The dead are unconscious, unaware of either pleasure or pain as they await restoration to life by means of a resurrection. (Eccl. 9:5, 10; Ps. 146:4; Acts 24:15) The popular religious teaching of immortality of the soul came, not from the Word of God, but from Greek philosophy. In view of this, should not you too have second thoughts about immortality of the soul?

What Does the Proverb Mean?

“THE righteous one is caring for the soul of his domestic animal, but the mercies of the wicked ones are cruel,” says the proverb.​—Prov. 12:10.

The righteous man has respect for all of God’s creation. He also knows that animals were created for man’s service and pleasure, and hence are to be treated as friends of humankind. Man’s sinfulness, cruelty and the environmental unbalance he has brought about have made a small percentage of the animals vicious or, as sometimes termed, pests. But a righteous man seeks to know the needs and feelings of the animals, especially his domestic animals, caring for their life as a valuable property. This does not mean that he believes that they have the thoughts and feelings of humans, but that they deserve kind treatment.

Under the Mosaic law animals were protected from cruel treatment and were considered even in the sabbath laws, being allowed to eat what grew of itself in the farmer’s field during the sabbath year. (Lev. 25:6, 7) A bull was not to be muzzled so that it could not eat some of the grain that it was expending its energy in threshing. (Deut. 25:4) A man finding a bird’s nest might take the eggs or the young ones but he could not also take the mother, thus wiping out the entire family, ending the family line. (Deut. 22:6, 7) Also showing that Jehovah does not forget the animals, he made specific mention of them to Jonah when Nineveh was in danger of destruction. He said to Jonah: “Ought I not to feel sorry for Nineveh the great city, in which there exist more than one hundred and twenty thousand men who do not at all know the difference between their right hand and their left, besides many domestic animals?”​—Jonah 4:11.

The Septuagint Version renders the latter part of this proverb: “The bowels of the ungodly are unmerciful.” The “bowels” as representing the deepest emotions of sympathy and compassion are, in the wicked one, unfeeling, cruel. He exhibits what might be termed a “compassionless compassion” such as is often seen among humans in gestures and speech that lack true feeling or actual results. The best of the wicked person’s compassion or mercy is actually a cruelty, based on selfish motives or principles. As an example, we have seen wicked dictators who destroy their best friends and supporters, sacrificing them, as it were, to hold on to or increase their own power. Or, under a pretense of protecting the people or the state, they will attack the most law-abiding people in their nation (the true Christians residing there in a neutral and peaceful way), in order to have a “scapegoat” or to please certain influential religious or political elements, or even their own ego. This they do in