Christians views of the soul and attitudes towrds animals.

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Soul

A soul, in certain traditions, is the spiritual core of a person or living thing. Many truth-seeking and spiritual systems teach that humans are souls; some quality souls to all living things and even to inanimate objects (such as rivers); this belief is commonly called animism. The soul is often believed to exit the body and live on after a person’s death, and some religions imagine that God creates souls. The soul has often been considered   to be important or essential to realization and personality.

The Christian view of the soul is based upon the teaching of both the  and . The Old Testament contains the statements "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it" ( 12:7) and "And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." ( 2:7). In the New Testament can be found a statement by , "And so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam [was made] a quickening spirit." ( 15:45).

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Human dignity

 Created in the image of the one God and equally endowed with rational souls, all men have the same nature and the same origin. Redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ, all are called to participate in the same divine beatitude: all therefore enjoy an equal dignity."(6)

"The equality of men rests essentially on their dignity as persons and the rights that flow from it ..."(7)

In these sentences the Catechism of the Catholic Church makes it clear that there are two concepts which have been of central importance to the development of Christian teaching about human dignity: the ...

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