I'm not looking for too much other than discussing the Christian story of creation.
Do you believe that before we (humans) were created there were animals that were alive and then died off before we (again, humans) ever were created? I'm just curious of the biblical history of what happened.
Using the Bible as a history book is a bad start, IMO. Sure, it will give us some idea regarding creation and what not, but it doesn't paint the entire picture. That is where science can come in and fill in the blanks.
With that out of the way, I believe it is plausible animals lived before humans. Obviously we know they lived at least one day without humans, if one were to take the word day in the Bible literally as in 24 hours. If you don't take the word "day" literally, then it's easy to believe that animals existed for quite some time before humans did. I tend to lean that way, given the science available.
I have some questions for non-believers: what is the point of human emotion, since it doesn't seem to appear to have any affect on our existence? Why conflicting emotions, since it appears their net benefit would cancel each other out (i.e. an equal amount of love and hate would equally progress and regress the species)? Why would our ancestors (re: pre-human) develop these traits throughout evolution?
What about de-evolution? If a species can evolve, it should also be able to de-evolve. So not only should we be able to evolve as humans, but also de-evolve back into chimpanzees. Sure, only the strongest survive, but chimpanzees exist as well as humans, even though humans have "evolved" past the chimpanzee stage. Why don't we see evidence of de-evolution? Or do we?