If God Exists, Then Why Does My Dog Hump My Leg?: How Animal Behavior Informs the God Debate

In 1860 Darwin wrote, "I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created [certain parasitic wasps] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat would play with mice."

Interesting point. Let's take it a couple steps further.

If fornication is sinful and abhorrent to God, it's hard to believe he would create the mouse-like brown antechinus. "Insatiable to the core, he goes from female to female, mating until his immune system becomes suppressed, he develops severe ulcers and gets infected by parasites and dies at the end of the mating season."

If masturbation is sinful and abhorrent to God, it's hard to believe he would create the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, a self-fertilizing hermaphrodite, or that one spider monkey at the zoo.

If infanticide is at least as abhorrent to God as it is to me, it's hard to believe he would create gerbils because they tend to kill and eat their own young.

If lying and stealing are sinful and abhorrent to God, it's hard to believe he would create the tufted capuchin monkey who "will use alarm calls normally reserved for predator sightings ... to illicit a response in fellow group members and then take advantage of the distraction to pilfer food."

If suicide is objectively immoral, it's hard to believe God would create lemmings. Regardless, the lemming is the best swim team mascot ever.

If murder is abhorrent to God, it's hard to believe he would create the blue-footed booby. They're killers from birth. The stronger blue-footed booby chick "will kill the [weaker] chick if there is a food shortage. During lean times, the [stronger] chick may attack the [weaker] chick by pecking vigorously, or it may simply drag its younger sibling by the neck and oust it from the nest."

If homosexuality is abhorrent to God, it's hard to believe he would create any of the 500 species of animals that exhibit homosexual behavior, like bottlenose dolphins, African lions, or the Andean bird species called the cock of the rock.

If coarse language is offensive to God, it's hard to believe he would allow Adam to name a species of bird the "blue-footed booby" or the "cock of the rock."

The big question here is, Can animals sin? Are ethics and morality applicable to any species other than humans?

It's generally held that animals can't sin. Chimpanzees are considered the smartest animals, but they're only about as smart as a dumbass three-year-old. Animals don't have the cognitive skills to act contrary to their instincts. If "ought" implies "can," then "can't" implies "do whatever the hell you want."

If ethics and morality don't apply to animals, then either (1) morality is relative because things that are sinful for one species are righteous for another, ie. "Thou shall not hump thy groin against another's leg, saith the Lord, unless you're a golden retriever," or (2) God created animals with behaviors that really piss him off. 

If ethics and morality DO apply to animals, then humans are sinless lambs when compared to actual lambs. Humans screw up a lot, but not like those lecherous bonobos. Also, if animals were capable of sin, then wouldn't God have become a snail to die as a substitutionary atonement on behalf of all snails so that, if they accepted Jesusnail, they could be saved from eternal torment in salt?

If morality were absolute, and if the ideas of sin and redemption didn't apply to any species other than humans, then it would make a lot more sense if God made every animal species such that they instinctively exhibited perfect Biblical behavior. Which would be tough for Old Testament whales since krill isn't kosher.