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[nenjin]

If lower animals don't need contracts and/or churches to stay together, why should we?

Just because animal relationships don't coincide with ones humans create doesn't mean they don't have them. The pack, the pride...there are all sorts of arrangements in the animal kingdom that have human counterparts. That we abstract ours to a higher degree is just a byproduct of the whole 'higher animal' thing.

[Bohandas]

Like if one partner is critically injured the other partner decides what should be done,

Couldn't the same be accomplished with a living will?

[Duke 2.0]

 As I said, there are a bunch of other things transferring responsibilities to the partner that are all covered all at once, as opposed to multiple different documents to be set up and such.

[Vester]

Like if one partner is critically injured the other partner decides what should be done,

Couldn't the same be accomplished with a living will?

To answer that I'm just gonna quote you:

How far we have fallen if such a contrivance is now necessary.

In fact, every time you bring up a social institution, I'm going to quote this particular line.

[G-Flex]

I do believe there are certain animals (I think emperor penguins are one?) that mate for life, so are essentially married. 

Ok, I'll grant that too.

However, it does ironically provide proof of concept for the idea of marriage itself being pointless, or rather, redundant. If lower animals don't need contracts and/or churches to stay together, why should we?

The fact that you use the term "lower animals" makes my response for me. Humans are not other animals. Humans have the capacity (and/or curse) to constantly question themselves, their actions, their social institutions, and their very lives. We worry about things, and we're very opportunistic, and expect others to be so. Penguins don't entertain the thought that they even have a "choice".

Simply put, it's an unfair comparison. Humans feel the need for things that other animals don't because other animals are not humans and humans are not other animals. And they sure as hell aren't penguins.

[Tack]

Humans are dolphins with opposable thumbs.

[Mindmaker]

But we are.
The way it looks like, the majority of humaity is still beng held hostage by their animalistic drives.

[Vester]

Humans are dolphins with opposable thumbs.

We're a race partly composed of sex-crazed vicious baby murderers that enjoy the pain of others?

With opposable thumbs?

Okay I think you have something there...

[KaelGotDwarves]

Certain dolphins have been shown to prove "cross-species empathy", in that these particular dolphins understand that humans are in trouble and have displayed aid to humans in distress: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmLYGzlPLj0&feature=youtu.be

Of course, you never hear from the humans that encountered dolphins that are dicks, because they're dead.

But yes, it appears that the more "intelligent" creatures become, the more we open ourselves up to brilliant displays of understanding and eternal fuckery.

EDIT: late night grammar.

[Vester]

I think I said it in another thread, but chimps, bottlenose dolphins, and octopi, due to their intelligence, are among the creatures that have the actual capacity for evil _{our definition of it at least}.

It's chimps and bottlenose dolphins that regularly engage in evil though. Or as Kael might put it, "eternal fuckery".

Octopi are just tricky jerks.

[KaelGotDwarves]

Killer Whales and Elephants as well. Killer Whales are the dicks of the seas. Bludgeon seals to death in packs, play volleyball with their offspring before eating it in front of them. Captive orcas have attacked their trainers (no need/will to eat them, just kill).

Anyhow, we're offtopic. Humans aren't separate from other animals, but we are indeed different in ways others creatures aren't. It should mean that we're capable of greater understanding and empathy, not that we're dicks because we refuse to empathize and enjoy watching others pain.

[Tack]

Although we do. It's a pretty basic instinct to laugh at another's misfortune.

[scriver]

Of course, you never hear from the humans that encountered dolphins that are dicks, because they're dead.

There's plenty of people who have encountered their dicks, though

Captive orcas have attacked their trainers (no need/will to eat them, just kill).

Can't really say I view that as very evil. If I was captured and forced (often tortured) into making cheap tricks for other people's enjoyment with little hope of ever escaping, I'd be pretty pissed of as well.

[KaelGotDwarves]

I don't want to derail the thread any more to debate the ethics of it, you can start your own thread if you wish, but I'm going to call any deliberate killing of an animal for the sake of killing that goes quite beyond its instincts and within it's moral understanding - as mentioned earlier such animals may have an understanding of human drowning - I'm just going to call a deliberate murder by dragging a trainer underwater until she dies "evil". Not to say that someone doesn't deserves shit for imprisoning animals that shouldn't be imprisoned, but just saying that the murder itself is evil.

[Bohandas]

But we are.
The way it looks like, the majority of humaity is still beng held hostage by their animalistic drives.

Humans ARE animals. I'm not even being facetious. This is literally true, and people always forget it. Man is an animal, not a god.