I wonder if animals besides humans believe in a God or Gods or have any superstition. As far as I know some animals like primates have a primitive form of culture, dolphins are pretty smart, elephants return to the same spot where one of their own died so I guess it's not completely impossible for them to have superstition or some sort of belief. Has there been any research about it?
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Do animals have religion
- Thread starter Leçi
- Start date
Andiferous
New Member
They have found evidence that Neanderthal probably did. Neanderthal skeletons were often buried with various items, which in other archaeological investigations (ie Egypt) was associated with belief and preparation for the afterlife. Obviously they are extinct; but they weren't human either.
Giliell
New Member
Ehm, yes they were human, they just weren't modern humans. they were our closest cousins and even mixed with our own species (recent studies suggest that a small percentage (some 2%) of Neanderthal DNA is part of the western European genome)Andiferous said:
I would wonder how pets who have such close contact with humans like dogs view us, since we seem to posses many of the qualities we ascribe to gods
Anachronous Rex
New Member
Howling is long-range communication, so no.lrkun said:
The thing that my cat does where it meows incessantly around each of its feeding times in the mistaken belief that this somehow spurs us into action is certainly superstitious, if not religious.
As far as I know cats found out that meowing makes us do things they want. Basically cats are controlling us.
About elephants, from wikipedia:
"Elephants are the only species on Earth other than Homo sapiens sapiens and Neanderthals[34] known to have or have had any recognizable ritual around death. They show a keen interest in the bones of their own kind (even unrelated elephants that have died long ago). They are often seen gently investigating the bones with their trunks and feet and remaining very quiet. Sometimes elephants that are completely unrelated to the deceased will still visit their graves.[13] When an elephant is hurt, other elephants (even if they are unrelated) will aid them.[22]
Elephant researcher Martin Meredith recalls an occurrence in his book about a typical elephant death ritual that was witnessed by Anthony Michael Hall, a South African biologist who had studied elephants in Addo, South Africa, for over eight years. The entire family of a dead matriarch, including her young calf, were all gently touching her body with their trunks, trying to lift her. The elephant herd were all rumbling loudly. The calf was observed to be weeping and made sounds that sounded like a scream, but then the entire herd fell incredibly silent. They then began to throw leaves and dirt over the body and broke off tree branches to cover her. They spent the next two days quietly standing over her body. They sometimes had to leave to get water or food, but they would always return.[35]"
About elephants, from wikipedia:
"Elephants are the only species on Earth other than Homo sapiens sapiens and Neanderthals[34] known to have or have had any recognizable ritual around death. They show a keen interest in the bones of their own kind (even unrelated elephants that have died long ago). They are often seen gently investigating the bones with their trunks and feet and remaining very quiet. Sometimes elephants that are completely unrelated to the deceased will still visit their graves.[13] When an elephant is hurt, other elephants (even if they are unrelated) will aid them.[22]
Elephant researcher Martin Meredith recalls an occurrence in his book about a typical elephant death ritual that was witnessed by Anthony Michael Hall, a South African biologist who had studied elephants in Addo, South Africa, for over eight years. The entire family of a dead matriarch, including her young calf, were all gently touching her body with their trunks, trying to lift her. The elephant herd were all rumbling loudly. The calf was observed to be weeping and made sounds that sounded like a scream, but then the entire herd fell incredibly silent. They then began to throw leaves and dirt over the body and broke off tree branches to cover her. They spent the next two days quietly standing over her body. They sometimes had to leave to get water or food, but they would always return.[35]"
Anachronous Rex
New Member
kun said:
Religions tend to have a lot of characteristics... normative claims, methods of organizing a society, origin myths, etc. Most are merely true of most religions, and not all.
The one thing that they all do share is the proposal that there is a mechanism by which one might survive death. They, of course, are sometimes not very specific about this, but they all do it. This is usually accompanied by (at the very least) the belief in some sort of great power that is either not empirically verifiable, or not normally discernible.
Anachronous Rex
New Member
Actually, I think the elephant example might qualify under my definition. I've seen parents in various species care for long-dead offspring. This seems to me to be nothing more than simple denial of death, and while it is probably at the core of all religion, true religion is a bit more sophisticated then that. It accepts that death occurs (which is probably necessary, as even the religious are not that stupid), but denies the finality of it - proposing some means by which our minds might preserver.lrkun said:
Elephants linger over the ruins of fallen creatures (skeletons often) which they clearly must know to be deceased, and yet treat them with reverence. As though they think some element of the creature's person still remains, a spirit of sorts. If this is indeed what elephants think, something we cannot as yet be sure of, and if they also have some rationalization for doing so, then this rationalization is a religion.
Even if they simply hold that a spirit remains, without any sort of proposed mechanism, then we're still dealing with something that seems intermediary to religion. Perhaps not a true religion, or not a religion in the sense that we are familiar with, but a bit more sophisticated then when an ape mother drags around the mummified corpse of her offspring and cares for it as though it were still alive.
Cnidarious
New Member
I would be interested in
finding out weather religion, or any form of supersition based thinking is
observable in Cephalopod social interaction, or for that matter any
type of ritualistic practice, or weather Supersition is purely a Tetropodal phenomina.
finding out weather religion, or any form of supersition based thinking is
observable in Cephalopod social interaction, or for that matter any
type of ritualistic practice, or weather Supersition is purely a Tetropodal phenomina.
Haven't they shown that pigeons can be made to exhibit behaviour that equates to superstition? The researchers waited until a pigeon made a certain action, then dropped a piece of food in and from that point onwards, the pigeons made that action when they wanted food, even though the food was now being released on a timer and the pigeon's actions had no effect on it at all.
I'm sure I read it somewhere, perhaps even in The God Delusion.
I'm sure I read it somewhere, perhaps even in The God Delusion.
Giliell
New Member
I'm not sure, if labellimg that "superstition" isn't too much anthropomorphing.nasher168 said:
Thing is, the pigeon is too stupid to realize that its actions have nothing to do with the food release.
It's just like the dog and the trash collector: There's a noise and action going on that the dog perceives as a threat to its pack, so he starts demonstrating agressive behaviour. And behold, the threat disappears. So the dog thinks that its behaviour had the desired effect, even though the trash collectors would have disappeared anyway.