Do Animals Really Act Like Humans?
by Cowboy Bob Sorensen
Basement Cat gives me a strange look when I am moving around, getting ready for work in the morning. My wife and I give it a meaning, such as, "I know what you did". There are times when we know she is happy, annoyed, affectionate, or whatever, because many animals do show emotions. Giving verbal captions and putting words in our mouth is just us assigning traits on the cat for our own convenience.
There was a news report about a killer whale that gave birth to a calf, but sadly, it died a few minutes later. The mother was clearly showing signs of grief, and even going beyond that of other orcas.
Some people tend to "see" human traits in animals. When a dog is coached to make a sound like, "I love you", sorry, pilgrim, it is not a true expression of love. Other critters can display reactions that have the appearance of advanced emotions, and can appear to act in ways that are similar to humans.
I'll allow that some animals do show emotions (the orca was clearly grieving) and traits that humans also have. But those are very limited, and Basement Cat is not going to write a song about what she thinks of me (fortunately). It is interesting that people will use some of these similarities in their quest to give animals rights and "non-human person" status. This is based on the fundamentally flawed view that we all evolved from a common ancestor. These people are being inconsistent with their evolutionism, because while animals can kill each other, somehow we are bad for celebrating our climb to the top of the evolutionary ladder.
The fact is that humans were created separately, and in God's image. We have responsibilities regarding the rest of his creation, but they are not based on misguided sentiment based on naturalism; our view is actually much higher.
This article was based on an episode of The Briefing by Dr. Albert Mohler. He develops what I wrote about above, and has some interesting additional material on Buddhist, karma, and the lack of categorical difference between humans and animals. I'd be much obliged if you'd listen to (free to download) or read the transcript of the episode for Friday, Aug 17, 2018.
Basement Cat gives me a strange look when I am moving around, getting ready for work in the morning. My wife and I give it a meaning, such as, "I know what you did". There are times when we know she is happy, annoyed, affectionate, or whatever, because many animals do show emotions. Giving verbal captions and putting words in our mouth is just us assigning traits on the cat for our own convenience.
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| Original image credit before modification: Pixabay / cojessmom |
Some people tend to "see" human traits in animals. When a dog is coached to make a sound like, "I love you", sorry, pilgrim, it is not a true expression of love. Other critters can display reactions that have the appearance of advanced emotions, and can appear to act in ways that are similar to humans.
I'll allow that some animals do show emotions (the orca was clearly grieving) and traits that humans also have. But those are very limited, and Basement Cat is not going to write a song about what she thinks of me (fortunately). It is interesting that people will use some of these similarities in their quest to give animals rights and "non-human person" status. This is based on the fundamentally flawed view that we all evolved from a common ancestor. These people are being inconsistent with their evolutionism, because while animals can kill each other, somehow we are bad for celebrating our climb to the top of the evolutionary ladder.
The fact is that humans were created separately, and in God's image. We have responsibilities regarding the rest of his creation, but they are not based on misguided sentiment based on naturalism; our view is actually much higher.
This article was based on an episode of The Briefing by Dr. Albert Mohler. He develops what I wrote about above, and has some interesting additional material on Buddhist, karma, and the lack of categorical difference between humans and animals. I'd be much obliged if you'd listen to (free to download) or read the transcript of the episode for Friday, Aug 17, 2018.