Animals, love or instinct?

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Lou_F

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It is sad to say that some animals in the wild show more concern and give better care for their young than many parents in our day & age. If love is defined as more than a feeling, animals may have an edge by the way they physically care for and protect their young. I know many people say they love their pet & that their pets love them back, but do they? I know animals are very theraputic, and people definetly have good reasons why they bond so well with their pet. A lot of affection is involved.

However, no one can read the mind of an animal. Instinct and love seem to be compatable with liking and love. Liking is instinctive. People we say we like, like us also, that’s easy. It is an instinctive reaction. Love, on the otherhand, goes deeper. Love reaches out to those they do not like, and breaks down the barriers that separate. Obviously, a dog likes his master because it’s master takes care of the dog. Can it not therfore be true that such a relationship with a pet is no more than instinctive? How much is a pet owner going to continue to “love” that dog if that dog turns on him and starts biting him everyday? A pet owner would certainly not like that dog after a while.

Our relationship with animals cannot be love. A person loves those who don’t love them back, just as a mother does toward her wayward son. A parent will die for their child. A person in a prison camp may die for another prisoner as in the case of St. Maximillian Kolbe. No greater love is there than to lay down one’s life for his friends. How then can we say we “love” animals? Should we and would we die for an animal? Of course not.
 
I LOVE God, I love people, I love my family…

Some return my love, some do not, but I love regardless of the return.

I LOVE lots of things…the sunrise on the lake, a cool evening by the fire, reading a book, singing, and lots more…these things give give nothing back from their own accord, but I receive a relaxed soul and peace.

I LOVE my dog, I would like to think my dog loves me. I don’t think he would become this twisted up, tail wagging psycho mess when I come home and greet him if he didn’t feel something for me. Or when I am crying about something, he would come and sit next to me and lay his head in my lap as if to say “I’m here for you” Or if I am walking with him, stranger approaches me and he senses danger, he starts to growl & bark to protect me.

His actions speak love to me. You can call it instinct, but I will call it love.

If you equate laying down ones life as the demonstration of love, I can sure bet you are missing out on lots of it.
 
I have gotten a lot of affection from animals that I had never done anything for, and who had no reason to think I was about to. Mostly cats. I think humans and animals have different levels of love. There’s immature, mature and spiritual love, in the nearest terms to hand. Immature love is child to parent, pet to owner, dependent to nurturer, a kind of attachment based on gratitude and survival drive. Mature love is parent to child, owner to pet, nurturer to dependent. It’s an attachment that includes the willingness to sacrifice for someone else. Spiritual love is what Jesus commands; Love God with all your mind, heart, soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
An animal can sometimes have mature love toward a human being. I’ve seen evidence of it. Like when they try to groom you. When they try to protect you. When they comfort you.
Spiritual love may or may not be just a human thing, I don’t know, but we have every reason to think our pets can love us on the level of infants.
 
SirOscar said:
I LOVE God, I love people, I love my family…

Some return my love, some do not, but I love regardless of the return.

I LOVE lots of things…the sunrise on the lake, a cool evening by the fire, reading a book, singing, and lots more…these things give give nothing back from their own accord, but I receive a relaxed soul and peace.

I LOVE my dog, I would like to think my dog loves me. I don’t think he would become this twisted up, tail wagging psycho mess when I come home and greet him if he didn’t feel something for me. Or when I am crying about something, he would come and sit next to me and lay his head in my lap as if to say “I’m here for you” Or if I am walking with him, stranger approaches me and he senses danger, he starts to growl & bark to protect me.

His actions speak love to me. You can call it instinct, but I will call it love.

If you equate laying down ones life as the demonstration of love, I can sure bet you are missing out on lots of it.
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Very well said. You & the response after you helped me to understand the different levels of love that are available to offer and to receive to/from man or animal. You both made me realize that if God made them, they must be able to love in return.

I apologize for posting the original thread in haste and with little prudence. I think I was writing it more out of instinct myself than love. I was angry when I heard that Paris Hilton gave billions of dollars for dogs. I guess I get a little predudice toward animals, especially when I see some people giving more concern to them than our fellow man who is more in need of love.
 
I apologize for posting the original thread in haste and with little prudence. I think I was writing it more out of instinct myself than love. I was angry when I heard that Paris Hilton gave billions of dollars for dogs. I guess I get a little predudice toward animals, especially when I see some people giving more concern to them than our fellow man who is more in need of love.
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Now I understand the reason for your post!
 
Lou_F said:
I was angry when I heard that Paris Hilton gave billions of dollars for dogs. I guess I get a little predudice toward animals, especially when I see some people giving more concern to them than our fellow man who is more in need of love.
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It wasn’t Paris Hilton, it was Leona Helmsley, in her will…
 
Among the skeleton finds at the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles, two stand out:

One is the remains of a female murder victim, clubbed over the head and thrown into the pit an estimated 10,000 years ago.

The other is that of a saber-toothed tiger with a broken and healed spinal column, apparently kept alive by its fellows during the long healing process.

Speaks volumes, doesn‘t it?
 
It speaks huge volumes!

I think there are lots of species in nature that exhibit some sort of love. It may be instinct, who knows really.

There is a species of bird that has a mourning and burial service for the one stricken with death. The living fly off and bring back sticks to cover their dead one. After it is all covered, they flock around it and start making all this noise similar to our crying. Once the service is finished, they all fly off together.

Is this a display of love & loss, or is this just an instinct?
 
I am a firm believer that people come first before animals. That being said, I am also a huge animal lover. I feel a sense of peace when they are around me and they keep me from becoming depressed. I do believe that animals love, in the true sense of the word, people. Not all animals may be capable of this emotion, but I believe some are. I’ll give you an example:

My father hates animals and is literally cruel to them (doesn’t think twice about hitting one just for it being in his way, yelling at it, and making it’s life a living hell). I have a cat who I believe really shows what it means to love. If my father is yelling, she stays away from him. However, when he isn’t yelling, she will ask to sit on his lap. It’s as if she is forgiving him for how horrible he is, which is unconditional love.

However, I don’t think that people should die for an animal, no matter how much we love them or they love us. They don’t have eternal souls like we do.:angel1:
 
I do believe that animals love, in the true sense of the word, people. Not all animals may be capable of this emotion, but I believe some are. I’ll give you an example:
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Yes, I agree with you whole heartedly.

and Yes, we as human beings should never put animals before another human being.
 
SirOscar said:
Yes, I agree with you whole heartedly.

and Yes, we as human beings should never put animals before another human being.
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So, you’re on a river bank, your cat/dog has fallen in, just a little along the bank Hitler (Stalin, Mao, Osama Bin Laden) has also fallen in. Who do you save?
 
I believe that animals love one another and that our love for our pets is real.

Animals are God’s creations and God is love. Love is ultimately the force that holds the universe together.
 
Kaninchen said:
So, you’re on a river bank, your cat/dog has fallen in, just a little along the bank Hitler (Stalin, Mao, Osama Bin Laden) has also fallen in. Who do you save?
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Tough question! My inclination is to say that you could justify letting Hitler/Bin Laden drown because we are/were at war with them.
 
I do not believe that animals love as we do. I think love can only be truly present in a rational being.

Because God is love, I believe God created animal instinct to replicate love in many circumstances. We see an animal defend her young not because she loves them, but because that’s her instinct. Sometimes the male of a species will consume the young. I don’t think it is lack of love or dislike that causes this, just instinct.

We also have a tendency to personify things in the world around us. I think this carries over towards us seeing animals “love” us or one another – we can relate to love easier than pure instinct, so that is how we look at things.

Here’s a question I want to raise: To be truly capable of love, don’t you have to be capable of hate (love’s opposite) as well?
 
Animals don’t love in the same sense humans love because they don’t have souls made in the image of God. But they seek and find pleasure and contentment, they have fears and flee pain and death. These are built into their instinct. I have watched my cats interact with each other, playing and teasing each other. They are obviously experiencing a type of enjoyment.

But we can’t say they have “self-awareness” the way a human has self-awareness. They have no real sense of self worth or self disdain. Therefore they cannot “suffer” the way a human suffers. They feel pain, but they don’t mentally agonize over their lot, in the sense that they feel sorrow or guilt or shame or the desire to offer up their sufferings. Thus their pain has no merit.

That said, animals do have souls, though not immortal souls. They do not go to heaven when they die. However, there is nothing that says that after the final resurrection there will not be animals inhabiting the new earth. Jesus says, behold I make all things new. And even the prophets speak of the lion laying down with the lamb in the new creation. Some see this as poetic or metaphorical. I choose to take it literally.

Ok. I’m an animal lover. While the Bible teaches us that man is the crown of creation, it also teaches that animals have their place in the Divine Plan (and God saw that they were GOOD). Since they were created before man I believe they have a purpose apart from man. Their purpose is the same as all of creation, that is, to glorify their Creator by their very existence.

They do it so well.
  • Westy
 
lovesMary said:
No, you don’t need to be able to hate in order to love.
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Do you want to back this up at all?

It seems to me that hate and love are opposites. Hate is the inverse of love. Can hate and love be put on a continuum? how can you have the capacity for something without the capacity for the opposite?
 
I choose to believe some are Angels in disguise.

When my cat or dog come up to me to console me when I am sad or upset, I know they are more than just animals.

When I leave my dog alone at home and tell her she can not come with me I see the disappointment in her eyes.

Love or instinct, maybe alittle of both. They are “child like”, but don’t children love?
 
It seems to me that hate and love are opposites. Hate is the inverse of love.
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Actually the opposite of love is not hate. It is apathy or indifference.

I think most animals act out of instinct. However I think there is a level of emotion & intelligence to some animals that we cannot understand.

I also think that humans act out of instinct as well. Attraction to the opposite sex is instinctual, meaning we do not control what we choose. I also think a mother protecting her child from harm is a instinct not a response to love. It is a spontaneous reaction. We call it an act of love, but to me it is instinct.

Just my 2 cents for conversation, if you will.
 
I agree, viewing hate and love as opposites is actually a very Buddhist point of view, as in Yin and Yang. That philosophy views good and evil as two sides of the same coins, balancing one another out. They view detachment from both as their goal.

Christians view Love as something from God, and hatred as part of our sinful, fallen natures. God is not the opposite of Satan. God is good and God is love. Evil and hatred are departures and separation from God’s law, which is love and unity in him.

Thus, love is what binds the universe, and it is a far greater power than hatred, therefore it is not its opposite.
 
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