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Does your dog really love you?

Jonathan Bailey

Well-Known Member
If you hand him a big bowl of yummy food and a big handful of yummy treats I bet he'll love you to death. He'll love you even more if he is allowed to lie on your comfy bed at night.

A radio Catholic priest was just saying God didn't give animals the capacity to love but only mankind.

Sometimes I think dogs are more loving than most people especially if they are treated kindly.
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
If you hand him a big bowl of yummy food and a big handful of yummy treats I bet he'll love you to death. He'll love you even more if he is allowed to lie on your comfy bed at night.

A radio Catholic priest was just saying God didn't give animals the capacity to love but only mankind.

Sometimes I think dogs are more loving than most people especially if they are treated kindly.

What would a priest know of love?
 

SalixIncendium

अग्निविलोवनन्दः
Staff member
Premium Member
A radio Catholic priest was just saying God didn't give animals the capacity to love but only mankind.

It was a similar mindset of the same group with regard to animals and souls that led to my departure from the Catholic Church.

Some Catholics sure know how to alienate animal lovers.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
If you hand him a big bowl of yummy food and a big handful of yummy treats I bet he'll love you to death. He'll love you even more if he is allowed to lie on your comfy bed at night.

A radio Catholic priest was just saying God didn't give animals the capacity to love but only mankind.

Sometimes I think dogs are more loving than most people especially if they are treated kindly.

How would they know? Some random thought dredged up from the unconscious mind they felt they had the authority to claim as divine thinking.
 

Bear Wild

Well-Known Member
If you hand him a big bowl of yummy food and a big handful of yummy treats I bet he'll love you to death. He'll love you even more if he is allowed to lie on your comfy bed at night.

A radio Catholic priest was just saying God didn't give animals the capacity to love but only mankind.

Sometimes I think dogs are more loving than most people especially if they are treated kindly.
Since animals have the same emotional capacity as humans derived from the same evolutionary process which created the neurologic processes that create the feeling we call love, then why would you not believe that the dogs experience love? The neuroscience evidence and all of the ethnology studies are clearly in support and unless someone can show clear evidence that other mammals do not experience "love" then there is no reason to deny them of the capacity especially with the new research showing overwhelming similarity in studies of animal emotions. I am not sure that all priests would say that dogs or other animals do not love but I never asked. Those that say they do not experience love are clearly not aware of what is now known and are just maintaining their outdated anthropocentrism view.
 

Ouroboros

Coincidentia oppositorum
I believe dogs, horses, and many other animals can feel love. We know from studying apes that they can feel sorrow and loss of their babies, which suggests that there's a strong feeling for them while they're alive. I suspect love and care is an integral part of creating a society. The group of individuals will only hold together if they have some form of abstract attitude towards them, more than just automatic reflexes.

Besides, our dogs interact on such a level that I'm certain that they do feel things. What I can't know, however, is if they feel the exact same thing I feel? Maybe not, but they're not without emotions.
 
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The Hammer

[REDACTED]
Premium Member
Dogs most certainly have emotions, and while their love is not nearly as complicated as the human notion of love is, it is most certainly a more pure form of love then ours ever will be. So if Love is some sort of divine Truth, then maybe we should be looking to dogs for inspiration, not minimizing them.
 

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
If you hand him a big bowl of yummy food and a big handful of yummy treats I bet he'll love you to death. He'll love you even more if he is allowed to lie on your comfy bed at night.

A radio Catholic priest was just saying God didn't give animals the capacity to love but only mankind.

Sometimes I think dogs are more loving than most people especially if they are treated kindly.
That priest is an idiot. Humans are animals. There's a lot of research documenting the emotional lives of animals. They have pretty much the same spectrum of emotions like us, especially if they're mammals. What we call love is really a bond between beings. Certainly dogs experience that.
 

Geoff-Allen

Resident megalomaniac
I am a life-long dog-lover as well.

They are simply less "complicated" than we human beings. I try my best to love human beings as well - like the good book says - but it's often far easier with dogs!

:)

dogquotes11.jpg


More images & quotes here -

26 Inspirational Quotes about Dogs to Brighten Any Dog Lover’s Day

:)
 

irena

Member
I think my dog loves me. She is very sensitive to kindness, not food. Giving a dog a meal is a sign of care
 
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