Did the Neanderthals have a soul?
146193
according to hinduism , jainism and buddhism every living being has a soul. even trees have it because they are evolving living beings. even botasnist do claim that the plants can feel !. so neanderthals had a soul. just because they may not have same beliefs as us it would be wrong to say that they did not have a soul.
215240
Neanderthals are thought to not be predecessors of humans at all.\n\nThe FIRST ancestor would be the Universal Common Ancestor.  Evolution is founded upon the idea of commonality of descent; that all life on earth is related, descended from a single parent organism.  Such an organism cannot be known, because so small an organism leaves no meaningful fossils, and one would expect it to be extinct by now.  I can only say that the first ancestor of humans is also the first ancestor of cats, dogs, bees, trees, bacteria, and mushrooms.
321365
Hmm, good question. I believe they have feelings, but not a soul. I think it's because the Bible doesn't say that they have one otherwise. i think they were created to remind us of God's unconditional love for us.
1150866
your avatar makes you look like a descendant of the neanderthal man,\nAnyway if you men Erect as in Erection my bet would be on Solomon. I mean the man had more concubines  than he could remember and am sure he must have at one time slept with almost all of them since they were referred to as concubines in the first place, also if the neanderthal man had more erection he would still be around till this day. \n\nBut if you men Erect as in Upright, i will also say Solomon or maybe it would be the neanderthal man because Solomon would have spent a great number of his days Servicing one of his numerous concubines so that would mean he had to be in the sleeping position most of the time
298038
The original-language terms (Heb., ne′phesh [?פנ]; Gr., psy·khe′ [ψυχή]) as used in the Scriptures show “soul” to be a person, an animal, or the life that a person or an animal enjoys.Earth’s First Souls. The initial occurrences of ne′phesh are found at Genesis 1:20-23. On the fifth creative “day” God said: “‘Let the waters swarm forth a swarm of living souls [ne′phesh] and let flying creatures fly over the earth . . . ’ And God proceeded to create the great sea monsters and every living soul [ne′phesh] that moves about, which the waters swarmed forth according to their kinds, and every winged flying creature according to its kind.” Similarly on the sixth creative “day” ne′phesh is applied to the “domestic animal and moving animal and wild beast of the earth” as “living souls.”—Ge 1:24.\nThe Human Soul. Precisely the same Hebrew phrase used of the animal creation, namely, ne′phesh chai·yah′ (living soul), is applied to Adam, when, after God formed man out of dust from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, “the man came to be a living soul.” (Ge 2:7) Man was distinct from the animal creation, but that distinction was not because he was a ne′phesh (soul) and they were not. Rather, the record shows that it was because man alone was created “in God’s image.” (Ge 1:26, 27) He was created with moral qualities like those of God, with power and wisdom far superior to the animals; hence he could have in subjection all the lower forms of creature life. (Ge 1:26, 28) Man’s organism was more complex, as well as more versatile, than that of the animals. (Compare 1Co 15:39.) Likewise, Adam had, but lost, the prospect of eternal life; this is never stated with regard to the creatures lower than man.—Ge 2:15-17; 3:22-24.\nSoul—A Living Creature. As stated, man “came to be a living soul”; hence man was a soul, he did not have a soul as something immaterial, invisible, and intangible residing inside him. The apostle Paul shows that the Christian teaching did not differ from the earlier Hebrew teaching, for he quotes Genesis 2:7 in saying: “It is even so written: ‘The first man Adam became a living soul [psy·khen′ zo′san].’ . . . The first man is out of the earth and made of dust.”—1Co 15:45-47.
517437
In prehistoric times, children so loved their parents that when the parents passed away, the children plastered their corpses with lime and began to pray to their ancestors. They stood these human totem poles in the center of the cave and danced around them hoping that their parent's love would reach out and touch them just as the spirit of the animal totem they hunted and ate would grant them the strength of the animal. They painted the animal totems on the walls of their caves. See the Lascaux cave paintings in France. Similar art appeared in other lands. Then came the ice age 20,000 years ago which ended 12,500 years ago.\n\nAfter the ice age ended, and the floods came and agriculture took hold, people began farming around 11,000 years ago and built "god houses" to house the clay and lime plastered corpses of their relatives. Some societies ate soft morsels of their beloved ones to gain their strength, (such as in New Guinea highlands) while other cultures made statues out of their parent's or grandparent's bodies to keep them around so they could talk to them. \n\nBy the end of the neolithic era about 5,500 years ago, the idea of a spirit in the body was said to dwell in the trees, and people prayed to trees. Finally, people began to fashion idols and animals or 'venus' fertility figures out of clay and fire the clay. Women were worshipped because only they could be factories for producing men who could hunt in teams and bring down the mammoths. Women were highly valued during the ice age from producing children. Men who were alpha types instead of team workers were banned from the settlements. People began to tattoo the energy meridian lines as in acupuncture, about 5,000 years ago. Spirit, then became something within the energy of the body as well as dwelling without in the fertility goddesses who brought the cycles of the harvest and new children.\n\nAbout 14,000 years ago, instead of their parent's corpses inside the clay, just the art work/sculpture remained of these idols--people, venuses, fertility goddesses with huge mammaries to feed the world, and other sculpture appeared as cults, such as the clan of the cave bear and the cat cult.\n\nBy 9,000 years ago, the idol then went inside the god house to protect it--in the center of the village. That's how people began to pray to idols. Finally the spirit dwelling in the idol was released by smashing the idol or opening it's mouth to speak.\n\nBy the time of Abraham in the Hebrew year 5756 years ago, Sumerian shops for making ceramic idols evolved into the art of smashing the idol to let the spirit free. Then monotheism occurred to those contemplating the invisible God. By 4,000 years ago people eventually realized the spirit isn't in the man-made idol after all, it's in heaven and is too omnipotent to be knowable, but has created all, just as your parents created you from stardust. In Egypt, one pharoah prayed to the sun disk. In the deserts, the monotheists wandered, led by Cohanic priests who prayed to Yahweh, the one invisible, unknowable God....and suddenly, worship of female venuses and female reproduction cycles was not fashionable any more, and a patriarch male God took the woman's place in the God house in the middle of the village. From then on, societies were divided into pagan worshippers of female goddesses such a the cat cult in Egypt and the cult of mammary gland-clad female deities, such as Astarte in Greece/Anatolia. \n\nThe competition was on, and by the close of the classical period, God was male and sacrificed his only son, Jesus just as Abrahim almost sacrificed his Isaac, but let Ishmael wander in the desert with his slave mom...So the moral of the story is male patriarchs kick to the curb the female...After all, God didn't give his only daughter...The female venus statue was hammered to gravel, and the male God reigned in the patriarchy. \n\nThe female cat cult ended...by men's dogged
1034793
Umm...they don't.  Those neanderthal looking things that evolution portrays aren't in there.
232923
Neanderthals looked very different from homo sapiens.  There was some interbreeding, but eventually they were wiped out altogether by the ancestors of the Europeans. More especially, the Danes and Germans.\n\nOccasionally you can see some vestiges of the Neanderthal type in a few people.\n\nShould be considered two species from my point of view, but I am not an anthropologist.\n\nAny ordinary person can see substantial differences in skull structure and bone thicknesses, if nothing more detailed.
246317
True and False.\n\nTrue they existed.  False that they existed "millions of years ago"
484800
Some religious traditions see only a human as having a soul.  Others see animals (being completely innocent and unfallen) as also having souls. Animistic religions see EVERYTHING as having a soul, from humans to rocks.\n\nThe answer to this question totally depends upon your definition of the word Soul.  Some define soul as some kind of invisible force moving and propelling the body that exits us upon death.  Others define soul as being related to the function of breathing.  Others define soul as being an interplay between kinetic and potential energy.\n\nNobody really knows about any of these things.  It's all just speculation.  \n\nMy personal belief, as of this minute, is that sentience is really the indicator for spirit.  This can be interpreted very broadly to say that phototropism in plants is a sign of sentience.  I can live with that.  \n\nDoes this mean that the soul lives on beyond the body?  Absolutely not.  Once dead, that which was sentient is gone.  Forever.
1062655
Who told you there werent?\nSahelanthropus tchadensis\nOrrorin tugenensis\nArdipithecus ramidus\nAustralopithecus anamensis\nAustralopithecus afarensis\nKenyanthropus platyops\nAustralopithecus africanus\nAustralopithecus garhi\nAustralopithecus aethiopicus\nAustralopithecus robustus\nAustralopithecus boisei\nHomo habilis\nHomo georgicus\nHomo erectus\nHomo ergaster\nHomo antecessor\nHomo heidelbergensis\nHomo neanderthalensis\nHomo floresiensis \nHomo sapiens sapiens\nThese are all hominids and man is a hominid! Henceforth men are members of the ape family\nnote homo erectus, this is when it is thought that apes started walking on two feet....\nHomo neanderthalensis is the ape thought to have started using primitve weapons to kill his quarry or game.
1182866
We don't know and we will never know.  \n\nChromosomes are extremely fragile and will break down within a few days fo death at the very most. Since the last of the Neanderthals died over 30, 000 years ago it goes without saying that we don't have any Neanderthal chromosomes.
669544
>>>>are they really the missing link?\n\nNo, and nobody but Christians have claimed that they were for almost 100 years. Scientists know that Neanderthals  and modern humans shared a very recent common ancestor. They were a sister species to our own. They were not ancestral to modern humans.\n\n\n>>>>did they suffer from rickets? Why or why not?\n\nSome of them certainly did suffer from rickets. Before the invention of modern medicine it was normal for a high proportion of people in Northern Europe to suffer from rickets and Neanderthals were not immune.\n\nRickets is a disease of the bones caused by a vitamin deficiency. That vitamin can be manufactured by the body if it has enough sunlight, but in cold climates people wrap themselves up in clothing for months on end and never get any sun exposure. The result is rickets. Rickets can also be avoided by eating fish oil, but people in areas away from the sea never had access to seafood in winter and so commonly suffered the effects of rickets.\n\n>>>>why were they bent over?\n\nThey weren't in any way bent over. Neanderthals walked as upright as you or I. Even the common ancestor of us and the Neanderthals walked perfectly upright. You need to go at least as far back as Homo habilis before humans walked with even a slightly stooped posture.\n\nThe belief that Neanderthals walked with a stooped posture was the result of insufficient data. Nobody but Christian fundamentalists has believed it for the last 60 years\n\nOne of the first Neanderthal skeletons found, dubbed "The Old Man of la Chapel le" was one of those individuals who suffered form rickets, and in the form he had it caused bow legs and a stooped posture. Because it was the only Neanderthal skeleton available it was assumed that all Neanderthals looked like that. Since then hundreds of other Neanderthal skeleton form perfectly healthy individuals have been found. Most were in no way stooped.\n\n>>>What diseases may they have sufered from?\n\nWell, rickets, obviously.\n\nAnother Neanderthal skeleton showed severe signs of a disease called herpevitaminosis A. That is caused by eating the livers of carnivores like bears and dogs and causes the skin to fall off and the bones to grow lumps. Very unpleasant.\n\nNeanderthals also commonly suffered from injuries associated with hunting and broken bones, arthritis and similar stress injuries were common.\n\nAside from those diseases Neanderthals presumably suffered from all the normal Eurasian diseases: influenza, colds, food poisoning, typhoid, giadiarisis and so forth. However such diseases don't leave evidence in bones so we can not know for certain. But Neanderthals were so closely related to us that they probably suffered form most of the same diseases that existed at that time.
593323
They say animals dont got no soul but theyre conscious aint they? Its kind of separated, the study of science and religion I mean. So the soul is in religion and the consciousness is in science. I guess its coz you cant really study the soul scientifically, its up to you to believe in it and most people do. It is almost a fact that we have souls right?
565450
No. I know there is a God.\n\nYou have a physical machine called a body that is able to use its mind to ponder the question, relay visual information from a physical world of comparable low-tech computers through the optic nerve, into the brain, with the mind to comprehend the ramifications, then transfer that thought process to an incredibly complex systems of nerves, tendons, and touch to the fingers to type the letters. This then communicates a question of the soul. The soul is something that science cannot a.) explain and b.) create. It can only mimic with unsatisfactory results. That soul is concerned for the existence of an eternal destiny beyond time and space--that there is a world beyond the physical world we see in the here and now. You are an incredible creation who has been given the free will choice to believe, or not believe. A being that can love, write poetry, paint or play works of incredible complexity and beauty. To smell, and taste, enjoy. So, like you, I set out on a path to find my Creator. It is obvious that He exists, but is He personal or an impersonal force? My answer came through the study of prophecy in the Bible. Like the DNA strand and life itself, it was hard to dispute the evidence. Now with the realization of the truth of the Bible, God made it clear that He was not only a personal God, but One who wanted to know ME, and that He knew everything about me--even the number of every hair on my head.
992230
Modern anthropology holds that Neanderthals, which are not the same species of humans that we are, coexisted and perhaps interbred with homo sapiens sapiens (our species).  See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/323657.stm  As such this raises a lot of theological questions: were the Neanderthals saved by the atonement?  Is it significant that God allowed them to become extinct?  Were the Neanderthals made in God's image, too?  Some think they had language, like us.  Were there two Adams: one Neanderthal and one Cro-Magnon?
423101
There's a Socratic idea in philosophy that our soul is immortal and therefore retains all knowledge of previous lives. Thus, the soul is intelligent. \n\nI don't believe Socrates on that though, but I'm just throwing it out there.