Do animals have souls?

[Worm of Despite]

Good point, JemCheeta.

[Avatar]

...sometimes I get the feeling that the soul of an animal may be more intense than my own! They are themselves fully, and confidently. With an almost elemental intensity.

A good point indeed, but then animals are free of all the hang-ups that society instills in us, almost from the moment of birth.

They have only one imperative, and that's survival.

--Avatar

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

I suppose. I wish someone would tell that one imperative thing to my cat though. It's funny, what different organisms do when they manage to beat that survival bug. My cat, for instance, thinks shredding socks is a good past time now that he has a food source that is guaranteed.

Sigh.

[Avatar]

Sorry it took me so long to get back here, I'm having so many "simultaneous" discussions I can't always remember where I posted last.

Just a thought on that "intensity" you mentioned, which I had last night:

Fist and Faith has once or twice, posted a great quote from The Way of the Peaceful Warrior which I think both demonstrates and explains that idea. I'm not going to find it and paste it, so I'll paraphrase from memory:

A guy had just finished his best ever pommel-horse routine, and after dismounting, he removes the strapping tape while walking to his rest area. Someone, (his coach/trainer?) says to him "Nice job, but you were very sloppy in removing the tape. Remember every moment-satori"

Thats what animals are like. Although they are touched by doubt, fear, grief, they do not carry it around with them. The move from doubt to utter certainty in the blink of an eye. They don't spend weeks agonising over whether they made the right choice, once it's made, thats the way it is.

Emotional baggage hinders us more than we may realise.

--Avatar

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

Too true. But it does give us that depth that you were talking about before....You know, its kind of funny, sometimes I look at emotions as a biological dysfunction, and people as some kind of wierd anomaly. But I'm glad I'm a part of the anomaly. Still, we're a bunch of crazies. And I mean that, I really do think that everyone I've ever met has some pretty serious instability, either in what they do or what they say.
The people that come closest to sane are those that ignore the things that would make them unstable.
Animals don't have to deal with that...well, I guess sometimes they do, in the case of abused animals, etc..

[Avatar]

Too true. But it does give us that depth that you were talking about before...

Very true. I think that we are beyond the point where we can have both. Either we are human, and carry that baggage, or we are animals, and don't.

Except in certain moments, we are unable to have both, for any prolonged time at least.

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[Cail]

Last Monday I had to put my dog to sleep. This is what I know in my heart:

-That dog loved me. He hated being separated from me. He would have done anything for me.

-I loved that dog as I loved a child. Granted, I love my flesh-and-blood daughter more, but my dog was my boy. I treated his illness as I would have treated my daughters', I did everything I could to prolong his life and spent (to most people) an absolutely ridiculous amount of money on his treatment.

-When the time came, I took him outside and lay down in the grass with him. When he saw the vet walking to us with the syringes in his hand, he looked me in the eyes....and I swear it was a look of thanks. I held him in my arms as he passed. I felt his body go limp, and I watched the light go out of his eyes. When I picked his body up to take him to the crematoreum, I knew that my boy, my Ajax, was gone.

I cannot speak about any other animal. I am Catholic. I believe in Heaven. I believe that when my time comes, I will be met at the Gates by my boy, and we will find the closest sofa, turn on a football game, and take a very refreshing nap together.

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

Cail, you and your dog are in my thoughts, and you are a testament to the love that can exist between people and their animal companions.

Forget the people who think it's rediculous to spend money on animals. They obviously don't understand anything about it.

Peace, all my sympathy and condolences
-jem

[ChoChiyo]

What the hospital staff discovered about this cat was that it had an uncanny, unerring sense of which patients were terminally ill and nearing their last days, and it would go to them. At first, the staff thought the cat was just being a nuisance, but then they realized the animal acted as a gentle, comforting companion for patients in their last days of life. The cat would remain at bedside until the end, as if it were a sentinel bearing witness to the patient's departing soul.

:

The Ancient Egyptians worshipped the cat goddess Bastet. Somewhere I read that cats, sacred to Bastet, escorted the souls of the dead to the afterlife.

Who knows, maybe the gray cat was a servant of Bastet....

Heh heh.

I believe animals have souls, as do humans. And I believe that the soul does continue on after the corporeal body is dead. And I have "proof," though it is not a tangible kind of proof.

Several years ago, I had to have my cat put to sleep. As Cail said about his dog, my cat was my son. In fact, I rarely called him by his name. I called him "Son." He and I lived together for nearly 20 years. It may sound horrible, but I suffered more grief over his death than I did when my father died. I had not lived with my father for decades before he passed away, though I saw him often and spoke to him on the phone several times a week. My cat was always with me. He wasn't usually much of a cuddler, but he was always within touching range of me.

When I had to have him put down, I was dysfunctional for days. Every day there was a cat-shaped hole in my life which ached and ached. Whole days could go by when I could forget that my dad wasn't alive any more--but every time I opened the refrigerator or came home after school, there was a huge black absence, where my son should have been twining himself around my ankles hoping for a spoonful of tuna fish or rubbing against my calves to welcome me home.

I mourned him for five years before I could get another pet.

Now--here's the proof of his continued existance. (And you may feel free to pooh-pooh it if you wish, but I KNOW it is true and that it happened.)

My cat's "spirit" or "soul" or whatever you want to call it came to me at least three times after he died.

Once, I was home sick with a bad cold. I opened the refrigerator to get some juice, and he twined around my ankles under the hem of my bathrobe, just as he always did. It was so natural that I didn't feel anything strange. Until I remembered he was no longer alive. I didn't see him. I only felt him.

The second time, I was asleep and was awakened in the middle of the night by the thup-thup-thup sensation of a cat (my cat) scratching himself. He always slept between my knees, his head resting in the bend of one of them (as I am a tummy sleeper). I was instantly awake. It wasn't a dream because the thupping continued. Also, I could feel the weight and heat of his body.

I lay there for several minutes, just feeling his presence--physically feeling it--I was half afraid to turn and look--for fear I would see him or for fear I wouldn't, I'm not sure which. Then I cautiously reached out and turned on the light. The second the light went on, the sensation was gone.

The third time he made his presence known, I had been staying at my mothers for several days. It was early morning, and I was lying on her bed talking to her. Suddenly I heard the very distinct "Mmm-ow?" of my cat from the hallway. It was his voice, his odd almost subvocalized, very specific meow. And my Mother heard it too. My mom's house is solid as a rock. We don't even hear the trains that go by about a block from her house. there is no way we could have heard a cat from outside--and there are no neighbors near her house with cats anyway.

I believe, like Cail, that when I die, my cat will be there, waiting to rub his sweet face against mine as he did in life, and that we will curl up together somewhere for a nice, long snuggle. Sometimes I can hardly wait.

[dennisrwood]

i don't know what animals possess, but there is something...

also why are so many down on humans. maybe this is another topic. but i am so tired of this self loathing. while i'll be the first to agree that some people are evil and many are just ignorant...the ones that aren't create...
and in that we reflect our Creator. when i write a poem, or paint or sing a song...i reflect that whcih is good in us.

and i pray that i meet my dog in heaven. he dserves it more than i do sometimes.

[Sheriff Lytton]

I don't profess either way to know if humans have souls or not.

But if anyone's arrogant enough to believe that souls are a God-given right exclusive to our particular strain of carbon based life, then they probably believe that humans are not the product of evolution, that the first woman was made out of the rib of the first man, that stellar accretion never happened and that God made the Earth in six days and just put the rest of the universe there for decorative purposes.

Burn the witch !

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

Speaking of witch burning and getting off topic... totally off topic... There's this witchcraft store near my appartment building, called the Enchanted Grove... I'm sure there's a fundamentalist christian church in the area. Not meaning to offend anyone, but if the idea is to take the word of the bible literally...and the woman who runs the store is a self professed witch..... and the bible says 'suffer not a witch to live'.... see where I'm going with this?

[ChoChiyo]

Ya know, that witch in that store turned me into a newt once....

I say we burn her!

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

that avatar is so cute I don't know if I can handle it.

[Kymbierlee]

Jem- The original writing was "Thou shalt not suffer a poisoner to live". It was originally meant as a villiage wise woman/man or herbalist who would use his/her knowledge in an adverse manner-to poison people, animals, crops, etc. That was certainly a minority of village "wise women or men, but I guess it did happen. It was mutated into the word "witch" in the King James version of the Bible.

I am a witch- proud of it, and consider myself to be a pretty good person, besides. And I have NEVER turned anyone into a newt....... although I have been tempted.....

[Kymbierlee]

Ya know, that witch in that store turned me into a newt once....

I say we burn her!

If she weighs the same as a duck..........therefore she is made of wood.........and a WITCH!!

Q: How else can we tell if she is made of wood?
A: Build a bridge out of her.

[Invain]

[back on topic] I don't believe in souls, but with a theoretical approach... We are animals, if we have souls why wouldn't other animals have them? [/back on topic]

[Iryssa]

I like to believe that animals have souls...I say "like to" because I can offer no more proof for this than the fact that many animals have such distinct personalities...it's also comforting to believe this (I can already hear people shouting "crutch!"), especially now...we just had our dog Alli put to sleep today. I do hope her soul has found a place of joy and rest.

[danlo]

Hang in there girl! I've had to put down two pups in the past year and a half--so I'm feeling for you--still not over it, may never be--and they had better souls than most!

[matrixman]

Sorry to hear about your dog, Iryssa.