Like Link21 said, every living thing has a soul. Dogs, cats, dolphins, elephants, ants, worms, everything that has a biological function has a soul.
Do animals have souls?
- Thread starter Leki
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Like Link21 said, every living thing has a soul. Dogs, cats, dolphins, elephants, ants, worms, everything that has a biological function has a soul.
Guardian of Selfhood
Chocobo Breeder
Of course animals have souls. I think we all do in a way; and animals can feel emotions just as much as we can. They can grieve, play, laugh, cry, get upset. They are like us in so many ways. My cat certainly has feelings. I know when she feels lonely and annoyed (she moans at us quite a lot!), my cat is affectionate and she misses us when we're nto around and I know my dogs are happy when they play and laugh on our walks. They miss us when we're not around too (by we I mean me and my family).
Not only are animals very cute, they also have souls and emotions; which is one reason amongst many why we should put a stop to animal cruelty. I don't know where they go after they die; but their sprits definitely live on just as human spirits do.
Not only are animals very cute, they also have souls and emotions; which is one reason amongst many why we should put a stop to animal cruelty. I don't know where they go after they die; but their sprits definitely live on just as human spirits do.
QuickSilverD
I Think... Therefore You Are
If there is such a thing as "souls" then I don't see why animals would not have them
Symphaniz
Ex-Soldier
I must disagree. While some of the things we do may be disgusting to *you*, your calling your own race disgusting because of what?? lol mate. Humans are humans, you can't changed that. Thats no reason to call myself, yourself, and everyone here disgusting. That kind of disturbs me, and worries me lol.
As for the animals having souls, I would think so. They think don't they? They mate, so I would think they can love. Love=Soul?? Idk, I try not to think to hardly on matters like this.
Please define what you would mean by "soul".
Biologically, we share many similarities with other animals, so much so that we can actually draw an evolution tree to how humanity existed. And other animals as well. If there was something that made humanity have a "soul" that other animals didn't, I can't really see it. Even some animals are intelligent to some degree, but probably not as much as we are. Actually, our intelligence is only helped by the fact that we're bipedal and have opposable digits. Otherwise, we couldn't live the way we do now. Although I guess I don't really care too much for the soul because I don't really know what it means anyways.
Actually, our only saving grace is our intelligence, because without them, we wouldn't be able to run as fast as other animals do, or catch prey as well as other animals do, or survive otherwise.
Biologically, we share many similarities with other animals, so much so that we can actually draw an evolution tree to how humanity existed. And other animals as well. If there was something that made humanity have a "soul" that other animals didn't, I can't really see it. Even some animals are intelligent to some degree, but probably not as much as we are. Actually, our intelligence is only helped by the fact that we're bipedal and have opposable digits. Otherwise, we couldn't live the way we do now. Although I guess I don't really care too much for the soul because I don't really know what it means anyways.
Actually, our only saving grace is our intelligence, because without them, we wouldn't be able to run as fast as other animals do, or catch prey as well as other animals do, or survive otherwise.
If animals have souls, how come they haven’t learned to speak a human language? They have mouths, they have vocal cords- either they’re stupid, or they don’t have souls. How come there have been species that have been in existence for millions of years longer than people, and yet they have made no technological advances whatsoever? Either they've kept all of their innovations secret for thousands of years, or they don't have souls. Animals don’t care if they’re alive or dead. They don’t care about history, thinking, or logic. They don’t have a purpose for living- we do. Souls are the reason we HAVE a purpose. God wouldn’t waste souls by giving them to creatures that would never use them- so why should we assume they have any?
70sguygx
Chocobo Breeder
What does speaking a language, making technological advances, or caring about history have to do with having a soul? I fall asleep in history class, does that mean I'm souless?
I personally think they do. We are just another species of animals, so if animals were not to have souls, neither would we.
QuickSilverD
I Think... Therefore You Are
What is a soul anyway?
Well, the answer can vary from person to person. For me, it's the actual life inside of you, kind of like your 'spirit'.
And as for Adamant's response... I think they do have their own type of language, just as humans have their own. I mean, have humans found out exactly what animals are saying? No, they have not.
And as for the techonological advances, I think that isn't as important. Animals seem to have a reason for life: To simply live, mate, eat, keep warm, and care for their own.
And when I think about it, humans are basically animals too. We both (for the most part) are born, breed (And even in both worlds, there are some who don't find a mate or ever breed), eat, work to stay warm and fed, and in the end, die. There are even other things we have in common, like growing hair and nails, breathing air (except fishies of course), use the five senses, use the bathroom, have angry moments, have tired moments, need sleep and so on and so forth.
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OmniscientOnus
Blue Mage
To begin with I would like to state very clearly that I am assuming that the reason you are asking the question: "Do animals have souls?" is for the sheer purpose of figuring out whether or not their is a form of afterlife for them. If, in a manner of speaking, they go to heaven, hell, or just stop existing when their life ceases.
I, myself, would begin with saying, do animals need a soul to pass on to an afterlife, or heaven as I'll refer to it from now on? Humans, with their thought capacity and distinct ability to reason and therefore to judge "right" from "wrong", in most generalized and agreed upon definitions of the words, in fact would require a form other than their physical bodies to ascend (again generalizing with the word ascend) into heaven for the sole purpose of being judged. I could go into further explanation of my statements about humans and the "soul", but as it does not relate to this post, I'll keep it to a minimum.
Animals, unlike humans, have not been proven to be able to reason. Indeed any action an animal takes cannot be scientifically proven as the result of a conscious decision. While it is true that some animals have shown us that the idea that an animal can come to a conscious decision based on reacting to logical thoughts and rational decision making, we have no proof that this is true. A complex form of networking systems in the brain could easily explain that instinct rather than thought dictates every action an animal takes. Therefore, the majority of your question would revolve around proving that animals can, indeed, think.
I, myself, believe that animals are capable of very menial and un-"evolved" forms of thought. My reasoning for this is based on most animals distinct preference of pleasure inducing chemicals in the body as a result of external stimuli. In essence, most animals for example seem to enjoy being petted. Although this too could be explained as merely the animals lack of encoded options to remove them self from the situation at hand. In other words, like a computer, they have no program telling them what to do in the particular situation of being petted. For example, when you press the number 5 on your keypad while actively viewing the desktop, by default unless otherwise changed, nothing happens. The computer has no information on how to react to such an occurrence, therefore, it merely accepts the useless activity and does not respond to it.
In order for an animal to make use of a soul, they would have to have the ability to comprehend, rationalize, form ideas, and then choose a course of action accordingly. I, for one, do not believe that animals have the thought capacity to determine for themselves whether Christianity, Catholicism, Judaism, Buddhism, Atheism, etc... is the one truth of the world. Christianity, for example, specifically states that in order for one to go to heaven, they have to choose for them self to praise God. This, though, does refer directly to humans.
While this is a heavily debated issue, I stand firmly on the grounds that God did not allow those who wrote the Bible to waste their time explaining to humans why animals don't have souls and/or do not go to heaven. How absurd! Why would God go through all the trouble of creating such a complex being just to allow it to perish in a blink (relative to the eternal time line of the entire existence of the universe)? Besides that, choosing to praise one being as an all powerful creator of the heaven, earth, and all that is is a difficult enough decision as it is, without the troubles of determining whether or not all dogs go to heaven (sorry to kind of mock your thread here).
Back to my first question: "Do animals need a soul to go to heaven?" Based on my above argument I would have to say no. Why judge an animal that can not, and does not, have to follow the same strict guidelines to be given a place in heaven?
Then, we would have to go into the true purpose of a soul, whether it is to be judged, or if it is just another word that humans have to place on an entity that would otherwise be just an idea in order to grasp hold of the idea in their mind. Is our soul what goes to heavens, our is our soul the same thing as our love... an idea? For my particular argument I am saying that a soul is both something that gets judged and is required to pass on into heaven.
I'm going to stop my argument here as it is getting fairly long, and I'm afraid is quickly going to begin contradicting itself without a separate thesaurus to give a distinct meaning to all the words and phrases I use, and the longer I make this, the less people will read it.
In conclusion, If a soul is the entity that passes on to heaven, then I believe that yes, animals have souls, but not for the purpose of being judged. I believe that animals have a soul just so they can exist in heaven, because why create something so complex, something that can often make us so happy for innocent reasons (ie - reasons that don't involve sinning) just so that it can be blinked away in a meaninglessly short speck of time in the grand order of things?
I, myself, would begin with saying, do animals need a soul to pass on to an afterlife, or heaven as I'll refer to it from now on? Humans, with their thought capacity and distinct ability to reason and therefore to judge "right" from "wrong", in most generalized and agreed upon definitions of the words, in fact would require a form other than their physical bodies to ascend (again generalizing with the word ascend) into heaven for the sole purpose of being judged. I could go into further explanation of my statements about humans and the "soul", but as it does not relate to this post, I'll keep it to a minimum.
Animals, unlike humans, have not been proven to be able to reason. Indeed any action an animal takes cannot be scientifically proven as the result of a conscious decision. While it is true that some animals have shown us that the idea that an animal can come to a conscious decision based on reacting to logical thoughts and rational decision making, we have no proof that this is true. A complex form of networking systems in the brain could easily explain that instinct rather than thought dictates every action an animal takes. Therefore, the majority of your question would revolve around proving that animals can, indeed, think.
I, myself, believe that animals are capable of very menial and un-"evolved" forms of thought. My reasoning for this is based on most animals distinct preference of pleasure inducing chemicals in the body as a result of external stimuli. In essence, most animals for example seem to enjoy being petted. Although this too could be explained as merely the animals lack of encoded options to remove them self from the situation at hand. In other words, like a computer, they have no program telling them what to do in the particular situation of being petted. For example, when you press the number 5 on your keypad while actively viewing the desktop, by default unless otherwise changed, nothing happens. The computer has no information on how to react to such an occurrence, therefore, it merely accepts the useless activity and does not respond to it.
In order for an animal to make use of a soul, they would have to have the ability to comprehend, rationalize, form ideas, and then choose a course of action accordingly. I, for one, do not believe that animals have the thought capacity to determine for themselves whether Christianity, Catholicism, Judaism, Buddhism, Atheism, etc... is the one truth of the world. Christianity, for example, specifically states that in order for one to go to heaven, they have to choose for them self to praise God. This, though, does refer directly to humans.
While this is a heavily debated issue, I stand firmly on the grounds that God did not allow those who wrote the Bible to waste their time explaining to humans why animals don't have souls and/or do not go to heaven. How absurd! Why would God go through all the trouble of creating such a complex being just to allow it to perish in a blink (relative to the eternal time line of the entire existence of the universe)? Besides that, choosing to praise one being as an all powerful creator of the heaven, earth, and all that is is a difficult enough decision as it is, without the troubles of determining whether or not all dogs go to heaven (sorry to kind of mock your thread here).
Back to my first question: "Do animals need a soul to go to heaven?" Based on my above argument I would have to say no. Why judge an animal that can not, and does not, have to follow the same strict guidelines to be given a place in heaven?
Then, we would have to go into the true purpose of a soul, whether it is to be judged, or if it is just another word that humans have to place on an entity that would otherwise be just an idea in order to grasp hold of the idea in their mind. Is our soul what goes to heavens, our is our soul the same thing as our love... an idea? For my particular argument I am saying that a soul is both something that gets judged and is required to pass on into heaven.
I'm going to stop my argument here as it is getting fairly long, and I'm afraid is quickly going to begin contradicting itself without a separate thesaurus to give a distinct meaning to all the words and phrases I use, and the longer I make this, the less people will read it.
In conclusion, If a soul is the entity that passes on to heaven, then I believe that yes, animals have souls, but not for the purpose of being judged. I believe that animals have a soul just so they can exist in heaven, because why create something so complex, something that can often make us so happy for innocent reasons (ie - reasons that don't involve sinning) just so that it can be blinked away in a meaninglessly short speck of time in the grand order of things?
That argument only holds true if you believe that moral purpose exists. If you don't, then it doesn't matter if all that "complexity" just disappeared and died. It wouldn't matter at all. In fact, none of that "creation" stuff matters at all because it was formed through natural processes gradually, and if animals went extinct or an individual organism died, it would still be a part of the natural process--as long as you don't believe moral purpose exists, this makes sense.
adamski-sin
Newbie
of course animals have souls!! what a stupid question, what else would we eat when were dead? (and dont say you dont eat when you die, coz thats even stupider, its like the 2nd best experience on eart) i mean we can't all eat philladelphia spreads when we die can we?
Archangel
Wings of razors
I have to say most def animals have souls. I've had some really good dogs/cats that have passed on and Me personally cannot fathem them not having souls. Its just beyond my love for thses animals to even imagine them to not have souls.
Raptorg
Dark Battle-Mage
animals have souls, every living being has one, you see, if the being in question has emotions, feelings, it has a soul, the soul is in fact that what makes you feel like you're in love or you're fucking your girlfriend or something...
if it hasn't got emotions or feeling, it doesn't have a soul, for example, in certain games you have the "undead", these are said to be soulless, since most of the time they're mindless and attack anything they come across, or are being played as puppets by a higher force(a necromancer)
and as for the bible... i dispise that book, to me it's a whole bunch of bullshit, it should be burned instantly,
if i ever see a bible...well, i think i'll burn it directly... i'd rather burn the paper then it being used for such a thing... instead of something useful like a user manual for example
or the kamasutra......
and to those people who were discussion "mentally ill" people... i'll tell you something...
Albert Einstein, he was Autistic(spelling?) this is something you get if you have certain(unlethal) braindamage, it makes you rather anti social, shy, explosive and several other, different things, BUT because of this, these people also get a HUGE intelligence, these people use their brain contantly, they think and think and think, sometimes even about 5 things at the same time, their brain is used so much, their intelligence raises, and i think this also causes their "strange" behaviour in certain moments, this is a mental illness which is uncureable, but did anybody care our good ol' friend Al had it, did people think he was soulless? no they thought he was a true genius, rather, excentric, but a genius...
and to get back to the animal subject, there are animals as smart or even smarter then the human... which? sharks, dolphins... chimps... these animals(or primates) are exceptionally smart for an "animal", but aside from that, in the wildlife, animals react a lot on their instinct, this means they'll do the first thing they can think of, which is needed, cause of you are thinking about your move for 10 minutes, well, you can be either be eating, or lose your lunch, still instinct of a form of thinking, it's a rapid way of thinking up a solution, and doing it right away, without thinking TWICE
if it hasn't got emotions or feeling, it doesn't have a soul, for example, in certain games you have the "undead", these are said to be soulless, since most of the time they're mindless and attack anything they come across, or are being played as puppets by a higher force(a necromancer)
and as for the bible... i dispise that book, to me it's a whole bunch of bullshit, it should be burned instantly,
if i ever see a bible...well, i think i'll burn it directly... i'd rather burn the paper then it being used for such a thing... instead of something useful like a user manual for example
or the kamasutra......
and to those people who were discussion "mentally ill" people... i'll tell you something...
Albert Einstein, he was Autistic(spelling?) this is something you get if you have certain(unlethal) braindamage, it makes you rather anti social, shy, explosive and several other, different things, BUT because of this, these people also get a HUGE intelligence, these people use their brain contantly, they think and think and think, sometimes even about 5 things at the same time, their brain is used so much, their intelligence raises, and i think this also causes their "strange" behaviour in certain moments, this is a mental illness which is uncureable, but did anybody care our good ol' friend Al had it, did people think he was soulless? no they thought he was a true genius, rather, excentric, but a genius...
and to get back to the animal subject, there are animals as smart or even smarter then the human... which? sharks, dolphins... chimps... these animals(or primates) are exceptionally smart for an "animal", but aside from that, in the wildlife, animals react a lot on their instinct, this means they'll do the first thing they can think of, which is needed, cause of you are thinking about your move for 10 minutes, well, you can be either be eating, or lose your lunch, still instinct of a form of thinking, it's a rapid way of thinking up a solution, and doing it right away, without thinking TWICE
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I believe they do have a soul. Animals are like humans and have personalities and can inflict and feel pain. So why can they not have a soul?
Have you even read the Bible? So basically all you know about Christianity is by mouth of another person. Sigh.
Ecclesiastes 3:19 For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.
And again
Ecclesiastes 3:21 Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?
Examine those verses.
Also, being unable to verbally communicate through the use of a common spoken language does not equate animals to being stupid nor having no soul. It's just like the early European explorers calling the Native Americans uncivilized. It's also similar to immediately assume that anyone who cannot speak English fluently is stupid and should go back to where-ever they came from. Animals are intelligent though not on par with our intelligence. Though some people seems to contradict that though.
Why does it say the spirit of man goes up and the spirit of animals go down? Does that somehow say that people go to heaven and animals go to hell?
It's rendered "Who knows if the spirit of man goes up, and the spirit of the beast goes down to the earth?" So basically no one knows if the spirit of man and beast will ascend or descend.
The sentence structure and usage of words in Old English is a bit hard to understand. That's why I tend to stay away from anything Old English because its mentally taxing.
The sentence structure and usage of words in Old English is a bit hard to understand. That's why I tend to stay away from anything Old English because its mentally taxing.