You can see exactly the same tendencies in many political movements, clubs and societies, and even high-street shopping. Remember the stampedes outside Ikea?

It's the old chestnut. Religion would have a better reputation if the people who practised it had more common sense. Alas, that's true of most things in life.

[Ummon]

We're not evolved at all still. With all our trappings of culture and imaginary borders and nations and cathedrals and spires and temples we still act like animals.

This week over a hundred people died in a stampede. It's tragic, but moreover, I think it's pathetic.

It reminds me of the Dark Knight, Joker's little philosophy. His theory of society. Take out a block that everybody leans on, and watch it all burn. It's about mass madness.

"Madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups."

Nietzsche said that. Joker tried to prove it.

Religion proves it.

This isn't an attack on religion, this is an attack on humanity, or lack of. It is pathetic we still stampede. Animals stampede. Cows stampede. Calgary Stampede. Drunken soccer fans stampede.

What pathetic behavior. Tragic, but so so pathetic.

Masses stampede because their behaviour syncronizes over subtle stimuli. This is an example of the potential negative consequences of a necessary characteristic. There could be no mass interaction without syncronization, infact.

You missed a good occasion to read a book and not to post, IMHO.

[Ex Tenebris Lux]

why is religion even being mentioned here? simply because the OP has something against it. it's extraneous and really has no bearing on the issue, as if there really is an issue. complaining about the human condition is complaining about something that you can do nothing about and indeed something you are as guilty of as the next person. seems more like young angst manifested in an existential manner if you ask me.

[Cluny the Scourge]

All that this stampede incident in India proves is that nations with very dense population-concentrations need to study and train in proper crowd-control techniques.

The temple-administrators let too many people into the temple. When something unexpected happened, i.e. the collapse of the railing, there wasn't enough room for people to move. The result was panic.

There's nothing more complicated to it than that.

Crowd-control should be treated like a religion in itself in a place with a gigantic population like India.

[Ummagumma]

This week over a hundred people died in a stampede. It's tragic, but moreover, I think it's pathetic.

So, you mean to tell me (us) that if you were in an area that has recently had several deadly landslides, and some people come running past, scared out of their wits, that there is another landslide happening you would not run? More than that, you would not want to save yourself? You would flee, and to hell with anyone that is in your way.
It's exactly the same reactions as make you move your hand from a candle flame, that make you raise your arms to break your fall if you slip, the same as makes you jump when there is an unexpected loud noise. Self-preservation is one of, if not the strongest motivation we have.
If you think you would have been able to do anything but run,in the same 'pathetic' manner as everyone else, you are sadly mistaken.

All that this stampede incident in India proves is that nations with very dense population-concentrations need to study and train in proper crowd-control techniques.

Yeah, because things like Hillsborough never happen in our less-populated civilised regions, of course...

[Aetius]

Society is an illusion. You may think that we are very different from animals, but once order starts breaking down, there is nothing to hold us back.

Imagine if there were no police. Imagine if electricty shut down. Imagine if it all broke down.

People would revert to their nature, stealing from the weak, dominating others, old people would die.

Total chaos is just below the surface, its quite frightening actually. Chaos begets chaos.

[Ex Tenebris Lux]

Society is an illusion. You may think that we are very different from animals, but once order starts breaking down, there is nothing to hold us back.

Imagine if there were no police. Imagine if electricty shut down. Imagine if it all broke down.

People would revert to their nature, stealing from the weak, dominating others, old people would die.

Total chaos is just below the surface, its quite frightening actually. Chaos begets chaos.

... this is why you're not a philosopher, just another teenager, all be it in his last year of it...

It makes people feel a bit alienated knowing their behavior is exploited as such for maximum effect... doesn't it?

are you on drugs?! are you implying that we shouldn't learn from tragic events and try to take measures to avoid them in the future, because you equate that to exploitation?

just give up please this thread is losing any academic substance FAST....

[Megas12345]

Are you seriously saying that all of humanity has degraded and deprived itself of all basic moral thinking.. and I thought I was a cynical bastard.. sure alot of people have lost control and greed drives their existence.. but what your doing is making a sweeping generalization about humans.. Its not as if everything is gone mad... though I agree it seems much has.. and as said earlier.. nice thread title

[Cluny the Scourge]

Yeah, because things like Hillsborough never happen in our less-populated civilised regions, of course...

Yeah, because things like Hillsborough never happened again in our less-populated civilised regions once the supreme importance of proper crowd-control techniques was understood and indoctrinated into the police and public safety regulations for private companies wishing to hold mass events. Oh, no, wait that's actually true.

[Da Skinna]

Yeah, because things like Hillsborough never happened again in our less-populated civilised regions once the supreme importance of proper crowd-control techniques was understood and indoctrinated into the police and public safety regulations for private companies wishing to hold mass events. Oh, no, wait that's actually true.

It makes people feel a bit alienated knowing their behavior is exploited as such for maximum effect... doesn't it?

[Orgath]

Lord of the Flies anybody?

[Da Skinna]

I'm still trying to find the part where I claimed we stopped evolving, that Nietzsche was a hardcore anti-theist, and that self preservation is not our number one instinct.

Oh well, I can edit it in later I guess.

We still retain so many characteristics of an irrational animal. Which we are in many ways, but if we want to move forward (here comes the messiah part) we need to really look at ourselves and decide what makes us so different from all other animals.

The rule, in my opinion, that makes us human, because we've yet to consensualize that term, is our ability to discern, distinguish and decide between our own notions of morality. Morality, because it is so closely linked to self-preservation.

The people that tend a temple are usually moral. We would think. But our morals that say we shouldn't stomp on the back of a child's neck but indeed help them to safety is lost in our need to preserve the self. Instinct takes over. Our animal self takes over. And indeed we stomp on the back of their neck so hard it severs their spinal cord.

So I'd like thank those that found it even a little thought-provoking, and refrained from throwing their hands in the air like a monkey screaming "what's your point?!" and abstaining from throwing pseudo-intellectual feces at my thought-fart.

Mass psychology is always a fun thing. The guy in my avatar knew that. He's Sigmund Freud's nephew, and father of public relations. He's Edward Bernays, and he has influenced so much more than what's credited to him.

[Serious J]

I'm still trying to find the part where I claimed we stopped evolving

Sorry, Da Skinna. I had taken the tone of your post combined with "We're not evolved at all still" as a suggestion we're not evolving. I've re-read the post and I can see that's not what you had intended. My apologies.

[The Colonel]

"cant say men don't evolve, for we find a new way to kill you in every way"
-Some guy

read in the quotes when you get killed in call of duty 2. Who says you dont learn from video-games?!?!

Someone please correct me

[Ummon]

A man (woman) must reclaim his (her) individuality from the jaws of bloody mother Nature bystruggling to the death of his (her) self. When he (she) does so, he (she) has acquired the fundamental advantage of being able to do it again every day of his (her) life. :wink:

[Ex Tenebris Lux]

nothing is better or worse than it's ever been.