Do animals have an Afterlife?

Straggler writes

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What do you include or exclude with the term animal? Do insects have souls? Do fish? Do slugs and snails have an afterlife?

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Would you expect a minimum level of intelligence/consciouness for something to warrant an afterlife? On what basis do you make this conclusion (if this is indeed what you have concluded)?

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You really ought to apply the word "soul" to the context of what Marc was talking about. He didn't mean the soul in the sense of consciousness measured by human conception of intelligence. He meant the soul as the essence, or the being, of an animal that remains in existence even after the physical death. Doesn't really matter how smart or dumb they are. I really don't think Marc intended this to be a deep philosophical analysis of what constitutes a soul.

Straggler writes

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Well I wasn't sure what directio he did intend the discussion to be taken in and I am not sure you do either.

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Actually, I have a pretty good idea what he intended. His OP was just a rhetorical question. Yes, you could give an answer to a rhetorical question, but usually you don't go that deep into it.

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If we are considering an afterlife for animals then the question as to what is meant by 'animal' seems fair enough.

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Anything that has brainwaves?

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If someone has concluded that animals do have an afterlife - Do monkeys have an afterlife? rats? snakes? slugs? Is the animal afterlife full of dinosaurs? grasshoppers? fish? tadpoles?

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I don't know about you, but I'd like to see a few dinos after I die. I've always wondered what they really looked like.

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What exactly is included in the animal afterlife and what is not? What basis is this decided upon?

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What you are doing is you're taking a rhetorical question and apply philosophy 305 in answering it.My guess is Marc is very young, probably around 7-9 or so.

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This is all I am essentially asking.

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If I were to come to you and ask at what acceleration do we fall to Earth, you simply don't try to answer my question that includes relativity. After all, the speed of the Earth increases as we get nearer to the sun and decreases as we get further away from the sun. Instead, you try to give a straight forward answer. Now, imagine if I was 10. Do you really want to give me a lecture on Einsteinian physics?