What is the difference between humans and animals?

Answer 1

According to God's purpose as declared in The Bible, humans were to "have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and the domestic animals and all the earth and every moving animal that is moving upon the earth."-Genesis 1:26. It is good to remember, though, that the Bible emphasizes the distinction between humans and animals. Humans, not animals, were made 'in the image and likeness of God.' (Genesis 1:26) And whereas animals were created with a limited life span, humans had the prospect of living on earth forever. (Genesis 3:22,23; Psalm 37:29) Jesus Christ said that to enjoy "everlasting life," we must exercise faith and take in knowledge of God-things that animals are incapable of doing. (John 3:36; 17:3) Moreover, the Bible compares those unworthy of a resurrection to the "unreasoning animals that are born naturally to be caught and destroyed."-2 Peter2:9-12

God created animals for the sake of humans. Animals can help them do their work and can serve as their companions or pets. They also serve to magnify God's love and wisdom. Surely it is a pleasure to observe the beauty of animals and to learn more about the Creator from a study of their marvelous instinctive wisdom. (Psaml 104:24; Proverbs 30:24-28; Romans 1:20) Just one of the many examples of such wisdom is seen in the world of insects. Remarkable indeed is the way bees communicate with one another and follow directions to food sources-not to mention how they build their complex honeycombs.

Animals may benefit man by serving as food. Originally, God provided only vegetation as food for man. But more than 1,600 years later-after the Flood of Noah's day-God said: "Every moving animal that is alive may serve as food for you. As in the case of green vegetaion, I do give it all to you." (Genesis 1:29; 9:3) Thus, God made the concession for humans to eat animals. Evidently, this concession was for man's good, although originally God did not include meat as part of the human diet. Animals were not created in God's image, nor were they meant to live forever, as were humans. Regarding the way God made humans, the Bible says: "He has even put eternity into their minds." Yet, nothing like this is said of animals.-Ecclesiastes 3:11. humans are brimming with unique traits that do not fit the animal mold. Among these are love, conscience, morality, spirituality, justice, mercy, humor, creativity, awareness of time, self-awareness, aesthetic appreciation, concern for the future, the ability to accumulate knowledge over generations, and the hope that death is not the ultimate end of our existence. Both humans and animals are souls. When God formed Adam, "the man came to be a living soul," says Genesis 2:7. First Corinthians 15:45 concurs: "The first man Adam became a living soul." Humans are souls, so the soul is not some shadowy entity that survives the death of the body.

The Bible also sheds light on another puzzle that evolution does not satisfactorily explain: the normal human unwillingness to accept death, even though death may seem natural and inevitable.

As the Bible reveals, death was triggered by sin, by disobedience to God. Had our original parents remained obedient, they would have lived forever, along with their children. God, in effect, had programmed the human mind with the desire for eternal life. "He has also set eternity in the hearts of men," says Ecclesiastes 3:11, according to the New International Version. Their condemnation to death, therefore, raised an internal conflict in humans, a persisting disharmony.

To reconcile this internal conflict and to appease the natural yearning to live on, humans have fabricated all sorts of beliefs, from the doctrine of the immortality of the soul to belief in reincarnation. Scientists peer into the mystery of aging because they too want to ward off death or at least put it off. Atheistic evolutionists dismiss the desire for everlasting life as an evolutionary trick, or deception, because it clashes with their view that humans are simply higher animals. On the other hand, the Bible statement that death is an enemy harmonizes with our natural yearning to live.-1 Corinthians 15:26.

Well, then, do our bodies give any clues that we were meant to live forever? The answer is yes! The human brain alone dazzles us with evidence that we were made to live much longer than we do.
The main difference between human and animal is patience.