When all the animals lost their Souls

Love of a mother

In spiritual philosophy there exists the concept of a soul. It is described as an imperishable part of humans that does not die even though the physical body does. The soul is the reservoir of our personality and the source of our emotions. What happens to it after a human dies? Well it can acquire another body and dwell in heaven or hell or float about as Casper the little ghost did. The details of what all can happen to a soul after death vary in different spiritual traditions of the world. Nevertheless, all of the major traditions admit to the existence of an imperishable soul.

It seems that some time in the past, some Christian philosophers got together and concluded that while humans have a soul other animals do not. This is in contradiction to eastern schools of thought such as Buddhism which asserts that all life has a soul even the lowest of animals, nay, even insects and bacteria, and that a soul evolves gradually from the lowest levels to a human level much as physical life too has evolved over millions and billions of years. The Hindus have even a put a number on it i.e. it takes 84, 00,000 lives before a soul evolves to a human level, but then the Hindus loved to put a number on many things ever since they invented the zero; it is perhaps a metaphorical assertion. Though one may easily dispute the numbers and that is hardly the topic of the present note, the question why animals were denied a soul deserves reflection.

Those who have kept pets and developed a close relationship with an animal will assert that animals too feel pain and pleasure and various emotions just as humans do. One may have found birds or a monkey screaming frantically when its newly born is hurt or killed or the love with which a bird feeds it’s young. Therefore the question arises as to why the early Christian philosophers had to deny all animals, aside from humans, a soul. The least they could have done is remain silent about it.. After all even the genes are similar. A chimp is more than 99 percent human.

The answer to this question is not very far if one delves into spiritual philosophy further. There was one more thing the early Christian philosophers denied – more than a single reincarnation – and having done that it may have become imperative to deny a soul to animals in order to eliminate a logical inconsistency.

As regards human souls it was asserted that they can reincarnate only once and thereafter they shall dwell forever and forever in hell or heaven depending upon their deeds while they lived. Now if animals too were granted a soul then the holy angels would have to deliberate on the deeds of an animal or bacteria too before deciding eternal hell for it and that did not make sense. The sensible approach was to just deny the poor animal a soul.  The other alternative was to let the animal soul float around as a ghost but that too was impractical since with time there would just be too many insect and bacteria ghosts around. Hello, Casper E coli! :)  Although bacteria do not need sex to reproduce, they love sex anyway and can mate with fellow bacteria numerous times a day. Read about their sex lives in this other blog here:
http://alienaccount.blogspot.in/2012/08/bacteria-foundation-of-life.html

One more impracticability arose when a reincarnation was denied more than once. A person who had sinned for a bit during a brief life was roasted in hell fire eternally perhaps to the laughter of little devils with two horns and a spiked tail. The Buddhists and Hindus on the other hand could assign limited stays in hell or heaven depending upon the extent of the sin much like the prison sentences our judges hand out, and this was easily possible since multiple reincarnations is the norm with them. However it seems the original Christians did not mind that because all the merrier to scare the shits out of non-believers and those who did not pay for the priests. A side benefit was that one did not have to become compassionate to animals and could merrily roast them for a feast without feelings of guilt.

Once cross migration and multiple migrations across species is admitted there is no difficulty about where the animal souls shall go. They just become other animals, hopefully more evolved ones so that that they can eventually after some hundreds of thousands of lives  become human. It may also explain why a friend has a faint resemblance to a lion and another to a pig.  Perhaps indicates the route through which they came into human lives  :) This also takes care of overcrowding both hell or heaven which would have been inevitable had reincarnations been limited to a single one. It seems that the process is not a one way process and that a return to animal existence is also possible in a few cases as is the migration from females to males and vice versa. This might also explain the different sexual orientations that exist as well as those few souls who did not make the transition completely and were left in between in a limbo. Jokes aside, multiple cross species reincarnations explain everything that a single reincarnation cannot.

One wonders what happens to those who having been denied lusting within a married life began to fiddle with the kids? Surely the molesters do not believe that children too do not have a soul. Do the molesting priests roast in hell forever or are they forgiven by the Pope before the angels can get at them? Well personally I would go with the Hindus and Buddhists on this and perhaps even the original Christians who admitted to numerous reincarnations, not just one. It is reasons like this which has made me an independent spiritualist believing that there is something good to derive from any religion and science too, and something to reject as well. This author would rather give the clergy that fiddles with kids another chance to reform and realize that children are little angels close to god to be loved not molested, after a limited stay in hell where the same is done to them by little devils with horns to realize their folly, rather than roast them in hell, forever and forever.

:) LOL

Image from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Berberaapje.jpg  This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. It was modified slightly before use here.