The idea that humans are 'natural born killers' is just a modern version of the old Catholic dogma of 'original sin'--and just as pessimistic a view of human nature. It matters what we believe. If we base our thinking on the notion that we are inherently violent, that becomes our reality and our justification for more warmaking. The toxic notion of original sin held that sin came down through the generations father to son from Adam in his semen! How deterministic.
GR

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I take it people are aware of the illuminati Council of Foreign Relations? Words like NWO, Eugenics, Population 'control' barely touch the surface of this odious outfit. So-called 'scientific' research into mind-control and 'behaviour' modification (i.e. horrendous vivisection on both animals and now humans) have been funded through their mechanations.
However, the most insidious activity is mind control through owning media coverage promotng such 'findings'. One can scan the media for many human/animal examples to pursuade people that they are no better than animals. We all grew up with Disney where these false ideas are imprinted at the most vulnerable and impressionable period of our lives. Thus, we are well 'groomed' to accept as fact, reinforcements of a big and dangerous lie; that we 'evolved' from apes' after millions of years as the pinnacle of evolution's achievements.
No God here at all, no perfect design, no spiritual or soul blueprint, no cause for the 'mass herd' to aspire to any higher attainment above the level of survival and obeyance of the 'natural' laws to which we are subject. We are dumbed-down, thus easily led and controlled by these unsavoury manipulators by being conditioned to believe their frankenstein, warped version of what passes for 'science'.
Einstein was one of 'theirs' and lauded as a 'genius' - well, I guess it was a low kind of cunning that enabled him to secure a 'vetting' role within the US Patent Office and pass others' true genius off as his own! When I was involved in the Animal Rights' Movement back in the early 80's I knew that we humans were the true target of experimentation and behaviour modification. We have to take responsibility that we have compromised spritual integrity by following the line of least resistance that the biggest lie "the means justifies the ends" would be of 'benefit' to us all. HoHo. How many protested and fought to stop this evil against sentient animals who we were entrusted to our guardianship by The Divine to nurture and protect? Home to roost, we discover god-awful underground basis with unmentionable human torture, experimentation, genetic engineering and death. We face being tagged, microchipped, imprisoned in 'holding pens' whilst the plan is a giant cull (est. 75% of population). This is already well in progress through war, DU, 'Avian Flu' - spread by Chemtrails from commercial/military craft, fluoridation of water, mercury poisoning and other lethal coctails inserted into the life-blood
of our babies - timebombs, which develop into an extraordinary kaledescope of deadly ailments such as cancer and AIDS, and other exotic crippling factors. Like sheep to the slaughter, we are being gathered into electronic pens, trapped by media mush whilst our brains are bombarded with scalar wave technology. Horrors of HAARP and other inverted Tesla technology (a true genius) bombarding the biosphere and ionosphere creating tsunami and Katrinas. The joke is, we think our thoughts are our own, whilst 'choosing' an nihilistic lifestyle. This sheep pen is certanly mightier than the sword and this anti-life, evil propoganda peddled by CFR and their ilk must be exposed for the gross deception it is. This requires critical reasoning and candid research, it also requires responsibility and courage; the courage to admit that we have allowed ourselves to walk dutifully into an abattoir of our own funding and have dragged future generations in with us - unforgiveable. This is the culmination of our laziness, which is detested by the illuminati who openly refer to mankind as cattle 'useless breeders and feeders' whilst they are soul-less alien crossbreeds who are nothing more than giant parasites - the lowest and yet most successful biological life-form in existence.
And the bleat goes on ............ Anyone fancy a banana?

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"hope for the future depends on each of us taking nonviolence into our hearts and minds and developing new and imaginative structures which are nonviolent and life-giving for all.

Some people will argue that this is too idealistic. I believe it is very realistic.

I am convinced that humanity is fast evolving to this higher consciousness. For those who say it cannot be done, let us remember that humanity learned to abolish slavery. Our task now is no less than the abolition of violence and war .... We can rejoice and celebrate today because we are living in a miraculous time. Everything is changing and everything is possible."

Noble Peace Prize winner Máiread Corrigan Maguire,

More on WAWA BLOG:
February 19, 2006
http://www.wearewideawake.org

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Peace will Come! It must be won! One by One!

Take your love to your heart.

It is over.
The old system is in decline.
It is The Corporate Machine’s last gasp attempt at:
Global Dominance.
Nuclear Blackmail and War
6/6/6 is just around the corner
The Anti Christ will reveal himself.
The Emperor of the Dark Side.
Rises
Cursing and Blaspheming
The time of Trials and tribulations are at hand.
Choose wisely: Peace and Prosperity!

Millions of people marching for Peace around the world
Is an indication of the shift.
The awakening is at hand.
People want to live in Peace
Creating a better place to live.
In a twinkling of the eye
The world will change
Global
Enlightenment
Is at hand.
Take a stand.
Go to a waterfall
Or
Watch an Ocean wave breaking.
They are doors of perception
Healing this world.

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It is always remarkable, to me, how our citizens, in particular, ultimately work their way to the "right" conclusion no matter what kind of obstacles and obfuscations politicians and the media put in their way. I can only hope that this hard headedness in getting at the truth is an indication that Mr. Sapolsky is correct.

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Many thanks to Professor Sapolsky for this article. It brought to mind the conversation with Cristina Page a few weeks back; she found that the anti-choice movement overlays an even more fundamental hatred of the modern woman. That hatred grows from the violence of the male who desires dominance. Work towards peace, and be careful whom you breed with.

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I can't remember a time in history when we haven't had wars. Seems to me peace is probably more unnatural than war. Bonobos might be peaceful, but we are not bonobos.

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I absolutely agree that instinct of violence (or animal) is inbuilt in humans. Over the evolution and time, this instinct changes into a civilized humans. Its natural however and can not be defied by any conspiracy theories. Anyway good luck to the author for bringing out a good write-up
Mike

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Humans are a species that literally invented itself. When an early ape picked up a long pointed stick with a sharp point and became the new alpha-male, physical strength ceased to be the factor in our survival. We are technological animals and for millions of years lived in tribal democracies. Apes might fish for termites with a straw, but the only ape to go into outer space was sent there by us in a rocket. The anthropological fixation on our animal nature obscures our true nature.

Hunters and gatherers rapidly depleted their hunting grounds and when they moved into another tribes area they had to fight. That is why tribal youth were called warriors. We hate killing another human being because we are social animals. Totemism made it possible for a loving human to kill another by becoming an animal for this purpose. Modern football teams call themselves the Eagle, or the Bears, or the Lions. This is pure totemism.

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What I got from the entire article is that the more that females nurture and put out the more peaceful males become.

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This whole high-school debate about “violence in monkeys, does it mean humans are evil?”, doesn’t take into account all the science we’ve come to understand and all the development of human behavior that we’ve evolved. This isn’t a humans are good/humans are evil debate. Nor is it a self-determination/free-will debate. This requires a big-picture, non-judgmental (i.e., no morality, no “good” and “evil” monikers), non-fear-based look at animals and humans and our planet. We can’t look at life in black-and-white, but with a grey-scale.

I believe that its interesting to understand the behavior of other animals (and, yes, even plants!) to better understand our own behavior. This thing of violence does exist in most all living creatures. The “primal brain” of all vertebrates is located at the base of the spinal cord. It contains the thalamus and the amygdala. These basic components of the brain control many of our bodily functions, including that famous “fight or flight” response – which includes the release of chemicals such as adrenaline. Fish have it. Bunnies certainly got it. And so do all monkeys and all humans.

We humans also share something else with some of the “higher” animals – a frontal lobe in our brains. It brings higher abstract thinking and emotions. Once again, this is most-definitely a grey-scale issue. I’ve seen fish show signs of “depression” following the death of their mate. Its not just humans that have emotions; but that’s another issue.

Back to our brains – this frontal lobe is where the beauty of human design started – our frontal lobe is MUCH larger than monkeys. That’s why we can understand the violent tendencies in monkeys and acknowledge that our tendencies towards violence also exists – we too have that thalamus and amygdala. BUT – our larger frontal lobe allows us to THINK about the consequences of our actions. We can perceive our situation with greater education and understanding. We can then make choices, based upon our understanding of the situation. Our ability to do this is certainly greater than many other animals. And we need to learn that we CAN control our responses. Not only that, but scientists are beginning to understand that the brain can be “wired” and certain pathways (i.e., responses – such as “fight”) can be hardwired, where the individual quickly responds in conditioned, habitual ways (such as “fight”). This is why the current prison system is so dangerous. It just reinforces the brain wiring towards anger, aggression, and violence.

We are learning that we can actively readjust our brains to a more tolerant, perceptive, peaceful function. But it takes constant active discipline to achieve. The amygdala is a powerful force!!

This is where the great human experiment gets exciting. And dangerous. Religion has tried to control violence through conditioning and habituation – but it fails in that it doesn’t provide the critical thought as to: “why do we practice love and non-violence?”. We need to understand that it is an innate part of our brain. Not to be feared, but to be acknowledged, but, most-often, to be dismissed. That’s why I enjoy the philosophies of buddhism. But that, too, is another issue!

We are living in a time of plenty. Natural resources are many and are easy to acquire. Our violence should not be present, but it always is!! People like Uday and Qusay Hussein (Saddam’s sons) are a perfect example. These young men were manipulated towards violence all their lives. We cannot necessarily judge them as “evil”, but understand that their brains have been extremely hardwired towards aggression and sadism. We must acknowledge these types of people as natural products of their brains and their surroundings. That way we can best respond to people like this. Because its natural.

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Of all that is in creation,humans alone,on this planet,have the ability to change. This is what seperates us from our fellow animals. Yes humans are animals.We just have a lot more control over our respective actions.
Fear and Greed are the motivating factors in humans killing eachother. Sure we can blame substance abuse and the like
but those are creations of man and as such are artifical causes of violence of every type.
Killing for the human,if exposed to enough of it,becomes an acceptable act,mainly because endorphines in the brain set up it's pattern of reoccurance. This can be seen in returning military personell who have done dasturdly acts under orders
and become the loonies on a gun rampage or are constantly putting themselves into situations of impending peril,and revel in it.
Our saving grace is the fact that we have the ability to choose a different way. We have in the past and can do it again. 5,000 years ago the was a city state in peru named Caral. It was a large civilization who's reach spanned some 1200 sg. miles,trading freely with other villages as much as 500 miles away, They had no standing armies,battlements or forts. There was'nt a need for them because they lived in Peace with respect for their neighbors. It is the only known civilization in the World to be that way.
400 years before Columbus the Iroquois Confederacy banded together with their nieghbor nations and formed a lasting Peace centered around the Natural Law. A peace aggreement was solidified by the burying of all weapons of war and the planting of the Great Peace Tree.
Do we,here and now, possess the ability to have life the same way? Yes we can! We must route out those whom feel war is neccessary to civilization and rest them away from positions of power. We must insure that the greedy are dispossesed of the wealth that breeds contempt for their fellow humans,for the highest aspiration of humanity is generosity in all dealings. We must rebuke those who use Fear and Intimadation as their M.O. for getting things done.
It only engenders rage and hatred among those whom live under their influence.
A Peaceful,Good Life can be ours for the living. We only need Will it so. From my heart to yours May Peace be with YOU.

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I enjoyed the Sapolsky article, and many kudos to him for stepping forward and proclaiming that violence is not a natural nor inevitable part of being human. Primatologist Robert Sussmann said much the same thing in his book "Man the Hunted." Sussmann made the point that belief in humans as "killer apes" has more to do with the Judeo-Christian doctrine of original sin than actual biology. I might add that belief in women's natural subordination to men has a lot to do with the Judeo-Christian "taint of Eve" than biology. But, since it's getting harder in the West, at least, to justify violence and gender hierarchies with religion, the powers-that-be must needs invent some other ideology to justify it, and voila! Sociobiology and bio-sexism!

I am currently writing a paper on gender-egalitarian societies and what we can learn from them. There have been many societies in which women were not considered inferior to men (not all were peaceable, though) nor were they expected to "tame" and "civilize" the "savage male." Men were expected to control their own impulses on their own, imagine that! Men are not naturally dominant and violent, nor is feminism the "white woman's burden." (In fact, historian Sally Wagner, as well as Native elder Paula Gunn Allen, make a good case that American feminism is the gift of Iroquois women to the suffragettes...)

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I think Dr. Robert M. Sapolsky has given us a marvellous piece because it make everyone think. I think we seem to be heading into a new age of enlightenment (hopefully). But, from the various comments some people take the facts that are uncovered only to bend them round their convictions; pacifism, feminism, or to justify war or aggression. Although we train to see things in boxes an article like this tends to make us jump from biology to sociology to theology in our search for the “truth”.

Perhaps I cannot grasp the concept of “original sin”, but I understand we cannot have the rational without the animal although the higher mind can and does dominate (sometimes). So certainly with a few 100 million years of evolution from a single cell, out of the ooze to dinosaurs then mammals and finally primates to us… only two million years since we got up off our hands to get a better perspective of our environment, and suddenly we can put so many of our resources into destroying our fellow man and our environment when at the same time we know that most of our progress and technology has developed through cooperation. It is the complexity and paradox that makes us humans quite unique and very dangerous to ourselves.

So we can be whatever we want to be, and whatever we are we will rationalise, A great part of that is to delude ourselves reinforcing our illusions through rites and ceremonies avoiding the fear and doubt which is the mystery and miracle of existance.

jeffrey7 mentioned the Caral, a pre-Columbian civilization in what is now Peru I think. If I am not mistaken, the researchers established that the Caral not only existed in peace for nearly 1000 years but were economically complex and ecologically in balance, with different communities specializing; fishing on the coast, and raising corn in the interior. Trade insured the peace as people realised their interdependence. If anything our interdependence is greater today than ever.

At the end of the day we are 98% water plus a few chemicals and elements, the stuff stars are made of in a special mix which lasts only a short time per unit and makes us totally unique. There has been a “direction” in our evolution which has allowed us a glimpse of “awareness”. Surely this cannot be just to dominate and destroy? If there is, that must be an original sin.

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President Bush has boasted far wide of his defense-by-preemptive-attack strategy. Now more and more conservative observors are saying that Iraq is either on verge of a civil war or is already in the midst of one. Yet, when Mr. Bush was asked if we should pull out our troops or take sides if it became a civil war, his only response was that we should stay and train the Iraqis until they can defend themselves.

Since he does not differentiate he must be talking about training both sides to attack with more killing ability.

This is just one of many contexts in which Mr. Bush appears to be a very effective agent for those who avidly seek the end of the world so they can ascend directly to heaven while rejoicing in the nonbelievers descent into hell. Is it possible that it's deliberate???

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