The following Reddit thread was created and posted by u/MaxTheAlmighty-Jan. 2022.
Questions from MaxTheAlmighty:
Further speaking, is it possible that those ancient human fossils classified as different species were just people with deformations? And if they were actually human species, why did God create us in separated species instead of one? Is this racist to think that there were different human species?
If you find this question dumb, please don't be offensive.
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Anonymous(Eastern Orthodox)
Good questions that I wonder all the time. I don’t have an answer and I don’t think anyone does.
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michaelY1968
Unfortunately souls aren't preserved in the fossil record - that being said Neanderthals seemed to have language, creativity, and some sense of spirituality, which would suggest they shared our humanity. That, and most of us carry some of their genes, which would suggest they were regarded by our ancestors as fellow humans on some level.
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plutonium-loveship
Which immediately becomes problematic for, for instance, the Catholic teaching which requires belief that all humans after Adam were his progeny, since to find the common ancestor of sapiens and neanderthalensis (and thus an Adam that encapsulates both) you would have to go even further back to a species which inevitably would have lacked these cognitive facilities.
From Humani Generis...
For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.
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therespaintonthewall(Roman Catholic)
I think there's some debate as to whether hominids and other human ancestors had the moral agency ("rational soul") for their lives to be judged on the whole sin/salvation eschatalogical drama. The hybrid literalism of Catholicism implies a hypothetical "Adam and Eve" where the shoe finally dropped and human history began in the Christian theological sense. There's basically some vague notion of a pair of ancestors somewhere on the evolutionary spectrum that screwed us all over with original sin.
Then there's Christians who don't wring their hands over this question because they've abandoned Atonement Theology and the Original Sin doctrine that lies at its foundation. Or a more moderate position is to not consider Original Sin to be an actual historical event but a more loosely defined moral imperfection of humanity.
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Enough_Lavishness299
I understand from this question, that you take mans theory of biological evolution, i.e. that the vast complexity of life we observe on this planet today, arose form form a chain of genetic mutations that improved the functions, and viability of the organisims which posessed them?
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Mlg_Rauwill
You could also view original sin cosmically rather than just at this flat level individual way we view things now. That the fall of man represents a cosmic event that is represented fractally in our own lives, because I know for one I've seen myself participate fractally in the fall of man. It's no like suddenly oop the fall happened now man has been tainted with original sin. Then you have to answer all these complex questions as to what generation do we count as humans and which one don't we count. Seems rather arbitrary. Also you could make the case that through sin of Adam humanity became corrupted which then actually emanated down to the other animals as well, so the other animals have partially rational souls, and through our redemption and salvation they can participate fractally in that as well.
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jamieh800
Those places where the Law did not exist or was not Known, are places where the Law did not apply. In theory, it could go either way. Considering you're catholic, chances are if they didn't commit any mortal sins, they'd go to Purgatory.
Though my best guess would be God sorted them out on a case by case basis. It's the same argument for, say, someone with mental disabilities, right? If they're incapable of knowing God's Word, then they don't fall under the same jurisdiction we do. After all, no Just God would create beings with a soul that had NO chance of seeing paradise.
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ZucchiniOverdose(Roman Catholic)
1 Corinthians 15:1-4
Every sin is mortal and every sin will send you to hell. It is only Jesus' sinless blood that can wash your sins trough faith in Him.
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misterme987(Christian Universalist)
Yes, of course other human species go to heaven, assuming of course they have a (human) soul.
The demarcation between soulless animals and humans gets a little fuzzy in this area, but some have proposed that physical features divide soulless ‘proto-apes’ and humans, which would mean that Homo habilis, erectus, floresiensis, neanderthalensis all are human, whereas Au. sediba, afarensis, etc. are soulless.
Those animals without human souls wouldn’t go to hell, but the same would happen to them as to other animals (whatever that may be, this is debated and a sensitive topic because pets, etc.)
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Horror_War_3049
This is a great question.
I also wonder if the ancient Egyptians and ancients Greeks got the chance to go to heaven because they didn’t have a chance to hear of Jesus.
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SwiftSpear
(Christian: Alpha & Omega)
While this is fun to think about, I think we as Christians have to accept that the bible is not a science textbook, and there is a ton of spiritual mysteries we're just not supposed to have answers to yet. We don't really have a fully fleshed out model for the human afterlife, let alone how the afterlife works with animals, or where the conciousness line gets drawn by God. We just have limited answers as they apply to our ancestors.
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mugdays(Seventh-day Adventist)
Look at Neanderthals: distinct from homo sapiens but could interbreed with them. So if one says that Neanderthals didn't have souls (and therefore cannot be saved), what about the child of a Neanderthal and a human? What about someone who's 1/4 Neanderthal? 1/8th?
There are people with some Neanderthal DNA today, so the line has to be drawn somewhere, right?
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Emotionless_AI(Atheist)
Is this racist to think that there were different human species?
(Roman Catholic)
Why wouldn’t they?
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tranquilvitality(Buddhist)
What was Adam and Eve?
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Other articles:
Where does “prehistoric man” fit into the Bible’s history? – Creation Moments
The Prehistoric Ages in Order: How Humans Lived Before Written Records - History
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