{"id":201,"date":"2010-07-07T17:25:46","date_gmt":"2010-07-07T21:25:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/ombs\/?p=201"},"modified":"2010-07-07T17:25:46","modified_gmt":"2010-07-07T21:25:46","slug":"toasters-with-feelings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/2010\/07\/07\/toasters-with-feelings\/","title":{"rendered":"Toasters With Feelings"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_208\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-208\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-208\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/files\/2010\/07\/Flying-Toaster-300x178.jpg\" alt=\"The Brave Little Toaster\" width=\"300\" height=\"178\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/files\/2010\/07\/Flying-Toaster-300x178.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/files\/2010\/07\/Flying-Toaster.jpg 797w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-208\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Brave Little Toaster<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><!-- AddThis Button BEGIN --><br \/>\n<a class=\"addthis_button\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addthis.com\/bookmark.php?v=250&amp;username=xa-4bb6bcc8320e5dd9\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/static\/btn\/v2\/lg-share-en.gif\" alt=\"Bookmark and Share\" width=\"125\" height=\"16\" \/><\/a><script src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/js\/250\/addthis_widget.js#username=xa-4bb6bcc8320e5dd9\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button END --><br \/>\nAnthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics to inanimate objects, animals, or God. It has been a hallmark of faiths and religions worldwide. Humans have a natural tendency to assign intentions and desires to inanimate objects (&#8220;my computer isn&#8217;t feeling well today &#8211; he&#8217;s so slow!&#8221;), but they also strip &#8220;lower&#8221; beings (animals) of those same human characteristics.<\/p>\n<p>We have a history of treating animals unnecessarily cruelly. I don&#8217;t mean killing for food &#8211; that&#8217;s necessary for our survival; I&#8217;m referring to dog fights, hunting, and other violence. We didn&#8217;t even think that animals could sense pain until quite recently!<\/p>\n<p>Why do we think of lifeless forms as agents with intentions but of actual living creatures as emotionally inferior clumps of cells?<\/p>\n<p>Could it be that the need to rationalize phenomena is simply stronger when the phenomena have absolutely no visible explanation?<\/p>\n<p>And do toasters really have feelings??<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics to inanimate objects, animals, or God. It has been a hallmark of faiths and religions worldwide. Humans have a natural tendency to assign intentions and desires to inanimate objects (&#8220;my computer isn&#8217;t feeling well today &#8211; he&#8217;s so slow!&#8221;), but they also strip &#8220;lower&#8221; beings (animals) of those [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3073,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[783,1128],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3073"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}