I have been thinking about souls, and tonight, I had a chance to talk about this, with a person who was raised in France and had studied in a Catholic school for five years. He told me that animals do not have souls, as professor Philips mentioned in the class, and that the laughter is the evidence for someone having a soul, as explained in one of the Simpsons's episodes.It is a little bit difficult for me to understand the definition of the soul in the way that is understood by the people who have Christianity background. For me souls are something that are in the animals including human beings. I guess this was the same idea that people in ancient Rome had, because the word for 'soul' in Latin is 'anima' and from this the word 'animal (living creature)' had been derived. However, apparently the concept had been changed with time and the word soul is started to be used to differentiate humans from other creatures.
It, relatively, makes sense to distinguish human beings and other animals by whether to laugh or not. I have never seen any creatures laugh like humans except apes(Chimps, Other Apes Laugh Like People.). I am impressed how people could notice the difference between them. Also, the person that I have talked told me an interesting story about a debate over whether native Americans have souls or not, during the Age of Exploration (Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (1547) - Digital History).
I assume that for a religion such as Christianity, they needed to categorise humans into a different group to teach people about morals, because, to me, animals do not really have a rational mind to control their behaviour.
This, soul, is a quite interesting concept, so I would love to study more when I have time.
The top picture is a game package for Akuma-kun which was the originally a comic by Shigeru Mizuki. The boy in the middle with a card is the main character, Akuma-kun. A man next to him who is in a suit, is Mefist II. To my surprise, there is a character called Doctor Faust II. He is the old man with lots of white hair with a green cloak. He is the principal of the Mienai Gakkou (Invisible School).
I remember the theme song of this animation and believe that I used to watch this, however, the stories seem so new to me and interesting. I would love to watch this again and see what kind of features had been adopted from the original 'Faust'.
16 comments:
Your friend was wrong. Animals have souls, that's why they're called "animals" in English. They don't have ETERNAL souls, so they don't have to be concerned about heaven, hell, damnation and salvation etc. That's why Christians can eat them. Buddhists are not supposed to eat animals. You, too, could be an animal in the next life.
Notice also that Bart has no breath when he goes to the convenience store, and that the automatic door doesn't notice him, the way Faust can't see himself in his mirror (which was apparently adopted from vampire movie conventions). However, the souls in Bart's dreams are more like the concept of the soul I learned from my Catechism classes before I learned Latin and found out that "anima" meant both "breath" and "soul" in Latin.
Well, "Do you have a soul?" "Can you sell your soul?" and "Can you trust the Devil to keep his side of the bargain?" are questions for philosophy and religion, not English class, but I was surprised once again at the influence of the Faust legend around the world, and how it keeps showing up in unexpected places.
http://gwcatholicforum.blogspot.jp/2007/08/do-animals-have-souls.html
Oh, the argument about whether Native Americans had souls was about whether they had descended from Adam and Eve. They weren't in the Bible and nobody knew anything about this New World they were living in. It was settled when Mary the Mother of Jesus appeared to a Mexican Indian peasant as Our Lady of Guadalupe, who is now the Patron Saint of Mexico. I was surprised when I went to Notre Dame de Paris that there was an altar to her there.
So, there are two kinds of souls? The one that exists forever and the other one that dies?
I do not understand why Christian can eat animals only because those do not have eternal souls. Eternal souls are more valuable than the one-time-only souls?
I think primitive Buddhism or some Buddhism persuasion did not or do not forbid monks to eat meat, because they had to eat what they had been given by doing the mendicant. They were not allowed to kill animals or eat meat of their own motion.
For me, right now, a soul is something like an ethic, so I have a soul. Therefore I think I can trade it if I want. For example, I can steal things from the others by ignoring my ethics.
About the Native Americans, I have heard that people in (I thought it was) Spain had a trial to decide whether American Indians have souls or not by trying to make them laugh, because laughter is the evidence of having a soul. Apparently they did not laugh due to the cultural difference and the judge said that they were not humans, but when he leave the court he tripped over and fell, so those Native Americans laughed. So the judge reversed the earlier decision and said that they were humans.
You're right about the technicalities of Buddhist monks begging. They can't eat meat if they have any reason to believe it was prepared for them as monks.
Yes, eternal souls and temporal souls are different, and you can't turn one into the other. Which would you rather have? Most people would choose eternal, but Faust changed his mind.
If people sell their souls, do they go to hell or they will not have the eternal souls?
I do not see any disadvantages of not having an eternal soul. If I were to be burnt in the hell forever, I would rather choose not to have an eternal soul.
It is quite interesting how different religions have the same kind of ideas like the heaven and hell, or the commonality of primitive religions' perspective towards the Sun.
Faust's deal was eternity in Hell, body and soul, for 24 years of youth and magical powers. Faust decided he'd rather have a temporal soul, too. "all beasts are happy, For, when they die, Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements; But mine must live still to be plagu'd in hell."
Yes, most religions seem to have an afterlife of some kind, and beliefs about heaven, hell and ghosts, too.
Are you guys talking about The Tragical History of Dr.Faustus? Just so I can catch up on the comments here. John's last comment makes me think you are, if so then great! If not, then I can relate Faustus to your conversation anyway...
Faustus' main problem wasn't whether or not having a one-use soul or an eternal soul is better, but to what degree should a sin be considered mortal. His deal with the devil isn't necessarily what sealed his fate, which can be evidenced by Mephistopholes continuously telling Faustus to repend, turn away from the Devil and towards God. So, whether or not animals have souls, or whether a human soul (eternal?) should burn in Hell is determined by action. Can animals sin? What constitutes mortal sin? Questions like that all of a sudden take precedence.
repend = repent ;)
And an even more intriguing question now that I've been thinking about it for a while: If an animal can in fact sin, is it's soul immortal?
So long as we're going to be discussing things like the soul and immortality, then other things have to be considered as well. For instance, even though a person's soul is immortal, if their physical existence leaves no mark on the world, and nobody notices that they are gone, then of what use is an immortal soul? I think Sasha puts forward a great question there. For better or worse, regardless of whatever consequences come after death, a soul with no mass might not be worth calling 'immortal'.
Critical Analysis classes man, philosophy rocks!
Yeah, Mitch. We've been watching the Burton-Taylor film from the 1960s, which unfortunately is still the only film version of Marlowe's "Faust", one of the great tragedies of world literature. England was officially Protestant at the time it was written, so venial sins and Purgatory weren't officially part of the theology, but Marlowe had been a secret agent on the continent spying on Catholic powers, and was suspected of being a double agent. BTW, the clear doctrine of Purgatory in "Hamlet" is used as evidence that Shakespeare was an underground Catholic. But there's no such thing as Purgatory in "Faust".
As for animals, without free will they cannot sin. Remember, Original Sin was eating the forbidden fruit and learning the difference between good and evil. I've never understood predestination I guess, in either Calvinism or Islam (although the Mu'tazilites didn't believe in it). If you don't have a choice, how can you sin? How could you be punished if you didn't sin?
I'm not sure I understand your last point, either. Wouldn't a spirit world, like Plato's ideal world, or the dreamworld of the Sufis, be massless? Isn't that the REAL reality according to Neoplatonism?
I am very happy to see Mitch here! :>
However, I did not really understand what he wrote. :/
But I have decided that I would sell my soul to a devil if I ever meet one. :D
Hmmm you make some good points there John, and I agree with you on some of them. Especially about predestination and purgatory. If predestination is true, then that would negate the very existence of purgatory, which would negate the possibility of sin as a consequence of action.
I don't know about Plato and his teachings, but what you mention about the dreamworld reminds me of the Socratic forms. Between the physical and the metaphysical, the dreamworld sounds very similar to the metaphysical, in that a thing takes its ideal form, which I guess we could call a massless ideal, or else the REAL reality.
As for animals and free will, from what I've heard in discussions with priests and other religious sorts, and from what I've read, the story of Adam and Eve is meant to be more of a moral tale rather than something to be taken as literal fact. If you consider this, then what is it that makes animals devoid of free will? Aren't there documented cases of animals acting out of the "nature" and performing acts of extreme kindness, devotion, or with self-awareness. Couldn't those acts fall within the realm of free will? An example here might be the well known story of Hachiko and his master.
It's my personal opinion coming from my own experiences that it's not possible for animals to not have an immortal soul, particularly when they can feel emotion as strongly as humans or do things so out of character that they might be called "human".
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