Do animals feel?

I have a friend who lives where you live *looks at your location*. I believe he was banned some time ago.

 

If animals don't have feelings, cats wouldn't be scared of water or dogs.If animals don't have feelings, a dog wouldn't wimper once you beat it with a newspaper or a broom. Animals have feelings.

 

^ Who clubs their dog with a broom?

But if you mean things like pain or sense of touch, of course animals can feel. If you mean emotion, yeah Im sure they can as well. Animals can feel fear and desire etc.

 

i dont really think dogs have feeling but they do aknowlege people feelings. For example when you yell at a dog because it has done somthing it either gets scared or angry which are both human emotions. also when i ask my dog if she wants balogni she gets all excited and starts running around which is showing the emotion happyness.

 

If they can show emotion, then they have feelings. Lol.

 

Wow, i can't believe this even got opened. Animals have feelings, its how they survive. Attraction, Anger, Kindness, its easy to see.

 

Exactly, In nature it's Survival of the fittest and a lot of that is based on the Animals Instinct. Instinct is a feeling, more so actually, Instinct is feelings

 

And to answer that dog thing, Dogs remain puppies their whole lives. Their bodies develop, but they keep a puppy like train of thought. Wolves do mate for life, you rarely see them mate with more than one wolf. Its how they are. This is a indication that they do love. Just because something isn't human, doesn't mean it can love.

 

There have been documented cases which strongly suggest that animals (in particular dogs) do indeed love...their owners.

One in particular, an elderly man lived alone with his dog. I'm not sure about the history, how long he had the dog, if his wife (etc) were around and such, but it seems irrelevant.

Anyway, the man unfortunately, passed away from a heart attack. The dog then sat at his grave ever vigilant, hoping the old man would return. It's sad, I think the dog eventually starved to death.

 

Sad part is that I see so many cats being strays over here where I live at & get hit by cars a lot. THis also happens with squirrels too.

 

I believe that animals can feel, but not on the same deep level as humans. We are the top of the food chain here, end of story. Animals were put here for our enjoyment and use when the earth was created. Animal mothers protect their young because it's their instinct to do so, if they didn't then their species would inevitably die out, and it's their instinct to survive. That's the only reason animals mate, not because they love each other.

But yes, humans and animals can develop friendships, as animals can with other animals. (yes, I know humans are animals too.) Yes, your dog can protect you from someone who's trying to hurt you because he feels loyal to you and loves you, and yes, your cat can be more attached to you than anyone else in the house. But their "emotion" range is limited.

 

To hell with the damn "creation of the world" gibberish. Even if we think that we're in the top of the food chain, it doesn't mean that animals were put to the world just that we can make them suffer and feel pain, and them after that just maniacly eating them. I know that everybody needs to eat, and we eat animals (I'm not a vegetarian even that I say this), but that doesn't give us, me, or even you to make them feel pain for just that you would think that we are so damn good, because we're civilized creatures.

I don't believe in god or any of the text in the bible, but if you do, may you burn in hell. Ask yourself, what would you feel when somebody just brutally shots you in the head when you have done nothing against him/her. That's what we do to animals.

 

I think that animals do not feel because if they did feel they would have emotion. If they had emotion they would have compassion, therefore their instincts would not rule them. So if they have compassion would they attack anyone walking by because their instinct tells them to? No.

Animals are animals because they do not have feelings or emotion and act on only one thing. I think it's rubbish that we treat them the same way as we do humans, because think about it- do animals care if you buy them expensive 200$ food (for pets) no, food is food in their eyes and they'll eat anything (doesn't mean you can de bad stuff to them though). It's okay to treat animals with love and whatnot, but to the point where we put it above human life is just very strange to me.

 

Do people in the developing countries care about what do they get in front of their noses? It is the same if they get that fancy pants 200$ dinner of yours or a piece of bread, it's the same food for them that any would be.

And in which point did anyone say that we would comfort them in the same way as humans? It's just natural that every, single, damned, creature in this planet is a born killer. They live to eat, we live to eat. It's the same to me what food is in front of me, I'll eat it anyways if I'm hungry. It's the same to me, but don't know of you, maybe you were born with golden spoon in yer' mouth.

And if we say that they got no feelings, it's the same to say that they are like a person in coma. They only live to eat, no?

I still think that they have feelings as we do. If I smack a rabbit in the head couple of times with a wooden plank, it hurts it or in the worst situation it dies. If I do the same to you, it happens to you also. Even the feeling of pain is a certain way to feel, and thus, when they feel pain, they feel. That's the most important thing in this whole debate, if you can feel one thing, why not all the same as humans? The feeling of humiliation, rage (as this been noticified in certain areas for some areas in example of bears), sadness (when loosing it's babies, this leads to rage), happiness.

Why not. If you feel the pain, why not all of the feelings that humans have.

 

I'd like to point out that if you're adopting a religious person's frame of evaluation (ie. 'if God is real, then ____') then you need to be careful and ensure you cast aside any predispositions you have...otherwise it's a logical fallacy, and you can't accurately interpret what the person is saying. (I'm a mathematician so I get a lot of practice 'throwing away assumptions' (like 2 + 2 = 4)).

Here's the scoop: If you believe in God, then you are supposed to respect His creation. Animals are put here for our enjoyment yes, but think of it this way;

Suppose you're starting a business and your wealthy uncle helps and engineers you a building for you to put your office in. Do you use the office respectfully, or do you torch the place?

When we use animals for food, or enjoy their company, we are 'putting them to good use.' When we allow unnecessary harm to come to animals, or abuse them to save money (a man made construct), we're figuratively torching the place...namely, we're disrespecting the gift given to us.

God gave us the animals as a gift...if you don't take care of it, you're disrespecting that.

But note that this is a bit off-topic here...the ethical treatment of animals is independent of whether or not they have feelings.

Have you ever heard of Altruism? (Altruism in animals - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Animals do indeed have compassion...the difference is that they ultimately have their own health and well-being in mind at all times. Human beings should be like this as well...but we're quite frankly, too lazy to think all the time.

So what is it that sets animals apart from human beings? It's self-reference: a human being wonders why it exists.

To nosecap: I don't think this was meant in response to your post, he was just bringing up something else.

His point is that many people, and organizations (naive people in my opinion) do indeed put animal rights above all else. Organizations such as P.E.T.A. have gone to the extreme with this.

There was a C.E.O. of I think it was, KFC back in like 1970 who refused to agree with PETA's demands and subjected their chickens to pretty lousy conditions. So what did PETA do? 20 some-odd years later, they went and threw a Molotov Cocktail into the guy's house and burned it down, killing the residents inside. But you know what sweetens the deal? That CEO didn't even live there anymore...they killed innocent people.

But it's not just the organizations which are misguided...I've heard of teenagers crying over the analysis of an amoeba in their grade 9 science classes. "Poor little amoeba! I can't kill a living thing!"

Well wake up and smell the coffee...every time you take a crap, you crap out about 500,000 bacteria which reside in your intestine, live and dead. If you really want to 'not kill a living thing' you'd have to have never existed in the first place.

The facts of life.

 

If I would be homeless, the place could be good firewood. Torch away!

Oh anyways, it's quite funny that you said if to believe in god, you should honor the creations he has made. And even thought I don't believe, should that mean I kill or pnuish every living creature that I see? If I would think that way, yes, I would do it.

But since I don't believe in god, I still respects almost every living creature in this planet and the things that they've done. Even religion is respectful literature (even thought it has caused wars and many uprises in the past), because it has saved many lives because the people can be lured to believe in some Jesus dude who's existence is never to be proofed.

Even thought that the religion is respectful literature in some view, I say that I respect life, not believing in some god.

Actually, I wanted to quote his post for the fact that he was saying that the animal doesn't care if we bring a dead rat or fancy pants meal right in front of it's nose, it wouldn't care which would it eat. My point to it was, neither doesn't many people who are homeless, don't got money, or who don't got any other way to live than just eat anything that comea across them.

One time one guy walked past me and was chewing.. what was it. Leafs? Something like that, since they have muchly nothing to eat, they eat quite everything.

 

The problem with that reasoning, as you've discovered is that being religious and being atheist are not mutually exclusive (which means, they have more similarities than one might think). Regardless of where you draw your inspirations, be it the divine, or what's inside of you, a person with a strong conscience will probably feel bad about disrespecting life.

It's a different discussion entirely (more of a religious theme)...but things like this make me believe that 'everyone is on the right road.' The notion that people are inherently good, and are simply given what works best for them in this life. (That's why you would never see me try to convert someone.)

I do just want to point out though...that Jesus is a historical figure. They know he was someone who walked the earth...I mean geneology and stuff can be traced way back into the B.C.s, what with the Romans, Alexander the Great, etc. The question is moreso, was he who he said he was? Or was he just some random guy?

Many people say 'oh we can't even prove Jesus existed.' And there are two answers to this:

Historically, we most certainly can...we have lots of tools, and Catholic popes (as one method) claim direct lineage to Christ...it's not too hard to follow the ladder and see there was actually a person at the top.
But logically, we cannot...we can always put forth an argument such as 'someone made a mistake.' The word proof has a stronger meaning here...by this definition, we cannot even prove we exist.

I feel sorry for that person...anyway a person's acts of desperation should not be a measurement of what is 'acceptable' for human beings.