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Something I often here is that Humans are just animals. Specifically mammals. While we do fit into the mammal category technically I do not believe that humans are animals. According the bible we are created in the image of God and we are above the animals. In this article lets take a look at why we are not Animals from both a biblical and scientific view.

Biblical

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Ok, so the bible is filled with reasons people are not the same as animals. Lets start at the beginning. Genesis 1:26-28 says we are created in the image of God to rule over the animals. The verse goes into quite a bit of detail too listing birds, bugs/reptiles, fish, and cattle. Then in 28 it says “and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” That seems pretty clear to me. We aren’t animals, we are their masters.

Moving down slightly in the bible we find Genesis 9:1-5 where God tells Noah that all the animals will dread him and be delivered into his hand. It also says in verse 5 that “And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.” Here we are saying that if an animal kills someone it should die and if a man kills someone they should also die. It doesn’t say that if a man kills an animal he should die.

In the old testament the Jewish people were supposed to sacrifice to the Lord. However, they were only to do this with animals, not people. Jeremiah 7:31 says “And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind.” We also see this in Deuteronomy 18:10 “There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer“. 

In the new testament we also have a few examples. Matthew 10:26-33 and Luke 12:4-7 take about the value of sparrows in comparison to man. “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. ⁷ Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” And in Matthew 6:26 “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” This points to us having more value to God than the animals. We are worth a lot more because we are created in his image.

When you look at the biblical point of view it is very obvious what the bible says. We are Mankind. Made in the image of God. Not the same as other animals. Made to rule the animals. We should have respect and love animals but we are not one of them.

Scientific

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One of the most important things about science is realizing that it is always changing. Some people will say always advancing but lets just say that has not always been the case. I have plans to get in depth on evolution but for now lets just say that it has lots of gaps. We will focus on other things.

According to psychology today there are 7 things humans do that animals cannot. 

1. Speaking
2. Laughing
3. Crying
4. Reasoning
5. Suffer from mental disorders
6. Fall in love
7. Believing in God

Now if you read the article he lists these things but also says we are “Special Animals” to which I say he clearly is not reading his own writings. Are we “Special Animals” or are these things something that make us above animals? I believe that we are different, especially because of that last one.

Again here is an article from LiveScience “Top 10 things that make humans special” and again right at the top of the article you will find the author says that humans are “unusual animals”… Yea because we aren’t animals. Anyway, here is their list.

1. Speech
2. Upright Posture
3. Nakedness
4. Clothing
5. Extraordinary Brains
6. Hands
7. Fire
8. Blushing
9. Long Childhoods
10. Life After Children

I am sure some of these will throw you off and the article isn’t much help with them. Trying not to go into evolution again you will notice the Fake Apes they posted when talking about about upright posture. No animal including all apes even in evolution have ever walked upright. Only humans do this. The article even admits it but right above the admission posts the photos of apes standing upright. Another thing to check out in this article is the section on the human brain. To quote the article “give us the ability to reason and think on our feet beyond the capabilities of the rest of the animal kingdom, and provided the works of Mozart, Einstein and many other geniuses.”

There are other things that make us different, Morality for instance. When an animal kills another animal it doesn’t murder the animal, it kills it. When an animal forces sex on another animal, it doesn’t rape the animal. There are so many of these types of differences it would be hard to go through but a good source on this is William Lane Craig. He covers these types of issues in most of his debates.

You see, science openly admits that we are very different than animals. So why would they not say we are above animals? Because in the scientific community it is a bad thing to be a Christian and many of them have set their purpose in life to prove Christianity wrong. Take Steven Hawking for instance. He helped develop the big bang theory as the creation of the universe. Shortly after he figured out that if the universe was created it needed a creator. He spent the rest of his life trying to disprove the big bang theory and coming up with other theories which were not accepted. We constantly see this type of thing happening in science. That isn’t to say science is a bad thing, its great to learn about all thing things God has created. I love science and I think it is important to remind people that science is not opposite to God. A majority of scientific discoveries in the past have been from Christians. Lets continue to push ahead and get rid of this way of thinking that you have to be for science or for God. We just need to look at science from the eyes of something created in Gods Image.