2147483647 Wrote:Actually, I was comparing them to the lions and wolves that Kalovale brought up. Comparing humans to other species of animals is perfectly relevant to this discussion. Humans are animals too, even if they are more cephalized.

Shidoshi Wrote:I think we tend to think this is wrong based on our bringing up in society. It feels strange and unnatural because it's not what we are used to.
It is, however, very "natural" in that that was the way it worked before certain religions and societies decided it was "bad".

In my opinion (since this thread is about opinion, not facts), multiple husbands or multiple wives is fine as long as everyone involved is okay with it. Regarding children I'd say it's about as polemic as gay couples having children, it's just much less common since our laws normally do not allow guard of children by more than 2 people.

All things about feeling you couldn't have your loved one with someone else, that's how you feel about polygyny or polyandry for yourself. But how about for other people? It's about the same as using as argument against homosexuality "I couldn't see myself with someone of the same sex".

TaliaNCo Wrote:My opinion is that it's merely another form of brainwashing to make them "think" it's ok and acceptable. I don't think homosexuality is the same thing at all. You're not born having the need/want to have multiple wives. Pretty sure most people who are gay/lesbian will tell you they were born that way.

2147483647 Wrote:Irrelevant.

Kalovale Wrote:Uh, I don't really speak for them, but I'm pretty damned sure African kids are the same as any other kids in the world, they don't want to share their toys. Staying true to instincts (in such cases you proposed) seems to promote POSSESSIVENESS (see a lion sharing its prey with a wolf ever?) over actually being okay with it.
Sure, who cares, it's good for the survival of the race, but the emotional distress is exactly what makes it unacceptable.

Swaqqin Wrote:African beliefs and traditions are different from ours. They way you used African's as an example makes it seem like that t;she route they resorted to populate. I think it's rather selfish of people who believe in this. Especially I feel bad for the kids. Have you ever seen "John and kate plus 8".How hard it is to deal with 8 kids plan one on one parent trips for the kids. Now it would be extremely harder if John had 3 other wives and 10 other kids. I didn't reply to this thread out of religious beliefs, if your deeply in love with someone there no way in hell you would be ok with them having sex and raising a family with someone other than you.

Shidoshi Wrote:In fact males were "born" with the need/want to have multiple wives, that's what evolution brought us. We just ruled it as bizarre/wrong in our current society.

TaliaNCo Wrote:Evolution has brought us many changes and the "need" for that has diminished entirely. We're already looking at an overly populated world.

Shidoshi Wrote:"Born with" = Instinct
Evolution from a biological stand-point. The instinct of perpetuation of the species. I'm not talking that it's needed, that has nothing to do with it.
Also just because a man has many wives does not mean he will have many children. That's completely unrelated.

Shidoshi Wrote:"Born with" = Instinct
Evolution from a biological stand-point. The instinct of perpetuation of the species. I'm not talking that it's needed, that has nothing to do with it.
Also just because a man has many wives does not mean he will have many children. That's completely unrelated.

TaliaNCo Wrote:Well, on the other side of the argument, I certainly wasn't born with the instinct to share my home, my motherly duties and my husband with other women. Which brings me back to the point that these men who can't curb their appetite with just one woman are brainwashing other women into believing what they believe. We have a history of certain religions/cults brainwashing people. I don't think this is much different.

Words Wrote:Humans don't have instinct.
Instintc= default conduct that all animals share.
Instinct of perpetuation of species? Not in humans! At least not in all, or else there would be no celibate people, like priests lol. Unless you think celibacy is a disease...
Also, people would never consider suicide if that was true, and people who suicide aren't sick either.

Wikipedia Wrote:Instinct or innate behavior is the inherent inclination of a living organism toward a particular behavior.

Shidoshi Wrote:It's our most basic responses to stimuli, that does not mean that through living in society we don't get to supress our instincts. It's what we are born with.
Take a human being and put it away from civilization and our rules. It will still seek to reproduce and survive, it's something that doesn't need to be taught,

Wikipedia Wrote:The book "Instinct" (1961) established a number of criteria were established which distinguishes instinctual from other kinds of behavior. To be considered instinctual a behavior must a) be automatic, b) be irresistible, c) occur at some point in development, d) be triggered by some event in the environment, e) occur in every member of the species, f) be unmodifiable, and g) govern behavior for which the organism needs no training (although the organism may profit from experience and to that degree the behavior is modifiable)

Moonlapse Wrote:Its the norm in some of the world's cultures.

Moonlapse Wrote:Its the norm in some of the world's cultures.

Words Wrote:Harrison: you can't compare most animals to humans. Animals behavior is related to biology alone, while our behavior isn't related to it. For some it's related to some extent, while to some others, like Freud, our behavior isn't related at all to biology. Yeah, we're animals too, but we've evolved a lot and we are really different compared to almost every other animal. Humans behavior, specially social behavior can't be compared to animals. Well, you could and you'd probably find some similarities with chimpanzees or whatever animal, but those conducts aren't as complex as ours.

TaliaNCo Wrote:Well, on the other side of the argument, I certainly wasn't born with the instinct to share my home, my motherly duties and my husband with other women. Which brings me back to the point that these men who can't curb their appetite with just one woman are brainwashing other women into believing what they believe. We have a history of certain religions/cults brainwashing people. I don't think this is much different.

2147483647 Wrote:Psychoanalytic theory was designed to explaining the mind in terms of animal behavior. The human id is the representation of the piece of consciousness centralized within the oldest parts of the brain, namely the brainstem, the hippocampus, and the amygdala. These parts provided essential life processes and give rise to natural feelings, such and elevated moods when rewards are presented and agitation when danger is near. They allow humans to be surviving, resilient, and very capable of reproduction (success).

As humans evolved through time, they acquired language and developed it from something trivial to sophisticated. Language allowed humans to develop a sense of self, starting from the oral stage and progressing all the way until the genital stage. It's no accident that these stages of development come one after another: food first, shelter next, then reproduction, and finally, stable reproduction.

As language evolved, humans came to realize that information can not only be stored internally within the mind, it can be written down. Memory capacity expanded. Intelligence rose. Humans became obsessed with prediction. In order to survive with each other, Freud reasoned that the old survival techniques were no longer helpful in the human population, so they evolved the ego and superego to modulate their decisions. The egos created reasons for an individual to deviate from their instinctive, "natural" desires.

Humans are only "human" when the outer regions of their brains, those that give rise to morality and language, are considered. While the neocortex is only present in more cephalized creatures, the fact is that all animals are cephalized from the center up. Reproductive processes, such as polygamy arise from those primal regions, so to eliminate them from this discussion is pretty much reducing this problem to opinions.

That is definitely not doing the question any justice.