I’m sure that theologians or militant atheists would consider these blog meanderings to be the quaint, at best. Of course, they (think) they have the answers. I’m militant only about the fact that I do not.
Whether you regard the topics of these posts to be hopelessly naïve or worthwhile, this stuff is interesting to me, and I’m going to write about it. If you don’t like it, go ram your face into a tree.
Like this dog.
Part of what has always bothered me about how I interpreted Judeo-Christian theology is that it is amazingly human-centric. Man was made in the image of God, animals are used for sacrifice (at least until Jesus changes that by sacrificing himself), heaven seems to be chock-full of humans, etc.
But I love animals. I can’t believe that there’s nothing there, that they have no soul. That they’re just biological machines. Perhaps I’m reading too much into their behavior, but I look at animals like our family dog and I see emotions like fear, love, curiosity. I see intelligence (not much, admittedly, because he’s not the brightest dog).
Is there some sort of dividing line between a human soul and animal’s soul? Over the line it “counts”, under the line it doesn’t? I have a hard time understanding or believing this.
Anyhow, this type of thinking leads me to be curious about animal intelligence quite a great deal. So, I found this lecture from TED, like so many videos from that amazing site, to be interesting.
