The only answers that can be given are individual assumptions and in case of animals studies that have been done.
My belief is God gave mankind permission to eat meat because they were already doing it. An example maybe marriage, Jesus said God intended one man one woman but then men were marrying as many women as they could attend to.
From my observation and most studies animals does not have a sense of what death is - that is what separates man from animal and places man in the image of God.
Haven't you seen animals that grieve and mourn because of those who have died?
My belief is no animals were not created to live forever - only the spirits that are within man. These earthly bodies that Man (our spirits) dwell in were not created to live forever.
Procreation, I believe is the reason why flesh bodies were not created to live forever because if they were there would be no room on this planet to sustain the numbers in enough space or food.
Heaven is celibate.
Most animals display love, parental love friendly love, one to another and when raised by humans love for human.
I personally believe no animal has a conscience - meaning the ability to know right from wrong. Man is the only one that has that ability also places him in the image of God. As written God said man has become as one of us to no good from evil Genesis 3:22 then put them out of the garden so that they couldn't partake of the fruit of the tree of life and live forever. And post angels around it so that they couldn't get back to the tree and I'm quite sure God removed it.......
Do you think the knowledge of good and evil Adam and Eve acquired is the same knowledge we have written in our hearts today? Or was the knowledge of good and evil from the tree, different from the knowledge of good and evil which is written in our hearts? And if it is different, in what way is it different?
One can train certain animals to understand and obey certain commands - yes, no, don't, okay etc. But they are reacting to what they are being taught or have been taught. They react to the reactions of their humans, they can tell whether a human is displeased or happy or being forceful, or humorous and they react. In my opinion they animals do not know the difference between right and wrong / Good and evil.....
So retaliation counts as knowing good and evil. If an animal retaliates, then that's considered knowing good from evil, meaning that when an animal retaliates, it's saying to the animal it's attacking, This animal did evil.
Is it right? It certainly acts like it thinks it's right, but is it? Isn't it in their DNA? How can we train an animal differently from its encoded moral DNA? And what if we find an animal that doesn't retaliate when all its other relatives do?
An animal that doesn't retaliate when all of its brothers and cousins does retaliate, is suspicious. So we can't base anything on what suspicious animals do when we're describing their species. There's something wrong with the suspicious ones. We just mentally set them aside.
And animals retaliate to certain things. They are acting on their conscience. When there's an intruder a dog will retaliate by barking. "There's something wrong here." It's the suspicious dog who does nothing while its owner is robbed blind. We don't say about all dogs that they're all suspicious, just because some dogs are suspicious. Mostly, mainly, generally, dogs are not suspicious.
What about man? How does he do when it comes to morals? Is he suspicious, like the silent dog? Or does he bark when morals are broken, like the good, useful guard dog?
There is a new study that says animals (some in particular) does but when you actually read their reasoning, animals are reacting to how they have been trained and react to the behavior of their trainer or owner - they know what the trainer owner expects - from my point of view.
Retaliating is a moral activity.
Do animals have character / personality - indeed they do, do they have feelings / emotions, indeed they do.
But do they have thought? Arguably, crows do. They plan. They also retaliate, so crows aren't suspicious either.
All the sins that are listed in the Bible - man made laws that mankind should follow how well do animals fare?
God's morality is not man-made.
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