Come on Carlos, we'are all adults here. You're taking this 'political correctness' thing a bit too far. We all respect each other's faiths and cultures, and no one is suggesting that any one is better than any other. No one will be offended if your belief is different to their own belief. I am merely interested in what YOU (i.e. Carlos as well as other readers) believe. I must disagree with your last sentence in bold. I think that a person can have a belief system that runs counter to his/her culture and/or religion. And what of the people who have a variety of cultures - having parents of different races and nationalities, and having grown up in different countries? Or what of the people who have no religion and choose to be atheist or to believe in a supreme being, for example? I think that many people have consciously chosen to have a belief system based on their life experiences, culture (where applicable), religion (where applicable), and their exposure to literature. And for this reason, I chose to ask about people's individual beliefs, rather than ask about their cultural background and religion, and then infer their beliefs.
The answer i gave you was what most anthropologists would tell you. We set aside our personal belief to be able to study fairly other cultures. As for the second part, cultures have many variations, they are not uniform. People still have to be raised in a particular culture to begin with which is their template. Notions of the sacred are strongly defended by followers, but variations are still with a determinate number of choices which are not infinite. I have noticed with some friends that anthropologists may seem like a strange tribe in itself to outsiders. We can live quite well in our neutrality, but the fact that we choose not to adhere to any particular faith may be upseting to more orthodox believers. Since there is no materialistic evidence of the existence of souls, in animals or humans, the response that an anthropologist will give you is that the important question is not whether humans actually have souls, but to understand why humans believe they have souls.
I hope that anthropologists also accept (and try to understand) that there are humans who do NOT believe that they have souls.
I'm going to go ahead and jump ahead of the pack here and preemptively answer with Aulonocara nyassae .
I would like to pre-emptively warn everyone that anyone giving the answer 'Red Parrot Cichlid' is liable to be blocked instantly. EDIT: Same goes for Flowerhorn.
I always call them "flowerpot cichlids". I don't know why and I can't help myself, it always just slips out even though I know full well what the name is!
Actually I find the cichlid question much harder than the soul one. As no-one knows anything about souls, it is an unanswerable question and therefore not worth thinking about (although anyone is entitled assume an answer, which can be called faith). The only answer I can give with any confidence is that Aretha Franklin has soul. I could give at least 100 answers to the cichlid question, but if I was forced to answer at gunpoint, I would have to work by elimination - it has to be a Tanganyikan (please don't twitch your trigger finger like that) and a featherfin (no, please don't squeeze the trigger yet, I'm getting there) . . . gulp . . Benthochromis tricoti Alan
For me it is Astronotus ocellatus . I used to keep one when I was a teenager, it was a noisy chap (it was always referred to as a 'he') and would sometimes wake me up at night moving gravel around and splashing. I really wanted a Rocio octofasciata but couldn't find anywhere to buy one from at the time. I really wanted the latter based on it's common name 'Jack Dempsey fish'. As this fish has inherited the famous boxers name, does that mean that it has possibly inherited his soul too in some way, or even a part of his soul.?
The question never was "do souls exist?", but instead, it was a poll to gauge what forumites' beliefs were. On a side note, I am surprised that you are of the view that that which cannot be answered at present is not worth thinking about. We would all still be living in caves if some brave souls (no pun intended ) did not try to find answers to the unanswerable.
'Do souls exist?' was the unwritten part of the question. You have to answer it before you can consider whether animals have souls. Neither question has a proper answer. There is a difference between questions which cannot be answered at present, but may be answered one day when reliable and testable evidence is available, and the other sort which can never be answered because there is no possibility that such evidence can ever be found. It is worth thinking about that difference: and then concentrating on the questions that can be answered. Human progress has always depended on finding answers to questions like 'what happens if you bang two rocks together?', 'what exists over the horizon?' or 'did the Universe start with a Big Bang?' A question like 'what happened before the Big Bang?' sounds quite similar - but is entirely different, if you think it's worth trying to answer it then you don't understand the question. William of Ockam is my hero (along with Aretha Franklin and Benthochromis tricoti). Alan
if such a thread was created though for voting then it would be of the poll variety, and based on past examples the choices would be something like: "What cichlid do you prefer to see in zoos? 1) Jack Dempsey 2) Oscar 3) Red Tiger Oscar 4) Albino Oscar 5) Tanganyika Mouthbrooder 6) all of them"
I am voting for 7. Gentle Lemur, I'll reiterate that the purpose of the the thread was not necessarily to discuss or debate whether souls exist, or even what they are (if they do exist). It was merely to gauge forumites' beliefs. What do you believe re: souls for humans and non-humans? Edit: I can see that you are not a big fan of philosophy or of discussing the mysteries of life over a few drinks.
Acually, the way things appear to be going, it won't be a poll but a thread titled either: "List your Favourite Extant Cichlid Species in Order" or "Design this Exhibet, Cichlids of the World" Hix
ROFL! Ok, that made my night! PS* You made an error with your thread title, so I've put the correction in bold and italics.
you guys are bullies and child-haters. (However, I do like how nanoboy can spell "cichlid" correctly but failed to notice that Hix spelled "actually" without a t. [Hix of course did that deliberately to test nanoboy's academic abilities])
In my defence, I am a bit tipsy. My wife insisted I taste some cider she bought, knowing that I don't drink. I am breaking my own rule about not posting when high.
I want to know why you think that humans and non-human animals are the same wrt whether they have souls? Surely it is a dominant view that we are different and dominant, therefore you should at least entertain the possibility that humans could have souls and not animals, or vice versa.
Oooh. That's a good question. Hmmm... I guess that this is also a belief thing on my part: I believe in evolution, and I can't imagine a supernatural being deciding to specifically implant a soul into humans at some specific time in the distant past. Are we really dominant though? Maybe bacteria and viruses are. Or maybe cockroaches and rats are.
