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[AugustWest]

I think it has to do with the fact that for most people religion is a cultural decision rather than a theological one.

[littlefallsmets]

Interesting debate, that one.

I don't wanna get too much into it because we've gotten into certain parts of this before and most of y'all dislike my take on faith.

However, it is interesting as hell the ways that things we pick up culturally influence us ideologically and vicey-vee, unintentionally.

Outside of religion, for example.

I grew up a fan of the Mets because their minor league team was the one thing about my hometown I thought "special" as a child.

Did I absorb the ideology of the Mets fanbase... a tendency toward being whiny and put-upon and undermining my actual needs through a self-destructive desire to keep up with a serious of exterior older-brother figures with radically different skill-sets and goals... through this cultural identification?

[pmcd9]

I'm not arguing pro soul/no soul.  I'm just saying if we do have souls I don't want to go to a heaven that doesn't include my dog Mack.  Fuck that noise.

[jay-ell]

See, the solution for that is the thing where the afterlife is such a different plane of existence that our memories of mortal life are but dim and distant dreams. So if we die before our loved ones (when Pedro outlives me, for instance) or if they don't make it past the pearly gates at all, we don't miss them. If we had to be sad about who isn't present, it wouldn't really be heaven.

Certainly, some animals are more deserving of eternal reward than many humans. But when it comes to God's grace, it ain't about deservin'. If it were, we'd *all* be screwed.

Again, these are my personal beliefs, which I offer here not with the intention of persuading anyone, but simply for the sake of explication and/or your collective amusement.

[Victoria Waterfield]

I'm not arguing pro soul/no soul.  I'm just saying if we do have souls I don't want to go to a heaven that doesn't include my dog Mack.  Fuck that noise.

C. S. Lewis covers this in one of his books. (Miracles, maybe?) His argument, which by the way is his own speculation and not based on any sort of official dogma, is that any individual animals a person has ever had a connection to become immortal by participating in the soul of the person connected to them. The idea is that you, the person in heaven, by loving a pet actually give it part of your soul, so that it is still with you in the afterlife. This concept allows pets to be with you in heaven, but prevents every damn mosquito that ever lived from being there as well.

[littlefallsmets]

The splitting of the difference between jay and Ash would be...

In the afterlife, you are allowed the illusion that all the things you liked got in with you? That you would have the company of your internal approximation of whatever you wanted?

If you died remembering your grandchild as a good young man, kinda quiet, but unbeknownst to you he was a horrible serial killer? You spend eternity with a sort of celestial animatron of your conception of him, when you want to interact with him?

I've seen no evidence of a next life, myself, but I've always personally enjoyed the idea of a next life as level two after this life being level one. Everything here happened and you remember it but you're so overwhelmed by all the new next-level crazy shit you're up against that... it is all, at best, a pleasant memory where you accrued a basic skill set that you're going to have to take into overdrive whatever this next adventure is?

[pmcd9]

Just Sayin'

[wombat]

C. S. Lewis covers this in one of his books. (Miracles, maybe?) His argument, which by the way is his own speculation and not based on any sort of official dogma, is that any individual animals a person has ever had a connection to become immortal by participating in the soul of the person connected to them. The idea is that you, the person in heaven, by loving a pet actually give it part of your soul, so that it is still with you in the afterlife. This concept allows pets to be with you in heaven, but prevents every damn mosquito that ever lived from being there as well.

I like this plan (fuck those mosquitoes, seriously) as long as I also get the animals I didn't personally own, like the sloths and maras that I worked with at the zoo. That seems fair, right?

[Nabubrush]

It just seems odd to me that some guy gets to make up those rules, but maybe that's how it all works. And either way, what difference does it make, I guess.

[jay-ell]

Hmmmph. So this experience is transitory and Heaven will pull out a handi-wipe and clean this terrestrial junk off my soul once I get into the afterparty.

Kinda doesn't work for me. It leads to a "why bother" moment.

Yeah, it does. Which is why even people who firmly, unquestioningly believe in a higher power still sometimes have crises of faith. Yeah, he's there, but why did he put me here?

I've seen no evidence of a next life, myself, but I've always personally enjoyed the idea of a next life as level two after this life being level one. Everything here happened and you remember it but you're so overwhelmed by all the new next-level crazy shit you're up against that... it is all, at best, a pleasant memory where you accrued a basic skill set that you're going to have to take into overdrive whatever this next adventure is?

And that's basically the answer I came up with. I have a complex explanation, based purely on personal observation and speculation, but what it boils down to is that we've got a lot of shit to learn before we get to hang with the Big Guy, and this little big planet of ours is the best way to get it through our thick skulls in one go-round. So he sticks us here and gives us a couple of billion classmates to learn with and from, and by the time we "graduate" we've got it down well enough that St. Peter can fill us in on the rest.

[robot_god]

Don't expect there to be any sort of next anything.  Every entity in one way or another perceives itself as immortal.  THAT SUX.  But it's true.  Anyway, I'd explain it but it's alot easier not to.

[littlefallsmets]

I mean, I've seen no evidence that disagrees with what you're saying, cyberdeity.

But it is a fun thought experiment to bat around, nonetheless.

[JorgeFabregas]

Christian theological views of animals is one of my favorite subjects, so I've been chewing on a post for this thread.

I don't believe that animals were created to be food for humans. Genesis 1 says that God created humans to rule over animals, but in regards to food specifies
"Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so."

In Genesis 2, God gives the fruit of every tree (except for the tree of knowledge of good and evil) to Adam to eat. Then God creates animals and asks Adam to name them and to see if he can find a helper amongst them.

The first time that an animal is killed in the garden is to hide Adam and Eve's shame after they ate from said tree (Genesis 3). That is to say, the animal's death is the result of this human pair's sin.

The further result of their sin is conflict with the snake, with the land, and the establishment of patriarchy.

The first time that God gives the animals to humans for food is after the flood (which, again, was a reaction to humankind's sinfulness).

Isaiah 11 prophesies that the messiah will usher in a time when there will be no conflict between animals and an end to the conflict between humans and snakes (and presumably other animals). Predators will become herbivores and "They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain."

Romans 8:19-23 suggests that all of creation will redeemed, but is currently subjected to the powers and principalities (one of which could arguably be anthropocentrism).

In this essay co-authored by my favorite theologian, Stanley Hauerwas, the authors assert that nature should thus be understood as "creation in bondage."

So do animals have souls? I don't know. The bible doesn't really say that they don't. Fanta brings up a good point that the idea of a body-less soul is kind alienating. There is some of that type of language in the New Testament, but there is also talk of a new body and/or bodily resurrection. The body/soul dichotomy really comes from earlier Greek thought.

[Victoria Waterfield]

I don't believe that animals were created to be food for humans. Genesis 1 says that God created humans to rule over animals, but in regards to food specifies
"Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so."

Yeah, but then the Gospels right up and say that Jesus ate a giraffe. If eating giraffe is okay for God, I figure it's fine for us, too.

Also, there's that other bit in the Gospels where Jesus directly created several thousand giraffe to be food for humans.


EDIT: Let's hear it for posting late at night when you forget what the filters are.

[pmcd9]

Jorge, I don't want to belittle your well thought out post.  You've raised some interesting points in a way that I've never considered before.

But on a lighter note... One of my favorite quotes regarding vegetarianism.  If god didn't want us to eat meat, why did he make it taste like steak?  Ha ha...

I wonder if humans are tasty?