Do Animals Believe In Supernatural Beings?

A) But humans are animals.B) What alternative method do you suggest?

You are missing the point, which is that it is pretty difficult to figure out whether or not a critter believes in a 'supernatural being' if we do not know what constitutes a 'supernatural being'. As far as I can tell, one doesn't have to be overly intelligent at all to believe in supernatural things.Reply to Message 46: Huh? Animals aren't humans. This is what I said. I cannot propose a method for investigating something until you tell me what you want it to investigate.Jon

---

Check out Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

I want to investigate animal behaviour that is equivalent to, or comparable to, human behaviour that is known to be religious or spiritual.If you want to go down the "define supernatural" route please do it elsewhere.

What does that have to do with the thread title?Jon

---

Check out Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

Heck if I know, it sounds like he is trying to investigate if animals believe in something he is unwilling to discuss.

Science has not yet determined how thought processes occur to store memory in the brain let alone determine whether animals believe in supernatural entities.This does remind me of a event that took place when I rented an apartment that was previously vacant for a few years. I felt at times there was a ghost and other friends felt it too when they came over. I then got a cat and one night she starting to hiss and growl at the closet for no reason that I could see. After that I never felt that ghost energy again.You can call this whatever you want but to this day I wonder what that was really all about that took place.

Cat: a ghost's only natural predator. Carbon monoxide poisoning or your cat scared away a ghost: you choose.

Everything. Obviously.Now please go away.

Y'know those entities of the sort that lot's of people believe exist but for which there is no objective evidence? The ones that we endlessly talk about here at EvC? The ones that this entire forum was setup largely to discuss? The type of entities that includes such things as gods, deities, ghosts, zombies, vampires, fairies, pixies, spirits, demons etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. Those things in which someone who could be accurately described as a "supernaturalist" might believe. Those are the sort of entities we are discussing.Hopefully this makes things clear enough for you to contribute to this thread without further clarification on this issue.But if you want to discuss the detailed meaning of the term "supernatural" further I suggest you do it here What is Supernatural? or one of the other numerous threads that explicitly discusses that issue specifically.

Well thats great, but I don't expect any animals to believe in the same entities humans believe in. Or were you talking about just entities that have no objective evidence of existence? Because if that was what you meant, you are making a curious distinction between misinterpretations of evidence and whatever else you meant."Entities for which there is no objective evidence" could simply encompass whatever the heck cats are swatting at in the air that nobody else can see. But no, that doesn't seem to qualify for reasons which you consistently refuse to reveal. But I don't, I really don't! In the absence of a clearly defined topic I provided my own definition with the generous caveat that I was willing to substitute whatever definition you wanted to use in the context of the thread.I don't want to debate over it, I want you to just spit it out! TELL ME! And for goodness sake stick to it, because so far you have been providing more exceptions than rules.

Im guessing the only way one can know for sure is to ask Koko, or any oter animal that can comunicate with humans. tough one would first haveto explain the notion of supernatural or god to them in a way that would not make them believe in it so they can offer an unbiast anwser.

The title is about animal belief in supernatural beings; you have so far been unwilling to discuss these things in any way whatsoever.You've shoved off anyone attempting to discuss this as well.What are you going for?Jon

---

Check out Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

That really is the heart of it. No one wants to debate the definition of anything. We just want to be able to reply to Straggler on his own terms. Who wants to go 500 posts debating something back and forth to find out what they meant by something wasn't what someone else meant by something and so every contribution they've made has been, essentially, off-topic?Jon

---

Check out Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

The existence of those threads should make painfully obvious the need for you to lay out what you mean when you use the term 'supernatural' to avoid the mismatch of uses that would otherwise result from everyone coming to the debate with their own meaning in mind.Jon

---

Check out Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

Why don't you an Jon get together and come up with a definition of "supernatural" that you both agree upon and then let me know? If you have any examples of animals exhibiting behaviour that could suggest belief in supernatural beings using whatever definition of "supernatural" you think is reasonable then I would love to hear them.If you are going to further persist in demanding that I provide you with complete definitions of words that people spend years debating the meaning of here then - Don't bother.If you are going to supply a stupid exmaple to make some sort of point about the lack of an utterly watertight definition - Don't bother.But if you actually have something to say about animals beliefs relevant to this thread then please for the love of god let's just hear it!!!!