If behaving a certain way that another perceives is communication, they do. However it's not equivalent.
Actually the soul is the essence of the living entity and is something quite distinct from the body it inhabits BG 3.38 As fire is covered by smoke, as a mirror is covered by dust, or as the embryo is covered by the womb, the living entity is similarly covered by different degrees of this lust. If we can't distinguish between material and spiritual aspirations, we simply see value in other expressions of life in accordance with how they resonate with our material afflictions (eg black people have more soul because they are really groovy on bongos like a mad monkey ... or alternatively ... Norwegian flute players have more soul because they capture the mystique of the alps ... or Amish ploughsman really embody the ...yada yada)
quite simply a dead body is what occurs when a soul departs a body a living body is what occurs when a soul inhabits a body
You must understand that this thread began in response to the idea that humans had souls and animals did not. I found that distinction odd.
You realize you are unique is seeing soul this way. What do you think soul is made of, given that it is closer to the world of matter than the ephemeral stuff white people are made of.
Clearly not a diversion. I have dispensed with the notion that intelligence is responsible for spirituality, or the feeling one has a 'soul'. We can then infer that IQ cannot determine whether an animal has a soul. However, I don't believe any animal has a soul, having read the post linked by Q, made by Cris/Boris, I have to admit to using the same lines of reasoning on other forums myself, the biggest flaw in the concept of a 'soul' lies in it's ability to interact with the body it allegedly interacts with. Let's face it, the prospect of an eternal soul and some otherworldly life and reward, is a good way to keep people with a finite lifespan in check, isn't it? It makes people gamble away their life for the prospect of a bigger reward, and the thing that keeps it working, is that is cannot be disproven. It will always remain a gamble, even if logic, and occams razor slice the odds so thin they tend towards zero.
phlog, it is necessary to, at least for the sake of argument, assume the existence of souls in general. Whether souls can or do exist is a seperate thread-to-be.
I meant you were diverted into the discussion of souls. Ockham's Razor has no effect on the odds. It is a methodological suggestion. As far as the rest you are referring to a subset of theists and others who believe in souls.
LG, Bacteria is alive, plants are alive, algae is alive: You are saying all these things have independent souls, correct? There are many accounts of people losing a finger and of the surgery that follows to re-attach it. In that short period when the finger has not lost its biological cohesion but is seperate from the main body, and for all practical pursposes is alive, then according to you it must have a soul (it is alive). If the time before surgery is too long the finger will die and presumably its soul will depart. If however, the surgery is a success then will that person now have two souls, one for the main body and the second from the finger that was seperate for a while?
No, we have to examine why someone could claim a human could have a soul, then apply the metrics we come up with to animals, and see whether they apply there. So far, there haven't been compelling arguments for human souls, so animals having them is equally in doubt.
I didn't say it defined the odds, just that when applied it reveals that the odds are vanishingly small.
Which is what I thought you were saying. The OR reveals nothing about the odds. It is a methodological suggestion about how to approach investigating something. And it is a methodolical suggestion by a theist, just to add some irony.
Cris correct The "alive" state of the finger is simply the culminative effect of the individual cells being in an alive state. IOW a living person is effectively housing many millions of life forms. Its kind of like there may be 500 people on a train, but only one of them is the train driver. Similarly there may be millions of souls housed within a body but only one of them is actually the proprietor of the body. Whether a further "carriage" is removed or attached doesn't essentially change this.
My opinion exactly. I believe that every living being has a soul, from the most complex mammals down to the simplest bacteria. In addition, I believe that such a soul manifests itself differently in the material and immaterial; materially, as bioelectric energy, and immaterially as a spirit.
