It's a pretty out-there idea that we're the only conscious animals. Along the lines of "animals don't have feelings" which seems to be mostly pushed by Christians.

> Along the lines of "animals don't have feelings" which seems to be mostly pushed by Christians.

Can you provide any source for this claim? The historical Christian belief is that animals have souls and feelings and inner experiences.

It stems from the belief that only humans have a soul. Here's an example:

https://www.christianforums.com/threads/animals-dont-have-fe...

I think that view has changed a lot over the last few decades but certainly 30 years ago it was pretty common.

This is not a Christian belief, Augustine and Aquinas (among others) openly believed animals, plants, even stones, had souls. A lot of mistakes regarding Christian theology is people mistaking something they heard '30 years ago' with a millennia old religion

I didn't mean it was an official position of the Church, just one that a lot of Christians have (or at least had fairly recently). Let's not no-true-Scotsman this.

Err yes I did bring it up and it was a serious claim. I'm not sure what your problem with it is tbh.

The thread you posted is one guy who says animals don't have feelings and asking for a Bible verse to support it and a bunch of responders pointing out that animals obviously have feelings.

I didn't say we're the only one. But that we are the one we know for a fact are conscious.

I know only for a fact that I'm conscious ;)