March 25, 2007
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Animal instinct vs. human morality assignment -
I don't have all the answers. I know that God created all of the animals and he did it beautifully. Animals are all beautiful, yes, even roaches, I suppose. Humans are prejudiced, aren't they? But I think that God wanted some kind of deeper contact with his creation. If animals act by their instincts, maybe in some ways they are like little robots. God wanted more than that, so He made humans that have personalities and that are able to think, reason, create and make choices to love. Humans are more like God in that way. I know that animals do some creating, like birds creating nests, but when compared to the things that man creates, I think you would agree that the scale is not really comparable. God loves animals, too, and in the Bible it says that God knows when a single sparrow (suzume) falls to the ground. We are always to be kind to them and do nothing to cause them to suffer.
Here are some thoughts about instinct vs. morality - Both animals and humans have instinct. Let's define instinct as a natural inheritable unchangeable tendency of an animal to respond without using reason. Perhaps this is related to survival. Migrating birds and salmon navigate by instinct. Male lions kill cubs that they have not sired by instinct. Bambi's mother runs away from fire by instinct. Cuckoos lay their eggs in other birds' nests by instinct and baby cuckoos dump the other kids to the ground by instinct.
Humans also act on instinct - We eat when we get hungry. But we operate with reason added to our instinct. We do not eat our neighbors child or dog if we are hungry. We do not walk into a supermarket and walk out with free food. We are not controlled by our instincts like animals. We have reason to control our instincts, and the reasoning process is connected to morality.
Humans have a sense of fairness, of right and wrong. Anyone who his nose bloodied and his things taken will protest that what has been done to him is unfair. Why does he say that? Because he has expectations of how others will behave towards him, and bloodied noses and emptied purses do not meet that expectation. The man will feel that his attacker did not behave rightly.
Do zebras feel angry when a cheetah chows down on a member of their herd? They may feel fear and instinctively escape, but whether they experience a sense of unfairness is not likely.
The following is somewhat off of the topic, but something to consider in light of instinct vs. morals - Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali, 67, and an Australian citizen, is the Muslim who created a firestorm of controversy last year when he effectively mandated women to be fully covered from head-to-toe in the most restrictive of Islamic garb, adding that women who do not wear the traditional veil "invite rape" upon themselves. Standing before a packed congregation at Sydney's largest mosque, Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali stated that a woman in revealing clothes was herself to blame for sexual assault "because if she hadn't left the meat uncovered the cat wouldn't have snatched i t."
Revealing clothes are certainly not wise. Japanese high school girls with their pleated skirts rolled up to embarrassing heights annoy me. To quote a wise lady, "If it isn't for sale, don't put it on display." BUT to give Moslem men free reign to behave like animals degrades both men and women. Do they really want to declare themselves as having no more brains than a cat?
Do roaches have a religion? First, to know this one would have to become a roach, because there are no means of mutual communication, unless one includes bashing with a slipper, newspaper or whatever is on hand. If roaches were in need of salvation, God would certainly pick a means of communication that they could comprehend. If they needed salvation, God would become a roach, communicate with them and do whatever was necessary in the roachy world. I do not know what God tells roaches or cats or platypuses. I know what he has told humans.
Perhaps an animal reaches its highest value from contact with humans. I don't mean a contact that would make an animal unable to survive in the wild. Maybe I must restrict myself to the realm of pets. When we interact with pets, they take on our image to some degree, as we have God's image. They learn to love, to react, to interact, to expect, to be devoted. If I had just left my rabbit Ryucci in her cage with nothing but food and water, she would not have been so wonderful. Whether this is teaching an animal to have a soul or not I don't know. CS Lewis seemed to think so. But there are some animal instincts that are very stubborn, so a lion would probably not make a good pet, because he might have trouble controlling his instinct to eat me.
This is an area where God does not really tell us all of the answers. We can only know for sure what He has told us in the Bible. Christianity is not so hard on animals. It is just good to humans. Jesus did not die for animals because animals are not morally responsible. Jesus died for humans because they are morally responsible. Jesus died for me because I am morally responsible. Jesus died for you because you are morally responsible.
