Can monkeys sin?

[Freedom From Ignorance]

Just wondering if animals are given the same rules as us...

 

[seebs]

I don't know.

 

[WaZoO]

Only grey cheeked mangabeys, spider moneys, and chimps.

Actually, hold on, let me call God on his cell and make sure.

Darn, line's busy.

 

[Lifesaver]

No, irrational creatures cannot sin.

 

[Faithful nonbeliever]

Sweet, were all free and clear then.

 

[Norea]

Well humans tend to be irrational. But you forget, some monkeys and all the members of the ape family can T-H-I-N-K. We got chimps and gorillas that know sign language and etc. We can even give them personality tests and find they seem to have similar traits to well, U-S. :-O

-- Bridget

 

[stray bullet]

Unless they have the knowledge of good and evil, I can't see how they could in the way we are. Perhaps they are still obedient to God in some way and can be disobedient?

I am not sure. I don't think what goes on between God and animals is really our concern.

 

[Chrono Traveler]

Well humans tend to be irrational. But you forget, some monkeys and all the members of the ape family can T-H-I-N-K. We got chimps and gorillas that know sign language and etc. We can even give them personality tests and find they seem to have similar traits to well, U-S. :-O

-- Bridget

Wow, I was actually coming back to this thread to post the same thing..

 

[Arnold_Philips]

No, the apes can't really speak sign language, per se, because they cannot come up with new words. They can just learn.

 

[FadingWhispers3]

Just wondering if animals are given the same rules as us...

Same rules? Wierd...

"If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he must be put to death, and you must kill the animal." Levitcus 20:15

What did the animal ever do to you?

 

[Buzz Dixon]

No. Monkeys are animals. Since animals lack an abstract time sense (viz. Alfred Korzybski's GENERAL SEMANTICS), they can not make a contract (i.e., promise to do something at some point in the future when other conditions are met; animals can be trained to respond to stimuli and instinctively react to certain seasonal changes as when a squirrel gathers nuts, but can not plan for events that might or might not occur).


If a being can not make a contract, it is not a moral being.

QED

Monkey's can behave in destructive and offensive manners, and they can harm other creatures and disrupt the harmony of their own bands, but that's neither moral not immoral.

 

[Norea]

Contracts are not the basis of morality but the extension of the concept of values and morality.

-- Bridget

 

[MoonlessNight]

My position is that animals can be immoral creatures, but their immorality is not the same as our immorality. If an animal acts in such a way that distracts from it's purpose as an animal (which would vary from animal to animal, but generally would be the along the lines of surviving, perpetuating the species, ensuring young survive, etc. But as I said before, it would vary from animal to animal), then that is an immoral act. But since the purpose of animals (or alternative, the way an animal would be required to live to be a good animal) is different than our purpose (or the way that we live in order to be a good person) in a great deal of ways, so the morality isn't the same.

But can they sin? Now, that's a purely theological issue. Sin implies harming a relationship with God, and I am unsure what the relationship between animals and God is. That would be necessary to know before saying, can they sin and if so how do they sin? As far as I know the Bible and most works of Christian scholarship are silent on the issue of the relationship of animals directly to God.

 

[Buzz Dixon]

Contracts are not the basis of morality but the extension of the concept of values and morality.

-- Bridget

But...if you are incapable of forming a contract, you are incapable of behaving morally.

To use an analogy: If you you do not drive a car, you can not drive recklessly, but neither can you drive safely. The morality of the way you drive (reckless or safe) is contingent on your actually being able to drive, otherwise the point it moot.

If a being can not make a promise and keep it, the being is not moral. If a being is trained/programmed to always respond a certain way to a certain stimuli regardless of self-will, the being is not moral.

 

[Kris_J]

Just wondering if animals are given the same rules as us...

That would be the same question as "can we sin against an animal?" & share the same answer.

 

[Old Man Turtle]

Humans are Trichotomous creatures (ie, they possess a spirit, soul, and body). We communicate with God through our spirit. Animals don't have spirits.

Just wondering if animals are given the same rules as us...

 

[Madcoil]

I saw a drunk seagull once.