Do animals have souls?

Do Animals Have Souls?

by Stacy Mantle

I was talking with a coworker the other day and he informed me that animals do not have emotions.

This is just after he told me (the day that I put my dog of 17 yrs down) that animals do not have souls and therefore will never enjoy the concept of heaven.

Animals do have emotions and they also have souls, and I'll tell you how I know that.

In over twenty years of working with animals, I have never seen a kitten duct-tape a live human baby to a freeway.
I also have never seen a cat find enjoyment from setting a human on fire.

I've never gone hiking in the desert to find a child that dogs have left tied to a stake, without food and water, subjecting it to a painful death in the desert heat.

I have never seen a chicken force two unwilling humans to fight in a ring with razor blades attached to their feet while the chickens place bets on who will be the first to die.

I haven't seen a puppy place eight children in a gunnysack and drown them in a river.

Neither have I seen an eagle aim a shotgun at an unarmed human.

I have yet to see a bear kill a human simply to place a head on the wall of their cave.

And to this day, I have not seen a pigeon drive a car down the road and aim for humans who were walking around the park.

Let me tell you what I have seen.

I have seen my own cats sleep next to me so they may keep me a little warmer while I was ill.

I've seen my dogs play games with me just to force a smile to my face.

I have seen a cat rush into a burning home not once, not twice, but six times to save her kittens, nearly losing her own life in the process.

I have seen a ferret pull a frightened kitten out of a deep hole in the ground.

I have seen a coyote fetch another dog so that it may get the proper medical care that it needs.

I've seen a dog, who loves to jump on people, avoid jumping on me when I injured my back.

I've seen elephants cry.

I've seen monkeys scream in empathy when one of their own were injured.

I've seen puppies whine all night long when they were separated from their mothers.

I've seen a dog pull a child away from a fire.

These are only a few of the things that I've seen.

To list them all would take a lifetime, and I think you get my point.

As for the soul thing?

Well, it is my humble opinion that if you have emotions, any kind of emotions, then you have a soul.

Ironically, the (old)Pope of the Roman Catholic Church recently stated that he feels the same way.

Now, I can't prove that animals have souls. But then, I can't prove that you or I have one either.

And for all those people who firmly believe that animals don't have souls - well, I suppose if there really is a heaven, you'll probably have the job of cleaning out all the litter boxes.......

Beautiful post!!!

I am not rightly sure zackly what a soul is, but I think I got one and so do my dogs.

Animals are wonderful and loving. I can see them in Heaven, but not in Hell. Perhaps there is the controversy: they seem not to have the capacity for evil: sure they have territory fights, and so on, but their actions are reasonable and explainable.

I tried to give ya more karma on that awesome post Cat, but this new system said I have to spread it around...

I love that post. Very well put....
I am sure if I make it to the big house in the sky, I KNOW I will run into 10 times more animals that I have known than people I have known....

I fully believe that animals have souls, I feel that all living things do!

I agree completely.

aww, that made my day...
I know a few people who know their deceased friends, human and otherwise are around still, and while it may never be scientifically provable, I think that all living things have some kind of animating force, and that at least the ones who do something good with their lives will still be around after they die. I have been sad many times fedding mice to my ball python, but i know they have lived good lives and he is not trying to ause them pain. He obviously enjoys the thrill of the hunt and eats better on live than frozen, but i know he would not kill a mouse just to watch it die the way some deranged and careless humans would. My cat was pretty horrible to some rats he caught in our house, but his instincts are to hunt and kill small animals and teach us humans (his kittens that are too dumb to catch things on their own) how to kill our own prey. So yeah, animals can cause pain, but it seems like only we primates like to torture others because we can, not because we need to eat.
i know insects and reptiles don't have the same kinds of brains we do, but i think in a sense many of them can have emotional attachments to their owners in a different way that pest like rats, cats, and dogs.

Honestly, if we humans were all that great, would the USA have to ask whether torture should be illegal??? It's not like anyone in pain is going to give you any reliable information and ikt just makes people who hate the country even more likely to be hateful. people just disgust me sometimes....
thanks cat, this reminds me even more why i love helping animals...

I'm glad you enjoyed it, Jessi.

I completely expect to be greeted in Heaven by many of the wonderful critters that I have loved and who have passed.

Have you ever read the "Rainbow Bridge for Rescuers" poem? I have read it many, many times, and still cannot read it again without getting teary.

Gorgeous post!

I'll honestly never understand how anyone can live with and be around animals and not believe they have personalities, emotions, and souls. Isn't it obvious? All of my animals, regardless of species, have distinct personalities and are each unique beautiful creatures which I find impossible not to love. How anyone can just dismiss them as "things" is just... unfathomable to me.

I'll honestly never understand how anyone can live with and be around animals and not believe they have personalities, emotions, and souls. Isn't it obvious?

I think something that's being overlooked here is that "animals" are a very diverse group. Remember, sponges are animals too, and I have a pretty hard time believing something has emotions and a personality when it doesn't even have nerve cells, let alone a nervous system. And let's not forget, 80% of living animal species are arthropods, a group for whom "brain" is a rather charitable term for 6 fused ganglia. Of the remaining animals, nematode worms compose the largest group, and let's just say they're even less likely to win at Jeopardy any time soon than the arthropods. Even within vertebrates, fish are the most diverse group, and they aren't exactly famous for having a lot going in in what amounts to a modest swelling at the anterior end of their nerve cord.

I'm not really trying to be infamatory or anything, I just get a bit miffed when people use "animal" in a sense that clearly either omits or trivializes the organisms which make up the vast bulk of animal species. Also, I don't like quickly characterizing animals as "like us" in various anthropomorphic traits, both because of the inaccuracy and because it implies that "like us" is somehow the best state. In reality, most animals are exceptional stupid, nearly totally instinct-driven, and lack emotions, personality, and thought. They don't waste useful calories on brains that likely wouldn't offer much advantage in their situation anyway, and what's the result? Arthropod species outnumber mammal species by over 250 to 1, with an even greater share of the world's biomass. Long after we're dead and gone, they'll be here, feasting on the decaying masses that were our emotional, personality-filled brains.

Seriously, think about your reptile. Here is an animal which has no concept of postnatal parental care, no concept of nurturing, an animal whose social interactions are mostly limited to fighting over territory and mating. The mind of a reptile is surely as alien to our primate perception as that of any science-fiction extraterrestrial.

To simply declare our animals as "like us" is sloppy reasoning and avoids the complex, messy issues of nervous complexity, ascertaining behavioral and congitive traits from an outside POV, and the relative importance of various mental traits of a species in ethical considerations involving it. None of these issues are simple, and most do not have satisfactory answers as of yet, but to simply gloss over them with "like us" proclamation accomplishes nothing but a false sense of certainty. IMHO, it's better to have a firm understanding of the problem while lacking a solution than to have a "band-aid" solution.

Personally, I do my best to treat my animals with the utmost compasion and care, and even extend unusually nice treatment to my plants, but I do my best to refrain from anthropomorphizing. I always keep in mind that their minds have been shaped by totally different selective pressures than those that lead to my big ape brain, and to expect the results to be even modestly similar is wishful thinking. Whether they have personalities or emotions doesn't actually matter to how I treat them; they're living things which deserve a measure of respect.

Oh, and as for how animals treat humans and each other, google "Parasitoid" and "Bot fly larva". Just don't do it if you're eating or have a weak stomach. Let's just say there are thousands of species of animals whose reproductive methods would give the creature from Alien nightmares.

Henry

Wow, that's a lot of assumptions off my post! I didn't want to get too philisophical so yes, it did come off as very generalized.

I said that animals have personalities, emotions, and souls. I didn't say they were "like us". They speak a completely different language, have completely different needs, and while I may anthromorphize by talking to my reptiles etc I do realize that's for my benefit not theirs. But each one of my reptiles *does* have a distinct personality that's all their own. It's completely different from a human one but it's there.

I do happen to believe that all animals -even sponges- and even plants in fact have souls though. I believe that more simplified creatures souls are not as awake or aware as "higher" creatures. I even believe planets have souls. We're all part of the divine as far as I'm concerned. We're certainly not all on the same wave length, but I believe the energy is there and that we're all connected in that way. But again... I was trying not to get too philisophical.

Just wanted to explain that I'm not one of those people who really anthromorphizes my animals. I know I'm talking to myself when I talk to my snakes who can't hear me. I know that every species, genus, or family of animal I keep have completely different needs, wants, and desires.

But I also know my rabbits, cat, bird, and any number of "higher" animals that people more typically keep as pets do have obvious reactions and interactions with people and obvious emotional responses. And I don't understand how anyone who's kept or been around them doesn't get that. Or even acknowledge that they react to pain. That's basically all I was saying there. I don't get how that's possible.

Just for the record, I am neither a vegetarian nor would I EVER have anything to do with Peta. I'm a believer in nature and the circle of life too, and that our existance is entertwined with all KINDS of animals. Heck, if I believed it was wrong to eat anything with a soul I'd just starve to death. But I think the point of the original post was basically about people who don't treat animals with compassion and dismiss how strongly some of us feel about our pets rather than the spiritual state of the whole ecosystem. And that's all I was initially responding to.

Especially since I don't post much, and since my last post was about homosexuality I hoped to avoid my next one being about religion... That's just not the rep I want. Oh well!