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*You* automatically cry out in pain if you're slashed; so somehow, that's *just* an "autoMATED" response that has nothing to do w/feelings?

The crying out comes WITH the feelings. It is merely a response of your human machine. You do not make a conscious decision to do it. It is part of your human machines defensive mechanism. And, unlike animals, we can make a conscious decision to suppress it, if need be. Animals don’t.

This makes no sense whatsoever. Why cry out? What's the purpose? If the animal feels nothing, there's no point in crying out! For crying out loud....

There are several beneficial reasons for quickly crying out, actually. Heck, watch March of the Penguins.

A cat is most definitely a living being; a car is not. I love both, but I'm well aware it's my CAT that experiences pain, whereas my inANIMate car does not.

You believe your cat experiences pain, but being a human and not a cat, you cannot know, and both the cat and the car can be programmed to scream. You lower the bar too much. The bar is not “being alive”. Plant’s are alive.

Sure animals feel pain, I know it. I have proof. Try living with 8 cats, sooner or later by accident, I might step on a cat's tail or two and hear a shreak resembling a jet engine. Sure sounds like pain to me. Your Honor, I rest my case.

I do agree with you about the soul being the driver thing and I do see animals having souls as well, maybe not as sophisicated as ours, the American Indians often referred to the soul of an animal as a spirit but I look at it this way, our souls are like a programs for a Pentium IV computer whereas the animals is more like a Commodore 64, you have different degrees of sophisitcation but the similarities are there.

You believe your cat experiences pain, but being a human and not a cat, you cannot know...

Then, how can you, yourself, know that what you feel as pain is what other humans feel? You aren't them. They aren't clones of you.

So, you don't know this, therefore your own nutjob logic says that humans other than yourself don't feel pain.