I think I have seen it all now. One of my Facebook friends posted a tongue-in-cheek comment about some celebrity in the news being her "spirit animal" and one of her friends took offense and accused her of mocking a religion. Of course the "friend" got laughed off the thread, but it does got to show how ridiculous it is to try to respect ideas as though they were people.
That person was very uninformed. Spirit Animals are common to Indigenous groups and also in shamanism. People should not go off on a tirade when they are ill informed and also when they don't understand tongue in cheek comments.
Wow, that friend is weird.
First of all friend 1 was referring to a celebrity (human) as a spirit animal (usually thought of as non-human animal) and what does spirit animal have to do with religion anyways? Unless they happen to be Native American. Sounds like friend 2 has too much time on their hands.
Out of curiosity, who was the celebrity?
Carol Burnett.
@Deb57 ohhh good one!
A wee bit of serendipity, my cousin from Michigan sent me this right after I read your post (i live in Australia) ?
That's epic
Many primal belief systems incorporate the idea of spirit animals including those of the American and Australian indigenous peoples. In a sense each person is ascribed an animal which acts not only as an ally in the animal world but also is a determinator of character - not much different from the Chinese calender (i.e year of the dragon, rooster, rat, etc) or even the zodiac signs. Hard to believe someone would take offense, i think even an indigenous person would laugh off the idea of a human as a spirit animal.
It seems people are looking to be offended. Not everything someone posts needs a response
That's what I thought as well.
Interesting. If one mocks a person's religious conviction, does one mock the conviction holder as well? And BTW, how is it possible to have a person as a spirit animal?