• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

If animals can talk to each other, then why can't they pray to God ?

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member
People can tell us they they are praying or have prayed. This doesn't mean that they do. I am pretty confident that there are people that pray that don't share the fact that they pray. Does that mean, in your view, that they don't pray?

@JustGeorge already pointed out some other purposes for prayer than what you appear to be familiar with when she said...


There are those that pray for the purpose of devotion, love, and connection to the divine. As @JustGeorge said, prayer isn't always about getting stuff and it's not always about getting some supreme being to affect change.
Yes, I do realise that prayer might be beneficial for those who pray (studies seem to suggest such), and the reverential aspect, but still I doubt either applies to non-humans - if they haven't the concepts to enable such.
 

SalixIncendium

अग्निविलोवनन्दः
Staff member
Premium Member
But you do not know what they experience unless god is made up by humans and not real then they would not be aware. If the experience of a god like force is the product the neurological processes needed to be social organisms then they may. And yes there are interesting observations that are suggestive of the latter from recent animal behavior studies in the wild.

I'm not quite sure what you're driving at here, especially in the second sentence. Can you please rephrase or expand upon what you said?
 

Bear Wild

Well-Known Member
I'm not quite sure what you're driving at here, especially in the second sentence. Can you please rephrase or expand upon what you said?

Sure it was probably just a little to much scotch before writing a response.
1. We do our best but can only make inferences to what another animal experiences.
2. If god is a man made invention then it would not make sense that another animal other than man would understand what man invented. That was the first statement.

The second sentence in question has to do with how the neurologic connections that allow animals to be social and especially those with theory of mind and empathy pathways to recognize the needs of another member of their social group. We know in humans this can be extended to things outside of their social network whether another animal or non-living thing. This is the logical origin of animism which is common in humans and there is no reason to believe that other animals with similar neurological mechanisms could not do the same. Animism can in humans attribute this to create a being to explain the forces of the natural world. This can be then extended to a concept of a anthropomorphic like god to provide the social control of the group which is then called a god/goddess. These same neurological processes are found in other animals. Our problem is the communication barrier, but that does not exclude the possibility of other animals having similar animistic projections. Thus in is possible that they have patterns of behavior to forces outside of the social group which could represent some form of reverence to those forces outside their social network. Could they have a symbolic gesture suggestive of a prayer to a greater force outside their social circle? Until we can communicate to them we can not say for certain but since there is shared neurological mechanisms for this we also cannot say they do not we can only say the have the neurological networks for this kind of behavior to occur.

Not sure that made it much clearer but thanks for asking.
 

Katzpur

Not your average Mormon
So how would one know if god is male or female or that there are both a god and goddess. What influences your opinion about the gender role of god?
Well, I'm a Christian, so to me, God is my "Father in Heaven." I am also a Mormon, though, and as a Mormon, I believe that my Father in Heaven has a female counterpart -- my Mother in Heaven. I believe that they are the parents of my spirit.
 

Bear Wild

Well-Known Member
Well, I'm a Christian, so to me, God is my "Father in Heaven." I am also a Mormon, though, and as a Mormon, I believe that my Father in Heaven has a female counterpart -- my Mother in Heaven. I believe that they are the parents of my spirit.

I like that you keep it balanced.
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
If animals can talk to each other, then why can't they pray to God ?
Animals can see other animals. But do they have the sentience required to have an idea of an entity they cannot sense? Because they certainly can't pray to a deity they have no consciousness of.
 
Top