Is there a term for self-loathing at the species level?

[semillama]

I'm curious to know. Seems like anytime, anywhere an article is posted on topics such as neanderthals or megafauna extinctions, there's always the sanctimonious poster who decries the crimes of our species. I find it really pathetic.

It's almost as annoying as the inevitable "earth is only 6,000 years old" jokes that get attached to any article that discusses anything that occurred over 10,000 years ago. Talk about stale!

[laconicsax]

1. New age?

[TZ]

2. Misanthropes

:shrug:

[onager]

3. Crap like this didn't help...

One of the most anti-human screeds ever penned. And it's one of the "Christian Classics!"

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.

You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep.
And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up.

"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"
Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)
Enfield, Connecticut
July 8, 1741

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/sermons.sinners.html

[Odin2005]

5. The Granddaddy of the fundies.

[LeftishBrit]

13. It is not only anti-human but puts God in the most horrible light - with seeming approval

Sometimes earthly kings have a mind to show how terrible their wrath is, by the extreme punishments they would execute on those that would provoke them. Nebuchadnezzar, that mighty and haughty monarch of the Chaldean empire, was willing to show his wrath when enraged with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; and accordingly gave orders that the burning fiery furnace should be heated seven times hotter than it was before; doubtless, it was raised to the utmost degree of fierceness that human art could raise it. But the great God is also willing to show his wrath, and magnify his awful majesty and mighty power in the extreme sufferings of his enemies. And seeing this is his design, and what he has determined, even to show how terrible the unrestrained wrath, the fury and fierceness of Jehovah is, he will do it to effect. There will be something accomplished and brought to pass that will be dreadful with a witness. When the great and angry God hath risen up and executed his awful vengeance on the poor sinner, and the wretch is actually suffering the infinite weight and power of his indignation, then will God call upon the whole universe to behold that awful majesty and mighty power that is to be seen in it.



So God is regarded here as a brutal dictator, who tortures his enemies just to show how powerful he is. And this is regarded by Edwards as his right, and a Good Thing. Very worrying.

[Odin2005]

4. Misanthrope. They annoy the fuck outta me.

[LeftishBrit]

6. Misanthropy? - for general dislike of people

[semillama]

7. Not misanthropy

Because I get the sense that they don't dislike people per se, but are consumed with guilt for the environmental misdeeds our species is committing. And hey, I'll agree we're fucking up our environment in a big way, but the whole lamenting how terrible homo sapiens is by nature is aggravating.

[provis99]

8. does any other species have the capacity to destroy the entire planet?

At the rate of climate change, not to mention nuclear weapons, humanity is indeed the only species destroying the planet.

[greyl]

11. You're mistakenly identifying the actions of part of a group, as representing the entire group.

Ask yourself: why aren't you claiming that mammals, bipeds, primates, or apes are destroying the planet?
It's because humanity is more specific, therefore more useful, correct?

Well, one can get even more specific and useful, if one recognizes that destroying the planet is not some physiological imperative of homo sapiens sapiens. Destroying the planet is more accurately seen as a cultural imperative.

[laconicsax]

9. ...or a random article about cognition in other species.

:eyes:

[laconicsax]

10. ...or a random article on H. heidelbergensis.

:banghead:

[Deep13]

12. "Christianity"

from the "we're all sinners" meme.