Dead pets

@SecularOutpost Sincere questions to Christians who own pets: when your pet dies, what religious practices, if any, do you observe? Do you pray for the deceased animal, for the humans who cared for the pet, etc.? 

https://twitter.com/SecularOutpost/status/1256379919157755904

1. Not all pets are alike. As a boy I had hamsters and turtles, but that's quite different from a dog. I'm too much of a mammal to feel emotional affinity with turtles or reptiles. In addition, hamsters lack the intelligence to be very responsive.

By contrast, dogs are bred from social animals, so they form a psychological bond with humans that cats don't. In addition, dogs generally have the IQ for meaningful rapport–although wolves are generally smarter than dogs.

2. As a boy I had a dog I was very fond of. Although I toyed with getting another dog, I never did, in part due to convenience and in part because it was the right dog at the time and the right place. That was an ideal combination I couldn't duplicate, so that's a nostalgic part of life which is unrepeatable. If I have an ideal experience, I don't feel the need to duplicate it. It's enough to have one ideal kind of experience and make the most of that.

3. I didn't replace my dog in part because I didn't think it would be fair to my dog to share me with someone else. I was all she had.

4. I missed my dog after she died. I had her euthanized after she had a stroke. It was a snap decision. With the benefit of hindsight I would have taken her home for a few days for a proper farewell. Held her in my lap. Stroked her face. Then taken her back to the clinic to be euthanized.

5. My grandmother predeceased my dog. Even though my grandmother was incomparably more important and even though I adored my grandmother, I initially missed my dog more than my grandmother.

That's in part because I saw my dog every day, whereas my grandmother moved out of town. In addition, it was a resilient time of life. And I was sure I'd be reunited with my grandmother.

6. My attitude at the time reflected social, emotional, spiritual, and psychological immaturity. With the passage of time you can miss people more than shortly after they died. You have more time to reflect on the loss. Death has a cumulative effect and a retrospective effect. The significance of death can loom larger in hindsight.

7. It's funny that Scripture has so little to say about certain things, like family reunion or the death of children. Scripture doesn't promise reunion with Christian pets. By the same token, it doesn't forbid it. I had a few nice dreams about my late dog.

8. There was a time when I prayed for reunion with my dog. I stopped doing that after her death was overtaken by the death of close relatives. It would dishonor the separation to pray for her when there were far more significant losses to pray about. I prioritize the dearly departed I pray for. I'm grateful for the dog I had, and would be grateful to have her back, but that's far behind other things. It'll take care of itself one way or other. It doesn't preoccupy my hopes. Death is a sifting process to find out what we should really cherish, long for, and look forward to.

9. I've discussed retroactive prayer on several occasions. For instance:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/08/praying-for-future.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2009/04/praying-for-past.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2010/03/gods-time-travelers.html

10. If I think one or more of my relatives died in the faith, I can pray about them in the sense of praying for reunion with them when I die. Pray that they are waiting at the end of my journey to greet me.

11. If I'm unsure that one of my relatives died in the faith, I can still pray for them after they died, not in sense of postmortem salvation, but in the sense that I can pray for the victim of mine cave-in. By the time I hear about the mine cave-in, they're probably dead or alive. I'm not asking for God to bring them back to life. I'm asking that they survived the accident. 

Even though it's a past event, it's not too late to pray since God isn't bound by the timing of my prayer–so long as the outcome is unknown. 

12. In the case of animals, it's possible that every animal has a temporary existence. There's no afterlife for any animal.

Or it's possible that God makes exceptions for Christian pets. Since animals aren't sinners, since animals aren't damned, to pray that God will restore a Christian pet to life in the world to come carries no implication of postmortem forgiveness.

13. There's a conceptual distinction between:

i) The dead praying for us

ii) Praying to the dead

iii) Praying for the dead

Apropos (i), it's possible that dead Christian relatives pray for us. But we have no evidence that's the case, and it would be presumptuous to ask them to pray for us. Just pray to God/Jesus.

Apropos (ii), there are different scenarios, but one example might be telling a dead Christian relative that you look forward to seeing them against. You hope for reunion.

It's verbalizing a wish about them, directed at them. It doesn't presume that they can actually hear you. It's analogous to talking to someone in a coma, or someone with senile dementia, or brain cancer, or autism, or a sleeping child. You don't know how much of anything gets through to them. That's up to God. 

Apropos (iii), that's traditional in the context of prayers to change the situation of the dead after they die. Purgatory, postmortem salvation. For theological reasons, I reject that. But I do think retractive prayer is logical in some situations.

A moment in the sun

I'd like to consider the shooting of the gorilla (Harambe) from both a secular standpoint and a Christian standpoint.

1. I suspect most folks who wax indigent over shooting the gorilla to save the boy are Darwinian atheists. There may be some "progressive Christians" thrown in for good measure. 

From a secular standpoint, the reaction to shooting the gorilla is irrational. Animals are temporary organisms. Harambe was not immortal. He was going to die anyway. Just a matter of time. 

Animals naturally die. In the wild, many animals die a violent death: killed by predators. Many animals die young due to relentless predation. 

Although Harambe was a magnificent specimen, individual animals are utterly replaceable. One male, silverback gorilla serves the same function as another male, silverback gorilla. The players change, but the play remains the same. 

From an ecosystemic perspective, animals aren't more important than plants. There's a symbiosis between plants and animals, life and death, that sustains a balanced ecosystem. Animal death is necessary. 

Nature is utterly indifferent to the plight of animals. According to Darwinians, most species become extinct. 

Some atheists profess an Epicurean outlook on human death. As Mark Twain boastfully put it: “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”

In consistency, they should view animal death the same way.

2. From a Christian perspective, animals are temporary creatures. There is no afterlife for animals. 

Perhaps God will resurrect Christian pets. I'm open to that possibility. But there's no reason to think God will resurrect animals generally. Indeed, there's not nearly enough room on planet earth to accommodate all the animals that ever lived and died. 

With the possible exception of Christian pets, when an animal dies, that's it. It's gone. It won't come back. End of story. Life goes on, but not for it. 

The animal kingdom is stark and sobering. Immortality is a rare gift. Among all God's creatures, only humans are promised biological immortality. Angels are the only other exception, and strictly speaking, they aren't alive (in the biological sense).

A few months ago I saw some coyotes frolicking in a meadow. Having their moment in the sun. That will pass. They will pass. In a few years, they will die–never to return.

A few days ago I sat down on a park bench. I noticed a little rabbit right beside me. Practically a baby. Unafraid of humans. It was busily feeding on the moist green grass.

Odds are, it won't survive until adulthood, and even if it does, it, too, will die. Mostly likely be killed by predators. 

The gift of immortality is one thing that sets us apart from animals. Sure, we die, but that's punitive. Although humans are mortal, we die once but live twice. We have immortal souls. And we will be resurrected. For some, that's a gift–for others, that's a curse.

Go To The Bible Before The Pope On Animals In Heaven

There have been a lot of news stories recently, like this one, about comments the Pope has made regarding animals in heaven. The stories I've seen have been largely misguided, inordinately focusing on issues like what the Popes have believed over the years and whether animals have souls. The history of papal opinions is far less significant than what the Bible teaches. And since the afterlife isn't limited to the spiritual (resurrection of bodies, a new earth, etc.), animals wouldn't need to have souls in order to be included in the afterlife in some way. They also wouldn't need to experience any sort of saving of their souls as humans need.

We've written some posts on these issues over the years. See here, for example.

Animals In The Afterlife

Greg Koukl recently posted a video on the subject. He makes some good points, but I largely disagree with him. Some commenters there made some good points in response, and I added a reply of my own. I address the issue in more depth in the thread here.