Almost anything you can think of about a human being is also a property of other animals - Body structure, chemistry, genetics, behaviour, even things like language and culture, all are things which other species have in common with us, to a greater or lesser degree. I don't believe there's any *verifiable* part of what makes us human that we cannot observe in other species.
If you believe we're not animals and related to other animals by common descent then why are we just like them? Why didn't your god make us obviously different?
Isn't the truth that we're just like other animals because we *are* animals?
2006-09-11 05:25:50 · 43 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Whether or not you believe in Christianity, one this is for certain. We have all decended from a common ancestor. The arguments for evolution are strong, and very well cooroborated and argued for. We are living beings and subjected to the same evolutionary processes as all other animals, plants, and everything else. So to answer your question breifly, yes, we are animals. Classified that was taxomicaly as well!
2006-09-11 05:30:10 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
If you look at every day behaviour of most people these days you have enough reason to believe that humans are just smarter animals.
If, on the other hand you look at what people are capable of doing, you must admit that no animal can come close to compete. So what is the difference?
Animals and humans have survival instinct, the need for nutrition and protection from the elements, the mechanisms to procreate and the ability to learn from experiences. That's about all we have in common.
Humans can feel and express kindness and compassion or greed, hate and revenge. Animals can't. Humans can reason. Animals can't.
They may care for and if necessary fight to defend their territory, themselves and their young. But they stop the fighting as soon as the immediate threat does no longer exist. Some need and do kill for food, but NOT their own kind.
Don't you think that there is an "obvious difference" between animal and human capabilities and the way we or they can control their behaviour and their environment? Do you really believe that our language and culture can compare with that of animals? Do you live just by your survival instinct?
I don't think so.
Our bodies may be animal-like but certainly not our minds! And that's not where it ends. - Why? because we were created different!
I suggest you examine your motives for believing that you are essentially an animal. It may be you – and many like! – are trying to find an excuse to conduct your life like one?
If animals could reason I think they would be offended by the way humans live.
2006-09-11 06:50:12 · answer #2 · answered by fresch2 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
How obvious do you need? How much of literature is written by monkeys? How many dolphins debate on the internet?
Humans are mammals in body, true. God used only four letters in the chemical alphabet to record the blueprints for all of life, plant and animal. Man has yet to explain how this can accidentally increase in complexity, violating the second law of thermodynamics.
Talk about brainwashed! Darwinism is dead, not God, my friend.
2006-09-11 05:44:21 · answer #3 · answered by Jay Z 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Are you saying that God needs to make us radically different either for it to be believable that we are created or that we are petty and weak and we could've been better?
God made a creature similar to just about anything that you can conjure up in your mind, besides the ones that could easily kill us, and even many like that were created and have become extinct after the flood.
So how could we be more different that would make it so that you wouldn't need to ask this? we are made flesh like them so we can be closer to animals and use them for food. anything we could've been that can be imagined with flesh would not stop you from asking this.
And aren't our minds radically different? The closest animal to us is nearly as dumb as a walking rock that can pick up sticks.
2006-09-11 15:59:19 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
As soon as an animal shows a verifiable understanding and manipulation of the environment around them, other than just instinct in a way purely for a purpose other than gathering food or survival, I might agree with you.
When a monkey can give the Gettyburgh address or explain quantum physics, I'll agree with you. Until then, Mr. Ed is still just going to eat his oats and bessie the cow is just going to stand around in her own droppings... I think the cow is a bit better off than you, but, I digress...
2006-09-11 05:38:55 · answer #5 · answered by trc_6111 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Perhaps you are an animal. I am a spiritual being. How many animals have ever left the earth, except for your brothers whom man sent into space before him. Man is above all creatures on earth. God gave us the ability to differentiate.
2006-09-11 05:47:17 · answer #6 · answered by Cal 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Some of the folks offering typical nonsense Christian responses about how we have souls, emotions, creativity, etc...
I can only surmise that none of you people have ever had a pet dog. My dog has more creativity, emotion, and personality than many human children that I've seen. The fact that he's not as smart as your typical human being does not make him any less worthy as a species. And he loves and feels emotional pain and pleasure just as strongly as we do. It is arrogant and foolish to assume that "god likes us better"
Grow up, folks. Grow a brain. At least my dog's not confused about his place in life.
2006-09-11 05:41:06 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
Without going into the fact that we have a soul that trascends and they don't; the main difference is we are thinking animals that reason and react not only by instinct but by choice, we have a memory that can link events to one another even if they are not connected and we have an imagination that creates not only repeats images, we want to become or to gain or to learn...we aspire to something, they don't.
Animals have a memory that conditions them to act a certain way when a stimuli is present and they imagine things in a sense they see images in their minds about things they have already seen but never about things they want or need.
2006-09-11 05:33:34 · answer #8 · answered by White 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Yes we have certain features like animals (eg:eyes, ears, similar organs...ect...ect...)
But animals run on instinct but we don't we think and reason and then act.
That is the major difference between us and animals.
Now God also created us with the ability of free will - if you want we do whatever we want and could change our minds at anytime- again proving that we are different then animals whom just know one way and live that way. Eat, sleep, reproduce - they don't look at a flower and say "wow that is so beautiful" or admire anything but we do.
Also God said that we would dominate animals and they would be under our subjection - that is why we can train them and do basically whatever we want with them.
But of course he wanted us to take care of them.
2006-09-11 05:31:06 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
Broaden ur perspective a little more..think about the earth, planets, universe. Aren't we all parts of a huge being called the earth, same way as the cells are part of us? When we actually go inside us and think, u can't find just a single 'you'. you are made of thousands of cells, organs, etc. Isn't earth or any other planet same as a being?...Aren't we all part of a bigger existance?
IS there any way to know whether Earth has a consciousness or not? Is there any way to know whether you have a counciousness?
2006-09-11 05:31:18 · answer #10 · answered by ssss 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋