What is the purpose of other animals?
Offline Why are there other animals within the context that the bible is true? I got to thinking about this when I said" why do animals die wouldnt that just be a punishment of humans(actually it should just be the ones that did the crime not their descnedents)". So what purpose do the other animals serve for god? They can't nesseacirly serve a purpose for us cause not every animal we eat or have as a best friend there are even species I am sure we havent diescovered yet. I saw a dead baby rabbit and it almost made me sad(I guess cause it looked so innocent) and I just thought there is no reason for animals to die cause of something another species did heck even for other individuals and plus what adam and eve did was simple out of ignorance so the whole thing is just bunch of boloney. This is why I dont think we are special in anyway but I still dont understand how we got so intelligent and other animals didnt.
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Damnit I spelled other wrong.
We are more intelligent because of the environment we came from and the way we adapted. Other animals have varying levels of potential intelligence from snakes and lizards up to dolphins.
Theists think other animals die because when we ate the apple everything had to suffer with us or some such.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
Are you trying to reconcile scientific facts with the bible?
'Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.' A. Einstein
I just said the bible is a bunch of boloney. No I simply wanting to know what christians, jews, and muslims believe the otehr animals are for especially the ones we dont interact with and can kill us. I am saying the fact that there are other animals is more in favor of evolution than a god making creatures he couldnt communicate with.
For our pleasure in general, "animals" don't have "souls". There is at least one religion that points to reincarnation and karma. A roach was apparently a bad person and a cow is like a god or something. /shrug gods are tasty with cheese, lettuce and ketchup on a sesame seed bun.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
Oh. Sorry, I wasn't sure what side of the fence you were on.
I'm not sure I am understanding your question. Is it, "What is the purpose of other animals within the context of religion?"
If so, I'm actually not sure. Maybe you should ask some religious people. I suspect you'll probably get answers like "It's part of God's plan," or "They're god's way of providing food and other services to us." That's the best that I can come up with, but then again, I'm not religious!
Apples.
Applesauce.
We needed something to go along with applesauce. So god invented animals.
Next question...
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
'Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.' A. Einstein
Nothing makes sense with god.
Essentially all animals including humans evolved to fill niches in the environment that suited their survival and here we all are looking around at the results of this process.
I wouldn't bother wondering about things from a christian perspective any more though I appreciate how easy this is for me to say. It's worth bearing in mind that the human view of other creatures in the bible is anthrocentric and devoid of all comprehension of the needs of working ecosystems instead considering animals only as lunch, slaves or entertainment.
In fact, life is entwined and without its profound variety we could not survive. You only have to look at the Permian-Triassic extinction event in which 90 per cent of species in the sea and 70 per cent of vertebrates, most gymnosperms and vast numbers of dependent insects were wiped out by a combined series of catastrophic events over a period of 150,000 years. Ecosystems are complete units and once they start to collapse all their species die out. This is what happened then.
After the Permian-Triassic dying, arable land was covered with low, tough ground cover. Meanwhile, seashores were overwhelmed by sheets of algae thousands of kilometres long - algae that no longer suffered predation. It took millions of years for trees to re-establish themselves out of the few areas in which they had survived. The ecosystems that emerged from that greatest known extinction were completely different from those that existed before it.
I guess the point of the rambling is that religion tends to show you the world through a mirror, Ymalm. All you see is yourself. Life is more complex than religious assertions manufactured at a time of limited comprehension.
BTW, is ScienceDaily in your favourites yet? It should be.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
What i am saying is like what atheistextreme said above in that the animals we have make more sense from a evolutionary perspective than a they were created individualy.
Yeah but not all animals are food for us and what about viruses and bacteria. Obvioulsy everything having common descent makes more sense. Basically why arent there horses with wings?
What would the applicable reason be for a horse to have wings? Other than it might be neat. Frogs deserve wings so they wouldn't bump their ass everytime they hopped.
There is an interesting vid on youtube about the evolution of flight.
They didn't know about bacteria and viruses back then, they were curses and demonic posession and stuff.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
What about viruses and bacteria?
They're just living, dude.
The reason why they didn't factor into the equation, is because the ignorant dust sucking camel jockeys that wrote the ancient scriptures, and came up with these moronic philosophies, and concluded that they discovered the truth, didn't have a fucking clue about microorganisms, geography, geology, ecology, astronomy, chemistry, biology, astrophysics, molecular physics, particle physics, electricity, complex systems, etc, etc...
Natural selection.
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
I wasnt asking cause I dont know why the writers said that. I was asking more along the lines to make christians think about the what we do know about animals and bacteria. They dont make sense when you say that the biblical events as reality.
Didnt in the bible the snake used to have legs and god cursed it? If so isnt that silly the snakes offspring are punished for its ability to talk and decieve when its offspring cant talk? Not that snakes mind their method of getting around of course.
Eh...maybe God put the animals that we don't use there as evidence of his infinite glory? I.e. "Look how awesome I am, I made organism X too."
Oh, here's a good excuse. Maybe he needs them to balance the ecosystem? The ecosystem wouldn't be very stable if it only had organisms that we used. Hah!
Dude, that snake was probably relieved. He was like, "Whew, those legs were so frickin awkward. I'm glad I lost them before I had to struggle for survival outside of the garden." To put it anthropomorphically, I don't think natural selection favors a snake with legs.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
For slipping thru certain kinds of undergrowth, grasses, and such, their way works extremely well. Also for swimming. Most reptiles, including alligators and crocs, swim by undulating their whole body, not using their legs, just like snakes.
It can work so well, that a number of lizard species have gone the same way in more recent eras. Sometimes they show tiny shrunken rear limbs, sometimes mere flaps. I caught one and kept it as a 'pet' for a while when I was at primary school. Found it under a rock in a park. I was quite into lizards of all kinds, and Australia has a good selection of them.
The silliest part of the Bible reference to snakes being punished is about them being condemned to "eat dirt".
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You are wondering somewhat the same thing that puzzled Charles Darwin on his first voyage to the tropics. why would God make all these endless variations of animals?
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
I agree it is a waste of time trying to figure out the fundie mind, but I was there and will throw out some things.
First to give Adam something to do - name the animals.
Something for Satan-invade the snakes body and tempt Eve. Seems showing up as an angel would have been more impressive, but the snake became the first scapegoat.
It gave man authority-he was commanded to dominant animals. I guess it us like god was over man and man was over woman and both were over animals.
An angel spoke thru a donkey to set balaam straight.
A bear was used to kill children who made fun of the prophet Elisha.
Noah to save either two of every kind or 7 clean/2 unclean in the Ark. After the flood god made all the animals afraid of man.
Blood sacrifices for sin, slaughtering doves, goats, rams, bulls. I think it was at the dedication of the temple it was an incredible amount of slaughtering. A sweet odor to god. The priest got some of the meat for their services.
A big fish to hold jonah for three days in his belly.
A donkey for jesus to ride into jerusalem as did king david.
A snake, asp, to bite Paul who shakes it into the fire showing god protected him. Last chapter in the gospel attributed to Mark says gods people can handle snake without harm.
The books of Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelation use lots of animal imagery.
There are unicorns in the bible - KJV
There is a fire breathing dragon.
Just a nonentity for man to use, a resource and for storytelling.
In heaven the lion will lay down with the lamb. I guess that canine teeth will have to be ground down for chewing on grass.
Yes, evolution makes way more sense!!!
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
We know the part about making animals afriad of man after the flood isnt true.