Do animals have souls? I sometimes wonder that. If you've ever seen a heard of elephants stumble into an elephant graveyard, they will feel the bones They know that they once belonged to another elephant, and will almost mourn for them. You can't possibly tell me that they are hollow and soulless (is that a word?") inside. And dogs, you can see it in their eyes! They must have souls somewhere, right?
The grief process is bewitching indeed. Early hominids must have done the same thing. How long before elephants start burying their dead? Tough for any animal living in the ocean to mourn when the deceased falls 5 miles to the bottom. So it must have something to do with landlubbers. Did you ever stop to think that the elephants are just a little inquisitive? Is it only domesticated dogs that have souls? I hate it when we humanize creatures even if we're just giving them a soul.
There are no such things as souls. This was an idea born out of ignorance and created at a time when people had absolutely no idea how the brain worked. It's time this stupid idea was laid to rest.
I think your question should actually be: "Do Animals Have Sentience?" To which the answer would be "yes".
If you class the workings of a brain as a 'soul' then of course all animals have them. Why should we be special? But there are no souls, just electric activity and nueron patterns.
You seem very sure of that, and i can guess you are following te myth of materialistic science when you believe that. let me spell it out....notbeing patronizing but others might not be aware is all: materialistic science which is te previaling scientific myth o our times, belives in te primacy of matter. we can even expand on 'matter'--via the doscoveries of QM to say 'matter/energy'......so, is the belief that 'consciopusness' is a secondary phenomenon/'epiphenomenon'--ie that it is the product of complex matter, the human brain but wait! there is the 'HARD PROBLEM' (see David Chalmers p in cognitive science. what it mans is tha tere is te struglle going on to understand SUBJECTIVE consciousness, and how it could possibly ariserom 'NON-sentient' matter/energy..understand??....this is why its hard. how te hell dos inner experince that we all have come from supposedly 'dead' matter? The idea that matter is dead has ben with us for a long time and was foritied 'scientifically' via the theories of Rene Descartes ('Cartesian dualism', who, beliving that mind wa a'substance' which connects with the 'dead' body--the 'ghost in the machine'--via the pineal gland, a;so believed only humans had this 'soul' andthat animals were mere automations. te utter danger of tis idea was acted out ON animals who were subjcted to being cut opn and tortured whilst still alive! their terror, howls and screams tought by these souless fukin automaton 'scientists' to be just mechancial cries of no real significance. EVIL
Maybe, but the common argument by theists on this forum has been that the soul can not be explained or seen. Since aspects of our life and personality root from what can be seen and/or explained to a large degree, that sort of rules that out. Just like all things in the universe, we find that the once unexplained, can one day be explained and mystery vanishes which is something theists don't like, since mystery is what keeps them deluded.
Cris, There are no such things as souls. Opinion and obviously not fact. This was an idea born out of ignorance and created at a time when people had absolutely no idea how the brain worked. Can you let me know how exactly our current knowledge(which is little) of the brain has eliminated the possibility that a soul can exist? btw To the OP, I have no idea if animals have souls, I hope they do Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
HOW do you know YOUR not deluded cause you've LOST a sense of mystery? i actually dont think many of the atheists here 'know' mystery neither. they seem to have it all sown up. if you die eg., and are a sinner you go to hell, good you g to heaven...bubum. whats mystery about that? i see 'theist' and 'atheist' as like polar related, and both ignore an EX-cluded middle. THERE resides the Mystery as i said last post?...THE BIG mystery for cognitive science now is 'The Hard Problem'---the mystery being , subjective consciousness!
I have not lost my sense of mystery at all, in fact I ask myself so many questions about life and the universe everyday which try as hard as we do, will never be answered... In my life time anyway. Theists are the ones with all the answers, but at the end of the day, it is all BS. But once things are observed and measured, they are no longer mystery.
davewhite, The soul was originally considered the source of thoughts and emotions, we now know the brain does all that. What then is the purpose of a soul? It is a redundant concept. Or one of credibility. That we have in our head the computing power equal to some 20,000 state of the art computers, or that we are driven by an imaginary, invisible, immaterial, undetectable, unobservable, supernatural, something. Wake up - it doesn't exist.
Duendy, The hard problem is a matter of reverse engineering, there is no need to introduce the fantasies of the supernatural into what is simply a difficult problem. Like so much in the past, if it is not understood then it is assigned a mystical cause - surely we have learnt this lesson by now. In all that time nothing supernatural has ever been detected.
NO, yo are missing thepoint. just keep with it. see it IS a problem first. you admit that, dont you? orrr do you have the answer? if so please ten state it out as simply as you can. the fact is we do now know how subjectivce consciusness can happen in 'insentient' matter/energy the 'problem' is commensurate with the mind/body and/or brain/mind problem a problem remeains a problem when the wrong questions are being asked. usually when an unexamind premise is accepted i am with Alan Watts, philosopher, Christian de Quincey et al, and ancient insight of our worldwide Indigenous ancestors who understand Nature to be alive/sentient
Have you ever died? Do you know for sure that the soul is non existent. I believe it is an energy but not an energy that dies as soon as the brain dies. It is an energy connected to every other energy around us. This is just an opinion and i am not rying to strike up a debate. This is just something i am interested in knowing more about. Right now i do believe everything has a soul.
Duendy, Not sure what you are saying here. We do not fully understand how the brain operates. That is a problem to be solved. Are you suggesting we insert mysticism into a scientific investigation?
