What if Johnnie needed socks? What if he was cold and wanted to make deer leather moccasins for his feet. Are you saying he is wrong to put his needs above those of animals?
No Fawn. Take a deep breath. If such an important issue was true I think God would have let us know.
I do not think you are evil. The Johnie scenario is wrong in today’s world, but were earlier ancestors wrong when they killed animals for clothing. God killed some to cloth Adam and Eve when they were cast from the garden.
I can see you are empathetic to all of God’s creatures and that is good. I will say that I firmly believe God gave us creatures to use that is why they are not covered under “thou shalt not murder”. He allows us to hunt ( and I do ) because he said we could. I also used to raise beef for slaughter to help feed people. Is that wrong. God did not intend for us to be vegetarians or we’d have a rumen system.
actually you can know if animals have souls or not. The answer to that question is yes they do, but not in the sense that you may be thinking. Your soul is what allows you to sense and interact with your physical surroundings utilizing the body. What animals don’t have is a spirit, which is an aspect given to mankind along with a body and soul. This is by most people confused with the soul itself but is really an entirely different entity. God made man tripartate in nature(spirit,soul, body) which is the ideal behind being made in His image and after his likeness. In this mankind is completely unique above all creation. He has the ability to interact with the physical world and also the spiritual. The soul acts as a medium between the two and it’s this function which causes people to mistakenly consider the spirit and soul as the same thing. Your soul is your will, mind, emotions,senses, intelligence. Your spirit is that part of you which makes you aware that there is more to your existence than just the physical. It is also that part of you which communes or desires to commune with GOD. This is the part of man which was initially “died” after Adam’s sin and from that point Adam and Eve became more intune with their physical realm aand their “soul” became the servant of sin and thus a servant of the flesh (body). This is why we spend so much time trying to satisfy it. The soul is actually suppose to act as a servant to the spirit, working in conjunction with and under subjection to the spirit as we seek GOD and His will. It how we are to worship Him and it is in this functioning of the spirit and soul that we are to be in subject to GOD the Holy Spirit as we worship the King of Kings and Lord of lords. It is this proper functioning of the spirit and soul that is often referred to in GOD’s Word as a living soul, a being who can think, reason, learn,interact, choose, not choose, understand that life has purpose, deny that it has purpose, etc. These are things animals can not and do not do. Animals can discern that something is wrong and that death is to be avoided, but if you’ve ever seen animal examining another dead animal that is let’s say it’s relative, the animal’s reaction is that of confusion(not mourning as some think) after which the animal either moves on or eats it. Anyway I’ve posted enough on this.