Do animals have souls?

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Ok so I embellished a little but at least it is fair to assume the bowl gets smashed, the addition of wings on other hand is way beyond embellishment

I believe petunias have a spirit as well.

If viruses have souls, do rocks have souls?

Viruses, unlike bacteria, do not have a metabolism and aren't really alive.

Another point... Ultimately everything is made out of the same stuff and "human", "rock", "bacteria" etc. are just repeating similar groups of the basic stuff that we recognise.

Do neutrons have souls?

Actually, no. The petunias had an identical fate. Those particular petunias had a soul, as was revealed in So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish.

Why would God go through all the trouble of creating animals and having Noah take two of every exhisting species with him if they were just going to vanish into oblivian? The whole "dominion" thing is just a misunderstanding. It actualy says that people are to take care of the animals and be the stuards of the earth. Try to read the book: "Will I see my dog in Heaven?" by Jack Wintz

He didn't, he had him take 2 of each unclean and 7 of each clean (inc. birds).

God also claims that seven is divisible by 2 because he asks for groups of seven to be in mating pairs.

I don't understand why they wouldn't.

I like your simple answers.

The concept of animals not having souls is one of the things that almost made me an athiest. Then I heard about St. Francis of Assisi, and became Catholic. Catholics have a high regard for animal life and some even believe that God loves animals just as much as he loves people.

The whole concept of animals not having souls, were put here for us to abuse comes from misunderstanding from Genesis when God tells Adam that he has dominon over the animals. A lot of Christians use this as an excuse to abuse animals and a LOT of Christians have this ego complex and think that they are superior to the animals because God made people in His image. By saying animals don't have souls, it justifiys abusing them and since it supposefly does not have a soul. it's not murder.

The concept of animals not having souls is what first made me an atheist too.

Do animals have souls? Well, Mrs. George Bush, Jr. of the Bush, Jr. White House insisted that departed dogs/pets go to heaven and who can dispute such theological dogma coming from the saved Texas Republican Bush, Jr. White House? Also, the Italian Catholic church has for a long time blessed animals implying that Catholic animals go to heaven but Protestant animals don't. So who can argue with oral tradition and dogma issued by politicians - both secular and religious - over the years?

Seriously - how does one define the term soul?

Often the term soul means something has the ability to move - be alive. When that something stops moving (dies), there is the implication that it is soul less.

Around the world there are cemeteries which allow both humans and pets to be buried in the same cemetery (for a fee, of course), so that tends to imply equal rights - that animals have souls/that humans have souls/the people still worship the almighty dollar (so to speak).

As much as humans do.

ruveyn

What's human exactly. Did Neanderthals had a soul if animals don't?

Now there is a point.

I started looking into this thread but there is a non-negligible amount of silliness, but that is an important point.

Of course, on the issue of souls the jury is out and will stay out. I will figure pending more data that I have soul and assume the extrapolation to all other humans. There is no usable evidence one way or the other outside humanity - maybe the rocks and the ginkgo and the cockroaches know but they are not telling and we have not built one sole soul detector.

But neanderthalensis and the rest of Homo and all the hominids - I have tried to talk about this with my paleontologist brother but he preferrs not to talk with me, and my personal expert on hominids is for reasons we will not go into available for comment.

I got interested when some decades back some got to saying neanderthalensis was incapable of human language - on the basis that reconstructions of the oral tract predicted a range of possible vocalizations differebt from sapiens, incredibly naive, as if "human language" is defined by what noises you can make.

You find other types basing a line between neanderthalensis and whatever sapiens has morphed into [Latinists - do you not today begin to doubt that is an appropriate descriptor?] on such things and cranial capacity, relative size of cerebral divisions, reconstructed social structure, and all. Amazing how many really WANT them NOT to be human.

So one wonders:

If it could be shown that non humans do not have souls - which so far cannot be shown except by building it into the premises. CAN it be shown neanderthalensis through the australopithecines are NOT human and therefore soulless?

Does soulitude [intentional - humorous] relate somehow to size and complexity nd esifgn of the brain? If so, how would that be handled by those - like me - who assume the soul is NOT material and NOT a function of the physical organism?

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You will understand that what follows is gut and not head, that this has no weight as argument or testimony whatever. Pure speculation, scientifically worthless save insofar that it might stimulate research:

I personally tend to think neanderthalensis as human as we are, just differently human.

Non-homo hominids - I would not want to bet one way or another, too little available to me even for informal; speculation.

Whatever one may decide for dolphins, ravens, tuataras, or giant squid - again I do not speculate - I personally tend to think neanderthalensis was soul-equipped, and that some of them are outside laughing about this.

The soul is poorly defined in my opinion. I believe we do not have a soul. No soul that exists after we die. We live with the same biological mechanisms as all other organisms simply with a different structure. So saying we have souls we would have to say that any living thing has a soul. But since living things are simply organizations of atoms... can what we loosely define the "soul" as simply be the force which organizes our atoms to create great entities such as ourselves?
These thoughts are truly speculation.

People mix up "personality" with "soul". There is a very important distinction; the personality definitely dies with the body, so the soul is at best consciousness. It isn't some mysterious "spark of life" either, as I'm sure the biochemists will tell you.