Why didn't God create us to be obviously different?

SydBarrett

A silly question since i'm an atheist but one I thought of as a kid JW.

Why weren't human's created to be obviously different from animals? Among believers there is some sort of Universal hierarchy. God at the top, then immortal spirit helpers, then humans, then animals.

For some reason, humans are a really big deal in the grand scheme since the entire immortal spirit realm is waiting with baited breath to see what choices we individually will make.

As the third rung in creation, why weren't we made to appear blatantly obviously different? Why do we have 5 fingers and toes instead of 7? When we compare our digits to other mammals, something looks awful suspicious. Why do we have the same digestive system or even a digestive system at all? Why do we have to poop and pee and smell horrible if we don't bathe? Why is our reproductive system just a fun add-on to our urinary system?

We could still be mortal and a lower level than angels but he could have created these things completely different if he wanted so that there would be an obvious distinction between humans and animals.

It's just a rhetorical question that I wondered if anyone else ever had as a JW.

Anony Mous

Because the gods were lazy. Lot easier to make many different cars if you don’t have to change the chassis.

If you believe in creation, then god must have had some pressure from finance or marketing because many shortcuts were made to finish the project on time.

We’ll fix it later, nobody will notice - God, the first real engineer.

jhine

Evolution?

Jan from Tam

LoveUniHateExams

But it's kinda understandable for religious people to think like that, even if we're not 'obviously different'.

Lots of people think like that, and they're not necessarily religious.

Take our laws on murder. Murder is the unlawful, intentional killing of one human being by another. Animals (non-human species) cannot be murdered even if they are sometimes killed by humans illegally. Murder can only apply to humans.

The minute animal rights activists start to include animals or start to think that humans and animals should be viewed as equals, a whole load of moral and philosophical issues crop up.

slimboyfat

Isn’t the remarkable thing about humans just how different we are from other creatures? I know what you mean in that we are mammals and we are morphologically similar other primates and so on. But in terms of inner life, and our expression of meaning, is there any other creature that even comes close to humans?

Who’s the scientist who likes to point out that human DNA is only 2% different from other primates, yet in the space of that difference exist Mozart, Michelangelo, and men going to the moon?

Atheist philosopher Raymond Tallis argues strongly that humans are different from other animals in extraordinary ways. See his book Aping Mankind:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/16/aping-mankind-raymond-tallis-review

To me, the uniqueness of humans is what makes me suspect that we really are in some sense “in the image of God”. As it is, we know of no other creature alive that appreciates the vastness and complexity of existence as humans do, or ponders the nature of existence, or all the other many facets of human consciousness that make us unique. Crows are very intelligent, and elephants have seemingly complex social and emotional lives, to give two examples in nature. Nevertheless humans display such range and diversely intricate social and intellectual lives, on a different scale than other animals, that seemingly set us apart from all other creatures.

TD

It's just a rhetorical question that I wondered if anyone else ever had as a JW

Yes. In the context of the JW worldview I wondered (as an adolescent) why, if we were not intended to get sick, do we have the mechanisms for coping with it when we are.

A fever, a runny nose, coughing, sneezing, etc., might make us miserable, but it is our immune system at work.

MarcosPozarro

Could be easily argued that we need to fit in a perfect ecosystem as God intended, which would mean we cannot be some alien creature completely unrelated to our environment. Our minds can feel more compassion towards other creatures if we are at least somewhat similar to them, this is why most people prefer mammals as opposed to insects. Also, everything that moves needs energy, so we need to digest something, convert it to fuel, and then we need to dispose of the unusable matter. Everything fits together like a nice little puzzle, which is of course perfectly explained by the scientific theory of evolution/biology/physics/chemistry, however a theist could use these reasons to justify the existance of a sublime creator.

FFGhost

why, if we were not intended to get sick, do we have the mechanisms for coping with it when we are.

Similarly, why are penguins, polar bears, etc. built to handle extremes of temperature if the entire earth was designed to be a temperate tropical paradise?

jhine

FF Ghost evolution?

Jan from Tam

FFGhost

FF Ghost evolution?

Well yes, of course, but how would a JW answer?

Why didn't God create us to be obviously different?

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