Animal Intelligence

[Jon_S_1]

Am I sure that man sinned after the Creation? Yes. And according to the Church, animals and plants and rocks are not capable of sin.

So if animals are incapable of sin, then why is that?

Could it be that they belong to the natural world with no spirit?

Angels are pure spirits. They can choose.

We are unique creations being both physical and spiritual.

But the key is the eternal spirit which is endowed with free will.

So why do you want animals to be in heaven do badly?

 

[NeedsMercy]

Indeed, that part of my argument was to the “I won’t be happy in heaven without my dog because I love him so much” position. That position is simply false but not, it seems, what you are claiming.

Your position, so far as I understand it, is that animals must go to heaven because of their inherent value. I agree that animals have some sort of value (if not the same kind or amount as humans), but there is no reason to assume that everything that has worth goes to heaven. All humans have value, but some of us will go to hell. Ergo, value alone is not sufficient.

Now who’s equating man and animals? Man has rational intellect. Animals and plants do not. Man is capable of sin. Animals and plants are not. Man chooses to go to hell of his own volition. Animals can not.

Now, let’s go to the book (emphasis mine):

2416 Animals are God’s creatures. He surrounds them with his providential care. By their mere existence they bless him and give him glory.197 Thus men owe them kindness. We should recall the gentleness with which saints like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Philip Neri treated animals.

I don’t use the word “value” anywhere. If animals bless Him and give Him glory, and they are not capable of sin, why should they not have eternal life? Does God not love His creatures?

 

[NeedsMercy]

So if animals are incapable of sin, then why is that?

See my previous post to Iron Donkey.

Could it be that they belong to the natural world with no spirit?

How do you define the “natural world”? Does “spirit” = “soul”?

Angels are pure spirits. They can choose.

No argument there.

We are unique creations being both physical and spiritual.

Not so unique. You keep forgetting that the Church says that animals have souls!

But the key is the eternal spirit which is endowed with free will.

Ummm. Does “eternal spirit” = “immortal soul” here? I confess: I do not know the seat of our free will. If our “free will” resides in our soul, as opposed to our brains, I am totally unknowledgeable in that area to either agree or disagree.

So why do you want animals to be in heaven do badly?

Why are you so dead set against them being in Heaven?

 

[Jon_S_1]

I am dead set against animals going to heaven because if they do,

It is better to be animal than human

It proves that the natural law (evolution/survival of the fittest) is all that is needed to enter heaven.

It equates humans to animals

We are not unique made in Gods image. In fact we are lower than animals due to the fact God made us capable of choosing not to be with him.

It makes Christ 's sacrifice worthless.

You keep saying that animals have a soul, and you somehow equate the soul with the eternal spirit.

Soul just means life. It is a way of saying how things live. It is our eternal spirit that goes to heaven not our "ability to live"or soul.

 

[thistle]

You are putting words in my mouth. I never said that animals were equal to, or greater than humans. If I did, show me where.

Speculation based upon misguided opinions, as I posted earlier.

Then, in accordance with what you say is Church teaching, you must become a vegan and wear no animal products like wool or leather. All these industries cause unnecessary suffering. If you want to see the graphic footage, I will provide you some links.

From the CCC (emphasis mine):

Oh, dear. Here we go again. Since most of what is passing for “research” today is nothing more than unnecessary animal cruelty, by the Church’s teaching, experimentation would be—what? A mortal sin?

I do.

Again you reject the Church teaching. I’m not aware Christ made you head of his Church on earth.

 

[thistle]

Ummm, okay. Is someone forcing you to become vegan? I’m not. If you think I did, show me where.

Why can’t the Church support veganism? ** None of us have a clue whether or not Christ was a vegan or not.** In fact, it’s funny that you mention that, because there are some theologians that believe that He very well have been a vegan and that meat/fish eating was for the sake of His followers, and not for his own desire to do so. Kinda blows the mind, doesn’t it?

Is that supposed to be a joke? We DO know Jesus was not a vegan. Its in Scripture.

 

[GEddie]

Soul just means life. It is a way of saying how things live. It is our eternal spirit that goes to heaven not our "ability to live"or soul.

Soul is not the ability to live; that resides in the organism or body, which holds the life.

Soul is life itself.

But human beings can hold two kinds of life.

The natural soul (psyche) is natural life.

The life in our psychikon soma (natural bodies) is precisely the same as animal life, which means we die.

The spiritual soul (pneuma; there are not two souls, but the human is both psyche and pneuma) is both human mind, and spiritual life.

Because the human being holds two kinds of life, this enables us to die and yet remain spiritually alive. (Or, in reverse, to lose spiritual life, as A&E did by falling, without dying physically.)

In eternity, the pneuma will form a pneumatikon soma, spiritual body. But this is uniquely human.

ICXC NIKA!

 

[Iron_Donkey]

Now who’s equating man and animals? Man has rational intellect. Animals and plants do not. Man is capable of sin. Animals and plants are not. Man chooses to go to hell of his own volition. Animals can not.

You’re reading more into what I say than I actually said. All I said is that having worth does not guarantee going to heaven, and this is true. [And “bless Him and give Him glory” is pretty much equivalent to has value.] That we know why some things that do have worth don’t go to heaven is somewhat irrelevant, the mere fact that they don’t is enough to make the statement “things that have worth go to heaven” false.

Now, let’s go to the book (emphasis mine):

I don’t use the word “value” anywhere. If animals bless Him and give Him glory, and they are not capable of sin, why should they not have eternal life? Does God not love His creatures?

Why should they have it? God loves those in Hell as well. That God loves someone/thing does not guarantee it eternal life

Now it seems like you’re adding on the clause “unless they choose hell” onto the “things go to heaven if ___” statement. There is no support for this, and given that original sin did not just effect humans but made it so that our entire world is fallen:

CCC:

408 The consequences of original sin and of all men’s personal sins put the world as a whole in the sinful condition aptly described in St. John’s expression, “the sin of the world”.300 This expression can also refer to the negative influence exerted on people by communal situations and social structures that are the fruit of men’s sins.301

409 This dramatic situation of "the whole world [which] is in the power of the evil one"302 makes man’s life a battle:

The whole of man’s history has been the story of dour combat with the powers of evil, stretching, so our Lord tells us, from the very dawn of history until the last day. Finding himself in the midst of the battlefield man has to struggle to do what is right, and it is at great cost to himself, and aided by God’s grace, that he succeeds in achieving his own inner integrity.303

(Bold Emphasis added.) One could just as easily say that the default destination is now very much not heaven.

But even this misses the mark somewhat, though it is beginning to get closer, because it misunderstands what heaven is. You pointed out that those in Hell choose to be there, and this is certainly true. But so to with heaven: being in heaven entails the free choosing to align our wills with God. This is what it is. It is not just a happy spot of awesomeness, but the state of freely communing with God and being perfectly united with Him in love. Rocks and animals simply don’t have this ability, it requires will. Whether or not God will make it so that there are creatures without will after the end of this world is a different question, but simple definitions disallow their participation in the beatific vision.

 

[FaustinaJulia]

I love my dog, as I have loved every dog I’ve ever owned. I usually preferred my animals’ company to that of many humans during my existence. I could trust them, count on them to be a certain way (even if that way was negative), they held no hidden agenda (as long as you understood what motivates animals that is) and they didn’t care what I looked like or if I voted for this or that person or what religion I was and so on and so forth.

Yet they are not human even if I tend to anthropomorphize them and that too has been brought home to me a number of times. That awareness does not cut down on my love for my animals at all. In fact, it has helped me accept and deal with the very non-human side of animals when before I accepted the difference animals could badly disappoint and hurt my feelings by simply being what they were and having natural responses to their world.

To me, it’s an affront to God’s work in total to expect animals to be more than what they are and just like expecting them to be too human-like in this world in our interactions with them, it’s not respectful of their natures to expect them to be like humans are in their spiritual life either. They do not have free will which is a requirement to choose to sin and reject God, they are what we would be like if we did not have free will and an example of what we could have been had God not in his mercy and glory chosen to breathe that immortal soul into Adam to begin with and endowed the first human with that ability to choose.

Animals were made for Earth and have their purpose in our physical, intellectual and emotional lives and for that I am grateful to the Lord beyond words to adequately express. Their existence makes me love God all the more as the existence of all natural things should do as they are gifts from our Creator and to be appreciated. But you see, I realize now that this is a consolation given to us humans that we may have personal experience to a degree of God’s presence in our lives whether we are sinners or saints in order to inspire us to crave more of God and to yearn for that ultimate union with him in Heaven. That is why we do not and will not need animals in Heaven, they are reflecting God to us here on Earth and once we are truly in his presence, we will realize and rejoice that we no longer need the “small doses” of his Glory when we have it in its fullness.

God Bless
Julia

 

[NeedsMercy]

I am dead set against animals going to heaven because if they do,

It is better to be animal than human

Perhaps in your next life, you can come back as a male baby chick in an egg factory. Do you know what they do to male chicks? They are ground up while still alive. Considering all the heinous acts of animal cruelty in the world today, why do you keep saying that animals have it so great in this life?

It proves that the natural law (evolution/survival of the fittest) is all that is needed to enter heaven.

You’ll have to explain that to me because I have no idea what that means.

It equates humans to animals

I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to repeat this. If animals do go to Heaven, how does that make them equal to humans? If you go to Heaven, that does not necessarily make you equal to the great saints and that certainly doesn’t mean that you are God’s equal. If you insist on saying that humans and animals are “equal” you’ll have to be more specific.

We are not unique made in Gods image. In fact we are lower than animals due to the fact God made us capable of choosing not to be with him.

It makes Christ 's sacrifice worthless.

Ruh-Roh, Scooby. In your previous post you said that “We are unique creations being both physical and spiritual.” I don’t think that saying that we are lower than animals due to our being able to reject God is strictly in accordance with Catholic teaching. Might want to check that out. Christ’s sacrifice was not, is not, will never be, worthless. How could animals in Heaven possibly change that? Please be specific.

You keep saying that animals have a soul, and you somehow equate the soul with the eternal spirit.

Soul just means life. It is a way of saying how things live. It is our eternal spirit that goes to heaven not our "ability to live"or soul.

First, I couldn’t help but notice that you didn’t answer any of my questions from my previous post. I asked YOU to tell ME whether or not your use of the word “soul” is equal to your use of the words “eternal spirit”. But now I can see you’re not fully on the same page as Catholic dogma yet. Could you be thinking of the Kabbalah and Olam Ha-Ba?

 

[NeedsMercy]

Again you reject the Church teaching

Since you have emboldened my words “I do”, I will address why I said that—again. The words “I do” were in response to your statement “I have no problem with any of that”. Correct me if I am wrong, but you were referring to your rejection of veganism and your acceptance of all kinds of animal experimentation, were you not?

I’m not aware Christ made you head of his Church on earth.

Now, now! :tsktsk:

 

[NeedsMercy]

Is that supposed to be a joke? We DO know Jesus was not a vegan. Its in Scripture.

No, not a joke.

 

[thistle]

Since you have emboldened my words “I do”, I will address why I said that—again. The words “I do” were in response to your statement “I have no problem with any of that”. ** Correct me if I am wrong, but you were referring to your rejection of veganism and your acceptance of all kinds of animal experimentation, were you not?**

Now, now! :tsktsk:

I have no problem with veganism even though I am not one. I have several vegan friends.
I have no problem with experiments on animals in accordance with the Church teachings.

 

[thistle]

No, not a joke.

Okay then. I asked my vegan friends what they do NOT eat. Among the things
vegans do not eat is meat, fish, shellfish, or honey (because it is made by bees).

Luke 24:

41 But while they yet believed not, and wondered for joy,** he said: Have you here any thing to eat?**

42 And** they offered him a piece of a broiled fish, and a honeycomb.**

43 And when he had eaten before them, taking the remains, he gave to them.

So we now know for certain Jesus was not a vegan.

You might then say well okay but that doesn’t mean he ate meat but you would be wrong.
Jesus was a Jew and he would never have violated the laws of Moses which included partaking in the Passover feast and the eating of lamb at Passover.

Luke 22:11 And you shall say to the master of the house: The Master saith to thee: Where is the guest-chamber, where I may eat the Pasch with my disciples?

 

[NeedsMercy]

You’re reading more into what I say than I actually said. All I said is that having worth does not guarantee going to heaven, and this is true. [And “bless Him and give Him glory” is pretty much equivalent to has value.] That we know why some things that do have worth don’t go to heaven is somewhat irrelevant, the mere fact that they don’t is enough to make the statement “things that have worth go to heaven” false.

Why should they have it? God loves those in Hell as well. That God loves someone/thing does not guarantee it eternal life

Now it seems like you’re adding on the clause “unless they choose hell” onto the “things go to heaven if ___” statement. There is no support for this, and given that original sin did not just effect humans but made it so that our entire world is fallen:

God loves those in hell, yes. But those in hell have chosen to reject God and His love. They have put themselves there. Animals and plants do not reject their Creator. They do not sin. They were not the cause of the original sin. They suffer from the effects of our original sin, by enduring neglect, cruelty, suffering, torture and physical death. Humans who love their Creator, and do the best they can not to sin, should ostensibly go to Heaven, no? Animals and plants love God, God loves them. Why should He not give them eternal life? I find it curious that so many humans are afraid of this happening.

(Bold Emphasis added.) One could just as easily say that the default destination is now very much not heaven.

But even this misses the mark somewhat, though it is beginning to get closer, because it misunderstands what heaven is. You pointed out that those in Hell choose to be there, and this is certainly true. But so to with heaven: being in heaven entails the free choosing to align our wills with God. This is what it is.

It is not just a happy spot of awesomeness, but the state of freely communing with God and being perfectly united with Him in love. Rocks and animals simply don’t have this ability, it requires will. Whether or not God will make it so that there are creatures without will after the end of this world is a different question, but simple definitions disallow their participation in the beatific vision.

God doesn’t ask plants and animals to align their wills with His, because they do not have free will. They can’t be asked to do something they can’t and they can’t be condemned for something which they cannot do.

For the record, where in Catholic dogma does it say that those without free will are denied Heaven?

So animals and plants and rocks cannot commune with God, and cannot be “united with Him in love”? I think you might be wrong there. How do animals “bless Him and give Him glory” if they cannot commune with Him? Scripture has many examples of how creation should praise its Creator. Perhaps you think it is not possible, because you are limiting your thinking to ways that **humans **communicate with the Lord, but He is capable of endowing animals with communicative skills still unknown to us. It is only now that the scientific community agrees that animals have consciousness. Is it so hard to believe that they have more interaction with God than we currently think? Why have so many saints been given the grace to communicate with animals, if they were unworthy to receive God’s love or were unable to understand and share it?

 

[NeedsMercy]

Okay then. I asked my vegan friends what they do NOT eat. Among the things
vegans do not eat is meat, fish, shellfish, or honey (because it is made by bees).

Luke 24:

41 But while they yet believed not, and wondered for joy,** he said: Have you here any thing to eat?**

42 And** they offered him a piece of a broiled fish, and a honeycomb.**

43 And when he had eaten before them, taking the remains, he gave to them.

So we now know for certain Jesus was not a vegan.

You might then say well okay but that doesn’t mean he ate meat but you would be wrong.
Jesus was a Jew and he would never have violated the laws of Moses which included partaking in the Passover feast and the eating of lamb at Passover.

Luke 22:11 And you shall say to the master of the house: The Master saith to thee: Where is the guest-chamber, where I may eat the Pasch with my disciples?

Here’s another version:

36 As they were saying this, Jesus himself stood among them. 37 But they were startled and frightened, and supposed that they saw a spirit. 38 And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do questionings rise in your hearts? 39 See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 41 And while they still disbelieved for joy, and wondered, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate before them. 44 Then he said to them, “These are my words which I spoke to you, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.”

So, Jesus did not eat a honeycomb at all and only had a piece of fish. And this He did **with His glorified body **to prove to the apostles that He indeed was there present in front of them, physically and spiritually. I highly doubt that He did it because He was hungry. Do you know whether or not he enjoyed that bite of fish?

 

[NeedsMercy]

I have no problem with veganism even though I am not one. I have several vegan friends.
I have no problem with experiments on animals in accordance with the Church teachings.

Too bad that most animal experimentation conducted today is **NOT **in accordance with Church teachings.

 

[NeedsMercy]

To me, it’s an affront to God’s work in total to expect animals to be more than what they are and just like expecting them to be too human-like in this world in our interactions with them, it’s not respectful of their natures to expect them to be like humans are in their spiritual life either.

First, I do not expect animals to be more than what they are. I am not saying that they are like humans (at least, not spiritually). I am saying that they may be, or probably are, more than what the Church currently thinks they are. Why does the Church choose to ignore the fact that scientists believe that animals possess consciousness, i.e., they are aware. One hundred years ago, did man know about the bee dances or the songs of the humpback whale? No. Could there not be even more to animals that we just don’t know about now? Of course.

Animals were made for Earth and have their purpose in our physical, intellectual and emotional lives and for that I am grateful to the Lord beyond words to adequately express. Their existence makes me love God all the more as the existence of all natural things should do as they are gifts from our Creator and to be appreciated. But you see, I realize now that this is a consolation given to us humans that we may have personal experience to a degree of God’s presence in our lives whether we are sinners or saints in order to inspire us to crave more of God and to yearn for that ultimate union with him in Heaven. That is why we do not and will not need animals in Heaven, they are reflecting God to us here on Earth and once we are truly in his presence, we will realize and rejoice that we no longer need the “small doses” of his Glory when we have it in its fullness.

So animals help us to “experience to a degree of God’s presence”. Then they die and that’s it? They serve no purpose in and of themselves? Why, then, does the CCC say that animals bless Him and give Him glory? Why would He create animals and plants and rocks that man never sees or interacts with? What’s their purpose?

 

[thistle]

Too bad that most animal experimentation conducted today is **NOT **in accordance with Church teachings.

In YOUR opinion. I wasn’t aware you had been in every research lab in every country!!

 

[thistle]

Here’s another version:

36 As they were saying this, Jesus himself stood among them. 37 But they were startled and frightened, and supposed that they saw a spirit. 38 And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do questionings rise in your hearts? 39 See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 41 And while they still disbelieved for joy, and wondered, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate before them. 44 Then he said to them, “These are my words which I spoke to you, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.”

So, Jesus did not eat a honeycomb at all and only had a piece of fish. And this He did **with His glorified body **to prove to the apostles that He indeed was there present in front of them, physically and spiritually. I highly doubt that He did it because He was hungry. Do you know whether or not he enjoyed that bite of fish?

D-R Bible (which is still the best translation):

Luke 24:

41 But while they yet believed not, and wondered for joy, he said: Have you here any thing to eat?

42 And they offered him ** a piece of a broiled fish, and a honeycomb.**

43 And when he had eaten before them, taking the remains, he gave to them.

He did eat a honeycomb but the fact he ate fish means he was not a vegan.
Totally irrelevant whether he enjoyed it or not. You are simply grasping at straws because you know you are wrong and have nothing to support your opinion.

I also notice you have ignored the fact that Jesus was a Jew and would not have violated the law of Moses by refusing to eat lamb at the Passover celebration. To refuse would have been considered a sin.