Do other animals feel compassion to the level that we do? Can dogs see other starving dogs and want to feed them? Offering their meals? What other animal creates beauty for the sake of beauty? Someone suggested that we "care too much." How is that possible?
2007-06-02 01:18:21 · 24 answers · asked by Debra M. Wishing Peace To All 7 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Animals do feel compassion but would that same mother cat have entered to save another cat's kittens? Or even puppies?
2007-06-02 01:26:10 · update #1
As Tennessee Williams once wrote:
"We are all civilized people, which means that we are all savages at heart but observing a few amenities of civilized behavior."
2007-06-02 01:24:48 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
We care too much because we over react and make everything more difficult than it needs to be.
People are people, we live and breath like any other creature. Food is food, we eat it to survive. We make everything complicated for ourselves and then wonder why it is not working. Sometimes if we went back to basic behavior, needs etc.. and stopped caring about superficial stuff so much, we would see ourselves for who we are rather than what we are, the person we are rather than what we look like and things like that. If we stopped looking at what job we had and stopped judging others by looks, race, creed etc.. then we would be on the level with everyone.
So, in this regard, we do care too much, especially about things that simply do not matter. (it made sense in my head, hope it makes sense to you too!)
I do not think starving dogs want to feed other dogs. Yes they have feelings and emotions but we are intellectual and they are not so much.... yes they are smart but no where near the level of humans.
Monkeys and apes however could possibly have those emotions as they are much closer to our intellect level.
Either way all animals are different and have their own unique qualities, including humans. No point comparing.
2007-06-02 08:31:32 · answer #2 · answered by Kira 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I think your questions lean toward the answers. The differences are we have a more developed conscious/soul...humans learn how to build and create more complex things. And, we can evaluate what we think is morally right or wrong vs. other animal instincts. However, with this increased ability to create comes increased responsibility to take care of each other, the environment, and everything else of this world for the good...unfortunatley, think there is too much negativisma and destruction.
Peace, Love, and Blessings
Greenwood
2007-06-02 08:26:08 · answer #3 · answered by Greenwood 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Despite the similarities, I feel there are some differences. I don't feel that I am governed by my need to kill my neighbors offspring to ensure the survival of my young. Raccoons are pretty interesting when they lose a member of their brood (i.e., killed by a car), they stick around to help the others out. That is why you always see three or four usually dead around the same spots. Other than all of the useless information I gave you, I don't think animals do any of that stuff you asked about. Or maybe I am just too tired to think of a better way to give you a coherent answer.
2007-06-02 08:30:23 · answer #4 · answered by Patrick the Carpathian, CaFO 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Good answers for your questions are to be found in the chapter on animal behaviour in a great book called "The Selfish Gene".
To summarise, animals tend to do what will result in more of their family, and therefore their genes, surviving and having more children. That is why parent birds feed their chicks, or why ants will work as a team to feed an entire colony.
On the other hand, we have developed "free will" which can do great good or great harm, although we still have similar instincts to animals such as food cravings, comfort in company and parental instinct.
2007-06-02 08:25:31 · answer #5 · answered by speakout_dot_biz 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Animals for centuries have acted as surogate mothers to humans and to other animals
is this not compassion
Have you seen a gorilla play with a kitten in a zoo
Its it awesome
This creature with so much power playing gently with a kitten
Have you not heard that when an ape is taught to sign language it shows sensitivity and empathy
Animals are our teachers
They miht not change the world like we do
But why do they need to for the world was perfect before we came
2007-06-02 09:17:13 · answer #6 · answered by ~*tigger*~ ** 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Actually it's neat that you mention that. Compassion is not only a human trait, many other animals exhibit the same traits we do. Dolphins are especially well known for their cohabitation and allow for other dolphins to join their social group. However, many animals in the world show signs of morality...so we're not unique in that sense.
The only unique thing about human beings that I have noticed is they are strictly consumers of their environment. For the most part humanity has exhausted Earth's resources and polluted it to no end...we are the Earth's cancer...more than any other creature...that I think is our unique trait. Locusts, beautiful..locusts.
What is even more disturbing to learn is that The Holy Bible in the Book of Genesis tells us that we were meant to "subdue" the Earth and it's inhabitants. That is quite disturbing to me, and don't understand why God would tell Adam to make the world bow to him.
2007-06-02 08:24:42 · answer #7 · answered by Josh C 2 · 3⤊ 0⤋
The ONLY thing that I see is our imagination. This helps us because it lets us plan for things that we have never seen, but that might happen. Art is a side effect of this. It also has a side effect leads to a lot of weird religious and superstitious behavior.
Compassion has been observed in other animals. Chimps in the lab will starve themselves for days rather than push a button that feeds them, but causes pain in another.
2007-06-02 08:25:52 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
While some other animals seem to gave gained a certain sense of self-awareness (common chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, dolphins, elephants are good examples) none seem to have combined that with the high abstraction capabilities that allows us to be such excellent problem solvers and creators. An interesting byproduct of our evolutionary path. I don't think all paths lead to this, and I don't think one path is necessarily better than the other. I enjoy ours, though. ;)
2007-06-02 08:51:33 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
I have witness animals having compassion.
Who are we to judge animals since we don't truly know all the ways that they feel or think, perhaps there isn't much difference between us and animals, except for what God said that we are made in his image, and likeness.
2007-06-02 08:33:10 · answer #10 · answered by inteleyes 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
We have the capability to think and create intelligently, whereas animals are programmed kindof to go through the same routine each day and for millions of years they have doen what they did everyday where as we have made houses, invented planes and televisions, robots computers. Its got to do with the proportion of the body and the brain that God has kept and the intelligence he has given to us. Also we have a concience... Not sure if animals do.
2007-06-02 08:24:17 · answer #11 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋