Humans different from animals

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WestRiverSD

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Hello. I am interested in learning more about how humans are different from animals. Any help would be great. Thanks!
 
Erm, humans can think beyond what an animal can, we can also talk.

😊

Were you looking for something more in depth?
 
Here I am!

OK, actually I spent extra time in “school” learning to read and write.

Seriously, though, animals operate within the realm of instinct. They have God’s law written in their being. We on the other hand are capable of making choices. The animals cannot and do not choose. We are held responsible for our actions. We can be considered evil if we persevere in evil actions, but if an animal acts in a way that is out of the oridnary, it is not evil. It is “sick” perhaps because it is not acting according to it’s nature, but it is not “evil” per se.
 
We have a cognitive mind; which resides in our large head, but is a function of the “rational human soul.”

ICXC NIKA.
 
WestRiverSD said:
Hello. I am interested in learning more about how humans are different from animals. Any help would be great. Thanks!
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Since this is a Catholic site, here is one of the Church’s explanations:

CCC said:
355 "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them."218 Man occupies a unique place in creation: (I) he is “in the image of God”; (II) in his own nature he unites the spiritual and material worlds; (III) he is created “male and female”; (IV) God established him in his friendship.
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Based on this I reach the following conclusions:
  1. Animals are not created in the image of God
  2. Animals are only material
  3. Animals do not call God their friend.
 
Animals have material or physical souls, the principle of their activity, the source of their physical life. They share the same properties of plants, they grow, the propagate, they have self healing, they need the same chemicals. But in animals there are the senses of sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling. Humans have the same characteristics but in addition they have a spiritual soul with it’s powers of intelligence and volition, (make intelligent choices) we have the spiritual power of reasoning. So to briefly summarize a human, he is a composite of spirit and matter, animality and rationality. An animal is a material composite of senses, nerves, and all the same things all living things share, but has no spiritual soul, just a material one. An animal also possesses locomotion similar to man
 
Humans have immortal souls comprised of memory, intellect and will. Animals’ souls are not immortal and neither are they rational. Animals live by instinct, humans by faith and reason. God bless you.
 
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