Animals as Sacred
For the Creek Indians, animal intelligence is a given. Indeed, not only do they, and many indigenous people, consider animals to be smart, but they see them as superior to humans. They were here first, after all. As Creek stories explain, animals created the world and then made us. We are related to them, but they are spiritually advanced, and we owe them respect. [1] The native people of the Arctic believe reindeer and caribou can understand and respond to human thought. [2] Australian aborigines recognize that animals are sentient. [3]
David Aftandilian suspects that native peoples came to understand the wisdom and spiritual maturity of animals because they lived among them. They observed them. As he points out, when we no longer encounter wild creatures as part of our everyday lives, when we no longer depend on them for food and clothing, we stop telling stories about their exploits. We forget who they really are; we imagine they’re dumb. [4] Because we refuse to truly see them, we think they are nothing but objects put on this earth for our pleasure, akin to automatons that feel no pain.
Claiming Dominion
This has been the case in Western society for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. After all, the Bible tells us that we were made in God’s image and other animals were not. Not only are we better than they, but God gave us “dominion” over them.
At first, that biblical God showed pity toward those inferior creatures. He didn’t give them to us to eat them, at any rate. Genesis 1:29 reads, “God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.” [5] Proponents of vegetarianism sometimes cite this verse.
Later, after the flood, however, God not only allowed us to eat meat, but, according to James R. Hughes, God required it.
When the waters receded, and the ark landed, every creature disembarked. Now there had been two of most beasts, but of clean animals, those that both chew the cud and have cloven hooves, and of clean birds, which are any that do not eat carrion, there were fourteen, so Noah took one of all those clean creatures and sacrificed them to the Lord, burning them on a pyre.
Then, as it says in the holy book, “when the Lord smelled the pleasing odor, the Lord said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth” (Gen 8:20-21).
Obliged to Eat Meat
Perhaps, when God first instructed people about what they could eat, he hadn’t realized how much he’d love that smell of cooking meat. Now that he knew, apparently, he wanted more. Thus, in Genesis 9, God told Noah and his sons:
“Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hands they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.”
Gen 9:1-3
Commentators interpret this in many ways. Some highlight the evil aspect, noting that God allowed us to eat animals because, if we didn’t, he feared we would eat one another. Others speak of our sovereignty over all.
According to James R. Hughes, however, it wasn’t a concession. Nor was he concerned with dominance. God was creating a whole new covenant, one with Noah and every human after him. What sealed it, was the burning of animal flesh. God wanted us to take part in a “covenant fellowship meal” that included that delicious animal smell. [6]
From this, Hughes concludes that, not only are we permitted to eat animals, but we are obligated to. Every time we eat meat, he explains, we re-enact the new covenant. When we refuse to do so, we defy God. He writes, “Therefore all men everywhere continue to eat meat from all kinds of animals as a symbol of their universal obligation to God.” [7]
Animal intelligence would be a threat to anyone who accepts such a worldview.
Respecting the Sacred in Animals
Of course, eating meat does not necessarily mean we disrespect animals. Indeed, Native Americans considered all earth’s creatures to be their siblings. They respected them greatly. Yes, they ate their meat and used their fur, but they took only what they needed and did so with reverence for the animal they hunted. They honored the creature who gave its life for them.
Most Westerners wouldn’t think to do that. They don’t see animals as sacred. For us, they are possessions, property, commodities to be used. They are things.
Fortunately, our beliefs are changing. Research on animals throughout the world is revealing how complex and wondrous they are, and we cannot help but be affected by this knowledge.
It only makes sense, though, that animals would have an intelligence of some sort. As Alison Gopnik points out, it makes no sense that reason and logic, in as much as we humans have such things, would arise fully formed in us unless similar attributes already existed in other creatures. That’s how evolution works. It’s a slow process, with new traits building on old ones.
If you accept the Bible as scientific and factual, imagining God literally formed us into creatures that look like him, this argument will mean nothing to you. For everyone else, it is only reasonable that if our we are like other creatures in that we have limbs and beating hearts and stomachs to process what we eat, we would also have comparable brains. [8]
Like Insect Brains
As Virginia Morell notes in her book Animal Wise, even the brains of ants contain structures similar to ours. For instance, their brains have nerve cells, and they build neuronal connections that grow and change as they learn, just like we do. Even fruit flies can learn from experience. Like ants, areas in their brain allow them to remember what they’ve discovered. Though a grass seed weighs more than an ant’s brain does, many researchers believe that those brains “have striking similarities to the mammalian brain’s cortex in design and function.” [ 9] As computers have shown us, bigger does not always equal smarter.
So if insects can learn, what about mammals or birds?
As it turns out, mammals and birds have intelligence, too. Morell summarizes research being done on the intelligence of insects, birds, mammals, and primates. Chimpanzees and crows, for instance, make tools. Wolves and dolphins solve problems. Elephant matriarchs guide the herd, while the adult male elephants teach young bulls how to manage their emotions.
One reason we think bird calls are so repetitive is that our ears pick up only part of what they’re saying. In frequencies beyond our hearing, birds are singing trills and extra notes that have a language-like intricacy, that include grammar, and that convey meaning. Parrots, with their ability to mimic human speech, have learned to carry on meaningful conversations with human researchers.
Dolphins use a complex system of clicks and whistles to communicate about complicated social situations, and they have learned to understand a language of human gestures. Orangutans and gorillas surpass chimpanzees in certain cognitive tasks, but chimpanzees perform better than we humans do in visual memory tests.
Animals are wiser than we knew. Or, at least, than some of us knew.

Animal Emotions
We also know that animals have emotions. Who can doubt that the elephant child hovering over her dead mother’s body is grieving? What of the chimpanzee mother who shrieks when her baby is ripped away? Can we really imagine she does not feel the agony of loss? Even the most skeptical of scientist is likely to read emotions in his dog. Darwin, at any rate, did. [10]
Our canine companions evolved with us. Now, they long to be with us, to hear us speak, to please us. [11] When their human friends die, they mope. They’re sad. A dog doesn’t use language to label her emotions, yet she still feels. Is it possible she feels something like we would if we were grieving?
Morell suggests they do. If, as we saw earlier, we can reason, learn, and make tools because animals before us could also, to a greater or lesser extent, do this, it makes sense we would have similar emotions. As Morell puts it, “evolution is conservative.” [12] She gives the example of chemicals in our brains that transmit signals. Fish, amphibians, birds, and mammals all use the same type of chemical. Thus, it’s likely that nature would conservatively use the same basic pathways and experiences of emotions in cuttlefish as in humans. What we feel is probably similar to what an elephant or chimpanzee or dog feels when they look sad or angry or scared.
Sentient Beings
It is also likely to be similar to what we feel when we are hurt, in body or in spirit. Thus, when animals bellow or moan, we can assume they are suffering. If we suffer when imprisoned or tormented, so do animals. When we accept this, we might hesitate to eat these beings so like us, especially those who are raised in cages so small they can’t turn around. Abusing animals in research studies doesn’t feel so good anymore.
For Buddhists, animals and insects are sentient. They have consciousness. Because they believe in reincarnation, Buddhists also believe animals have souls. Indeed, “the animal in front of one may be a previous relative or friend,” writes Phillip A. Lesco in his article “To Do No Harm.” [13] Also, Buddhists understand that we are one with all life. Therefore, they avoid behaviors that cause harm to anyone or anything that is conscious.
In practice, this is difficult. Sharing with Buddhists beliefs about sentience and the desire to avoid harm, Jains refuse to raise crops because by digging into the earth, they unintentionally kill worms and other creatures. To keep from stepping on something alive, they sweep the ground in front of them as they walk.
A Middle Way?
Buddhists do not take things to this extreme. To save one life, we sometimes must take another. To grow food, someone must plow the field. When scientists test vaccines, they use animals first. Would it be best to do without the vaccinations? How many human lives would be lost if we refused to do research of any kind because it harmed some kind of sentient life?
Obviously, it would be best to develop research techniques that don’t hurt living things, and scientists are trying to develop alternatives to the use of live flesh, such as computer models or microorganisms. Mostly, though, these don’t provide us with the information we need. Perhaps we can use fewer animals and provide pain relief to those we do study, but some creatures will be sacrificed for our gain. [14] Navigating these new ethics will not be easy, but we will do it.
Indigenous people understood by observing their fellow creatures that animals think, that they have consciousness, that they suffer, and that they have wisdom to offer us. We had to figure that out with scientific, replicable research. Though science has many benefits, it’s not the only way to know things. Native Americans, Aborigines, and other tribal peoples were right all along. They looked; they listened. Would that we would do the same.
A Pregnant Heart
In the poem, “Trouble,” Jack Gilbert speaks of the “pregnant heart,” the heart ready to give birth, the heart swollen with a longing for love, filled with “hopes” too big for the world. This is the kind of heart that sees the wisdom in animals, that understands the consciousness of ants and bees and worms. A pregnant heart realizes that all creatures desire comfort and ease and companionship. A pregnant heart desires that such peace be part of all our lives.
It’s uncomfortable to realize that the soulful look in a cow’s eyes might reflect more intelligence than we’ve given her credit for, and the eagerness with which our dog gazes at us really is a kind of love, and that parrots, too, can develop fondness for people, and sometimes birds sing because they’re joyful. To admit such a possibility means we must accept we are not the pinnacle of creation.
Once upon a time, we enslaved other people. We called those who lived close to the earth “savages.” Thinking them to be ignorant and inferior, we used them for our own ends, with no concern for their thoughts or feelings. Indeed, we imagined they had none of any consequence. Today, most of us have different attitudes toward other people. We know they are like we are, only with different worldviews.
Now it’s time to change how we think about animals. It’s time to change how we treat them. Perhaps we will do less sacrificing, less burning of meat. Instead, we will learn to live with less, sit more quietly, and come to know all the creatures as our friends.
In faith and fondness,
Barbara
Credits
- Aftandilian, Dave, “Toward a Native American Theology of Animals: Creek and Cherokee Perspectives,” CrossCurrents, June 2011, Vol. 61, No. 2, Wiley, 191-207, 195, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24461939, accessed 10/5/21
- Trigger, David S., “Indigeneity, Ferality, and What ‘Belongs’ in the Australian Bush: Aboriginal Responses to ‘Introduced’ Animals and Plants in a Settler-Dependent Society,” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Sep. 2008, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp 628-646, 628.
- Ibid 636.
- Aftandilian 202.
- All Scripture quotations from the NRSV.
- Hughes, James R., “Why Did God Permit Man to Eat Meat?,” January 1, 2019, http://www.epctoronto.org/Press/Publications_JRHughes/Why_Meat_Web.htm, accessed 10/9/21.
- Ibid.
- 8. Gopnik, Alison, “How Animals Think,” The Atlantic, May 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/05/how-animals-think/476364/, accessed 10/5/21.
- Morell, Virginia, Animal Wise, Collingwood, Australia: Black Inc., 2013, ebook, 80.
- Ibid 435.
- Ibid 446.
- Ibid 54.
- Lesco, Phillip A., “To Do No Harm: A Buddhist View on Animal Use in Research,” Journal of Religion and Health, Winter, 1988, Vol. 27, No. 4, pp. 307-312, 308, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27505989, accessed 10/9/21.
- Institute of Medicine. 1991. Science, Medicine, and Animals. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.https://doi.org/10.17226/10089.
Copyright © 2021 Barbara E. Stevens. All Rights Reserved.
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