One of the pagan myths that is generally believed by Christians is that people are animals. Starting in Kindergarten, the public school indoctrinated you to believe that humans belong to the group of creatures called, “Mammals.” Pagans lump humans together with all the animals that bear live young and have body hair.

We don’t protest the grouping because it’s true. There are a bunch of animals that have hair on their bodies. So by definition, humans qualify as ‘mammals.’ The insidious lie that we’ve believed for generations is that ALL mammals are animals. It’s true that humans are mammals but humans are NOT animals.

Only humans try to treat other species with respect and kindness. Animals don’t care about other animals. Dolphins don’t set-up campaigns to save the polar bears. Monkeys don’t run shelters for stray kittens. And before you post pictures of a chimpanzee cuddling a kitten thinking that refutes my point, remember that a human handed that kitten to the chimp.

The term ‘anthropomorphism’ basically means ‘making objects or animals act like people.’ Humans do that all the time. We tell stories about animals who think like people. There is nothing wrong with telling stories about cows that talk, wear clothes, and aspire to fulfill their dreams as long as we remember those stories are fiction. But because we’ve been taught that humans are animals, we also believe that animals are humans.

God made people separate from the other life forms. Nowhere in the Bible is it suggested that mankind is another kind of animal. Before the end of the first chapter of Genesis, God tells humans to rule over all the animals. The command to treat others as you want to be treated is applied to humans, not animals. Genesis 9:3 tells us we can eat animals. It’s impossible to make the case that ‘stewardship of the Earth’ means abstaining from meat.

Humans were not commanded to ‘share the planet with our fellow animals.’ We have no ‘fellow animals’. Humans are unique. That’s the reason God created Eve. Adam didn’t have a suitable companion in the animal kingdom. Humans just don’t have much in common with animals (other than maybe body hair).

No matter how much DNA we may have in common with other critters, people are not animals. We bear the image of God. It is incorrect to place mankind at the top of an evolutionary chart. We are an entirely different kind of creature.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

(Genesis 1:28)