God loves dogs

The age-old arguments about cats and dogs came into some kind of focus in my mind the other day. You see, I've been thinking dangerous thoughts about the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. That led me to thinking about obedience to God.

I've been pondering this question: Is obedience stupid?

I've lived with dogs and a cat. Dogs do untold amounts of stupid tricks out of love for their owner (and of course a reward in the form of a snack). If trained properly, they obey. They can learn to do amazing feats. Eventually they learn to obey even without a treat; they obey by instinct.

Cats live their own lives. They do what they want. They too are capable of doing amazing feats, but they do it on their own for self reasons.

Many people hate dogs because, they say, dogs are stupid and cats are independent. Many other people love dogs because dogs are show more desire for your affection than cats do. (Of course, there are exceptions to these stereotypes. We are not addressing those exceptions here.)

So this leads me to think that God loves people who behave more like dogs. He would have preferred nobody would gain the knowledge of good and evil and become so painfully and awkwardly aware of their self-ness. He would have preferred, and still does prefer, less knowledgeable people responding in obedience. Of course, obedience could also lead to great feats and possibly great knowledge as well, just of a different sort - a sort that might seem silly or stupid to those of us who have lived since the Fall.