A Fundamental Question

No not the BBC forum Dim, my posting was based on sooo many who have threatened to leave forums without knowing anything of whoever have left here.
 
When you get pissed off, it's best to cool down for a few days or even weeks, as many of us do, and then return when better vibes have kicked in. That, or skin up!
 
Originally posted by Diminuendo@Aug 23 2006, 05:56 PM
I am not so sure about that Kathy, two members have decided to call it quits on here in less than 24 hours. Is that getting our point across?
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Sorry, Diminuendo, I meant from hereon in.

If Purr and Helen decide not to come back, not much we can do about that. Purr hasn't posted much for a while, and I hope she continues to look in, and Helen, well, I hope she comes back one day as I always found her postings as informative and interesting as the next persons. The point is, the Equine RIP thread and it's content should remain irrespective of the views of a very small minority on this forum who have been trying to disrupt it or get rid of it for a while.
 
Quote; People come and go on forums for loads of reasons, it doesn't mean that they are immature.

My immature comment was aimed at people who throw their toys out of their pram when others disagree or are a little sensitive to critics as illustrated on this thread.
 
Getting back to the original question posed - innocently, as far as I could see - I was taught as a youngster that animals didn't have souls. JPII's words, if quoted accurately, are something I find very reassuring.

In the last few years I have disposed of several goldfish, a hamster and two guinea pigs. I was sad when the the goldfish went belly up, a bit sadder when the hamster went to that great wheel in the sky, and sadder again when the guinea pigs squeaked it.

All of that will be nothing compared to how I'll feel when my dog goes. I can't imagine him not having a soul. He's so responsive to human contact and gives so much love in return for very little - humans could learn so much from animals.

I now feel empathetic towards people who mourn the loss of a close pet. Some racehorses must be that close to those who look after them and possibly even to those who own them, albeit often at a distance, even those regularly beaten that far.

This question has upset me now. It's turned my world upside down and made me think about things from a different perspective.

I mourned the loss of Nick Hagan and Alan Morgan but I didn't or couldn't mourn the passing of Best Mate any more than I could mourn the passing of George Best. I think you have to be close to them to mourn.
 
I agree Desert Orchid. Animals you are closer too I think you grieve for far more. Best Mate's death was very sad but for me, it was sad as he was such a great horse. I can understand (although many cannot) how the connections must have been distraught and how they wanted a proper funeral for him, although so many thought this was absolutely ludicrous as to many people BM was "just a horse". :brows:

I think you have to own animals and become close to them to understand the immense feeling of loss when they are taken from us. Barney, although only a dog, is just one of the family. He is intelligent, funny and far nicer than so many humans. I am convinced he has a soul!

I have always loved animals but losing a "pet", I think only owners or animal lovers can possibly really understand. That's why I would put money on the fact that PDJ doesn't currently have a pet and probably didn't have one as a child either. I may be far off the mark with this assumption.

It's probably a controversial comment, but I always think that those children that are brought up with "pets" at home usually become pet/animal lovers and are then far more tuned into to the loss of animals than those that were never brought up with animals from a young age.

Discuss :)
 
I think it also depends what a particular death mirrors: Nick's death closely mirrored by father's, DO, and I blubbed horribly in an ante-room at Nick's funeral in a way I couldn't at my father's (they were virtually the same age, and both died of sudden and catastrophic organ failure). I couldn't cry at Dadda's funeral because I didn't want to 'let go' and appear weak - I felt my Mother needed all of my support, even at the expense of my own feelings, which I kept under wraps for years.

The death of an adored racehorse, even though it isn't your own, can do the same: I bawled for days after EI EI was killed suddenly because, I now realize, he mirrored a wonderful little horse I had, who died within seconds from a heart attack while we were showjumping. I was around 15-16, he'd built up so much of my self-confidence and was so BONNY, bouncy and life-loving, just as EI EI always looked. I guess the shock of EI EI's instant death, following the only fall he'd ever had, somehow reminded me of that ghastly afternoon when little REEM collapsed, having gallantly managed to finish his round of jumps.

I would swear to you that both horses had souls, in that they both seemed to have a sense of 'life to be lived', beyond just munching their oats, but who knows? If they don't have souls, they ought to have!

I HOPE that there is some sort of afterlife meeting-place where the cruelties of life are smoothed away and there is a benign, warm glow surrounding the departed, which many will have looked for in vain in the physical world. If it is there, it's a shame it takes death for us to attain it, when 'loving they neighbour' here on Earth would - if practised - make all life wonderful.
 
You're miles off, Kathy. Cats have been around in my house all through my life growing up and another one is being added this week. I love cats and any pets I have known or had. I have cried when they died or got hurt and have no shame admitting that.

However, the only racehorse in which I have ever had a share is still alive but when he dies, I won't be that upset and for people to get so amazingly upset for horses (many of them have never even seen on television, let alone in person) I find uncomfortable, false and cloying.

I don't believe in the concept of religion at all, I think it is ridiculous, and as such I don't believe in souls, either for humans or animals
 
Thanks for the response Paul.

By the way, are your cats and "pets" named after cricket players or possibly cricket equipment.... ie. Willow, Bat, Stump and Mr. Googly Middle Wicket? Just wondered. B)
 
and for people to get so amazingly upset for horses (many of them have never even seen on television, let alone in person) I find uncomfortable, false and cloying.
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Are you referring to the posters in ' RIP ' thread , because if you are PDJ, i think you should go the thread and have a look at the people who have posted on there. They are nearly all regular TH members and most of them are involved in racing, in some way or another.
 
Nope. My last one I called Woof and this one is to be known as either Woof 2 or Bark. She only has 3 legs though so I may call her Tripod.
 
Agree with Dessie and only feel grief over an animal I have owned, also agree with Paul re religion and am an athiest ( spelling ? )

It is natural to mourn the loss of someone / animal for what pleasure they gave to you personally but I cannot understand the outpouring of grief for a well known person who you only read of in the press.
 
I can't speak for the other two Honest Toms but, I'm off and I won't be back.
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Goodbye. And just in case the other two go, goodbye and goodbye. Pip-pip, toodle-oo, all the best to you, goodbye, baby dear, don't cryeeee.
 
Thank you all so far for your help in this important exploration of the metapsychosis of horses. Some very interesting reading, particularly the inputs from Krizon, Diminuendo, Kathy and Dessie.

The most troubling post however is from Honest Tom. I was reared in the belief that animals did not have souls, but the oberta from the Pope seems to suggest they, in fact, do – and as a Catholic I believe the Pope to be infallible. This opens the distinct possibility that my Gran may right now be having a crème de menthe with Secretariat in the Elysian Fields.

However – as the rumpus on the obituaries thread concerned my posts on my two favourite horses ever, Roy Roger’s Trigger and the one that pulled Ernie’s milk cart, I am beginning to reach the following conclusion; only thoroughbred horses have souls – but Best Mate was the only one born without original sin.

Am I getting any closer to the truth?
 
Not sure if this helps, but here is a picture of soul:

images


It was painted by a lady called Susan Hickman, and you can buy it for $450. I own two copies. Here is a little bit about the artist who painted it:

Artist Statement: In 1997, I chose Helena, Montana, to be my permanent home after moving thirty-seven times because both my father and husband were in military professions. I hold masters degrees in art from Northern Arizona University and in counseling from Troy State, Alabama. I retired from counseling so I can devote my time to my art. I started creating art with crayons on walls at age two and had my first show of paintings at age thirteen.

Currently, I am experimenting with an intuitive approach to painting. I start applying paint and watch for suggestions of images to appear. I enjoy the surprise of discovery as I free associate with line, color, patterns and the visual energy created as forms move through space. The only criteria I set for myself, is to paint positive images that uplift and entertain my spirit. Therefore, when people ask me to label my style, I call it "spirit art."

I usually don't know what a painting is about until it is nearly done. The names I give to paintings give hints to my interpretations. However, I encourage the viewers to project their ideas on to my art and claim personal meanings of their own. Often, the paintings have no literal meaning for me. I see them as places for meditative, visual exploration and retreat.
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On Susan's encouragement, I decided to get my own "personal meaning" from her painting of soul. From it, I derived the following:
 
Your dog is waiting to welcome you with soulful little teeth, simmo...

I don't imagine that every harpooned whale, every tuna now made into a 'delicious seared steak with a sweet chili coulis', every swinging orang-utan, every thweet ickle hedgehog squished by careless cars, and every little bird that sings has a soul. But I don't believe there are gods or God, a Grand Architect or a Great High Nanky-Poo bustling around in the heavens, ordaining life on Earth, rings round Jupiter, hurricanes, tornadoes and crop circles any more than he, she or it is deciding who gets a soul and who doesn't.

I don't know why we're so driven (well, why so many of us are driven) to want to believe in some sort of Great Force Beyond Mere Human Existence. Bodies, animal and human, are quite wondrous enough in their complexity of self-functioning hearts and brains without - arrogantly, to my little mind - deciding that they're too mundane, and that some divinity must have come up with the whizz-bang idea of forming them, along with cockroaches, dung beetles (sense of humour there, though), plagues of locusts and tectonic plates.

If it's indeed true that matter cannot be created or destroyed, then every sentient thing continues to live on, in the minutest particles of their DNA shifting through the world's air currents (I may have just breathed in a cell of burnt Christian martyr just then) through eating a fish in 1911 which then forms the building blocks of a baby born that year, who goes on to father six kids, all of whom have benefitted from their parent's eaten fish, who go on to beget their own offspring... world truly without end. :blink:

Okay, enough of never-ending existence in a changed form - what IS the purpose of having a soul, given that some people think that we have one? What is my soul going to do for my fellow human once I've shuffled off this mortal coil? If it's just going to lie about bemoaning the state of affairs on Earth, it's on a par with a load of the topics in this section, a kind of ethereal forum. Now there is a truly frightening thought... I never thought of God as the Great Moderator... :o
 
He's used it rather more brutally than Ardross ever did, Bar! Which is what worries me about the idea of some sort of heavenly forum of angels! God's been deleting a lot of images made in his likeness - take the tsunami, earthquakes, hurricanes - all considered to be 'Acts of God', particularly by insurance companies.

He's a busy old sod, isn't he? I imagine those whose little children and babies were swept away to be drowned and battered by debris in the tsunami will eventually want a quiet word with him about such matters. I think I know the answer already: "Oh, yesss... sorry about all that. I was playing around with my new Ethernet Omega function and pressed 'Delete' by mistake. Not to worry, I'm reinstalling the Popu-booster for Sri Lanka and in 20 years' time you'll hardly notice the difference."
 
As she lay gasping for a few last, despairing breaths, my mother told us 'they' were all waiting for her, calling her. 'They' were all her brothers and sister who had gone before marked with the sign of faith and now at rest. She said she could see them all, including her young brother who died in childhood, and named them all as though pointing them out in an old photo.

Could she see them or was she hallucinating?

I know what I believe.
 
So what about non-believers, DO? What about the millions of Communists who died during Stalin's purges, who were indoctrinated against faith as much as the millions who were indoctrinated into it? Does not one single one of them enter the doors of heaven, since they renounced a divinity? So God takes on board only those who believe in him, and yet he made the whole world, and all mankind in his own image? All those North Korean kiddies now prancing in unified step before their Great Leader, waving their banners and doing back-flips for the mother country? Not one of those is going to heaven upon their demise?

I have this Pythonesque image of the Christian God, sitting on his throne of clouds, judging, "You, yes, you, you, you, no! Not you, not you, not you, yes, you, you, you, NO - bugger off, you slant-eyed heathen - you, ah, hallo Mrs O'Halloran, nice to see you... "

Tell me it isn't like a 1950s Surrey golf club.
 
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