Soul dog !!!

Sould

Do animals have their own souls or is it because we think they do ?
What do teh philosophists call the people who believe that animals have souls ?
I know a person who calls hmself souldog and uses that name wherever he goes just after his loved dog died of cancer. He once told me so.

Thank for your answers...

Souldina

ph

yes, i believe animals have souls. i'm not too sure about rodents, if a rodent is an animal then i suppose, what do you think?

i even think rocks have "spirit" or whatever energy runs through them because you can feel it when it hits your big toe, or at least i can.

reminds me of the other weekend ... tossing snowballs (frozen water?) and that for sure has soul/spirit/energy whatever they call it.

ph

oops, AND cats for sure. I have a "wild" cat, they named him "boy" (cat), well he came to us hungry for ... and ... so he is now my Canadian cat, BC - Boy Cat...he keeps coming back! He loves it when i call him "BC" Sometimes he doesn't leave. He's got soul

Kerrie

the fact that animals are able to sense natural disasters shortly before they happen is evidence enough for me to believe they are more conscious then we give them credit for.

tumor

Animals are more in tune with the Earth,they can read subtle changes in weather,about soul thing I don't know nothing.

Math Is Hard

I believe that all living things have souls. Humans evolved from primates, so if you believe that humans have a soul and animals don't, my question would be: where is the boundary in the evolutionary timeline that marks the first creature to possess a soul? That question always puzzled me. It seems only logical to me that if human beings have souls, then other living creatures must also.
One of my favorite books on the subject is The Souls of Animals by Gary Kowalski, a Unitarian minister. I really liked what he had to say on the subject. You might enjoy reading that, and maybe your friend would find it comforting.

tumor

If animals have soul, do they then have their animal God?

Kerrie

what does having a sould have to do with having a god?

Sould

But could you tell me
we all usually say that animals are all lowlevel developed when compared to human beings, so how can they sense what'll happen on the Earth surface or how is the coming weather ?

PS By teh way, I actually don't even know how to define what soul is but I am sure my soul dog is really good ! Its been nearly 2 years and what he did or said were all good for me... -lol--

Sould

Kerrie, did you make a typo ?

Justinius

Wouldn't giving an animal a soul put it on the same level as a human being in essence? This is impossible because we know humans are on a higher life form than animals.

Sould

Yes, but a lto of people lovetheir pets much and when their dogs die, they miss thim as if they miss their lovers


Sould

Math Is Hard

Could you explain what you mean by 'same level'? It sounds like your criteria for deciding whether or not a creature has a soul is based strictly on brain development. There are human beings who have limited brain function, such as those who were born mentally retarded, who have suffered a brain injury or Alzheimer's disease, but I don't think you would argue that these people don't have souls simply because of their brain impairment. Or would you? Just curious.

loseyourname

More to the point, would you grant a person born without a brain a soul? What the heck is soul anyway? What exactly do you people mean when you use the word? I get the feeling it isn't very consistent from poster to poster.

tumor

In religious terms God gave us soul, right? so, then if an animals have soul they could have a God.
This soul thing is bunch of crap of course, but let's speculate.

Math Is Hard

I agree with you that there are probably a variety of concepts for the word 'soul' between the posters to this thread. For many people I think it is a very personal concept, highly influenced by their religious upbringing (or lack of religious upbringing). I was curious what the dictionary definition of a 'soul' was, and if it was reasonably close to my own concept. I found the following on Dictionary.com:

1. The animating and vital principle in humans, credited with the faculties of thought, action, and emotion and often conceived as an immaterial entity.

2. The spiritual nature of humans, regarded as immortal, separable from the body at death, and susceptible to happiness or misery in a future state.

I think this is pretty close to my own idea of the soul. I see it as the non-physical and immortal part of my consciousness. The roots of my concept about this formed from childhood (Christian) Sunday school lessons, but reading about other cultures' and religions' beliefs about the soul influenced my view, also.

Actually, I believe the first stumbling block I hit with Christianity was when I was going to a Seventh Day Adventist church as a kid and one of the Bible lessons they gave us specifically said that animals did not have souls. I had a lot of trouble with that because I could not reason out why this would be. What kind of a heaven (and they did believe in heaven) would have no singing birds? Why would the pet cat who had given me so much unconditional love simply cease to exist while I would go on for eternity? It just did not seem logical.

(p.s. Kerrie, I apologize if I spoke too much about religion here. I'll knock it off, and go ahead and delete anything you think might be inappropriate. Thanks.)

Curious3141

The question is meaningless to one who does not believe in a soul (i.e. a materialist, like myself).

Regarding these definitions :

The first is flawed because people with damage to specific areas of the brain have rather strange side effects. Frontal lobe syndrome can cause marked changes in personality and affect while leaving superficial cognitive skills unaffected. FLS sufferers remain functional as humans, but essentially become "different people", alienated from those who used to know them. This shows that organic lesions in the brain can cause changes in those attributes that were assumed to be dictated by an immaterial 'soul'.

The second "definition" is vague enough and is untestable enough to be pretty much always "valid" in the face of any criticism. It is a matter of simple faith, not a scientifically testable postulate.

Short answer : dogs don't have 'souls'. But then neither do humans.