True. But the thing is, though rape is all too real a possibility. Most people, even those who have been raped will go on to say that they are glad for the way we are created to know and express love through the act of sex.

Or like me, I have met some real schmucks online, and yet, here I am!
Cos I ain't gonna let a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch...

Same thing with emotions. And even moreover, with emotions...feeling the negative is still a life experience and in the totality of anyone's life, being able to know those feelings, sense that pain, it is actually a gift. It is being ALIVE!

OhDear

I'm happy I have feelings and life and all that. But then again, torture takes the wonderful ability to feel and uses it against us.
Our wonderful ability to love can be bastardized by someone looking to take advantage of it.
I'm glad I have the ability to love...until that bitch [insert name here] used it to get me to give her money and buy her a car then left.

Being alive is a great thing...and is a gift. But when you are enslaved, disabled, insanely poor, imprisoned, or otherwise impaired but with full emotional faculties, it can turn out to a "living hell".

Actually, nonhuman animals are driven by emotion. The question seems to presuppose that humans are naturally self destructive while nonhuman animals are peaceful. Animals in many regards tear themselves apart. What sets us apart from them is our intelligence, and incidentally this intelligence simultaneously provides us with a means to develop ever more sophisticated means of killing each other, and as well as an avenue for species-wide altruism. Though, it may be argued that complete selflessness is one of the most irrational behaviors of them all.

Comparatively, humans are actually one of the most peaceful species in the animal kingdom. I think there is a lot of scare mongering which contributed to the ideology behind the question posed.

I think we actually agree on something here, gary.

The question was originally posed by the professor of my cousin's theology course; so I cannot speak as to whether he was "scare-mongering" or not. Now, I do agree with this post of yours, as I believe that our intelligence does place us far ahead of other animals. I just also believe that our inability to control this intelligence; and constanly using it for such ends as planning the death of other humans that sets us backward. That is what I meant earlier about emotion.
When you see a program such as Animal Planet and see a female lioness on the hunt and her killing of an antelope or other animal, it is done for one reason only in my opinion: food. And the lioness does not kill another lioness here.
Explain the next "murder" you read about". Was it done for food? Yes, you could argue that it was commited to enable one better oppotunity in life to obtain such. But what about the many random murders each day? Are all of these done in the name of food or survival? Why is it that we don't use our intelligence towards not having to resort to these methods more?
I do have to admit (and I will tell my cousin so) that the question itself is a head-scratcher. I see it in the class of something that has no definitive right or wrong answer. But, as I'm told; Theology itself can be described in this manner.

That's usually my first inclination as well. LOL.

I also agree with a portion of what Gary has said. I think think is also a presupposing question in it's own way. I disagree with the professor in his use of the words "plan" or "planning in this question. There is no evidence of this that I can see or am aware of.
The developement of nuclear weapons factor only is evidence of our intelligence, to me. But they were designed to kill humans; just that it could be done more efficiently. That is the point that I will agree with the professor on. Okay, we know that we are more intelligent. But does killing each other efficiently make us smarter?

I shall reword the question so that it is what I think the question means and which I am trying to answer.

If we accept that humans have dominant power over all other species; why is it that we are the only species that actively plan our own death?

If that is what the questioner means then obviously we are the only species that plans or own death because we are the only species that knows we humans are all mortal, the first part of the question is of no consequence.