Do animals have souls?

[Diz]

See title.

For those of you who actually believe in Eternal Salvation, do animals have immortal souls like humans?

And if no, why not?

Or for those of you who would rather stay away from religious discussion, can animals create new ideas/concepts/things?

My friend says that bird nests and spiderwebs do not qualify for the above question, and I would just love to prove him wrong. Also, I want to know what TCoD has to say about this.

I think that animals do have souls, for the simple reason that we have souls and humans are animals. What makes us so special? It's obviously not rational thought, because animals have displayed that sort of behavior in studies.

 

[departuresong]

Explain to me what a soul is.

 

[Dewgong]

i don't know exactly what i think about the concept of a soul, or what a soul really is, but i guess if humans were to have one, so would animals?
i don't see why animals couldn't create new things, us being animals ourselves

 

[Togetic]

I'm going to pretend I believe in this concept of 'Souls' for now.

Alright firstly, I reckon animals have souls. If we are to have souls, and we are simply really intelligent beasts, then why don't animals have souls? They're just like us, except not quite as smart.

And yes, animals can create new concepts/ideas. Its known as adapting. Sure we don't know how they make new methods up, but animals can create new methods to live and survive when in put in the right condition.

 

[Zuu]

your tone seems rather condescending, OP. it's sort of obnoxious.

anyway, the only i can make sense of a "soul" is if it were some innate property that belongs to all matter, like animism.

unless you're just equating "soul" with "mind", and that might be even harder to determine in animals...?

i feel like i'm explaining this like an idiot. nevermind.

 

[Minish]

I don't really know because I don't really believe in 'souls' as such. :/ It seems pretty much a Christian concept, and from what I know, Christians tend not to like the idea of animals having the same sort of consciousness as them.

Speaking as an animism-following sort of pagan, though... I'm not going to go into what I believe too much because I doubt the majority of TCoD would appreciate it -- it's kind of abstract -- but to me, animals have maybe primitive version of souls, if you want to use that word?

There's no way I would put animals on the same level soul-wise as a human, but... a less developed version? It's hard to explain this without using the term 'energy', but again, going a bit abstract.

The whole soul business is just too black-and-white for me. Why is there only one type of soul? Do only life forms who have souls get 'eternal salvation' or whatever? Do all people have souls, is a soul an innate part of life or is it something that's divided by good and evil, the ability to judge between good and evil...?

'Non-religiously', I wouldn't say that animals can create new ideas or concepts, they simply aren't capable of that level of thinking. But this idea of a soul kind of goes against the 'eternal salvation' type of soul. ._.

 

[Tarvos]

I don't know what a soul is supposed to be. So maybe if you explain what a soul is - even in abstract terms - you could convince me?

 

[Harlequin]

No. There is probably no such thing as a soul, so the question "Do animals have souls?" is far less relevant than the question "Do souls exist?"

 

[Minish]

Or for those of you who would rather stay away from religious discussion, can animals create new ideas/concepts/things?

I think this bit was meant for people who don't necessarily believe in souls.

 

[Murkrow]

I don't believe in souls in the immortal sense, I just think of them as meaning the same thing as conciousness.

As for creating new ideas/concepts/things, I don't think they can think of anything that we haven't already thought of before, since we're more intelligent and have schools and whatnot, but I guess they could come up with something themselves that has already been thought of. Like maybe a dog one day would wonder why gravity makes things go down (not that we'd ever know if one does). I do doubt that though.

 

[Espeon]

Though I doubt people are being serious about "what is a soul?", I kind of had to look it up myself anyway to put it into any form of written word. It is the (supposed) immortal, spiritual essense of a living being which is thought to live on after death separate from the corpse.

Humans are animals, by definition. Homo sapiens by their taxonomy, so to put it simply, to ask "do animals have a soul?" poses the same question as "do humans have a soul?". If you believe in the soul's existence, then by that fact animals do indeed have souls. If not, then everything is soulless by default.

Though I don't really believe in the existance of an immortal non-physical body part, it's wrong to put humans on a level higher than what we would consider lower life forms. In terms of animals with a brain, the main thing which separates us in terms of intelligence is the size of our brain and the amount of development our cerebrum, the wrinkly, folded main body of the outside of the brain. It allows us to think up hypothetical situations which other species physically cannot do as their cerebrums are simply just underdeveloped when compared ours. What humans usually find "separates" them from their animal cohorts is their "sense of right and wrong", "morals" and similar types of thing. All of these are again, related to the size and level of development of our brains and, our upbringing.

 

[Minish]

Then why is it wrong to put ourselves above lower lifeforms? A sense of right and wrong, morals etc. are things I find to be very defining for humans -- and I don't think its just brain development and upbringing that separates us from being non-human animals, either.

The OP obviously thinks that other animals can be called 'animals' while being separate from humans -- I'm sure you still knew what he meant. :/ Obviously humans are creatures, but I think it's perfectly fine to remove ourselves from the animal group here.

 

[Zuu]

i'm fairly sure some animals *do* exhibit some sense of morality (as if that is even a measure of intelligence, considering its relativistic entirety) and i find it rather pretentious to believe that there is something beyond brain development that makes us better than animals. hrf.

 

[Minish]

...really? I can't understand how animals could possibly understand morality. When an animal regrets something it's usually because they've been punished.

And don't get me wrong, I love animals. ;; I don't find it pretentious at all to assume we're more developed in pretty much every way, though. :/ 'Better' isn't the word I'd really use though, because we're not exactly in the best place to judge. I don't really know, of course...

 

[Zuu]

iirc 'morality' just developed as a way to promote survival within a group, though i wouldn't quote me on this. i don't think there's anything to 'understand' about it. anyway, i just find it hard to believe that more "intelligent" animals (in more of an evolutionary sense) don't have certain principles, but this is merely an uninformed opinion.

sorry, i read "better" when i read your post.

(i don't do well in "serious business")

 

[#1 bro]

assuming that humans have souls, i would definitely say that an animal has a soul too. why would we have souls and animals lack them, just because we're a bit smarter than the animals?

 

[Tarvos]

i don't even know what a soul *is* guys how do I know if I have a soul if there is no way for me to find out whether something like that even exists

 

[Espeon]

Then why is it wrong to put ourselves above lower lifeforms? A sense of right and wrong, morals etc. are things I find to be very defining for humans -- and I don't think its just brain development and upbringing that separates us from being non-human animals, either.

And what's to say that having a sense of "right and wrong" and "morals" makes us better than them? You can teach a cat and a dog the "right" place to excrete in the form of a litter tray and you can punish them and, tell them it's "wrong" to excrete elsewhere. In that sense, they are showing that they can distinguish "right" from "wrong" but, it is only because humans have decided what is "right" and what is "wrong" in the first place. In summary, puppy is taught to shit in one spot, human child is taught not to stab and punch. It's the same thing, just on a different scale.

It's exactly the same thing. Right and wrong is learned behaviour. Learned behaviour is again affected by the size and development of the cerebrum in the brain. It's the same reason why a millipede doesn't exhibit the same kind of learned behaviour. Because it's a prey species, it relies more on innate responses, genetically inherited responses, to deal with situations as its brain simply isn't developed enough to do much learning.

As for animals with a sense of mortality; if humans hadn't observed and learned that life were limited and didn't pass that information down, we'd be having the same story. As it is, cats tend to have a generally good idea of when they're about to die and as such tend to go into hiding in that situation.

 

[Chaon]

I believe that every living creature has a soul. Here's why:

In my opinion, a soul is your own personal experiences, patterns of behavior, your feelings, and mostly everything else that makes you different from anyone else. Animals are no different from humans in this aspect. Dogs are the best example. Some dogs like kids, some don't. Some dogs bark a lot, some never bark. Some react badly to other dogs, some don't. Some dogs are hyper, some are lazy. Dogs can be sad, angry, happy, and just about any other emotion humans can feel. In this way, I believe that every animal has a soul, because every animal is different. We sometimes can't see it, because we don't stay near them enough to see their behavioral patterns, but I believe they are just like us.

After all, we are animals.

 

[Minish]

And what's to say that having a sense of "right and wrong" and "morals" makes us better than them? You can teach a cat and a dog the "right" place to excrete in the form of a litter tray and you can punish them and, tell them it's "wrong" to excrete elsewhere. In that sense, they are showing that they can distinguish "right" from "wrong" but, it is only because humans have decided what is "right" and what is "wrong" in the first place. In summary, puppy is taught to shit in one spot, human child is taught not to stab and punch. It's the same thing, just on a different scale.

They're totally different situations. Later on a child will think "I understand why I shouldn't stab and punch -- it hurts people and is destructive". Humans have the capacity to understand morality and how things need to be. The only thing preventing a dog or cat from doing it is that they'll get punished if they do it, and they don't want to be punished. If a dog or cat is prevented from attacking other dogs and cats via punishment, it's not going to think "The human was right for preventing me from doing that" they're just going to think "attacking others = pain for me".

Of course, the whole "humans have just decided what is right and wrong" idea makes sense if you consider humans to be just animals, and feelings and thoughts just simple brain waves. But in that case, what is a soul? Seems to me that you're saying that no human has a soul either, unless a soul is just memories, the capacity to think and feel etc., because obviously animals have those.