Do animals go to Heaven?

  • Thread starter Thread starter followingtheway
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
^ Those pictures are hilarious! Is that real? šŸ˜›

Anyway,
ā€œAre not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.ā€ Luke 12:6

Like the sign said, I believe that God loves his creation, including the animals. I donā€™t see why he would want to leave them out of heaven.
 
The church sign arguments are a hoot, funniest thing Iā€™ve seen all week!

I especially love: ā€œfree dog soul with conversion!ā€
 
odile53 said:
The church sign arguments are a hoot, funniest thing Iā€™ve seen all week!

I especially love: ā€œfree dog soul with conversion!ā€
Click to expand...
Me, too! Posting around the internet on different forums, I have come to the unscientific conclusion that we are the only Christians who seem to have much of a sense of humor about our religion.
 
:clapping::clapping::clapping:

Julia Maeā€“thank you for showing us that wonderful photographic debate! This might sound prejudiced, and I donā€™t mean to offend any Presbyterians who are out there, but for me this little argument illustrates so well the joy of the Catholic religion, and the dour, dogmatic, judgemental nature of Presbyterians. They just had to keep proving their point was the RIGHT point, no matter how increasingly light-hearted the Catholics tried to be.

Wonderful post!!! šŸ‘
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

.
.
.
.
.
.
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
Julie Mae, thatā€™s so true: We Catholics do seem to be one of a very few religions who can lighten up a little about our religion and laugh. Then there is Garrison Keillor, who does a lot of good-natured, clean, and very funny comedy about the Lutheran denomination (heā€™s on PBS frequently, and the jokes are really cute, but he takes a couple of pokes at Catholics too.) For example, one of his Catholic jokes is about the Feast of St. Francis at the local (fictional) Catholic church dubbed ā€œOur Lady of Perpetual Responsibility,ā€ he says that the Lutheran kids were watching the pageantry of the Knights of Columbus with their plumed hats processing into church, through all the pets and the occasional farm animal assembled outside for the blessing, and said, ā€œFor all we knew, maybe they had a full three-ring circus going on in there!ā€
 
Yes!!! It is I believe the 4 horsemen and not the 4 ā€œSUVā€ drivers that St. John wrote of.
Where there are horse men, there are horses. and if horses than why not, cats,dogs,and every other thing made by the Father?
 
I voted yes, not because I have any pets, I donā€™t. But I guess I was thinking of all those people who are soooo attached to their pets, and how nice it would be if they could have their beloved pets with them in the afterlife.
Iā€™m not sure about chihuahuas, though:D
Only if they are very quiet!
 
odile53 said:
Julie Mae, thatā€™s so true: We Catholics do seem to be one of a very few religions who can lighten up a little about our religion and laugh. Then there is Garrison Keillor, who does a lot of good-natured, clean, and very funny comedy about the Lutheran denomination (heā€™s on PBS frequently, and the jokes are really cute, but he takes a couple of pokes at Catholics too.) For example, one of his Catholic jokes is about the Feast of St. Francis at the local (fictional) Catholic church dubbed ā€œOur Lady of Perpetual Responsibility,ā€ he says that the Lutheran kids were watching the pageantry of the Knights of Columbus with their plumed hats processing into church, through all the pets and the occasional farm animal assembled outside for the blessing, and said, ā€œFor all we knew, maybe they had a full three-ring circus going on in there!ā€
Click to expand...
I love Garrison Keillor! Heā€™s one of my heroes!
 
Well, I donā€™t know if this will help him get to heaven, any, but I taught my dog (actually, Iā€™ve taught all the dogs I have ever had) a couple of cute little faith-based tricks:

ā€œSay your prayers!ā€ And my little beagle lies down and puts his paws over his nose and closes his eyes.

ā€œNo meat on Friday:ā€ This one got a good laugh from my pastor. I taught my little guy to sit still, and put a treat in front of him, and then say: ā€œThatā€™s meat, and itā€™s Friday. No meat on Friday!ā€

He sits there patiently, looks at the treat and then at me.

I repeat ā€œitā€™s still Friday.ā€ He sits.

And then: ā€œSaturday!ā€ He grabs the treat and chomps it down.

Obviously, you link the commands ā€œsit,ā€ ā€œstay,ā€ and whatever you use as a release command with ā€œFridayā€ and ā€œSaturday,ā€ and use your tone of voice to differentiate for the dog. Eventually, the dog gets the hang of it and you can drop the standard commands, just using ā€œFridayā€ and ā€œSaturday.ā€ For a fairly smart dog, it takes about two weeks to do the trick with the standard commands, and another couple to link the ā€œFridayā€ and ā€œSaturdayā€ and drop the standard commands.

Everyone always gets a good chuckle over that one!

Iā€™d also like to remind folks of St. John Boscoā€™s dog guardian, El Grigio. The big fierce looking grey dog always appeared seemingly out of nowhere, when the saint was in danger of attack, and protected him, including on at least one occasion ā€œtaking a bite out of crime!ā€ Even when he went to feed the dog, the dog didnā€™t eat, but would inexplicably leave just as mysteriously as he showed up. This occurred over a period of a few decades, long past the lifespan of an average dog.

Bottom line for meā€“I canā€™t explain some things, and I guess we will have to wait till we get there to know for a fact.
 
odile53 said:
Iā€™d also like to remind folks of St. John Boscoā€™s dog guardian, El Grigio. The big fierce looking grey dog always appeared seemingly out of nowhere, when the saint was in danger of attack, and protected him, including on at least one occasion ā€œtaking a bite out of crime!ā€ Even when he went to feed the dog, the dog didnā€™t eat, but would inexplicably leave just as mysteriously as he showed up. This occurred over a period of a few decades, long past the lifespan of an average dog.

Bottom line for meā€“I canā€™t explain some things, and I guess we will have to wait till we get there to know for a fact.
Click to expand...
Here is a page I found about Grigio - thank you for mentioning him.

fisheaters.com/animals11.html
 
Has anyone heard testimonies of people who have died, went to a good place of love and light, seen their beloved pets and family and then be revived back to life? I have heard many stories about this.

When my precious cat Perry died at 19 years old I grieved a long time. For people who donā€™t have pets itā€™s silly to hear, but there is a distinct bond of love and communication between an animal and pet owner. A deep bond. Anyway, Perry died and I was still grieving a couple weeks later and begged God for something and grabbed my bible and it opened to the first page of Lamentations. I took that to mean He wanted me to know He was there.

Then, I was discussing with my husband how I couldnā€™t listen to a certain CD of music because my Perry loved listening to all the sounds of the instruments on my BOSE radio/cd player. Just as we were discussing it, the cd popped on. Noone touched the remote or was near it. It had been in there since she died.

Then, I was sitting on the couch reading with my legs crossed, and I felt a little cold nose brushing my toe - I was barefoot. Perry would always do thatā€¦I jumped and looked down and of course there was no cat there.

A man on ā€œI Survivedā€¦Beyond and Backā€ on the biography channel said when he died all the pets he ever owned that had died came running to him all excited and clamoring to get to himā€¦

I believe in near death experiencesā€¦a woman in surgery died on the operating table and saw Jesus holding the hand of her little niece and walking with her and the woman begged Jesus to just take her for her niece had a whole life to liveā€¦the niece said ā€œIt hurt when I died but Iā€™m alright nowā€¦ā€ When she was revived and woke up from surgery she told her story only to be told that her niece in California had died in a car accident while she herself had died on the operating table. This was a newspaper article that I read several years ago.

There are countless stories of people who have had similar experiences where logic could not explain away anything - there was no refuting it as being some biological brain glitch or whatever occurrence.

So I believe that I will see my dear pets who have passed again. It makes such sense that God would want us to have the beautiful animals that we loved so much and who loved us back. And animals have a great capacity to love!!!

God Bless You all!!
 
Brendan said:
No.

Aquinas covered that one.

The purpose of a soul is to animate the matter of the body.

The soul of plants and animals provide animation, but only the soul of humans is spritual and immortal.

The souls of plants and animals cease to exist at the time of their deaths.

So plants and animals cannot go to Heaven, as their soul no longer exists

That is NOT to say that there will not be plants and animals after the Second coming, the New Earth will be populated with them. But they will not be the Fido or Fluffy that we knew in our mortal lives.
Click to expand...
How did St Aquinas determine this?
 
:shrug:They say angels take many formsā€¦do you think that St. John Boscoā€™s dog was an angel?
 
Zhenia said:
Considering the way many people abuse and mistreat animals, Iā€™d say earth looks more like hell to them, and many humans look like the devil.
Click to expand...
Right! šŸ˜ƒ ā€˜ā€™ We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt. If they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the devil in a human formā€™ā€™ - William Ralph Inge. Outspoken essays, 1922.
 
I bow to no man in my respect for St. Thomas Aquinas, but he was not infalible. I suspect he was wrong on this issue, and Professor Peter Kreeft, an authority on Aquinas and professor of philosophy at Boston College, agrees with me on this.

Dogs evince such qualities of joy, devotion, steadfastness, sorrow, shame, and guilt, that they cannot be other than natural Catholics. I think it is likely that they will go to Heaven - if not our Heaven, some sort of afterlife. God is all-loving and just and will make appropriate provisions for His creations.

And as someone pointed out on another thread, St. John saw Jesus descend from Heaven on a white horse, so there is at least some scriptural warrant for the idea that there are animals in Heavenā€¦
 
followingtheway said:
Do animals go to Heaven or possibly Hell or even Purgatory? What are your thoughts?

God bless :byzsoc:

David
Click to expand...
Weā€™d have to take a close look at Genesis. What I see is that once God created it all he said it is good and very good. Until WE, screwed it up. We are in sin, not the animals. They are afraid of us for good reason. One, theyā€™re not stupid. Two, we destroy everything we come in contact with whether its immediate or over time. And since the Bible clearly states that there are ā€œbeastsā€ in heaven, I donā€™t see why the spirit God put in these many living creatures wouldnā€™t go back to where it came from. The animals donā€™t need salvation, we do.
 
Rock_Happy said:
How did St Aquinas determine this?
Click to expand...
Iā€™m inclined to say yes.

Numbers 22:27-28
27And when the *** saw the angel of the LORD, she fell down under Balaam: and Balaamā€™s anger was kindled, and he smote the *** with a staff.
28And the LORD opened the mouth of the ***, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?

Uhmnā€¦ does anyone other than me recall Jesus coming back riding a horse with his name on his vesture?

Revelations 19:11
11And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.šŸ˜ƒ

If I remember correctly Revelations is filled with beasts that speakā€¦
Revelations 19:4
4And the four and twenty elders and the four beasts fell down and worshipped God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen; Alleluia. šŸ˜ƒ

So not only are they there, but they speak. Not only do they speak, but worship God. I imagine they worship him better than we do in many ways.

Was it not God who gave them life? Seeing is how they are not in sin, wouldnā€™t that life go back to God? The animals are not in sin, we are. Animals donā€™t need salvation, we do. That being said and all things afore mentioned considered, if St Aquinas believes we can go, why canā€™t they?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top