seeing yourself seeing.

Questions

In another one of my more comtemplative moods, lots of questions are popping up
randomly in my head...Do animals have souls? Do animals intellectualize? How do we
know they don't? If they have souls, then where do they go after they die? Do they
even go anywhere when they die? Or are animals soul-less?

What is it to have a soul? How do we know we're not just another group of animals,
who just happen to have personalities? How come we 'go to heaven' if we believe, and
they don't? Or do they? Or are they granted instant access just because they aren't
able to intellectualize, and therefore 'sin'?
It then comes to the question of whether we are just satisfying our human egos to
say that we rationalize and therefore are greater beings. Who is to say what
consitutes to intelligence? What is the true order of things in the Universe? Did
religions merely create the notion that humans are greater than the animals, which
were created 'at our disposal'? Was there this huge conspiracy at the beginning of
mankind which put this veil of religion, money, authority, and the establishment to
be a bondage to humankind forever?