Religion
In reply to the discussion: how does atheism/materialism account for [View all]Nay
(12,051 posts)monkeys in side-by-side cages (so they could see each other) were given slices of cucumber as a snack. The monkeys like cukes OK, but they like sweet fruit much better. Both monkeys were OK with cukes until one monkey got a ripe banana and the second monkey got another piece of cuke.
The second monkey screamed (apparently in anger) and threw his cuke at the researcher. I'd call that envy/jealousy, wouldn't you?
There's a book called Good Natured by Frans de Waal that discusses many years of research into animal emotions. It's a very readable and accessible book. He's got other books out, too. I haven't kept up with elephant emotions research, but they're supposed to be pretty high on the emotions/feeling scale, too, as are dolphins.
It only makes sense -- we get all our physical characteristics from a long history on the planet, and we get our emotions and feelings from all that DNA mixing, too. There's actually no need to involve religion in the acquisition of emotions, as scientific discoveries have indicated that they are also a product of evolution.