This blog is not all philosophical, rational-Christianity heaviness. Inspired by a post on the blog Hacking Christianity, which I found via Entrecard (see my widget at right, under "Blog Love"), I thought I would post about this topic, which is deeply important to all children (including, as Hacking Christianity points out, Bart Simpson) — and not a few adults.

Do cats and dogs go to heaven?

The Catholic short answer is "No." Certainly they do not have free will nor immortal souls and therefore do not participate in God's plan for salvation. But the long answer seems a lot more complicated.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has only a short section on animals (CCC 2415-8) which says little beyond the need to respect God's creation. Against Heresies, by the second-century church father St. Irenaeus, is sometimes quoted in the discussion of animals in heaven:

Neither the structure nor the substance of creation is destroyed. It is only the "outward form of the world" (I Corinthians 7:31) that passes away – and that is to say, the conditions produced by the fall. And when this "outward form" has passed away, man will be renewed and will flourish in a prime of life that is incorruptible, so that it is no longer possible for him to grow old any more.

The context here is a refutation of the Gnostic heresy, which held that creation and the material world are evil. Considering what Irenaeus' purpose was in writing the above, it is clear that he was not addressing the question of whether our pets go to heaven.

Being rational about pets in heaven

Let's assume that some animals do go to heaven. The animal kingdom contains a spectrum of complexity; some very simple organisms are included as "animals." Related to these are certain one-celled organisms as well as fungi. (In evolutionary terms, animals and fungi are more closely related to each other than either is to plants.) Unless one wants to argue that mushrooms and molds are in heaven, there must be some cut-off point, with creatures on one side enjoying heaven and creatures on the other side stuck with the final death. It seems like the cut-off would be arbitrary, but this cannot be, since nothing about God is arbitrary.

One might speculate that animals go to heaven by merit of having been loved by humans. In other words, our pets go to heaven, but wild creatures do not. The idea that human love confers some kind of immortality on animals is alien to Christian thought; you cannot "love" someone or something to heaven, be they human, animal, vegetable, or mineral.

That leaves only one final argument in favor of pets in heaven: that since we will be happy there, we will have everything we need to make us happy — including beloved pets. That's a nice thought, but a childish one. We already know that everyone we love will not necessarily be in heaven (Catholics believe in hell), so the happiness of paradise must be possible without the actual presence of loved ones. I tend to think that part of perfect happiness will be the peaceful acceptance of those things that bother us here on earth, such as separation from beloved humans and pets.

Always with us

In a way, our pets will always be with us. In heaven we will be united with God, and God exists outside of time, so in a mystical way I think we will be somehow reunited with the good of creation throughout time, including our pets. And, of course, our love and the memory of our pets' natural love will always stay with our intellects, even in heaven. But I cannot find room in Catholic teaching for the idea that pets will be physically present with us after the Resurrection of the Body, the article of faith enshrined in the Creeds.

The blog Science and Religion News, whose author Salman Hameed strongly favors science over religion, recently posted about two stories out of the Vatican. The post, entitled "Good Pope, Bad Pope," praised the pontiff for paying "tribute" to Galileo, but criticized him for the bioethics document Dignitas Personae.

"Good Pope": The Galileo Affair

In regard to the Galileo affair, it needs to be pointed out that the popular view — that Galileo was a noble pursuer of scientific truth against a scientifically backwards and rigid Church — is false. Galileo got in trouble for, in the words of Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin, being a jerk. Pope Urban VIII was actually sympathetic to Galileo's hypotheses about heliocentrism, despite being concerned that it would be difficult to work out the theological implications (which have since been reconciled with Scripture). He asked Galileo to explain, in Galileo's book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, the competing hypotheses of geocentrism and heliocentrism but not to advocate heliocentrism. Instead, the book ridiculed geocentrism and the pope himself, though there is controversy as to whether the apparent insults were deliberate or unintentional. It was the perceived riducule that got Galileo in trouble, not heliocentrism per se.

"Bad Pope": Dignitas Personae

In regard to Dignitas Personae, Hameed warns that in upholding previous teaching on bioethics (which asserts that all humans, including embryos, have certain rights, one of which I explained here), the Catholic Church risks becoming "irrelevant."

In other words, Hameed says that society as a whole will collectively dismiss the Church if she fails to accede to fickle public opinion.

This is the same Church that allowed the Protestant Reformation to become permanently entrenched in England over the indissolubility of marriage (in the Henry VIII affair). The same Church that suffered 400 years of prosecution in the Roman Empire for "irrelevantly" teaching that there is one God, incarnated in Jesus Christ, and denying the existence of the Roman pantheon. The same Church that has unblinkingly held to the "irrelevant" teaching that artificial contraception is an affront against God and against one's own spouse (a teaching consistent with the sublime Theology of the Body of John Paul the Great).

I'm laying my bets one who will be considered more irrelevant by history: the Church or the supporters of indignities against the tiniest humans.

This is just a quick note to say that if you do not regularly read the blog The Deeps of Time, go over and read Michael's excellent post on self-existence. He compares the rational reasons behind the Thomistic belief that God is self-existing to the idea that the physical universe may also somehow be self-existing. Michael effectively shoots down the claims of some scientists (like Neil deGrasse Tyson, of whom I am a fan, as a loyal Nova viewer) that these two claims are equally reasonable.

I recently had a conversation with science blogger Gumby the Cat, who said this in the comments:

I do think though, that either all religions (Islam, Judaism, Christianity and the non-Abrahamic religions) were originally inspired by God, or none of them are. I think the tendency of the adherents of one particular faith to ascribe "The One Truth" status to their religion is a man-made conceit. How could one possibly know that?

Is it logical to believe that there is only one true religion?

Let me first make some postulates:

1. God is perfect and unchanging. In another manner of speaking, he is self-consistent and non-contradictory.
2. Many of the world's religions contradict each other. For example, Islam and Christianity have different views of God, both of which are radically different from the Hindu view of God/gods, which in turn is different from Buddhist and Shinto views.

It follows, then, that all religions cannot be true. Therefore at least some of them must be at least partially false.

An atheist might conclude that no religions are true. This does not necessarily follow from my two postulates; they are equally consistent with the view that exactly one religion is completely true. I do not think it is logical to believe that more than one religion is completely true, though.

So either one religion is completely true, or none are. If God is truth, that means that either one religion is "the one" God wants us to follow, or none are. I believe that one is, and I believe this is more logical than believing that many religions are equal in God's eyes.

Over at the Raving Theist, formerly the Raving Atheist, there is ongoing hubbub over the author's recently-announced conversion to Christianity. A recent post about conversion compared the conversion from atheism to theism, or conversion between different religions, to conversion between two philosophical schools of thought: empiricism and rationalism. I must admit that I had never thought too much about these metaphysical approaches.

One of the themes of this blog is that religion is rational. Clearly I am a rationalist. But I also am a woman of science, which necessarily makes me an empiricist.

The bottom line is that I cannot accept either philosophy as completely superior to the other. They complement each other. In science, purely empirical observations can only describe the world, not explain it. A rational approach is also necessary. On the other hand, science is meaningless without an empirical approach. A hybrid of the two philosophies, in which reason informs observations and observations guide reason, is best for learning about the natural world.

Another theme of this blog is that there are two distinct realms of truth, what Stephen J. Gould called the two magisteria: natural truth (the laws of nature, which are explored and explained by science) and supernatural truth (those parts of existence that are outside nature, meaning God and other non-material beings). In exploring the supernatural world, I favor rationalism as coming before empiricism. Empirical observations of the supernatural would include revelation (such as the Bible) and personal experience. These must be subject to the rational mind. The abundance of contradicting religious beliefs are evidence of what happens when one relies only on "empirical observations" of the supernatural without using the rational mind.

Some religions utterly rely on abandoning the rational intellect. If you have ever talked to Latter Day Saints missionaries, who encourage people to read the Book of Mormon and wait for a subjective fiffy experience to decide whether it is true, you know what I am talking about. ("Fiffy" means related to a "fif," or "funny internal feeling.")

What do you think is a better philosophy for looking at the world, empiricism or rationalism?

This is not a meme-oriented blog by any means, but Brian Steele, author of the excellent new blog The Secret of Newton, tagged me, so what can I do? I'll follow this with a post with some content.

1. I grew up the oldest of eight kids, all with the same biological parents, no multiples. Unlike most new mothers today, I was comfortable around babies before I ever had kids of my own.

2. Speaking of kids of my own, I have two: a preschooler and a one-year-old. Both are boys. We adopted the older one and the younger one is biological.

3. I have worn many hats, including animal control officer, parrot trainer, and professional aquarium biologist. Now my only hats are mother (and that's a big hat) and writer.

4. I have read several books in the Harry Potter series — in Spanish. It was slow going and required frequent use of a Spanish-English dictionary, but I improved my Spanish immensely.

5. My only pets are three cats, one of whom regularly channels Satan, but in the past I have had a Pueblan milk snake, an Indian Ringneck Parakeet, a Yellow-Collared Macaw, a lovebird, a bunch of parakeets, an anole lizard, a couple of hermit crabs, and assorted freshwater fish.

6. I helped build this at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History. I was going to be a vertebrate paleontologist — until I did my senior project and realized that looking at hundreds of tiny teeth through a microscope was not up my alley, after all.

It seems I am now supposed post the rules (rules?) and tag six bloggers. I am uneasy about the tagging. I don't want to pressure anybody, and besides, I am not sure everyone I would tag is a regular reader here. So how about this: If you have a blog, consider yourself tagged, if you would like to be. Let me know if you take me up and I'll link to you.

Tag Rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they were tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.