Do pets go to heaven?

Who here, atheist or otherwise, has told a child (or an adult) their recently deceased pet has gone to heaven?

Christians, is it true?

Atheists is it morally sound?

No thoughts on this?

@divegeester said
No thoughts on this?

None I want to share at this time.

I was raked over the coals on this last time.

How many times can you attack people over the same topics?

@suzianne said
None I want to share at this time.

I was raked over the coals on this last time.

How many times can you attack people over the same topics?

43?

I heard a Muslim scholar (Muttaqi Ismail) talk about how you will be reunited with your pets in heaven as heaven exists as a place which is meant to be a paradise for the believer, and it is hard to imagine a paradise without your pets. There are also apparently haddiths that bag up something -- not specifically pets going to heaven, but the nature of heaven as a paradise where the desires fo the believer are there -- a thing which I believe has actually made there be some conceptions in ISlam that the family members of martyrs get help entering heaven through the martyrdom of a relative.

... in terms of Christianity, my mother and father told me something that follows a similar rationale.

However, I am aware that there is a really strong theological basis for simply saying that they do not possess the capacity to enter the Kingdom of God. Indeed, it seems quite logical that they do not.

https://myocn.net/pets-go-heaven/

... Yet.... this is from another Orthodox blog... Here is an excerpt:

Lewis believes that animals receive a sense of self or personality from association with their human masters. We give our pets names and they answer to those names (hopefully), and perhaps recognize themselves by them. “If a good sheepdog seems ‘almost human’ that is because a good shepherd has made it so,” says Lewis. Lewis suggests, acknowledging that he is going out on a theological limb, that animals “attain a real self in their masters in a sense similar to the way human attain real life in Christ.” “And in this sense,” suggests Lewis, “it seems to me that certain animals may have an immortality, not in themselves, but in the immortality of their masters.”

https://www.orthodoxytoday.org/blog/2014/03/animal-immortality-do-animals-go-to-heaven/

Here is an Orthodox Priest saying that dogs even pray:

Do dogs pray (does creation pray)? Absolutely! “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord” (Psalm 150:6). But how do they pray? Their very existence is prayer. Every created nature is made to live in communion with God. Human nature itself lives in communion with God. Our fall does not consist in becoming something other than human – we have yet to become truly human. Thus St. Paul says: “Man is the glory of God” (1 Cor. 11:7). And St. Irenaeus says, “The glory of God is man fully alive” (Adv. Her. 4.34.5-7). Our becoming truly human would mean the restoration of our true integrity – we would live in accordance with our nature and praise the Lord without ceasing. The natures of all creation ceaselessly praise God by their very existence. Our struggle is to rejoin the song of creation with the whole of our being.

Earlier he says that dogs do not have a sense of free will... thus they are also without sin... but without free will... yet, they pray, in their own way, and it would seem are quite beloved by God...

So we have this Orhtodox Father convinced that there is the possibility of it, but it is not conclusive.

The ultimate disposition of dogs (and all creation) is in the hands of God. I personally pray that the groaning of creation will be met with a liberation that includes an eternal life for all and everything. At present, my dog and I groan for the liberation of a well-trained life. I pray to become more consistently human – and I’m sure he prays for the same thing.

https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2012/05/02/all-dogs-go-to-heaven/

Personally...

I think I was influenced by Muttaqi Ismail somehow because I have always thought along the lines of... if I enter heaven, my pets enter heaven; if I do not, they merely cease to exist. But IDK. My basis for believing that may not be accurate.

I think the real answer is the humble one of ignorance but the hope to be with one's pets is a very real and universal one.

My aunt recently posted a meme that was an image of a series of dogs and cats looking downward into the camera with the caption of "your first glimpse into heaven," and as she is an avid pet owner and a good Catholic, who recently lost her dog, I felt rather... moved in some way, thinking about my own experiences with pets, and her pets, and all of the pets we have enjoyed together over the years.

For me, it is hard to imagine it any other way, really.

@suzianne said
None I want to share at this time.
I was raked over the coals on this last time.
How many times can you attack people over the same topics?

It’s just a discussion, we might disagree but I’m not looking to attack you or anyone else here.

@philokalia said
I heard a Muslim scholar (Muttaqi Ismail) talk about how you will be reunited with your pets in heaven as heaven exists as a place which is meant to be a paradise for the believer, and it is hard to imagine a paradise without your pets. There are also apparently haddiths that bag up something -- not specifically pets going to heaven, but the nature of heaven as a paradise ...[text shortened]... we have enjoyed together over the years.

For me, it is hard to imagine it any other way, really.

So you do believe that pets go to heaven?

@divegeester said
No thoughts on this?

There are some Christians who believe that dogs understand unconditional love ~ and therefore understand the Christian God figure ~ better than atheists do. I suppose such a line of thought could lead to a belief that such dogs will have everlasting life.

@fmf said
There are some Christians who believe that dogs understand unconditional love ~ and therefore understand the Christian God figure ~ better than atheists do. I suppose such a line of thought could lead to a belief that such dogs will have everlasting life.

But it has been argued vehemently in here, by the same Christians I think, that God’s love is not unconditional. So I don’t see the parallel, if one was claimed.

@divegeester said
But it has been argued vehemently in here, by the same Christians I think, that God’s love is not unconditional. So I don’t see the parallel, if one was claimed.

It also been suggested that all "Heaven"-bound people lose our identities and memories once they die and that they don't feel anything ~ for example ~ if their beloved spouses and children are [unlike them] being burned in a lake by Jesus forever - so I am not sure what the purpose of unknown and unwanted and memory-less stray dogs cluttering "Heaven" would be.

@fmf said
It also been suggested that all "Heaven"-bound people lose our identities and memories once they die and that they don't feel anything ~ for example ~ if their beloved spouses and children are [unlike them] being burned in a lake by Jesus forever - so I am not sure what the purpose of unknown and unwanted and memory-less stray dogs cluttering "Heaven" would be.

I’m starting to see why suzianne possibly got herself “raked over the coals, because if she said “yes pets go to heaven”, then the puritans would shout her down for having no scriptural basis, but if she said “no pets don’t go to heaven” then everyone is upset because they love their animals and wants to see them again.

This idea that everyone loses their identity and memory, who presented that? Sounds a bit Lemon Lime like to me. Also on a side note, perhaps those burning in hell lose their identies and memories also and so maybe they just walk zombie like into the lake of fire.

@fmf said
There are some Christians who believe that dogs understand unconditional love ~ and therefore understand the Christian God figure ~ better than atheists do. I suppose such a line of thought could lead to a belief that such dogs will have everlasting life.

But that would have to do with issues of free will which pose a complication.

All humans have free will; dogs don't quite have something that resemble free will.

You are drawing a very spiteful dichotomy that makes it sound like we value dogs more than our fellow humans, and that is an unfair dichotomy that doesn't apply to 99% of Christians, and anyone who would say something else would be in clear violation of the spirit of Christendom.

@philokalia said
But that would have to do with issues of free will which pose a complication.

All humans have free will; dogs don't quite have something that resemble free will.

You are drawing a very spiteful dichotomy that makes it sound like we value dogs more than our fellow humans, and that is an unfair dichotomy that doesn't apply to 99% of Christians, and anyone who would say something else would be in clear violation of the spirit of Christendom.

Sonship advised FMF recently that dogs have a better understanding of God than atheists.

Cats weren’t mentioned.

@philokalia said
You are drawing a very spiteful dichotomy that makes it sound like we value dogs more than our fellow humans, and that is an unfair dichotomy that doesn't apply to 99% of Christians, and anyone who would say something else would be in clear violation of the spirit of Christendom.

I am not drawing "a very spiteful dichotomy". I am describing the beliefs of Suzianne.

@philokalia said
But that would have to do with issues of free will which pose a complication.

All humans have free will; dogs don't quite have something that resemble free will.

Don't use me as a proxy and then take it up with me; take it up with any fellow Christians that espouse the belief I described.