Do you accept the fact that humans are primates?

Of course.

I think I prefer most chimps, gorillas, and especially orangutans, to many people.

Yes, no problem.

Did you know Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens coexistence for thousands of years, and mated? Some people show Neanderthal DNA. I love this stuff!

Some?
How about half of the population.

Is it that much?

From Wikipedia “Neanderthal-inherited genetic material is found in all non-African populations…”

I feel closer to non-human primates, especially bonobos, than I do to many humans.

Also, as a wannabe ape whisperer, I feel the annoyance that my orangutanian brothers do when they’re compared to Trump. ;-(

IMO, lemurs are the cutest of all us primates. :)

Certainly. Ooh ook, ah aahhh.

?

I mean, the evidence is overwhelming

It is.

No. Here we are all coelenterates.

@cookieman…Rick and I were in a motel once. The bar was packed with football enthusiasts. Every time a particularly good play went down the whole bar exploded in hoots and screeches. They sounded exactly like a tribe of chimpanzes.

So humans are chimps on booze, AKA AAA: alcohol addled apes.

I always thought that was common knowledge. Did I miss something, or is the Inquisition making a comeback? And the way things were heading in this country for while, and may yet still, I’m not even sure that I’m just kidding about that. Anyway I always rooted for King Kong over that dumb big ass lizard.

Yes. “Ungawa!”

I do accept it.

People used to absolutely reject the idea that we were in any way related to apes, even though it is SO obvious.
They fought against the idea we were “animals,” too.

There are still folks like that around. Biblical literalists who buy in to the Genesis Adam and Eve myth.

Seems like an insulting association.
For the chimps, gorillas and orangutans.

How else can humans logically be classified? We definitely are not plants, fungi, bacteria or viruses.

We are the naked ape. The sexual ape. The warrior ape. The spiritual ape. The inventor ape. The exploring ape. And the dreaming ape.

<— The cookie loving ape.

Of course. Who’s to say what form Adam and Eve took. Sigh.

Well according to popular belief they were 100% in human form. Which means they were great apes.

@Dutchess_III Genesis does say God created man to rule over the animals, so I can see the disconnect in evolutionary discussions with biblical literalists. Many species are now extinct, so who knows.

A hundred years of intensive research has established beyond reasonable doubt what most human beings have intuited all along; the gap is real. In a number of key dimensions, particularly the social realm, human cognition vastly outstrips that of even the cleverest nonhuman primates.
https://biologos.org/common-questions/how-could-humans-have-evolved-and-still-be-in-the-image-of-god/

Yes. We are the smartest…. but we’re not doing a real good job with our superior brains

Humans being apes is not primarily defined by morphological similarities, but by recent common ancestry.

@Brian1946

“IMO, lemurs are the cutest of all us primates. :)”

I feel honored to share a taxonomic order with such exquisite quadrupeds.
Some of these furries look like foxes with opposable digits.

Well, we have the most human-like intelligence.

Which for most of us, even many cognitive scientists, is not enough to overcome our bias for human-like intelligence as the best kind.

We’ve certainly done a lot of things, for better or worse, that no other animal could accomplish.

We are beyond any doubt bi-pedal, meat-eating, apex predator, apes.

We are the most intelligent creatures on this planet, and at times, the least intelligent by far in regards to our primary role of perpetuating our species (nukes as an example of a very asinine approach to protect ourselves yet inventing a means to wipe our species off the planet entirely at the same time).

We are both capable of amazing, towering levels of intellect, compassion, and invention, and the deepest trenches of ignorance, hate, and primal ‘flight or fight’ reactions. Even to this very day.

The way I look at it, our concept of intelligence is both greatly exaggerated in the scope of the universe and time, and especially amongst our very limited perceptions of reality amongst ourselves as we live through life.

But yes, we are most definitely primates and I don’t see in this day in age how that at all conflicts with belief in God’s creation, just means our perception of it was even more limited in the past than we can conceptualize today.

It’s conflicting @MrSoul127, because everyone knows other primates, like chimpanzees and gorillas, can’t go to heaven. Only we homo sapiens can. For some odd reason. We must be more special than other primates. Must be. Have to be.

@Dutchess_III There are several Bible verses that refer to animals in heaven.

Could you tell me one @raum?

Isaiah 11:6 to 11:9

6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.

7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den.

9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.

Luke 3:6
And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

Genesis 7:15
They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life.

1. I am reasonably sure that Isaiah is not describing heaven, but earth.
2. Other translations use the word “people” instead of “flesh”, so it may not refer to beings other than humans. Plus, the meaning of “salvation” is not set in stone.
3. That one is talking about Noah’s ark, not heaven.

Yeah. #1 was describing Earth after the rapture.
And whatever else you said Raggie.

@ragingloli

1 Heaven on earth after the Rapture.

⅔ Not talking about heaven, but thought I’d include that to point out that animals are considered flesh* with breath of life. And all flesh will see salvation.

* Depending on how it’s translated.

There’s also a passage about a white horse in heaven. I have to find it though.

Revelation 19:14
And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.

.

Are these horses that were created in heaven, or are they horses that lived on earth, died, then were sent to heaven?
Similar to the houri (the women given to believers in paradise) in Islam, where it is not clear if they are women that lived on earth, or a separate creation. Like NPCs in a video game.

Haha…heavenly NPCs.

No idea? Maybe someone who’s actually religious and knows their text can weigh in?

Numbers 31:28
And levy a tribute unto the Lord of the men of war which went out to battle: one soul of five hundred, both of the persons, and of the beeves, and of the asses, and of the sheep.

I really think you should look at other translations.

@ragingloli Which one do you recommend? (I’m not exactly a religious scholar.)

Neither am I, but different translations translate things differently.
In this case, it would show that the word “soul” does not mean the soul, but simply refers to an individual.

I think in a non-religious text, I’d read “soul” as “individual” as well. But I don’t recall it ever being used this way in the Bible. (Obviously that is subject to my limited recall of the Bible.)

King James Version:
And levy a tribute unto the Lord of the men of war which went out to battle: one soul of five hundred, both of the persons, and of the beeves, and of the asses, and of the sheep.

Hmmm…still thinking about how this should be read.

Do worms go to heaven?

If it bleeds, it goes to heaven? Something about life being in the blood. Will need to find the passage for this too.

Man, this is starting to feel like homework.

Do ameboeas go to heaven?

I don’t think amoebas have blood? Though I like the imagery of two amoebas boarding the Ark.

@Dutchess_III I was about to ask the same thing, you read my mind. Do they?

@ragingloli Whoops. Just realized I pasted the same translation twice. Isn’t King James the go-to version for the Bible?

Jellyfish? Waiting for @raum to tell me to shut up!!!

Jellyfish don’t have blood.
I have little kids. I could do this all day. :P

Okay, found it.

Leviticus 17:11 (KJV)
For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.

So jellyfish don’t get to go to heaven? (Starts crying.)

We will have to make our own jelly heaven full of pancakes.

My English Lit teacher should be proud that I even remember this much of the Bible. It’s been like twenty-five years!

Fishes go to heaven. Is there an ocean in heaven?

(I’m impressed @raum)!

There was a lot of debate around there being no more sea. So maybe just freshwater fish or a giant fish bowl perhaps? :P

(I only remembered the general gist. Had to look up the actual passages. Still…where’s my extra credit?!)

So no crabs and lobsters and whales and dolphins?

Nope. But they can hang out with us jellies.

What are we gonna eat when we get in the mood for seafood?? (Crying again.)

Heavenly NPC seafood, obviously.

I’m hoping that slithery ass snakes, which I hate, go “shout at the devil”? To use an old Irish expression.

Any place that has pancakes qualifies as heaven to me.