Do animals have souls?

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Are animals soulful?

  • Yes, but they are not within God's covenant (they are condemned)

    Votes: 1 3.1%
  • Yes, but they are not within God's covenant (they are not condemned)

    Votes: 21 65.6%
  • No, and they are condemned

    Votes: 2 6.3%
  • No, but they are not condemned

    Votes: 3 9.4%
  • N/A or see answers

    Votes: 5 15.6%

  • Total voters
    32

Crysocyan

kiwifarms.net
Joined
Oct 12, 2022
God truly loves animals, this much is true. Righteous is the man that regardeth the life of his beast, but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.
But, what are animals? Moses taught us that they were created for us, and that we were to rule over them. But, not much else is said. God
also said that women were created for the man, but women also have souls and are equal to men (no I'm still a complementarian)

So, do animals have souls then? Why so, or why not?
 
They have will and spirit, but not enough intelligence to be able to judge them morally, therefore heaven
 
Animals are incapable of sin because they lack the understanding thereof, in the same way there was no sin before man was given knowledge of good and evil. It naturally follows that without sin they would not pass into perdition, but heaven? I'm not so sure. After all, man's soul is inherently of greater value than that of the beasts.
 
Yes, obviously.

I don't know what a soul is to you, but to me there's only one meaning of it that means anything at all, which is the presence of subjective experience, qualia. Is the thing a philosophical zombie, or does it have an internal life that it experiences as I do. If we define "soul" as some other thing I don't give a shit because subjective experience is the only thing that really exists.

Now, I know that I experience qualia. I'm not special in any way, so presumably things similar to me - other people - experience qualia, have souls. People, in turn, are hardly different from other animals. I mean, would a Cro Magnon have qualia? Would a gorilla? Dog? It's all a spectrum of life from forms of lower complexity to forms of higher, and I'm not convinced that complexity is even the deciding factor, other than that we can tell that qualia is, clearly, epiphenomena of nervous system activity, so perhaps things without nervous systems don't experience it.

I don't see there being any practical differences in animal behavior and human behavior to mark humans out as unique. Various animal species demonstrate emotion (including love, which can be outright proven for dogs and cats), social organization (ants even have proper civilization). Animals practice agriculture (ants and beavers), cook their food (bees), use technology (some crows), mourn their dead (crows and elephants), wage war (gorillas), organize into hierarchies of violence (chickens), learn (pretty much all of them).

The real interesting question is if plants, cells, and societies of animals have souls. (I think they do.)
 
Which part of the soul are you talking about?
 
It couldn't be Heaven without them.
It couldn't be Eden without them.

G-d expresses his compassion in animal terms and imagery throughout Scripture. Animals have rich inner lives, and came to death through our Fall from Eden. They bear the curse with us, and I believe their reward will not be eternal nothingness. They were with us all this time. I don't see G-d losing any of his creations to the grave. After all why should he, he created them and pronounced them good.
 
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It couldn't be Heaven without them.
It couldn't be Eden without them.

G-d expresses his compassion in animal terms and imagery throughout Scripture. Animals have rich inner lives, and came to death through our Fall from Eden. They bear the curse with us, and I believe their reward will not be eternal nothingness. They were with us all this time. I don't see G-d losing any of his creations to the grave. After all why should he, he created them and pronounced them good.
I agree, you made a very good post. Thank you
 
Most people who have had pets have communicated with them after death in some form. This is part of the reason why I think people who don't believe in souls/spirits are serial killer like in their lack of meaningful attachments. Vegas are stupid though. You are allowed to eat animal,s just respect the kind of sacrifice that is being made by not mistreating animals while they are alive.
 
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