Animal souls?

[WiseMagicWillow]

Alright I've been wandering this for quite some time. Animals were once sacred and thought to be gods in many cultures, for example the egyptian culture. They would even mummify some of their animals such as cats, falcons, crocodiles, and beetles. So if this is so, what happened to that idea and why are so many animals disreguarded and done away with.
Also, now some religions believe that animals don't have souls. How else would they feel pain, and feel sympathy for you when you are ill. So if animals seem to show they have a contience, and show compassion such as humans do how can anyone say they have no soul. I would like to hear your thoughts on the subject. Do you think animals have a soul?

[St. Vitance]

Of course I do. It just seems stupid that humans could have souls and animals can't. Where's the logic in that? Souls are the sorce of feeling and conciousness. Ergo, if animals can think for themselves, and have a sense of free will, and decisin-making, and yelps when you kick them (not that you should), then they must have souls. I even believe bugs have souls. Of course if a bug is bothering me, I'll squash that thing, but I never kill a bug without a purpose. But, even bugs have their own conciousness and thought, because if you obstruct it's path, it goes around, it doesn't walk/fly into you. Everything has a soul of some kind. It seems stupid to say just because we're the only creature on this planet that have a written language, that we're the only ones that have a soul. And just because they don't have the logic and brain patters to develop a religion, doesn't mean that they're insignificant creations, and killing them has no constellation to world.

But I think it's stupid that anyone can go into their back yard, and blow their dog's brains out, and even a cop could say 'Good Riddance', but if someone dies, they snoop around looking for a motive! I mean, we gotta put psychos in jail, and keep them from killing everyone they can. I'm not saying that killing is alright. But it seems stupid that we could spend years looking for a person's killer, and just turn our heads to the death of an animal.

[Darkness_On_The_Inside]

*nods* Of course they do. What do you think happens to a person's soul when they die? Your soul has to learn things. A good example would be, learning how to trust. After you die, your soul moves on to learn its next lesson. It can easily come back as say a dog to learn loyalty or a butterfly to learn grace or a flower or something. Eventually your soul learns all its lessons and it can go to heaven or to Paradise or something of the sort. I do hope its okay what I've said. I don't want to intrude or be impolite about the topic.

[AmberSekhmet]

Everything has a soul. Everyperson, every animal, every living thing. People always say that plants dont have souls. Personally i think they do. They are alive, therefore they have a soul, a pulse.